Fullmetal Alchemist

[Lithp]

Xerxes was translated as Cselkcess at one point, yes. It was very confusing.

I kind of don't want to read the chapters online because I feel it will ruin it when I go to buy the volumes, but I'm starting to think I might have to.

Every other series I read I read online. I ain't buyin' hundreds of volumes of every manga I'm slightly interested in. FMA is special in that regard.

[Eltargrim]

Originally Posted by Lithp

As to the actual 2nd anime itself, it's been irritating me for some time, because I've felt that the animators were being cheap &/or lazy. Envy's true form, for example, is SO much more detailed in the manga, & it's hinted that it moves a lot more. Now that I've seen the recent episodes, though, I suspect that they've been saving up for the end, so I'm cool.

I'm pretty astounded with the animation in Brotherhood; Bones is pushing out some of the most fluid animation we've seen in, well, ever.

I mean, feel free to criticize the content, but the animation has been bang-on since day 1.

As for translation delays; editors are duuuumb, and publishing a .png is easier than publishing a book. That one mistranslation, though; that's wacky. I mean, lolwut?

[Magus]

There are a few episodes where the animation takes a noticeable dive but the fluidity during major fight scenes is pretty great, yeah. I think they save all their budget for particular episodes where a lack of quality would ruin the experience.

As for Cselkcess, maybe that's exactly how a Japanese person would say Xerxes? Like they have a the Japanese text and they have a guy who speaks Japanese and he says, "This is pronounced 'Cselkcess' in Japanese" and then having absolutely no background in the actual historical stuff Arakawa is referring to (Xerxes was the rule of the Persian Empire and Amestris was his wife or one of his wives if I remember correctly), they just went with a direct translation since they were unaware of the theme behind character and place names.

That's why Huey was translated as Fury in the English version, after all. Fury is just cooler so no one had a problem with it. :P

[Lithp]

Elta: Dude, what? Compare anime Envy to manga Envy. There's no way you can tell me that they're the same. In the manga, the skin texture on some of his legs are totally different, he has scales on some parts of his body, & the body parts move way more. He's probably not green, either. It's not the most critical example, but for a quick comparison, it gets the job done.

Also, the artwork of the first anime was just plain better.

Magus: I only recently found out that FMA is a monthly serialization, causing me to feel like a complete dumbass. But still! In any case, whether you're reading online or the official translation, you're going to find stupid mistranslations & phrasings you don't like occasionally. As for Fury, I heard that his name, along with Mustang & the rest of his subordinates, referenced planes.

[Magus]

Yeah, but I think some of the people doing translations don't know that, because they went with "Fury" instead of Huey (a type of plane), without asking themselves "Hmm, all the other military people have vehicle names, but this guy doesn't, maybe something is wrong here", which showed a fundamental lack of understanding of the naming structure which may have aided them in the translation. Like if you didn't know Van Hohenheim was the name of an actual alchemist and they just HEARD the name said as a Japanese person said it they probably would've screwed up the spelling pretty easily, because European words and names are harder to pronounce for the average Japanese person.

Years ago, I watched a fan translation of Record of Lodoss War which starred "Pan" and "Diedrit" and "Vagnaard" and so on, because that's how the names Parn, Deedlit, and Wagnaard were pronounced by the characters in the show or how they would be pronounced by a Japanese person, rather than what was intended by the creator. These were just fan translators and that's all they had to work with, and if the translators of the manga had only had a speaking part to use for their translation it would also be understandable. But they had access to the actual written out manga with all the little word balloons and stuff, so it's less understandable...still not a big deal but then again I'm not sure why Envy being green (I seriously thought he was green in the comic, though, so I actually fundamentally disagree with you there) when maybe he was some other color which can't be known because it's in black and white, is a big deal either. They're just minor complaints...

Envy is rendered in that cheap 3D, though, they should've hand animated him.

[Kim]

Yeah, the cheap 3D for envy bugs the hell out of me. Feels so out of place. At least we don't need to see any more of it!

[Lithp]

Magus: Some of Envy isn't even shaded. As well, he's supposed to be "compositionally human." Both of those lead me to believe he's a fleshy color. As you said, it's a minor complaint, possibly even an improvement. But solid green he is not, either way.

By far my biggest irritation with fanslation was in Trinity Blood. They used that -sama honoriffic thing. I find those kind of annoying under ordinary circumstances, but when the character is a priest of the Catholic Church, it's time to stop overdoing the "original is best" elitism & just translate it as "Father Nightroad."

But no, what I was saying was that I was of the understanding that the name "Fury" was a reference to a military vehicle.

Edit: On that certain someone's death, I actually felt that it was surprisingly sad. "Bye, bye...Edward Elric...."

[Magus]

I didn't really feel sympathetic towards him like I did in the manga, in spite of the cute voice (or maybe because of it?). I don't think they did the dramatic aspect of it very well there. Actually I think it failed in the manga, too, I just wasn't feeling it.

Anyway, I'm too lazy to look it up but I'm pretty sure there was at least one color frame of Envy's true form that showed he was green, like one of the title pages. While I'm too lazy to look up the image as I mentioned, I will post this sculpture someone made way back in 2008 as proof:

http://rodentruler.deviantart.com/art/Envy-s-True-Form-Sculpt-91408402

You are partially correct, though, the human heads are definitely flesh colored, and the back legs.

[Aerozord]

worst fan translations are when you can tell they didn't even actually watch it.

Was from bleach filler. subtitle said, Daruku, when the VA clearly said Dark. The VA gets it perfectly and they still screw it up

[Kim]

Two main characters died? This is crazy.

EDIT: OHSHIT