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MDN presents 'Manglish - Manga in English'

Posted by ryuzaki0 on

Mainichi Daily News writes "Japan's leading English news site revolutionizes manga -- Manga lovers rejoice! A never-seen-before approach to manga made its debut on the Mainichi Daily News on Monday, July 3, 2006. Manglish takes some of Japan's hottest young manga talents -- showcased in the Mainichi's MangaTown site -- and places their creations on the MDN in their original Japanese format. However, cool thing is that while it appears on the site in the original Japanese, but if you run your mouse over it you get the translation in English.

26 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. What's the point? by Bill+Wong · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Uh... There are only two pages so far?
    Kinda pointless to release something like this with so little content...

    1. Re:What's the point? by InsaneLampshade · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Umm... i thought it was kinda obvious, but i guess not.

      It's news because they're launching a *daily* webcomic type thing. It gets updated daily with the next page.

      Of course they're not gonna have volumes and volumes of stuff available, since it's only launched.

  2. Read it backwards by Stonent1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Start on the left and move to the right... Just an FYI.

  3. Now it's in English I can understand the plot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Suddenly, the tentacle monsters and giant robots fighting mutant schoolgirls become so profound. Roll over Shakespeare.

  4. Obligatory Engrish Joke by Da+Rabid+Duckie · · Score: 2, Funny

    An awesome idea, and the page has definitely been bookmarked... but I should have figured "Manglish" also translated to "Engrish"

    From the cover: "She cares about it being tall"

    I assume that we'll see many fun times happen, for long time.

    --
    (From the Laws of Japanese Animation) Law of Inherent Combustibility -- Everything explodes. Everything.
    1. Re:Obligatory Engrish Joke by 3.14159265 · · Score: 3, Funny

      "She cares about it being tall"

      Well, if it's hentai then it's a perfectly reasonable translation to me!...

  5. Manga and real literature by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I figure I should take this opportunity to ask any of you who have travelled to Japan recently: has manga entirely overtaken traditional literature? I'm a big fan of such figures as Kawabata and Mishima (whose Sea of Fertility tetralogy is possibly the best thing I've ever read), but no Japanese young person I've ever met abroad has ever read them, even though they are seen internationally as the cream of the crop of Japanese literature. I've only seen young people read manga for pleasure. Is real literature totally dead in Japan?

    1. Re:Manga and real literature by Robaato · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, no it hasn't. The typical bookstore around here (Tottori Prefecture) is about 2/3 regular books, 1/3 manga. Admittedly, Tottori is pretty countryside; I couldn't tell you about the bigger cities.

      As for young people, whenever I see them reading, it's usually manga, but I do see a fair number of kids reading stuff like Harry Potter or Earthsea.

      This is just what I'm seeing, though -- ask someone in Tokyo or Osaka, and you might get a different answer.

      Now that I think about it, one could say that Japanese literature, such as the authors you mention, or classics such as the works of Natsume Soseki, don't appeal to a young audience in Japan. I must ponder this...

    2. Re:Manga and real literature by Da+Rabid+Duckie · · Score: 2, Insightful
      It's likely just a youth thing, I mean when's the last time you saw the average American young person reading Hemingway or Faulkner? Nope, they're reading the text of the newest Pokemon game from the screen of their Game Boys.

      Besides, the last remaining member of the sole Japanese Literary Club left in Japan was assimilated by Haruhi Suzumiya anyway...

      --
      (From the Laws of Japanese Animation) Law of Inherent Combustibility -- Everything explodes. Everything.
    3. Re:Manga and real literature by AngstAndGuitar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sea of Fertility is great, though I'm only trough 2.3 of the 4 books, Thus far I like Haru no Yuki the best. In fact, I'm in the middle of the (very slow) process of re-translating the first few chapters in order to create a parallel text study version to be used in my university Japanese language program. I did meet one international student who was quite different than the rest, claiming Mishima as his favorite author. For the most part, the Japanese ryugakusei seem to prefer second-rate books by hacks. A large proportion of the ryugakusei are in the US because they thought it was going to be "easier" or failed the entrance exams (the hardest part of the whole degree program) at a Japanese university.

      --
      Less look fast, more go fast.
    4. Re:Manga and real literature by JanneM · · Score: 4, Informative

      The question is perhaps a bit ill posed. Manga doesn't have the negative, childish connotations here that comics do in the west. At least some of it is considered literature to the same extent as books without images.

      That said, at least here in Osaka, on a typical commuter train I normally see perhaps 1/3 manga to 2/3 "normal" books - of course there's plenty of trashy, cheap novels sold as commuter fodder out there worse in quality than good manga, so it reflects only on the choice of medium, not quality.

      I'd also say that for everyone reading something on paper you have two or three people doing email, playing games or listening to music on their mobile phones. If you want to know what seems to overtake books as casual entertainment, there's your answer.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    5. Re:Manga and real literature by Bastard+of+Subhumani · · Score: 2, Funny
      Manga doesn't have the negative, childish connotations here that comics do in the west.
      Comics? Those are graphic novels, you insensitive clod!!!!
      --
      Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
    6. Re:Manga and real literature by JanneM · · Score: 2, Insightful

      For the most part, the Japanese ryugakusei seem to prefer second-rate books by hacks.

