#megumi tachikawa

[starlightgenie]

#Got off my lazy bum to post saint tail furoku again! #saint tail #manga #furoku #nakayoshi #怪盗セイントテール #Megumi tachikawa #Tachikawa megumi #Christmas #Paper craft

[angelfeed]

#megumi tachikawa #cyber idol mink #u

[kazarinn]

As of today, all 27 manga chapters and 43 episodes of Saint Tail have been fully retranslated from scratch! Please click here to check it out!

This project started at around the beginning of July, so I have to admit that it's quite the feeling to have finally finished all of the translation work! To be honest, I was a bit self-conscious about how the unusual release schedule and the abnormally extensive documentation would be received, but we've gotten quite a few supportive comments, so thank you so much!

(Look, it's just really hard to make a claim like "almost every page of the manga has wordplay or some kind of metaphor, meaning previous English translations lost almost a whole half of the plot and made the entire ending and epilogue come off as saying the opposite of what they're actually supposed to" unless you have sufficient evidence to make a case for it...)

It may not be exaggeration to say that this has probably been the most challenging translation I've ever tackled to date, even though the deceptively simple plot doesn't make it come off as that kind of series at first glance, so I hope all of the effort that the rest of the team and I put into it can come through and that people can enjoy it as much as possible.

In regards to future plans: I want to take a look at some more of Tachikawa's works (I made a post about this earlier, but none of her other work has been treated well in translation), as well as perhaps some other magical girl series that need translation love. But I can't make any explicit promises, especially since I'd have to juggle it with a huge backlog of other stuff...and also, I need a break after almost six months straight of this 😅 I'm off to enjoy the rest of the winter holiday, and I hope you all do too. If you do decide to check out the series with the new translation in the meantime, I'd definitely be really happy if you posted reactions 😊

#Saint Tail #Kaitou Saint Tail #Megumi Tachikawa #Magical Girl #Phantom Thief #Shoujo

[shoujo-memory]

Cyber Idol Mink by Tachikawa Megumi

#cyber idol mink #tachikawa megumi #megumi tachikawa #shoujo manga #90s manga #nakayoshi

[hotwaterandmilk]

Series: Cyber Idol☆ Mink Artist: Tachikawa Megumi Product: Movic Clear File (2000) Source: Scanned from personal collection

#cyber idol mink #dennou shoujo mink #shiraishi minku #tachikawa megumi #megumi tachikawa #scan: hotwaterandmilk #merch #merchandise #00s manga #shoujo manga #magical girl manga #00s aesthetic #manga fashion #kawaii #mahoucore #classic manga #vintage manga #manga scan #manga edit #mangaedit #another piece of merchandise from the 2000 nakayoshi summer fest #this was huge so i had to crop out extra pattern on the sides

[thenostalgiacloset]

2000s Dream Saga Manga

#anime and manga #anime #manga #dream saga #saint tail #magical girl #2000s nostalgia #early 2000s #2000s #y2k aesthetic #y2kcore #y2k fashion #y2k #megumi Tachikawa #scene #scenecore #sailor moon #scene kid #scene emo #books #girlblogging #2000s scene #shojo #cute art #girly #cardcaptor sakura

[haveyoureadthismanga-poll]

#Dennou Shoujo Mink #cyber idol mink #mink #megumi tachikawa #1999 #90s #2000s #complete #shojo #nakayoshi

[haveyoureadthiscomic-poll]

#kaitou saint tail #saint tail #megumi tachikawa #90s manga #tokyopop #mahou shoujo #shoujo #shoujo manga #shojo #shojo manga #manga #magical girl #magical girls #poll

[lovehael]

#megumi tachikawa #cyber idol mink #u

[manekinekocake]

#kaitou saint tail #megumi tachikawa #official art

[classic-shoujo]

Saint Tail (1995) by Megumi Tachikawa

#saint tail #Megumi Tachikawa #90s manga #90s shoujo #st. tail #kaitou saint tail #怪盗セイント・テール

[starlightgenie]

#saint tail #manga #furoku #怪盗セイントテール #nakayoshi #shoujo manga #Megumi tachikawa #St tail #Kaitou st tail

[bunnymajo]

Going through a bookshelf that has all my oversized books & single comics & found this single of Saint Tail & it’s still peak cutesy shoujo

#saint tail #megumi tachikawa #tokyopop

[kazarinn]

I'm finishing up the retranslation for Saint Tail's anime right now, so I'm at the stage where I'm thinking about my next few projects, and I've currently at least decided that I want to do something for Megumi Tachikawa's other works as well. Tachikawa is an incredibly amazing writer, and it's such a shame that her work has been so poorly represented in translation; even beyond the fact that a good chunk of her work hasn't even been translated at all, the ones that were translated seem to have been run through the translation equivalent of a meat grinder.

