Tenken wrote:
That's exactly my thought!
If you choose to read manga, you should be willing to accept Japanese culture.
The reason for names change is because Americans cannot memorize or pronounce Japanese names.
It's still absurd, though: what if Mark Twain named one of his characters "Chmielewskovar "Wojciechowski" ? Would the publishers blatantly change it to "Charles" or Williams" and bear a loss of value ?
So it seems they don't have any reasonable motive for doing it to DC.
Not to mention they picked the most well-known series to dump their stupidity on.
Would you still read "Inuyasha" if Inuyasha's name were changed to "Jack" ?
So if you change Japanese names, you lose ALL the Japanese culture? I'll admit it's inconsistent, but in the grand scheme of things, the names are a really trivial and minor change. It screws with creativity, but only a little bit.
Indeed, it feels like TMS is making it look like Americans are xenophobic/lazy by changing names, but VIZ is not robbing the story of its culture ENTIRELY.
In fact, VIZ leaves in almost all the Japanese puns/clues that FUNi has/would have cut out or written over! That being said, the only thing Japanese that Viz really leaves out is the names.
In Japan, DC is mostly aimed as a family kid-friendly show. TMS wanted to market it to Americans as a family show, with name changes, something that successful animes in the US like
Pokémon and
Sailor Moon have had. However, while DC has a kiddy tone and look, it's very violent and I don't think I have to elaborate on how Americans are with violence and showing it to kids. DC's somewhat of an oddman out for Americans, because it's too aimed at family-friendly for adults and too violent for kids.
Tenken wrote:
How can you consider it "quality" when : (1) the cover is worse than it appears in other countries, (2) names (as said), (3) title changed, (4) plot altered, etc. ?
It is in my harsh belief that if one doesn't respect authorship,
don't even think of publishing,
Aren't you exaggerating a bit? You can't expect exact perfection; there's no such thing. All I see in Viz's adaptation is name changes, title change, translated sound effects, and the icon erased on Heiji's hat (which would make for a REAL lawsuit by the Chicago WhiteSox).
As people before me have said before, the names are TMS's fault. If they tick you off that much, contact TMS or just buy the Japanese books. Viz was forced to change the names, but given that the current arc in the manga is far surpassing FUNi's anime adaptation, the need for name changes is starting to wane a little; that's most likely why you're not seeing as much changes. But, going back through all the current
23 volumes just to change names would be unrealistic, especially if the books aren't selling like hotcakes like
Naruto.
As for how the cover looks, that's a
personal preference, not an all-out fact. Yeah, they don't do the brick-thing the Japanese and German versions do, but the publishers for the French, Vietnamese, etc. adaptations don't either. Some editions just have Conan on a solid background and that's it. While I admit the design is average, it's not an abomination in the name of Gosho or anything.
The overall plot of the series is not terribly affected by the names and keeps the basics intact. It only suffers minor scratches, which would be mystery name references to literature(which are just added there for winks at mystery fans, to be honest) and the BO codenames, which were only changed for Gin and Vodka; Tequila, Sherry, and Akemi's name were left in. They'll probably make "Kaspar" and "Melkior" out to be alcohol brands like they did in volume 12 (Kogoro saying he drank "Kaspar" GIN, and "Melkior" VODKA, for example).
I was just stating my disgust, not try to stop anyone from talking.
?????? i didn't know until I read this post !!
