10 Tips for Selecting the Best Manga Translation Service

Key Takeaways:

• Know what you need for your project and choose the best manga translation service.

• Localization translates the experience of your manga into a language other people can enjoy.

• CCC offers affordable manga translation and localization for your convenience.

Table of Contents:

• Know the Best for Your Project

• Tips for Selecting a Manga Translation Partner

• Manga Localization Services for You

After you’ve created and published your manga, you might ask yourself, “What’s next?” Maybe you have reached your local audience and want to expand to international circles. If so, you may have researched how to translate manga. Translating manga is not easy, especially if you want to localize it. That is why choosing a manga translation service can help you lift off the burden of translation and localization.

Cultural experts and professional translators worldwide can help you bring your manga close to home one page at a time. Still, how do you choose the best manga translation service? In doing so, how do you avoid red flags from fishy translation services?

Choosing the best manga translation service can be intimidating, especially if you don’t know where to start. If you’re curious about what to do next, this article will help you take your baby steps.

Before you let others handle your project, you need to understand what you want from it. Who is your target audience? What are you trying to achieve? Does your vision suit your project? Will it help you expand to a wider audience? Asking yourself these questions will help you envision your project from a fresher perspective. Knowing your audience will also help you recognize what language to use to reach them.

After identifying your project’s needs, it’s time to choose a manga localization service that will suit your project. Remember, localization and translation go hand in hand in manga projects. Bridging the gap between you and your audience is the first step in achieving what you have envisioned for your manga project.

Bridging that cultural gap can be challenging if you do it alone. Oftentimes, inaccurate translations are offensive and culturally insensitive. This is where subject matter experts and professional translators come to the rescue. There is assurance in letting professionals handle your work. They can help in translating field-specific jargon. In your case, having a native-level understanding of your culture can help them translate it into another language.

With localization, you may want your translators to have native or near-native speakers to ensure accurate translation. Native speakers have an innate understanding of the cultural nuances of their language. Look for translators who also have an adequate knowledge of culturally sensitive languages. Wishy-washy translations may cause offensive mistakes that can cause you backlash from your future fanbase.

It is ideal if the same company handles both translation and typesetting. If translators work closely with the creative team, they can adjust the length of the sentences without visible obstructions. For SFX localization, the translated sound effects should maintain the impact of the original while adapting to the target’s phonetic nuances. You can specify how much of your work you want to be localized. You can retain the SFX with the translation (with the same typography) next to it to preserve its aesthetics.

With the help of AI, translation has become easier for translators nowadays. Although human and machine translation can be done separately, a new trend has emerged recently. Machine translation post-editing (MTPE) employs both versions, wherein human translators verify machine translation. 

If you think MTPE is costlier, don’t worry! It is a much more cost-effective and speedier translation that has undergone human verification and quality assurance. If your work has set tight deadlines, MTPE will surely meet them flawlessly. 

A telltale sign of a company with good communication and workflow is its query response time. Are their responses timely and accurate? Are they helpful and approachable? How they handle your concerns as a prospect will help you gauge how they respond to you as a customer.

Remember to keep a communication trail with them. This will help you respond to their questions and give them feedback. Also, observe their available hours. Knowing what hours they are available to chat and discuss your project if changes should be made.

Letting professional translators handle your work is entirely different from trusting them with your work. Nowadays, plagiarism and a myriad of scams plague the internet. Phishers and scammers usually offer services for extremely low prices or ask for payment upfront before doing the services. Regardless, your intellectual property may be at risk, so remember to check reviews about their services. How their previous clients speak of them often reflects their willingness to work with you in the future.

Remember to request samples from your prospective translation services. If you have in-house native speakers on your team, have them evaluate the translation. It doesn’t matter if your in-house crew aren’t professional translators. Let them read the translations and ask if they would sound natural in their language.

Pro tip: Pay for the sample translations! Professional translators typically do not provide them for free.

Before looking for manga translation services, plan your budget and the expected timeframe for finishing your translations. You can ask them what services they offer and how quickly they can accomplish certain tasks. Afterward, ask for the rate of the services you want to avail of! Don’t worry, affordable manga translation and localization services are not hard to come by. 

Remember, some manga translation services may ask for a downpayment but never the whole payment upfront. This ensures that neither parties pull a fast one on the other. Plan a payment schedule and regularly communicate with your prospective service to reach a common ground with the prices.

Pro-Tip: Watch out for companies offering extremely low service prices. In most cases, your work will be assigned to less experienced translators who will butcher the translations.

Improvement will be yours and your partner’s best friend here, so consider companies where you can foster long-term collaborations. Consistent partnerships with the same manga localization service can help them learn your quirks and specific requirements. Sustaining a feedback loop between both parties can further improve the work’s quality.

Pro-Tip: Look for a manga translation service that recognizes your collaboration as a partnership. Volleying ideas and suggestions can help you improve your craft and their service.

Hold on! The list will not be complete without the foremost tip we give our clients: verify legal and confidentiality agreements. Signing non-disclosure agreements is not only for formality. Protecting your creative work should be your utmost priority. This ensures that your piece will not be claimed by anyone else or be sold for profit under their names. 

Additionally, translation services are transparent about their data management and protection certifications. Look for these on their website, particularly ISO 9001, 17100, or 27001. For example, CCC was awarded ISO 27001 which covers six security areas to ensure your data is safe.

Pro-Tip: Remember to ask relevant questions about the safety of your files in their system. If they do not give you clear or reassuring answers, consider that a red flag.

And it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3! The goal of manga localization services isn’t about romanticizing your culture to be palatable to the international audience. We at CCC aim to make your work enjoyable to your audience. Of course, we also strive to translate the experience in ways they can understand without altering much of your work. Choosing the best manga translation service is all it would take to produce a flawless translated work for your audience.

Unsure where to start? CCC has got you covered! Send us a message and we will help you as best we can.