Dark Horse Releases

Man, I just read the thread shortly after purchasing the whole series, as i was bad about grabbing the Japanese releases before. You guys are a little insane :)

I remember initially reading these as they came out in YA, and reading them now professionally translated, it's like reading them for the first time again.

3 weeks until 25!

Aazealh said:
There's no known official translation. "Ivalera" is the way it's spelt in the PS2 game's handbook, and while that's not a very reliable source, I can understand why DH would go for it. I've actually been spelling it like that myself for the same reason. As for "elverella", I've never seen that ridiculous spelling before but it's incorrect anyway.

Given the layout of the katakana and how it could potentially be pronounced/spelled in English, I'm glad they chose the one they did.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Cronus said:
Man, I just read the thread shortly after purchasing the whole series, as i was bad about grabbing the Japanese releases before. You guys are a little insane :)

Insane!? INSANE!? I'M NOT INSANE THEY HAVE BOXES I TELLS YA! BOXES!!! :chomp:

Yeah, we may have been lacking perspective. I still haven't purchased the Dark Horse volumes, as I have the originals, but I'm really looking forward to it now so I can read professionally translated Berserk off my shelf, probably when they catch up is when I'll splurge on the whole set at the latest, which won't be long now. It's not that I didn't give it a chance though, bought the first three and was pretty disappointed with their handling, that and the other problems that have come and gone have made me wary still and patient for second printings. I'm still kind of waiting to see if there's going to be any news on a reprinting or perhaps larger compilations. Coincidentally, both things are happening with Vagabond which it really doesn't need, whereas I'd love to see it for Berserk.

Cronus said:
I remember initially reading these as they came out in YA, and reading them now professionally translated, it's like reading them for the first time again.

I'm hoping it'll be the same for me, experience it like never before.
 

Graywords

Bettychu, I choose YOU!
Bit of a late reply here, sorry. I've been away for a while :)

The last Dark Horse volume of Berserk I bought was 11 or 12, until I ran out of funds... now I'm in Japan with very little access to the American release. Reading this thread is a great source of entertainment for me with some of the amusing choices they've made, especially the horrible taglines/summaries, as usual. :ganishka:

Walter said:
How'd they get "War Cry of the Wind" from Toki no Kaze? :schierke: Gross.
That puzzled me too, so I double-checked the title of the Japanese episode, to see if it really was a mistake.

鬨の風 - Toki no Kaze

This particular kanji for "toki" does indeed mean "war cry," so I guess they did get it right, and we got mixed up somehow or other. Ah, well... it happens. :serpico:
 
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avidwriter

Guest
I finally got 25 yesterday. Damn DeepDiscount for shipping so damn late. I think I might have asked this before but I don't really recall ( I havn't re-read Berserk is about 6+ months.) there being this much cursing. I saw 'shit' and 'dumbass' quite often in this one and I don't recall seeing either if rarely at all. Is it just how it is or is Darkhorse getting more open-ended with japanese translation?
 

Aazealh

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avidwriter said:
I think I might have asked this before but I don't really recall ( I havn't re-read Berserk is about 6+ months.) there being this much cursing. I saw 'shit' and 'dumbass' quite often in this one and I don't recall seeing either if rarely at all. Is it just how it is or is Darkhorse getting more open-ended with japanese translation?

You can chalk it up to artistic freedom. Typically, expletives in Japanese can be translated more or less rudely depending on who's doing the job.
 
Aazealh said:
You can chalk it up to artistic freedom. Typically, expletives in Japanese can be translated more or less rudely depending on who's doing the job.
Right, I always had a difficult time understanding the bad words in Japanese. My sensei told me (if I remember correctly), that there aren't "technically" any curse words in the language, just the same words on a scale of formality and rudeness.
So, whether DH's translation is right or wrong, it's all relative.
 
Volume 26 is out and about. It feels weird having the whole thing go by so quick when opposed to reading scans on the PC. Overall a nice job done by Darkhorse.

Maybe three translations over that red flagged my attention a little only because they are different than what I have gone off of before with unofficial translations. These may even be more accurate, I cannot claim to know.

Pg 29
Guts: Oh well, first hundred-man...
...No...
hundred beast kill fest I've had in a while.

Pg 103
Skull Knight: The Sword of Actuation

I can't remember what the other one was.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Jaze1618 said:
Pg 29
Guts: Oh well, first hundred-man...
...No...
hundred beast kill fest I've had in a while.

I don't see what's wrong with that one. Here's what puella had translated at the time: "It's been a long time since that hundred-man battle. Now, let's start this hundred-beast battle..."

Jaze1618 said:
Pg 103
Skull Knight: The Sword of Actuation

For what it's worth, I think it's a clever way to put it, seeing how the name isn't really translatable. I'd still settle on the simple "beherit sword" myself, though.
 
I was looking forward to seeing how they translated Skull Knights description of Slan:
'Whore Princess of the Uterine Sea' is what they came up with.
 

Walter

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Grovel said:
I was looking forward to seeing how they translated Skull Knights description of Slan:
'Whore Princess of the Uterine Sea' is what they came up with.
That's about as good as anyone could have done. But I believe she's specifically referred to as a high-class prostitute, Courtesan, not a lowly whore.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Grovel said:
I was looking forward to seeing how they translated Skull Knights description of Slan:
'Whore Princess of the Uterine Sea' is what they came up with.

Another untranslatable line. Still, it's disappointing they didn't realize that "娼姫" is just an old polite word for prostitute (something akin to "courtesan" I guess) and went for a literal, word-by-word translation instead.
 
