Question

Mar 23, 2022 1:29 PM

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Mar 2022

Hello everyone

Why wasn't Kochikame translated into English? And now that I ask this, why are many other manga that are rather notorious not translated into English as well?

Jul 13, 2022 8:43 PM

curvedtree

Offline

Feb 2014

2019

Why is a manga translated:

1. Popularity. "What makes a manga popular?" Go figure, some stuff are amazing and cancelled, some bad stuff keep on going for years, sometimes because fans want more, others because publishers annoy the mangaka to make more stuff, alternatively the story was already supposed to be long;

2. A dedicated team. "How does it work?" A person or a group of people find a manga they enjoy, it doesn't matter who is going to read it, they are translating that work because they like it so much they want other people to read it.

3. Fans of a genre/author/writer/artist/etc. "How so?" pretty much the same thing as before, but their interest is more broad.

Jul 16, 2022 11:00 PM

Fang_Tooth

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Dec 2020

740

i mean honestly the popularity and chance of success for kochikame manga outside of japan seems irredeemably low, and the amount of volumes/chapters would make it a pain to translate for only a potential few people to read it for little to no profit, it makes sense

as for other manga it probably depends, most of the longest running series or most notorious in japan are completely unheard of even with some of the most extreme otaku who wouldn't want to sit through and read/watch them, so a scanlator doing the same (which would take much longer than just simply reading the manga they'd have to be mostly fluent in both Japanese and another language on top of editing) the chance of just isn't very high.

I like Közi a healthy amount.
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Jul 19, 12:10 PM

Gegenschein

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Dec 2013

Yeah, the amount of chapters is probably the main reason stuff like this or Sazae-san doesn't get translated. For official translations, the huge amount of work makes it unprofitable, and if a fan-translation group did translate 5 chapters for fun they may get annoying comments for years why they didn't translate all of it.

Another reason I can think of the the broad genre. This has no cliffhangers or ongoing plot, its episodic comfort food. What keeps the readers hooked is reading 1 chapter each week and getting into a nice cozy habit with it. Translators probably wouldn't/couldn't stick to a regular release schedule, so you loose that aspect of it.

Third is how well this humor would even translate. I'm not saying this is incomprehensibly complex (lot's of slap stick and Police Academy type humor of people being idiots), but think how this manga was conceived: Not only was it made for people in Japan, but Japanese people that lived 50 years ago. What poor translator wants to translate (and maybe explain) people getting into fights over which Japanese 70s idol/tv show/race horse is the best, only to kill the joke in the process.

See All Discussions

» How it's ended ? Abstudios07 - Jan 1, 2021	1	by APEXPRED4T0R »» May 31, 2023 11:20 PM
» Anybody want to start a Kochikame scanlation team? vigorousjammer - May 17, 2014	5	by ProGoddess »» Sep 18, 2022 1:50 AM
» When will Kochikame end and how will it end ? johnknight648 - Sep 13, 2014	9	by tsubasalover »» Sep 18, 2021 12:22 AM
» Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo Chapter 1970 (FINAL) Discussion johnknight648 - Sep 16, 2016	4	by johnknight648 »» Nov 13, 2016 7:43 AM
» Mangaka tributes from kochikame Jump johnknight648 - Sep 7, 2016	0	by johnknight648 »» Sep 7, 2016 9:01 PM

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More topics from this board

» How it's ended ?

» Anybody want to start a Kochikame scanlation team?

» When will Kochikame end and how will it end ?

» Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo Chapter 1970 (FINAL) Discussion

» Mangaka tributes from kochikame Jump

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