Someone reminded me about posting this, so here it is. William Flanagan is the translator for the Sailor Moon manga re-release. After the first volume came out, fans voiced some of their concerns, and Flanagan decided to write this response on his Facebook page. It's dated November 16th, 2011. He took it down pretty soon after, on a recommendation from a friend who warned him not to PO Kodansha.
The only two comments I will make are these:
(1) He makes a lot of excuses that consumers can't do anything about and thus they are not obligated to accept them. I understand that translating manga pays peanuts and is likely a thankless job, but that's not my problem; that's his problem. He chose the path of a manga translator, just like I chose the path of an ESL teacher. As such, he needs to own it. I don't really care if the guy who fixed my car's brakes is constantly being yelled at by his boss and he already fixed 20 sets of brakes before mine--I just want my brakes to work. In the same way, I don't care if a translator hates his job a little and can barely feed his family--I just want a quality product in my hands. If it were up to me, he'd get paid more and have a better life and whatever else he wants, but it's not up to me.
(2) I have no idea why he chose to comment on two of the most insignificant, irrelevant translation "problems." Who really cares about "myaa" and "eeh?" I guess he had no good answer for his spotty use of honorifics, stilted language, inconsistent translation of "love" and "beauty" and the like.
Thank you for posting! It's nice to finally see what he said. Ugh, now I can definitely see why everyone was so annoyed by it.
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