Aazealh said:
I don't see what's wrong with that one. Here's what puella had translated at the time: "It's been a long time since that hundred-man battle. Now, let's start this hundred-beast battle..."

I think it was the phrase "kill fest" that I don't care for if I analyze the root of my distaste. It's heartening to hear however that the context stays true to the original translation. I didn't start reading Sk.net raws and translations until vol 27 so I was probably going off of HAWKS scans for these episodes.
 

Aazealh

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Jaze1618 said:
I think it was the phrase "kill fest" that I don't care for if I analyze the root of my distaste.

Ah, yeah I see. It's true it's not the most elegant wording there is.
 
Aazealh said:
Another untranslatable line. Still, it's disappointing they didn't realize that "娼姫" is just an old polite word for prostitute (something akin to "courtesan" I guess) and went for a literal, word-by-word translation instead.

Hmm. Or maybe they did and they just wanted Skull Knight to sound more insulting.

But "courtesan" is kinda interesting, a woman/mistress who cohabits with an important man: what does Skull Knight mean by that? Does Slan cohabit with the other God Hand members or could it be a reference to Slan's human background?
 

Aazealh

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A.C said:
Hmm. Or maybe they did and they just wanted Skull Knight to sound more insulting.

No. It's just a word-by-word translation that makes little sense.

A.C said:
But "courtesan" is kinda interesting, a woman/mistress who cohabits with an important man: what does Skull Knight mean by that?

Don't stick blindly to the first definition you read in a dictionary. In old times a courtesan was basically a high class prostitute. SK uses a specific word because he's a thousand year old emperor and this fact is shown in his manner of speech. But for all intents and purposes he's just insulting her.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
I just opened up my copy of Dark Horse's release of Vol. 26 and noticed something right away. They're calling the Berserk's Armor the "Berserker Armor."
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah Im not sure how I feel about that, because honestly Berserk's Armor doesn't sound any more natural...
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Slan remarks that "Alas, troll entrails make for a revolting ethereal figure," but I don't think this is accurate. It looks like they're using "astral" and "ethereal" interchangeably, so Slan referring to her temporary form made from troll intestines as an ethereal body doesn't seem right. I checked the translation available here, which reads, "These disgusting intestines of trolls are the worst body for me," and I assume this is closer to the original meaning. Is there a specific term for these temporary bodies the God Hand occasionally use?
 

Aazealh

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Rhombaad said:
I just opened up my copy of Dark Horse's release of Vol. 26 and noticed something right away. They're calling the Berserk's Armor the "Berserker Armor."

Well it's not incorrect. It can be translated in a varieties of way. Don't be ashamed though, I like "Armor of the Berserk" myself as well. :guts:

Rhombaad said:
Slan remarks that "Alas, troll entrails make for a revolting ethereal figure," but I don't think this is accurate. It looks like they're using "astral" and "ethereal" interchangeably, so Slan referring to her temporary form made from troll intestines as an ethereal body doesn't seem right. I checked the translation available here, which reads, "These disgusting intestines of trolls are the worst body for me," and I assume this is closer to the original meaning. Is there a specific term for these temporary bodies the God Hand occasionally use?

There's no specific term for it. About what Slan says, it's a bit complicated. She does use "幽" in that sentence (which we usually translate as "astral", though it has several meanings), but clearly she's talking about a corporeal body, one that can be touched. The key fact here is that in the context, "astral" and "ethereal" aren't synonyms. The word in general doesn't necessarily imply incorporeality. The trolls are astral creatures (and thus the body Slan made for herself is also astral in nature), like the Kelpie or elves, but for a variety of reasons they can physically come into contact with the material world.

So using the word "ethereal" was an error, but it should be noted that she does differentiate it from, say, a normal human body.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Aazealh said:
Don't be ashamed though, I like "Armor of the Berserk" myself as well. :guts:

Haha, once again you see all. :idea:

Aazealh said:
There's no specific term for it. About what Slan says, it's a bit complicated. She does use "幽" in that sentence (which we usually translate as "astral", though it has several meanings), but clearly she's talking about a corporeal body, one that can be touched. The key fact here is that in the context, "astral" and "ethereal" aren't synonyms. The word in general doesn't necessarily imply incorporeality. The trolls are astral creatures (and thus the body Slan made for herself is also astral in nature), like the Kelpie or elves, but for a variety of reasons they can physically come into contact with the material world.

So using the word "ethereal" was an error, but it should be noted that she does differentiate it from, say, a normal human body.

Okay, that makes sense. I've finished Vol. 26 and they continue to use "ethereal" instead of "astral" for whatever reason. Also, they replaced "causality" with "karma" in Flora and Skull Knight's conversation about causality being a spiral, which really irked me.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I just sent Miura his Christmas present, ordering $300 worth of Dark Horse Berserk to complement my Japanese volumes. Now that I've taken the plunge, I'm sure they'll do the re-release of the series I've been hoping for and fearing. :ganishka:
 
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avidwriter

Guest
Ever since I started buying the Dark Horse releases I have been waiting for him to get into the armor. :chomp:

Its certainly not all down hill from here I mean :ganishka: is still on the horizon and :daiba: is fun too.

Sucks that once we catch up I assume next year we'll have to wait so very long for the next volume.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
If you buy the Japanese volumes as they come out, you'll have it that much quicker. You can always buy the Dark Horse volumes when they come out later, too. :serpico:
 
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