Volume 4

POW!  Right in the kisser.

To begin, I'd just like to say that this cover is probably my favorite of all the reprint covers.  Jupiter's pose, dynamic and literally crackling with energy, captures her spirit.  All of the English covers have had richer, bolder colors, but this one really pops.  I feel like I'm going to take a rose-scented fist to the face any second.

Before I dive into the nitty-gritty of this volume's contents, I want to make some general comments:
-Tokyopop messed up many of the act numbers. for example, Act 17 is labeled as Act 13 in Tokyopop's 4th volume, but the next act is properly labeled as 18 in the next volume.

-Someone suggested that I redirect some of my criticism of William Flanagan to the person responsible for editing his work.  At first, I and many others didn't think that there even was an editor working on this project, because none is listed in the book credits.  However, Brad from Moonkitty.net was able to track down the editor through Twitter.  She says that Kodansha's policy is to only credit the translator and the letterer of each manga.

This brings me to two thoughts:  (1)  Kodansha is kind of a dick to not credit people for their work.  (2)  This woman is doing a terrible job at editing.  No one can fault her for not catching mistranslations, but does she really just gloss over the grammar mistakes, typos, and completely bizarre English word choices?  Again, these are not problems that I encounter in the other manga that I read.

-"Sparkling Wide Pressure" is correctly translated in this volume.

-Once again, Naoko's bonus "punch" comics, specially written for this reprint, have not been included.  If you'd like to read them, you can find them on Miss Dream.

I'm going to start with positive examples, because unfortunately, I have a lot less of them to offer.


GOOD STUFF!

Even though he refuses to write "oh my God" and "damn", Flanagan is not puritanical.  Here's an example of how he faithfully translated something that Tokyopop censored.  Usagi is either talking about her first sexual experience with Mamoru or she's referring to the scene at the end of volume 1, where she wakes up in his bed after passing out as Sailor Moon.  Either way, Tokyopop didn't want anyone getting naughty thoughts about teenagers, so they manipulated the text.  Removing the information that Usagi has been in Mamoru's room and in his bed doesn't just misrepresent their relationship; it also takes away a lot of the reason for Usagi to be so jealous of Chibiusa.  If she didn't have some sort of connection with those two places, she wouldn't care about a little kid comandeering them.

This is the scene at the end of the volume where Wiseman coaxes Chibiusa to come with him.  Flanagan's translation is much more accurate, and reads better to boot.  I always thought Tokyopop's rendition was too blunt and hastily made.  Wiseman hasn't given her any reasons to "reject the world you knew before" yet, and "or you can never make it" is a pretty vague warning.  Personally, I wouldn't be convinced.  In contrast, his assertion that she couldn't even have come to him if she didn't want to is pretty compelling.  If I were in Chibiusa's shoes, I would say, "Go on..."

Prince Demande is explaining his dislike of the Ginzuishou and the people of the white moon.  His explanation is more detailed and understandable in Kodansha.  I could imagine that a totally peaceful world where people lived hundreds of years with all their needs fulfilled might, in fact, become fat and lazy.  I kind of wished Naoko explored this more in the story; maybe Crystal Tokyo was like the spaceship colonies in "Wall-E".

This isn't really that big a deal, but it shows a change that had to be made in Tokyopop's version since they didn't create a nickname for Darien / Mamoru.  The idea is still pretty much the same, but I think Usagi's character is represented more positively when she freaks out about Chibiusa using her special nickname for Mamoru, rather than just flipping out because Chibiusa got close enough to him to receive a doll as a gift.

BADNESS

I'm pretty disappointed with this volume.  I feel like there is more awkward, clunky language than usual, and there are misrepresentations of the content, too--something I haven't noted as a problem yet in Flanagan's translation.  Let me start with those.

MISREPRESENTED CONTENT

I think this is a really big gaffe right here, because it has an effect on our understanding of the story.  The grammar in the Japanese correlates to the English "no matter (how many)", both of which are completely ambiguous about actual number or degree, and both of which operate in a semi-hypothetical realm.  For example, imagine someone stole bread for his starving family and gets caught.  He could say, "it doesn't matter how much bread I steal...I can't feed my family."  This statement doesn't indicate how much bread he's stolen, or if he has stolen any bread before this particular incident.  What it does indicate is that he's incapable of feeding his family in spite of his efforts, in spite of how much bread he might acquire. 

However, Flanagan has interpreted Chibiusa's words as a concrete statement: "I can't say how many 'Legendary Silver Crystals" I've tried!"  The use of the present perfect (have tried) necessarily indicates that Chibiusa has acquired multiple Ginzuishou in the past, before this incident.  This goes against everything else the story has told us so far.  Chibiusa herself even says on page 228 (Act 21) that this whole experience is her "first time" meeting Usagi and Mamoru in the past.  If that's the case, how could she have possibly gotten her hands on multiple Ginzuishou before?

In this new translation, we are being told that Chibiusa has been bouncing around through time and snatching Ginzuishou for God knows how long--enough that she "can't say" how many crystals she's tried.  This is patently false.  Also, while there are theoretically countless Ginzuishou existing in every nanosecond of the time stream, the story never directs us to think about this, probably because the image of piles and piles of Ginzuishou ruins the unique, powerful, and mystical nature of the item.

I think that Flanagan may have misinterpreted the Japanese って as indicating a quote or example, when the combination of って and the ～た form of a verb with a quantifier like 何個 indicates "no matter how much / how many X, in contrast, Y."

