Volume 1 - Chapters 1 and 2
When in the Overview I gave you all a general idea of how different the 2 versions are, now i'll be giving you a more detailed look at some of the differences. I will not be comparing the whole volume, just some parts where I saw noticeable differences. (There's some pages in both versions that are just about identical anyways, so there's really no need to talk about them.) However, if there is a particular page you would like me to compare from this volume that I don't have posted here, drop me a line at the forum. I'll tell you what it says in the Viz and/or Chuang Yi version. Also, instead of typing out the dialogue, I just scanned the pages instead, at least this way you can all see the difference yourselves (with a comment by me of course, so you can read my thoughts on it). Please also note that I know these scans are bad, I did not want to break the spine of my books just so you can have a good look. I almost didn't scan them BECAUSE I didn't want to risk breaking the spine (especially the Chuang Yi version in particular).
Also, I told one of my friends, Yumeka of AnimeYume.com, about my comparisons here. She has been studying Japanese and she offered translate the original Japanese version for some pages, to see which version was more accurate. So a special thanks goes out to her for taking the extra time to do so (as well as hosting these scans on her website for the time being). I will tell you all what she told me in my commentary for these few pages. I was curious myself to know myself on which version was right, because there was a few lines in the Viz version that matched the subtitles from the anime (or came really close) yet in the Chuang Yi these lines where totally different. Which as a result, made me wonder if Chuang Yi was editing the dialogue. According to Yumeka's translation, apparently both companies translated it right (from the few pages she saw), except Chuang Yi polished their version a bit. What I mean by "polished" is that when Viz gave us a straight translation, Chuang Yi cleaned up or edited the dialogue so it would sound much better when you read it. I'll get into detail about this later. Now with that said, lets begin shall we? (Images on the left side are Viz, images on the right are Chuang Yi.)
- Ed - "Man...when it comes to deluxe third-rate alchemists you really take the cake!"
- Cornello - "You dare mock me?!"
- Ed - "Oh hell yeah!"
BWAHAHAHAHA! "Oh hell yeah" indeed! Just the difference in that bit alone and the scene becomes that much more awsome! It's an even better example on why I love the Chuang Yi Version so much.
As awsome as the Chuang Yi version is here, it was another page I had asked Yumeka to check on out of curiosity. I'll just post what she told me though Yahoo IM, minus my comments to her: "On page 77 CY seems to get a bit creative with the dialogue (without changing the overall meaning too much) while Viz's translation is fairly literal. The first two panels on page 77 are a good example... Viz's translation is accurate (Ed says "third-rate) and Cornelo does call him a brat. CY's gets the same meaning across but they're obviously not going for the most accurate translations, they are being a bit more creative. Neither way is really wrong I guess, whatever you prefer."
There you have it folks, looks like both versions are right on this one. It seams my hunch about Chuang Yi and how they where editing the dialogue was indeed right. After the revelation on this particular page, it seems to be that Chuang Yi has done the same similar thing throughout their manga. I'll still take the CY version over the Viz version for this round though. Even though, the dialogue was edited, I think its much better than the Viz version. Plus, this also shows just how much more effort Chuang Yi put into their version.
Seeing how these pages very different, I had Yumeka check on this one as well. There was another interesting revelation here too, apparently both companies decided to wing it on this one and do their own thing. Heres what it said in the Japanese version for the first two panels on page 99 (the page on the left side).
Sure is different from what both companies gave us. I'll let you folks be the judge here...
Don't go away now, the 2nd half (which is Chapters 3 and 4) is coming right at ya!
