I know this is kinda random, but I'm struggling with how to consume the bnha manga. I only watch the anime, but wanna read the manga now. the Viz official translation is over a year behind the original, but I wanna be caught up and I also kinda can't afford all of it. I cant find free online copies of the Viz Media translation, so my only option is fan translations. In your opinion, what is the quality/differences between fan vs official translation? I'm really struggling how to approach this.
well, according to my friend @isahnas (who i’ve talked to about this often, and who does speak japanese), the translations are generally
Fallen Angels < Official < Mangastream
Fallen Angels is just bad. like, it gets across what the manga is trying to say, but they often add in messages or implications that were never there to begin with. the most famous are Bakugou calling Uraraka “Angel-Face” (based on the logic that angels, specifically cherubs, have round faces), and All Might “breaking up” with Sir Nighteye (implying romantic intentions when they didn’t exist in the original text). they’re the most unreliable of the translations.
the official translation is much better about this, but they also tend to lack some of the little details in the translation, like -chan, -kun, etc
Mangastream has the best A to A translation, by which i mean their translation usually follows what the original text indicated, while they also keep the little details that the official omits, and they follow the structure of the original text better
the unfortunate thing about this is that Mangastream doesn’t have backlogs, and Fallen Angels has all their chapters up and are the easiest to access, while the Official is behind in volumes.
HOWEVER, if you get a Shonen Jump subscription, you CAN keep up with the official translation AND keep up with the most recent chapters! and you can buy backlogs of the magazine for very cheap too ($.99), tho it only goes back so far (usually about a year).
but the official Shonen Jump subscription IS up to date with the manga, and it’s only about $25 for a year subscription ($20 during holidays/specials).
it may SEEM a week behind tho, because it comes out the same day as the official manga does in japan (which is the monday after scanlations). scanlations, like Mangastream and Fallen Angels, get the manga half a week early because scanlators illegally get the magazine early.
and if your subscription runs out, you can still read the backlogs you had during your subscription, so you don’t have to worry about going back and buying it again.
i hope that helped!!!