I really don't get why this panel turned out to be a problem.  Unlike Tokyopop, Flanagan is just totally wrong with his translation, and it doesn't even make sense.  Sailor Moon and Chibiusa are arguing; with whom has Pluto been arguing "for a very long time"?  Pretty sure she's alone out there. 

Unless she's been maintaining her sanity by arguing with herself.  Couldn't Queen Serenity have given her a chair to sit on?  Does she ever sleep?  Shower?  Eat?  If so, what does she eat?  Does Domino's deliver to space-time?  Does Domino's still have that awesome 555 deal...?  Look, there's a lot of mysteries surrounding Pluto, but what she's saying in this panel ain't one of 'em.

Again, why was this not properly translated?  Esmeraude explicitly says, "the hands that Wiseman gave me," in Japanese.  The kanji for "hand" is right there.  Yet Flanagan chose the word "item" instead.  What?  As if the word itself is not enough, Esmeraude is showing off her creepy Wiseman hands in the same panel.  Who even uses the word "item" like this, anyway?  "I'm going to return the item I got for Christmas."  No.

Usagi isn't making sense in Kodansha.  She "used to take them for granted" but now "they aren't here."  These two situations don't contrast.  If you take someone for granted, you don't notice or appreciate their presence.  She sounds like she's saying, "if they were here, I would continue to take them for granted," when she really means, "I used to take them for granted, but now that they're gone, I realize how much I miss them."  Besides which--and this might be the more important point--she's not actually expressing the idea that she took her friends for granted in the Japanese.  Tokyopop is the closer adaptation.

Even though I like how Flanagan's rendition sounds, it's not accurate.  Tokyopop's is.  The change in meaning doesn't really affect anything, though, so I won't get too hot under the collar.  Saphir still remarks on the power of the black crystal and recommends that the Black Moon clan stop wasting time and energy on Earth; this makes sense whether Earth is Prince Demande's legacy or his possession.

Flanagan is having more problems decoding the Japanese grammar here. What's being said is that somebody brought about the revival of all the long-forgotten crime and murder that had plagued the Earth before Crystal Tokyo. That somebody was Phantom. Flanagan mistakenly attributes the words "crime" and "murder" to Phantom himself, and describes him as a "criminal and murderer that people had forgotten." Phantom is a criminal and a murderer, but the point here is that he brought back the horrible things of the past through his evil leadership and influence over others.

I guess I don't care if Phantom is referred to as a "spellcaster" or not; I'm just puzzled why Flanagan chose this word. The only two nouns given in Japanese are "shidousha" (leader) and "shihaisha" (ruler).

As for Tokyopop's translation, the first part is accurate enough, and the bit about him having a "black crescent symbol on his forehead" was present in the original Japanese release, but removed in the reprint.

SLOPPY ERRORS

This panel is a grammar nightmare, the worst I've encountered so far.  Artemis is

talking about the "Mystery Circles" and UFO sightings that have been reported all over Tokyo, and connecting them to Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter's abductions.  He's messing up plurals, subject verb agreements, sentence clauses...it's just a royal mess. The proper grammar would be something like: "Only one thing do I know for sure: the flying saucers that took Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter were all the very same type of vehicle." Even then, it would probably be best to change the first part to, "There's only one thing I know for sure," instead of the more formal arrangement he's using.

Not to be outdone, Luna chimes in with a grammar flub of her own.  She should be saying, "if we don't meet up with Chibi-Usa soon..."  There's no need for a "to".  In all seriousness, I feel like I'm reading something from one of the English language learners in my class.

The phrase "at a time like this" is missing the "a".

AWKWARD, CLUNKY WORD CHOICES

I know some of the stilted language in the reprints don't bother a lot of people, but I think that it sometimes interferes with the reader's immersion into the story.  Unnatural language forces you to focus on the words themselves, not on the story or the feelings conveyed through those words.

Mamoru is describing Chibiusa's demeanor.  People don't "produce" faces unless they're purposely trying to identify with a machine.  Although Tokyopop's grammar is messed up, (it should read "look how friendly she's become since...") their choice of phrasing is much more natural.  I can't imagine anyone saying something like what Kodansha Mamoru is saying in real life.

Here's Mamoru again, saying something weird.  Chibiusa used Luna-P to help her win loads of candy from a game machine.  The Japanese word イカサマ can certainly mean "fraud", but that meaning is not appropriate for this context.  Fraud involves purposeful deception of another for personal gain, like lying to an insurance company about your damages or lying on your taxes so you can collect more money.  Chibiusa didn't receive something from someone else through an act of deceit.  She received something from a game by using an unfair advantage.  This is better defined as "cheating".  Again, no one in real life would utter this sentence in this context.  Also, I'm not sure a fraud is something one "pulls".

The word "afield" sounds really stiff right here, especially because the characters are indoors.  Furthermore, the word doesn't have a hyphen in it, so I'm not sure why one got shoved in between the "a" and "f".

I just think this one is funny.  For whatever reason, Flanagan was moved to add the word "tentacles", and I'm not sure I want to know why.

CONCLUSION

As I said earlier, I'm disappointed in this volume.  I was hoping I wouldn't have to worry about misrepresented content anymore, but here I am, typing a blog entry about it.  Awkward and unnatural text is so commonplace that I just don't have the time to point out every instance.  It's like Flanagan was in a bigger rush than usual to get this book done.  I just hope that my next entry will be filled with more positive comments, because we're only 4 volumes in, and I don't want to feel this pessimistic this early.

If you'd like to read something happier and haven't done so already, check out my previous entry about why the SuperS anime doesn't suck.  If you'd like to read more complaints, I'll have the companion entry about the series's weak points up before the next manga volume.