Question About Possible Error in Official Vol. 6 Translation

[mindwarp.livejournal.com]

So, I just received my copy of the official American English version of volume 6 in the mail today (thanks, USPS, it was a day earlier than expected!). I took a quick peek at it, and noticed something odd in the translation for "A Treasure Chest Full of Countries" (as "It's a Treasure Box of Countries" was translated). Isn't Kugelmugel officially male, as per Himaruya? I remember an aside from him confirming that Wy's the only female micronation, and I double checked the wiki as well (only Lichtenstein thinks that he's female). If so, someone forgot to tell Tokyopop/RightStuf that, since Austria called him a girl, and the other micronations use "her" as well. Should feedback be sent to RightStuf (via the book's product page) or Tokyopop?

Comments

[island-of-myst.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's a mistranslation. Gender pronouns in Japanese can be avoided, so I'm guessing the translators took one look at Kugel and guessed "girl". I think we should definitely try sending feedback to the companies. I think Tokyopop might be the better choice, since I think Rightstuf is only the distributor.

[mindwarp.livejournal.com]

I went ahead and hunted down where Hima-papa posted that Kugelmugel's a boy (it was a sketch of him), and forwarded the info to both companies to be on the safe side (since Rightstuf is credited as a partner as well, so I'm not sure how that's working beyond Tokyopop translating it - Rightstuf might be the ones to correct it in later print runs). Thanks!

[emsiecat.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you gave them feedback, that's definitely something that needs addressing in my opinion. Fair enough gender pronouns in Japanese can be avoided, hence the translator may not have had anything to work with. However the people working on this could have at least done a quick Google search to make sure their assumptions were correct. It's been clearly stated by Hima (and on various other Hetalia sources) that Kugelmugel's male. When things like that happen it tends to make the company appear a bit lazy as it's something that could have so easily been double checked rather than just the; 'huh looks like a girl, that'll do' that may have happened. (Granted it might have been a genuine printing error... but for it to have been done on multiple pages by multiple characters seems odd to me).

[jammerlea]

My roommate just noticed this today too! It really seems like they didn't do their research, since I'm pretty sure everyone who's familiar with Kugelmugel in the fandom knows he's a boy. I know the original comic didn't have any gender pronouns for Kugelmugel, and the fan translators managed to work with out using any as well. Too bad Tokyopop didn't at least do that.

I've found a few other errors or things that they gave up on up in their translations. I'm not terribly happy with them though that may also be bias that I wish they hadn't kept the publishing rights to Hetalia.

[jammerlea]

Whoops, my roommate noticed it because of this post. I was half asleep when she told me, lol.