Translation is an art. It’s especially difficult when translating between two dissimilar languages. For native English speakers, Japanese tends to be one of the hardest languages to learn, although it doesn’t rank in all lists.
So when something is brought over from Japanese to English (and vice versa, and with any other language combination), there are always going to be decisions that have to be made. In Japanese media, do you keep honorifics or not? How do you handle someone with split personalities that each use their own form of “I”? Are characters eating onigiri or rice balls? All decisions that have to be made — sometimes by a translator, sometimes it’s passed on to an adapter and/or editor, and sometimes the in-house rules made by the bosses make the decision. For anime, manga, and light novels, most staff try their best to put out a product that balances general audiences with the somewhat-otaku nature of the genres. It’s the old translation vs. localization debate.
But Seven Seas is now responding to accusations they’ve gone beyond a normal translation vs. localization debate and into censorship.
Chances are when you think of censoring, you think of big black bars or bleeps in audio. Video game gals are also commonly given more clothes outside of Japan. And hey, giant humanoid monsters have to wear tights in Malaysia.
It’s not the first time I’ve discussed censorship in this column though. In each instance, there is a heated debate between avoiding controversy with the public, following terms and conditions for various platforms/stores, and freedom of expression. You have people on all sides, ranging from fans who want everything left 100% alone since it’s fiction and/or art open to interpretation to those who want to prevent untoward scenes from being promoted and/or imitated.
But basically, this topic once again arose because of Seven Seas’ release of the seventh volume of Classroom of the Elite. While the digital version became available in October, it was the print version that came out in January that sparked deeper analysis. Evidently, Seven Seas removed several sections, often just opting for a brief summary. But it’s not the only title facing scrutiny. Early volumes of Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, which began its English publication in 2019, had parts that were altered, including rewriting a groping scene as fixing a shirt.
After complaints and questions, Seven Seas confirmed Classroom of the Elite volume 7 was being updated. Later, they released a statement to Anime News Network:
So one volume of Classroom of the Elite will for sure be getting updated, although there are complaints for other volumes as well. As for Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, who knows how many will be getting the same treatment.
For digital copies, it’s usually a simple matter of submitting the revised text and then having buyers redownload the volume. A couple of people reached out asking about replacements for physical volumes, and this is what they had to say:
Considering even the most recent release is already pushing a month (Classroom of the Elite volume 7) and many places return policies are 30 days, it may be hard to try to get a replacement. While I love physical versions of media, sometimes, yeah, you get burned. So a lot of people are likely either going to have to rebuy the books or live with the first edition. It stinks but it’s a drawback of having a copy you can actually sell or easily lend out.
I don’t blame them for wanting the revised novels, as although I haven’t read either series, there are some significant changes. It’s a big difference between fixing a shirt and removing a sleeping girl’s panties.
So why did would Seven Seas and those series’ localization staff eliminate or downplay sections of their novels? While some localization is expected, these were very ham-fisted changes. When I first heard about Seven Seas redoing some books, I thought maybe Seven Seas was trying to avoid being delisted by Amazon. Some of these releases well predate the mass removal of manga and light novel titles, so that can’t be the full story.
But it’s certainly true a lot of the changes deal with creepy and/or illegal behavior. The US in particular has had societal reckonings in recent years, including the #MeToo movement. Cultural differences between Japan and the West aside, a forced sexual encounter is rape. Readers may frown upon a character who cheats, but a character who commits sexual assault is a whole other level. I could see the temptation to avoid a potential outrage of Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation being known as the light novel for sexual assault. Chinese video site Bilibili is facing criticisms and boycotts for airing the anime adaptation. In a series of recent tweets, the author of the novels explains the protagonist will commit less offenses in the future as he matures, but he’ll always remain a pervert. Classroom of the Elite‘s recent edits, though, seemed less focused on sexual content and more about bullying and otherwise compressing sections, although some complaints say entire meanings have changed.
Even if you don’t regard whole dialogues being cut in favor of a summary as censorship, there is the argument if a company is going to have to make so many changes for them to deem it “acceptable”, should they be licensing it? With Mushoku Tensei and Classroom of the Elite being popular in and out of Japan, there’s no doubt someone would have licensed them if Seven Seas hadn’t. Particularly with Mushoku Tensei, it doesn’t take long for any reader to get to parts that most people would find disturbing. But it wouldn’t be the first time they license something and then suddenly realized it was controversial.
Yes, some people will say these novels feature no less issues than [insert title here], which always happens in these arguments. And edits tend to snowball, as if you remove or change one thing, you also have to change any references to that thing, and so on. Or if you change something at this level of potential controversy, other aspects get pulled in because maybe they’re just as problematic.
Sure, the easiest thing to do would be to translate the writing as directly as possible, but it’s also true in the age of social media, it’s very easy for people (in good or bad faith) to launch a campaign against a release and/or the company backing it. While controversies often lead a title to becoming more popular (such as the Netflix movie Cuties), most licensors don’t have the power to fight back if Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or whoever drop a series from distribution for whatever reason. Places like BOOK☆WALKER proudly proclaim they’ll keep selling manga and light novels that others may turn down, but publishers need the big retailers.
Still, complaints probably could have been avoided if either Seven Seas had said somewhere along the line that they were going to make these a more general audience-appropriate title or put disclaimers beyond the normal age rating regarding the content. Of course there are always going to be those who would have refused to purchase the official English translation because of the changes, but now people are going to be suspicious if other releases have or will have gotten the same treatment. And it’s not just the more graphic content either; to think there may be whole conversations or introspectives the authors wrote and the publisher goes, “Meh, I think these paragraphs are pointless!” is upsetting. That’s more than just making cleaning up the text for readability. But saying that they had to make higher-than-normal changes for page limitations or for approval could have gone a long way.
That “higher-than-normal” line, though, is always going to be hard to determine. Unfortunately, books aren’t like movies or games where you can easily put in a second “uncensored” disk or offer an add-on patch for mature content. Very few books are successful or significant enough to get versions catered to different audiences. But even with a full slate of releases and each passing through multiple hands, with such substantial removals and tempered text, fan pushback was inevitable. Let’s hope Seven Seas lives up to its promise of better balancing the original text with making it accessible to English readers.