Ar Tonelico 2 Manga
Project team:
Raws: Mizutama
Translation: Rose_Mystica, Eleinia
Hymmnos Translation: Deciare, L-Voss, Aquagon
Editing: Cio
Read at Manga Fox
Ar Tonelico: Arpeggio Vol. 1
I chose the manga to be the first major translation project for the site because of its difficulty to find, and the fact that though it is a sidestory, it helps to flesh out the world of Ar Tonelico even more for the readers. While the story is short and the characters aren't nearly as developed as they are in the actual game, its interesting to see how some characters parallel/contrast their game counterparts. My overal impression of the manga was that the story progression was a bit rushed (due to having to constrict such a story into a short amount of pages), but there's definitely material there if Tsuchiya and others wish to revisit Espada and Co. down the road.
The world setting is the same, however, the characters are originals, and the game characters make brief cameos, usually in the background or for short storyline purposes. Nice art, and I was able to get a hold of some quality scans that were already levelled, which makes the typesetting/editing phase ten times easier.
The translation phase has gone smoothly thus far, work comes in blocks, when I get drained from translating after work, I take a day or two off and work on content or other areas of the site. My Japanese is not fluent, but I have been studying it for almost 4 years now. Compound kanji still hound me, but I have an array of resources that have proven invaluable during the translation work.
Many of you who are more fluent in the language than I will probably notice some difference between the original dialouge and what is on the translated text. This is for a variety of reasons, namely because sometimes a literal translation comes across as too stunted, and doesn't flow well unless different words/phrasing is used. Another hurdle is the size of the text bubbles- as I am not a seasoned scanlator, I wouldn't be able to alter the bubbles too much without messing up the pictures. And boy there's a lot of them.
Sound effects and little footnotes will remain untranslated for now, my main goal is to make this story readable for the fans while being able to put it out in a timely manner. I may decide to tackle the SFX once work on the site peters out a bit, when I have more time, and when I become more adept with my paint.net skills. Editing the text for SFX is a very time consuming process, even for experienced typesetters. I have a decade of backgorund in typesetting for actual printing companies, however it was done at a time when photoshop and the like were in the primitive stages. For what is translated, expect a quality product- text will be clear, easy to read, centered, all of the fundamentals.
It will take time, but I will be seeing this and the other projects through. Bear with me as I am a scientist by day, hardcore AT fan and family chef by night.
Translation Phase Notes
Chances are if you're reading this, you're aware that the translation effort
for Volume 1 has been completed. The translation started off slow, with me
shaking the rust off my Japanese, but quickly gained steam as it started coming
back to me.
As I mentioned before, I do not like to translate word for word, because some
things simply do not flow well if its a literal translation. Thusly, if you
compare my translation with original scans, you'll see some rewording, and usage
of similar words or phrases.
I kept the character personalities in mind when translating dialouge- you'll see
that Adagio's lines are more informal than Sonnet, who is quite meek and formal
by comparison. Espada falls in the middle, neither formal nor overly friendly,
but at times blunt. This carries over from the original scans, where I could
tell who was speaking by the word choice.
If you have a background in music, you'll notice some musical terms here and
there within the Ar Tonelico universe. Arpeggio, for example, refers to broken
chords that quickly follow one another. Adagio is the conductor's term for
a slow, easy pace- fitting given the personality of the character. Andante, on
the other hand, refers to a more moderate pace, which is similar to how Adagio's
sister has a more business-like demeanor. As a side note, we also have Harm/Jack
from the game, which refers to a Harmonica (his brother being Flute), and Spica,
which derives from Spiccato, where separate, distinct notes are played with a
string instrument.
Other notable terms are Espada, Spanish for sword/sabre, and Sonnet, which we all
know from poetry.
Some of the things you'll notice are the Teru language, which uses its own font
for incantations, while using alternate japanese readings for spell names. As I
could not decipher the incantations, I left those alone.
Hymnos is another tricky point- the language syntax is tricky and difficult until
you become used to it. That's because its not designed for conversation rather
than stating the speaker's emotion. The basic word order is emotional adjective,
verb, err, subject, object, and compound. I decided to leave the Hymnos font
intact (consistent with the Teru), while putting the translation in smaller size
above the Hymnos. The translated words were reordered to flow more freely. Some
words were not in the dictionary, nor could I find a Japanese equivalent (only
spell names it seems), so I left those as phonetic translations. A few I was able
to translate, however.
The amount of dialouge in this first volume wasn't overly immense in size, but
much revision and proofreading was needed to make sure everything was consistent
and in line with the actual meaning- approximations won't be so far away from the
original that you don't recognize them.
Once the typesetting phase is complete, I'll post some notes about that as well.
The scans will be released by chapter/phase in .rar files, so keep your eyes peeled
for them. Here's to hoping that you enjoy the finished product and encourage others
to do the same. Knowing there's other fans out there wanting this translated is
what keeps me going. Cheers.
Have a sample scan from the inside cover- more will be added as typesetting moves along.