This thread is for discussing comparisons of our translation to other translations, or how they could be combined, or suggestions for improving translations in general. Please keep specific error reports about our translation to the
Typos thread, as there is already a place for them.
We received some questions about this text in our translation FAQ:
Upon analysis of the changes, we would say that MG has a strong editing team that makes good decisions, but we think that their translation checking was not as thorough as it could have been. Many errors that we identified in the original WH are still present in the MG translation, although many have also been fixed.
Before addressing this — I'd like to point out that nobody is perfect, and our edit almost certainly contains some errors as well (although, of course, we do not know of them, or we would have fixed them
). The quoted comment is not intended as a criticism, merely an honest statement of how what we see from our biased viewpoint affects our decision making.
The line between what is an error and what is a subjective edit is blurry (although there are certainly things that fall clearly on one side or the other). This means that our edit is a messy mix of the two kinds of changes, and there is no comprehensive list of specifically and only "errors". Unfortunately, that limits what we can do here to examples, and to be in any way comprehensive would take a huge amount of time that we simply don't have.
We will provide examples though, for the interest of those who asked for them.
1: Lambdadelta: closer to certainty
- [+] Spoiler
- この宇宙最強で絶対の魔女である大ラムダデルタ卿が、
I, the great Lady Lambdadelta, the Witch of Certainty and the strongest in the universe,
あんたの絶望的な勝率を、ほんのちょっぴりだけ絶対に近付けてやるわ。
UP: will bring your hopeless chances of winning just a teensy bit closer to certainty.
MG: will associate myself just a tiny bit with you and your hopeless chances at winning.
絶対に is normally an adverb meaning "certainly/absolutely" (strangely omitted from the WH/MG translation), but in this case 絶対 is used as a noun, and 絶対に means "to certainty". The WH/MG translation seems to interpret the verb 近付ける as if it can mark what you go towards with を, and invents the "you and" part to make some sense of it all.
2: Kinzo: Bible reference
- [+] Spoiler
- 叩けば扉は開かれると誰が教えた！
UP: Who taught you that doors shall be opened unto you if you knock?!
MG: Who told you the door would be opened if you but knocked?!
その馬鹿者は磔にしたぞッ！！
UP: They crucified that imbecile!!
MG: I'll crucify the imbecile!!
This is supposed to refer to Jesus. Matthew 7:7c.
It's far from Kinzo's only religious reference — he mentions the apostles and other things.
した can sometimes mean "will" instead of being a past tense, but I don't believe it's the case here.
It's a bit curious that Ryu uses した instead of された here though, I'll give them that.
3: Wrong type of family conference
- [+] Spoiler
- ……右代宮家の親族会議は、資産やその運用などについて厳しく問われる、
UP: ......The Ushiromiya family conferences are said to have involved harsh questioning from Ushiromiya Kinzo over how his fortune would be put to use,
MG: ...At the Ushiromiya family conference, the inheritance and how it would be distributed were rigorously discussed,
It says 資産 (fortune) not 遺産 (inheritance). It's talking about the family conferences as they used to exist, when Kinzo was there, not the ones of recent years between the siblings.
4: Gaap's venomous clothes
- [+] Spoiler
- 毒々しく、禍々しい装束に身を包んだ、文字通りに悪魔的な女が、
UP: The literally devilish woman, wrapped in a gaudy, ominous costume,
MG: The literally devilish woman, wrapped in a venomous, ominous costume,
毒々しい has three senses, the first two being:
1) venomous, vicious, poisonous 激しい憎悪を特徴とする (marked by deep ill will)
2) showy, jazzy, flashy, gaudy, sporty （特に衣服について使用される）人目を引くよう見せること特徴とする ((used especially of clothes) marked by conspicuous display)
Despite the word containing the "poison" kanji, it seems fairly obvious to me that we are talking about the clothing sense here. Gaap's clothes certainly draw the eye.
5: Kasumi blames
Ushiromiya Ange for running away from the house of
Sumadera- [+] Spoiler
- ".........Every time you talk about me, it's always with reference to Mom. ...Am I really that much like my mother?"
"Yes, you are. ...............That impertinent gaze. Your mouth and nose are the same too."
"......Unrestrained and irresponsible.
……歴史と伝統ある須磨寺家の重みなど何も考えず、自分勝手に家を飛び出したわ。 お陰で私の人生はずっと、その尻拭い…！」
UP: ......She thought nothing of the long history and tradition of the Sumadera family, and selfishly flew out of the house. My entire life has been wiping up the messes she left behind...!
MG: ...You thought nothing of the long history and tradition of the Sumadera family...and selfishly flew out of the house. Thanks to that, my entire life has been devoted to cleaning up your mess...!"
It is Sumadera Kyrie she's complaining about. Kyrie left the Sumadera family to join the Ushiromiya family at her expense. Ange did nothing of the sort. The only reason Kasumi is mad at Ange is as a proxy to get revenge on what Kyrie did to her.
6: Super-paper
- [+] Spoiler
- パーよりはるかに凄い超パーだったら、チョキにだって勝てるでしょ？！つまりこのラムダデルタ卿は、超パーってわけ！
UP: but if it was the way more awesome super‐paper, which is as thick as wood, it could even beat scissors, right?! In other words, I, Lady Lambdadelta, am super‐paper, and super‐thick!
MG: if I was a sheet of super-paper, which is way more awesome than normal paper, I could beat even scissors, right?! Bascially, I, Lady Lambdadelta, am super-paper!
Still not sure that we hit on the perfect translation here, but WH/MG seem to miss entirely that パー in Japanese, in addition to meaning "paper", also means "idiot". So this is a pun, where super-paper also carries the meaning of super-idiot. This is totally lost in WH/MG. It's not supposed to be something that's just totally random, but one of those jokes like the later one where Lambda says that pretty much all blondes are morons.