      Well, you look at the book top lists in any country and you'll find the same thing. "real" literature is not normally popular - and it has never been. That is usually a fairly small insider group writing to each other. And to at least some of the practicioners and followers, the lack of popular appeal is part of the draw; it's another way to be a member of a club, something we humans seem irresistable drawn to in whatever way we can.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    7. Re:Manga and real literature by macshit · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well it's not just manga vs. Mishima, there's a huge number of popular modern Japanese (non-manga) writers too. There's (obviously) a vast quantity of stuff which hasn't been translated into English.

      AFAIK, manga's taken a big bite of out of non-manga reading, but that seems to have been going on for a long time. It's just an offhand judgement, but in general I think Japan's (non-manga) book scene seems a lot healthier than that in the U.S -- though I guess that says more about the U.S. than Japan...

      --
      We live, as we dream -- alone....
    8. Re:Manga and real literature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Manga doesn't have the negative, childish connotations here that comics do in the west.

      Hey! Me too! I wanna post! I'm in Tokyo, and while lots of people say something like the above about Japan, I feel that manga does often have negative, childish connotations.

      How about the advert on TV for the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (the financial newspaper), which showed a guy in a suit sitting on a bench reading one of the thick weekly comics (manga) aimed at children and teenagers, with a voiceover saying "I saw my ex-boyfriend yesterday. Still as hopeless as ever." Sounds negative enough to me.

      I've also seen a bilingual book, written in the early 80's I think, introducing various aspects of Japan to foreigners. The page on "Manga" was mostly devoted to "Sazae-san", the long-running newspaper comic strip, with just a short section at the end saying that most modern comics contained too much sex and violence, and calling them a social problem.

      In summary, I'd say that while many people of all ages read comics, as you'd expect given the scale and variety of the Japanese market for them (much larger than the comic market in the US, as Wikipedia says), they still have a childish image, and are frowned on by the more conservative.

      In my opinion, about the only comic writer I can think of whose work is accepted as literature is Tezuka (although his comics have their fair share of corny jokes - just as Shakespeare plays do). Can anyone give any other suggestions?

      In an attempt to get back to the topic, the comic they put up seems to be an entry in a comic writing contest, and doesn't look like the best or most original thing around to me. Still, better than nothing...

  6. no from the...dept? by Mini-Geek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This article has no from the ... dept. thing. Why? Put one in.

    --
    do {print "Mini-Geek Rules!\n";}
    until ($TheEndOfTheWorld);
    1. Re:no from the...dept? by cantle2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ok, who else noticed the article in the lower left hand corner entitled "Bench fever" which was about the Phillipine underwear and denim show?? Yes, it has nothing to do with manga, but I know what Slashdotters would be more interested in!!! :))

  7. Right to left... by so1omon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Um.... That's not backwards. I think you meant "Start on the right and move to the left."
    Just an FYI.

    --
    i'm the jedidiahmarkfoster your parents warned you about
    1. Re:Right to left... by vadim_t · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yup, and manga books are also read from the "end" of the book. The beginning is where usually the last page would be in a western comic.

      And if you see anime you'll notice people reading text vertically - their eyes move up and down instead of left and right. I think this is an older writing system where the text was arranged in columns top to bottom, right to left.

    2. Re:Right to left... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think this is an older writing system where the text was arranged in columns top to bottom, right to left.

      Correct, japanese is traditionally read top to bottom and right to left, however thanks to westerners writing software that was unable to comprehend this arrangement, it began to fall out of practice in favor of left-to-right top-to-bottom which was easier to produce on a computer. These days it seems that perhaps 1/10th of the books published even abandon the "backwards" page turning, and just go all out on the left-to-right system. Manga is still regularly written in top to bottom format though, since it's not as affected by computers due to the manual lettering.

  8. It's been tried before... by Robaato · · Score: 4, Informative

    Kodansha has been doing this on their English website since 2000. There's a wide selection of various manga that Kodansha publishes that you can look at, including titles such as Akira and Love Hina. However, they haven't updated it in a couple of years, and I can't seem to get the translation thingy to work. (The MDN site works fine for me, though.)

  9. Manglish is taken by Hoplite3 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Manglish is man-speak. It's the language of man. They need another term, one that's less masculine.

    --
    Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
    1. Re:Manglish is taken by DarkIye · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's also the Malaysian dialect of English. I thought that was pretty widely known as the first meaning of the word, actually. Apparently not.

      --
      To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
  10. Do they speak Manglish in What? by Bushido+Hacks · · Score: 2, Funny

    Manglish motherfarker do you speak it?!

    /Samuel L. Jackson!

    --
    The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
  11. Popjisho by pdr77 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Has noone heard of popjisho?

  12. Define Manglish by dartarrow · · Score: 2, Informative

    Manglish has long been known to us Malaysians as the default derivative of english spoken here. It generally is a combination of all the major languages spoken here; Malay, Tamil, Chinese and of course.. English. Or sometimes it is English words with non-english grammar. Engrish is not the same because we are perfectly capable of saying "Roll the Red Rose" (as opposed to the engrish version - "LOL the Lhed Lhose")

    --
    I love humanity, it is people I hate