Today, I want to try something out with anyone who reads this post and has read the official English-translated Genshiken manga from Del Rey. It’s a simple question whose answer from a great many I would like to see.
What do you think of the way Ogiue talks in the English version of the manga?
I don’t want to reveal the entirety of my intentions quite yet (though they may be somewhat obvious), but do know that I plan on doing a follow-up post once I have gathered responses.
OGIUE MANIAX 
It’s been a while since I read through the manga but just flicking through a few volumes I don’t think there’s anything that stand outs about the way she speaks. It never seems too polite or too brash and she always seems to be aware of the tone of a situation. I guess without knowing precisely what you’re looking for it’s hard not to speak in generics.
And now having looked through a few volumes I have the burning desire to fritter away the rest of my Saturday re-reading Genshiken…
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When reading, I didn’t notice anything unusual or distinctive about Ogiue’s dialogue in particular. Obviously, what she says is very telling, and gives readers lots of insight into her character. But as for how she says things, I think there is some meaning to her character that got lost in translation because there is no way to portray her dialect. I have not read fanscans or the Japanese version, so I don’t know very much about Ogiue’s dialect other than that she has one… and randomly switches to it when she gets excited or nervous. It would have been nice to have a few more translation notes about that.
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To me, Ogiue always sounded angry when she spoke. Her statements usually were argumentative or absolute when she was introduced to the Genshiken.
When Ogiue would try getting Sasahara’s attention, or any time attention was on herself, she would verbally downplay the situation using “Just because..” or “I just…” or “This is just for today.” (vol 9 graduation haircut)
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Now I’m curious :3
I’ve only read it on onemanga, and it’s the first manga I’ve read where I didn’t feel the language barrier at all. When I think back on it, I actually have to think if it was in English or JP, which is a great thing.
I’ll eagerly await the punch line
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I can’t speak for accuracy, but I’ll say that it was damn convincing. If a translation is written well enough, I can often sort of ‘hear’ the Japanese voices in my head, and this was one such case.
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I’d agree with those who say it’s difficult to respond without knowing your nefarious intentions, but I suppose my initial reaction is that I’m satisfied with Ogiue’s dialogue. Where she’d be speaking in her hometown dialect, the translator makes note of it rather than attempting to substitute some awkward English dialect, and I appreciate that. I mean, I have some qualms about how the Del Rey translation is done at some points, but none of them really involve Ogiue. All in all, in terms of comic dialogue generally, it feels pretty natural. I say this granting that I have not read the original, and that I couldn’t do so any faster than a slow crawl, as I’d be buried in a kanji dictionary the whole time.
@Yuji: So far as I can tell, the version on One Manga is almost entirely ripped from the Del Rey translation. I pull graphics for blog posts from there as I don’t have easy access to a decent scanner.
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I don’t know if it counts, but I noticed that when the Americans spoke, their speech balloons were Horizontal while the Japanese’s were Vertical. Check the 8th & 9th volumes. It’s pretty noticeable once you see it.
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