From: tal691@huxley.anu.edu.au (Tonio Loewald)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.manga
Subject: Re: ORION INFO
Date: 29 Dec 92 20:45:08 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.2.12

conty@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (E. Kontei) writes:

>In article <0V6JwB1w165w@shakala.com>, bahamut@shakala.com (Motoko Kusanagi) writes:
>> DrAllosaurus@cup.portal.com (Samuel DrAllosaurs Crider) writes:
>> 
>[Liked ORION]
>> 
>> Heh, well welcome.  :)  Strange you should mention that you find Orion
>> easier.  Most of my Japanese friends wouldn't touch it with a ten
>> foot pole.  Shirow's original Orion story, at least in the Japanese
>> version, utilized a great deal of mythology combined together, including
>> some of the Taoist, Buddhist, possibly even some Shinto (but I'm not
>> sure since I don't know much about Shinto), and includes many references
>> from the Japanese Kojiki story as well as some other references and 
>> many of Shirow's own home-cooked recipes.

>True.  But most of these references ARE going to go over the heads of
>most of the readers of the Dark Horse version.  The point is that what
>we CAN understand makes quite a bit of sense (unlike APPLESEED).

>> Shirow uses puns and double meanings in his story, and I am uncertain,
>> and rather sure, very few of them were actually translated over properly.

>You're correct, unfortunately.
>-- 
>			    E n r i q u e  C o n t y
>			       Master of Science!
>			      jester@ihlpm.att.com
>		    Disclaimer: You're not dealing with AT&T

(This post normally would be in r.a.a, but because of the irrational
posts and arguments there, and this has as its main point manga trans-
lation, here it goes.)

Isn't this the "problem" with the treatments Streamline have; ie.
modifying the original work to make it more viable for the general
audience?  In this case then isn't any translation prone to a per-
centage of error (say normally 10%).  If it is then then the argu-
ments aimed at Streamline can validly be pointed at Studio Proteus, 
and even more so, given the "supposed" variance between the original
work and the English translation (25 to 40%).

This argument is also valid for Rumiko Takahashi's humour.  We've dis-
cussed this before in r.a.comics.misc pertaining to Ranma 0.5.  How
can you successfully translate Ms. Takahashi's doublebarrelled (and
often triplebarrelled) literary and kanji puns?  Either you ignore it,
and substitute alternative gags, or you don't do it at all.

It all comes down to how sacrosanct you believe the original to be, and
how far one should be allowed to modify (aka "change") the intention of the 
original.  One example: the translation of the original King James version
of the Bible has been revised in modern times to put the Bible into
modern language.  Of course, much of the poetic content was lost.  Does
this mean the modern version is any less than the original?  For some,
the original, with the poetic language, is inviolate; to others, the
modern version is an attempt to make the Bible more understandable and
relevant.

If anyone wants to continue this argument, let's post a new subject,
because I can see this getting away from the original subject.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Widya Santoso, not...
-- 
Tonio Loewald | tal691@huxley.anu.edu.au | Life is short. Be nice.
"You can lie/You can cry/For all the good it'll do you, you can
die/But when it's done/And the police come/And they lay you down
for dead/Just remember what I said" (Paul Simon-not the senator)