I prioritized Saint Tail both because it's her most famous work and because it's the one that took the most damage (it's definitely pretty disturbing to find out that around half of the plot was translated to suggest the opposite of what it was actually supposed to mean!), but I do want to call attention to Cyber Idol ☆ Mink (localized by Tokyopop as Mink), generally considered to be Saint Tail's spiritual sequel. Unlike with Saint Tail, the Tokyopop release of Mink didn't flip it horizontally, and it doesn't have incomprehensible nonsense lines like "Great Big Deal!!" that Saint Tail's release did, but...well, I think some examples would demonstrate it better.

Here's Tokyopop's version of a spread from chapter 6:

And here's the proof of concept I sent to my group when pitching this series (done very quickly, so definitely not my best work, but probably enough to get the point across), which was translated directly from the Japanese text:

...Huh? That's not even remotely similar! The original scene is meant to draw a clear parallel between Mink's view of the chocolate and her view of herself, and the progression of the scene plays on the ambiguity of whether "あたしじゃなくて" means "this isn't from me" or "this isn't me". The reason Mink is considered to be Saint Tail's spiritual sequel is that it explores similar concepts of self-identity and the feeling of inadequacy compared to an idealized, sanitized self, something Mink is even less subtle about than Saint Tail was at times, but the nuance here seems to have been lost in translation. (In fact, I'm not entirely sure what must have led to the Tokyopop version's interpretation; the Japanese text doesn't resemble what's there at all.)

Which also means that when you get to later parts of the series like this...

(Tokyopop version)

(Our proof of concept retranslation)

In this case, the Tokyopop version roughly corresponds to the Japanese text but interprets it in ways that really don't get the point of this scene very well, ranging from not catching the specific use of "small and tiny" (ちっぽけな) invoking the earlier scene with the chocolate to making too many specific assumptions about Mink and Kyo's feelings that are actually out of character. (Let alone the fact that the way they phrase Mink's lines here really just doesn't convey the sheer level of desperation and emotion at all...)

For instance, it's a very important part of Mink's character that she doesn't have self-awareness about wanting to feel needed; she says 必要としてくれるなら because she legitimately feels like she's useless or has nothing to offer without the help of the WANNA-BE program. This kind of thing is a common trait of Tachikawa protagonists, and while I know many people might think it's not that big of a deal, I think the difference between "wanting attention and thinking your alter ego is cooler" and "having insecurity from believing you'll never be good enough unless you blot out all the undesirable parts of yourself" is big enough to mean something to a lot of people who would be reading this!

In any case, once I'm done with Saint Tail, I do have some other projects I want to prioritize first, since Mink's official translation is at least somewhat readable (kind of a low bar, but...). But I did want to call attention to this for now in case anyone was interested, because while Saint Tail and Mink are far from the only shoujo or magical girl manga from this era to have such poor treatment in localization, I don't think this issue has been well-documented when it comes to Tachikawa's work, and it really does break my heart.

#Cyber Idol Mink #Dennou Shoujo Mink #Mink #Saint Tail #Kaitou Saint Tail #Megumi Tachikawa #Magical Girl #Shoujo Manga #Shoujo

[angelfeed]

#megumi tachikawa #cyber idol mink #u

[hotwaterandmilk]

Series: Kaitou Saint Tail Artist: Tachikawa Megumi Publication: Nakayoshi Magazine (01/1996) Details: All-Star Special Takujou Calendar (July) Source: Scanned from personal collection

#kaitou saint tail #saint tail #tachikawa megumi #megumi tachikawa #scan: hotwaterandmilk #furoku #nakayoshi #90s manga #magical girl manga #shoujo manga #classic manga #vintage manga #manga scan #manga scans #mangaedit #manga edit #kawaii #mahoucore