#I’m even thinking the reason so many English fans hate bkdk is because their translation sucks

[gvenevera]

May I share some opinions about Katsuki’s final line the chapter 405? I’ve been trying to understand why fans on both sides are nitpicking on this particular panel and I want to explore what happened.

(Please mind that I’m not a Japanese expert nor a native but I have been studying the language and following both MHA manga and fandom for years, so I do have some experience on the matter. Oh and I’ll declare my Conflict of Interest as a Bakudeku shipper, but I do know how to stand on neutral grounds.)

Jpn: OFA (あいつ) に拭うねーもんは、こっちで拭うってなあああ!!!

Caleb’s version: OFA couldn’t keep you on the ground, but we’ll finish the job and then some!

In this sentence, “OFA” was meant to represent Izuku, as Horikoshi had clearly written for us in superscript. However even if you ignore the double meaning, OFA = Izuku, AM and the vestiges. In this scenario, all of them were already fighting against AFO and Shigaraki on the battlefield. So when Katsuki said that “he” is stepping in, it means exactly that, even though こっち isn’t specifically a singular pronoun, because he was the only other person on that battlefield. There is no “we” in this scene!

(Or if we want to be technical, there’s Edgeshot who’s out of commission. Best Jeanist, Mirio and Gentle are on Troy somewhere and they COULD be part of the collective “we” but they weren’t shown jumping in to help in this chapter either, so very low chance it could allude to them.)

Unless of course, Caleb took it too literally and thought that OFA alludes to the quirk itself. In this case, his English translation might be something like: “The ultimate power of OFA quirk couldn’t stop you (AFO+Shiggy) but we (Katsuki, Izuku, AM and the other heroes) will finish the job (by power of teamwork?)” Which is an understandable sentence in itself, but not accurate to the literal Japanese text. At all.

That’s not to mention the other missed opportunities in this panel alone, such as the callback to Katsuki’s apology in the rain. The “and then some” line was actually correct English, but it was such a rarely used phrase that it was jarring spoken from a teenager.

Tl;dr - yes, I think Caleb’s English translation for this page in particular was not satisfactory.

Listen, I know translations are hard, especially in languages like Japanese where people tend to omit pronouns or phrases in their speech. That’s why I stick around on leak nights to pick up the raw scans, and I try not to nitpick on manga translations too much. Heck, even other fan translations added their own flairs! - TBC’s version outright had Katsuki call out “Deku” which could be a controversy in itself (a reference to Hori’s intention but not 100% confirmed, and one may wonder if Katsuki would choose to refer to him by Deku or Izuku in this scenario). But I could see why fans on this side of the fandom are mad about this chapter, and I think it is fair of them to put an appeal with the official translation website. After all, it is customer feedback, the least they can do is get more unbiased translators to weigh in their opinions.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #spoilers #MHA 405 #BNHA 405 #manga translation #comments welcomed! #I just wanna add my two cents but X algorithm sucks #like I said I give translators the benefit of doubt always #but I’ve a feeling this guy has an anti bkdk agenda #I’m even thinking the reason so many English fans hate bkdk is because their translation sucks #at least the eng dub team can think for themselves instead of following the manga #but the changed translations ALSO confused people so it’s a hassle #you’d think following a mainstream shounen manga is easy but it’s not lol