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.

 

[DAME NINGEN]

I don't want to gag when consuming media or really during any other activities.

 

[superFreak420]

Too many complex jokes centered around JP culture, not enough people who can read and write Japanese who're interested in making gag manga translations.

 

[qw90700]

It depends on your country really. I mean for example my country always had serious dedication for translating animes and mangas without any care of their popularity as so many people have a mission to translate and preserve them. Often when people complain how X anime and manga has no English translation I check them in my country and they have translations for my native language. It also means most of "can't find" animes and mangas in English community is easy to find in the pirate community of my country.

Relatively "dedication" of English community is nowhere near the dedication of my country. Here people find the Japanese material to actively translate them and they always did even before Google Translate and whatnot existed. However our advantage is my native language is very similar to Japanese so it makes learning and translating easier, but the language is too different compared to English which is part of why translations between Japanese to English would have lack of willingness since how hard it would be to even comprehend Japanese for them. In that regard for us learning Japanese is "easy thing" so even some random high school kid does and start translating animes and mangas after a year of Japanese learning but I don't imagine an English speaking high school kid can do that easily, it won't be like learning Spanish for them lol. Since it would be bothersome for them to even translate they wouldn't be willing to translate not so popular animes and mangas.

And then there is a thing about how tons of gag anime and mangas are so tied to Japanese culture to even make sense translations. For example they will reference very famous people and English speaker may don't even get what the reference talks about or how to even translate that so they will likely to not even bother translations. Here we translate these by replacing our own popular people instead. But then Japanese have tons of way of using their language that makes translations rocket science and it causes a big problem when target language for translation is too different.

 

[Hikaru1057]

It depends on your country really. I mean for example my country always had serious dedication for translating animes and mangas without any care of their popularity as so many people have a mission to translate and preserve them. Often when people complain how X anime and manga has no English translation I check them in my country and they have translations for my native language. It also means most of "can't find" animes and mangas in English community is easy to find in the pirate community of my country.

Relatively "dedication" of English community is nowhere near the dedication of my country. Here people find the Japanese material to actively translate them and they always did even before Google Translate and whatnot existed. However our advantage is my native language is very similar to Japanese so it makes learning and translating easier, but the language is too different compared to English which is part of why translations between Japanese to English would have lack of willingness since how hard it would be to even comprehend Japanese for them. In that regard for us learning Japanese is "easy thing" so even some random high school kid does and start translating animes and mangas after a year of Japanese learning but I don't imagine an English speaking high school kid can do that easily, it won't be like learning Spanish for them lol. Since it would be bothersome for them to even translate they wouldn't be willing to translate not so popular animes and mangas.

And then there is a thing about how tons of gag anime and mangas are so tied to Japanese culture to even make sense translations. For example they will reference very famous people and English speaker may don't even get what the reference talks about or how to even translate that so they will likely to not even bother translations. Here we translate these by replacing our own popular people instead. But then Japanese have tons of way of using their language that makes translations rocket science and it causes a big problem when target language for translation is too different.

what's your native language BTW?

 

[qw90700]

what's your native language BTW?

It's a secret!!!

 

[diet_orange]

Tbh, I'm kind of surprised that Bo-bobo and Cromartie High School took off as much as they did here

 

[DAME NINGEN]

Tbh, I'm kind of surprised that Bo-bobo and Cromartie High School took off as much as they did here

Cromartie High School had an amazing ad of an anime series, which had an even better soundtrack to boot. Not every day you get a proper prog rock band to add life to your moving pictures.

 

[SpcDaicon]

From what I remember, when I was reading Bakuman (a manga about a duo writing a manga, made by Takeshi Obata e Tsugumi Ohba, the same duo behind Death Note) they kinda discuss how even for the japanese publications, gag manga are a afterthought and hardly given attention, if any. Editors don't really care how they peform on popularity polls and just exist in the back half of a magazine.

I think this also contributes for the general lack of interest in gag manga outside Japan. Not only there is a cutural difference, but I think even the japanese don't really advertise them as much as action manga

 

[Otosou]

Can I tell you the real reason... it's the art. Gag manga style often differs from mainstream one, and it means the characters are not very desirable, so most don't care about them. It's a kinda silly reason if you think about it, but a reason still. I love gag manga myself, but it must be good gag manga, like 'Sexy Commando Gaiden' or 'Boboboubo Boubobo', those two are my absolute faves on that genre, I just love the nonsensical humour of Usuta and Sawai.

I don't care about art and for me there is no "badly drawn" manga, just every mangaka has their own style, but the public eye is always public eye. Gag manga is hard to market and most licensed (JPN->ENG) series have been cancelled sooner or later which is sad, because this world really needs some good laughs.