Yakitate!! Japan is one of those series I read faithfully and recommend, but it doesn't really lend itself to commentary because it's pretty much just a series of sight gags. Still, this volume forcefully reminded me of how much of a pain it must be to translate all the culinary technobabble, AND adapt all the puns, instead of just sticking them in a footnote somewhere. So here's to you, Noritaka Minami and Jake Forbes... despite the latter being curiously absent from v.17's credits.
I think you're well past the point where it lost all charm. Largely by writing out the female cast. Had it written out Kawachi entirely, the series would have been much improved.
ReplyDeleteI'll agree that Kawachi has lost almost all inherent humor, but at this point he's basically just a device for people to explain all the aforementioned technobabble.
ReplyDeleteI'd certainly LIKE to see more of the actual interesting dudes like the Manager of the North Star, but the main draw for me was always seeing what random-ass thing happened next and on that level I'm enjoying it as much as ever. I read Death Note pretty much the same way, which is probably why I didn't get all butthurt about the changes in its second half.
To put this into further perspective, I made it all the way through Iron Wok Jan, and there is NOBODY interesting in that entire series. Yakitate is a goddamn Russian novel in comparison.
ReplyDeleteJan himself is a dick, which inherently makes him more interesting than cheerful idiot savants.
ReplyDeleteNot that I made it very far myself.
I think Kawachi is a pretty textbook case of how not to do a tsukkomi - if he only reacts, and never adds anything himself, he's about as funny as a bad sit-com. We have several other comedy manga coming out in English that feature clearly defined boke/tsukkomi roles; look at any tsukkomi in Gintama and see how it ought to be done. Assuming Viz has managed to hone in on how to make something so not family friendly funny. The first volume's translation seemed like a noble effort, but had no more hit its stride than the source material.
By this point in Yakitate, even the random-ass had grown so decompressed it would take an entire volume or more for the book to feebly limp to a shitty pun, and that slower pacing really killed it. The first few volumes - before the clown dude even showed up - were all the series was ever intended to run, and the pacing shows it. Ever since, you've basically seen him struggling to keep the fucker going, and having more and more trouble wringing anything worthwhile out of it.
"Assuming Viz has managed to hone in on how to make something so not family friendly funny. The first volume's translation seemed like a noble effort, but had no more hit its stride than the source material."
ReplyDeleteThe first volume had its entire material run in their Shonen Jump magazine as a preview. After that, removed from such "restrictions," the language becomes more fittingly foul than anything else I've read in their two shonen lines.
I need to catch up with Gintama and Kekkaishi, anyway. Fell out of Yakitate somewhere during the international tournament.