Your Opinions of the Importance of SFX Lettering

[HiroPon]

Thank you all for your input! It is best to follow the guidelines to promote uniformity among all titles but occasionally,the SFX rules need to be bent to provide the audience with a superior reading experience. For instance, from past encounters, taping noises of the computer keyboard "カチ" had be REPLACED with "click" because "カチ" was repeated so many times that it left no room for the addition of an English translation. Consequently, in this case, "カチ” had to be erased. This can also be applied to scenes where panting noises cover the entire page.

[2old4yaoi]

@Hiropon

Of course - I'm sure since we are dealing w/ yaoi titles - it is not unsual to come across that

However, I am also wondering if when DMG comes up w/ the guideline, you folks might be thinking more about the capabilities of the digital reading experience where it is easy to zoom in to look at that tiny, spidery SFXs. If the digital DMG title is ever selected to be printed in hard paper copies, would it warrant more clean up of some cluttered SFXs for better reading experience?! I am just wondering because as I've seen from the more recent book releases, the DMP printed books obviously follow slightly different guidelines when it comes to SFXs.

Personally when I read mangas on my Kindle Fire or PC, I prefer to read one full page at once as opposed to wanting to break up the panels for zooming in. I suppose book reading habit is just hard to break

[HiroPon]

Thanks for your input, 2old4yaoi. I think it's good to clean out the clutter, whether if it's a digital or print title. I don't see the necessity of having "pant" x 15. I'm pretty sure the audience will get the idea with half that amount. This can be applied for other circumstances of repetition. What also comes to play is the original author's style and the publication year (trends in page format do change with time).
Keeping the integrity of the original version and making certain adjustments to better fit current situations is always a tricky task. In the end, it comes down to the group's decision, which I think is a good thing since it gives each localized title it's own unique character.

[2old4yaoi]

Thanks Hiropon, folks from DMP & DMG for all your valuable inputs. It has indeed interesting to see how different DMG groups treat SFXs in the DMG titles I've read so far. There are definitely some very gifted type-setters among the DMG groups. Best of luck w/ the localization works!

[HiroPon]

Your welcome and keep up the awesome work DMG'ers! You guys are the ones that make it happen!

[Cavechan]

It's pretty interesting that SFX have been dealt with in many different ways. My personal favorite is what we do here at DMG: putting the translated sfx next to the original, or editing out the original only if necessary. I try to keep the SFX as close to the original as possible which means sometimes being creative in Photoshop.

It is difficult sometimes finding the right font for a sfx though, but there are actually people out there who will hand-draw the translated SFX. (I think Claymore is one such example.) That's probably best for when all original sfx are taken out though.

I hate messing too much with the original sfx, so I avoid it as much as possible and fit the translation into some empty white space.

The sfx, in my opinion, are a very important part of the artwork in each page and should be left as-is whenever possible. Just look at the sfx of a manga like Air Gear.