Any reasons why most gag manga & anime hasn't been fan translated?

[Hikaru1057]

Just a bit of an explanatory title (doesn't apply to story based comedy manga & anime but the episodic and nonsensical gag comedy type), but i'm a bit curious to why these haven't been translated (besides the common reasons such as lack of interest, cultural specificities, hard to translate, subjectiveness of the comedy genre, genre preferences, and content dissonance) , aside from the most popular ones (e.g. dr. Slump, osomatsu kun, The Gutsy Frog, kochikame, Nichijou, Kodocha, saiki. K, Akazukin chacha, Guru guru, gintama, pop team epic) having fan translations and official releases, or via anime adaptations, i would love to binge all episodes of ganso tensai bakabon (if it was fully fansubbed as this was the most polished and faithful version to fujio akatsuka's manga) to see it's influence on later japanese comedy works, and how well the jokes hold up or not

 

[spacestone29]

Because after T/N, there'd be about 3 pixels of art left on-screen

 

[X y b e r - S k u ll]

I mean you kind of answered it in your own post; Japanese comedy is very different and a lot of times their sense of humour can’t be translated properly without a shit load of translators notes (Which as we all know; having to explain a joke 9 times out of 10 makes it the least funny thing in the world), and also there just isn’t much demand for it. Outside of Japan, battle shounen series are pretty much what everyone knows about and wants to watch, especially as anime has become more prevalent and mainstream in English-speaking countries over the last 10-15 years or so. They’re the easiest to market, appeal to the widest range of audiences and also draw in the biggest numbers (Look at how well that recent Demon Slayer movie’s doing at the box office outside of Japan).

 

[Hikaru1057]

I mean you kind of answered it in your own post; Japanese comedy is very different and a lot of times their sense of humour can’t be translated properly without a shit load of translators notes (Which as we all know; having to explain a joke 9 times out of 10 makes it the least funny thing in the world), and also there just isn’t much demand for it. Outside of Japan, battle shounen series are pretty much what everyone knows about and wants to watch, especially as anime has become more prevalent and mainstream in English-speaking countries over the last 10-15 years or so. They’re the easiest to market, appeal to the widest range of audiences and also draw in the biggest numbers (Look at how well that recent Demon Slayer movie’s doing at the box office outside of Japan).

oops, but the catch is that most of the parodies, homages, and references to famous japanese comedy works might fly on their heads when they're exported overseas, So most fan translators do their best to give translators notes or translating the source series that was being referenced, parodied or tributed (But even that was challenging as you noted, so they either need to have a sense of humor, creative intellect, knowledge of japanese culture, comedic timing and the use of woolseyisms to make it accessible while making it faithful to the context, tone and spirit, to which this balance tends to either make or break in terms of execution and quality)

 

[Jeff]

Gag manga and anime are more Japanese jokes based on Japan's culture and other types of media that would not make any sense to the Western audience and would not get the joke entirely. That's why when Western localizers would translate a Japanese joke, they would have to re-translate it as a different joke with references the Western audience would understand.