If you’re a fan of the Jujutsu Kaisen manga, then you’re probably used to the tidal wave of leaks, fan translations, and spoilers that floods sites like Twitter on a weekly basis. Leaks, or the release of manga pages and content prior to when the official licensor releases it, have transformed the landscape of consuming Jujutsu Kaisen. Rather than wait for the weekly official release, the only way to avoid spoilers and enjoy the series with a fresh perspective is to consume leaks. Simultaneously, leaks go viral the moment they’re posted, creating buzz online, a profit incentive for accounts focused on posting leaks, and making it even harder to avoid spoiler lest you read leaks yourself.
Why do I mention leaks? I bring them up because I think they have fundamentally transformed the way readers of the Jujutsu Kaisen manga engage with translation and the content of chapters. The race to post leaks the quickest amongst many leaks accounts tends to lead to manga pages being posted in their raw Japanese with hurried translations attached as text to a tweet or as a caption to the image. The translation process, rather than happening behind the closed doors of a corporation, is happening in a relatively public setting, as multiple fan translators both collaborate and compete in providing an accurate translation to fans. It goes viral, trends, and benefits from the algorithms of social media networks. These translators build up a reputation; those who produce translations fast and who don’t have their work challenged (or those who successfully challenge the translations of others) become mainstays in the community and become the accounts people flock to when the next week’s leaks arrive. To understand how those reputations line up against the reputation of the official translation, we first need to talk about the official translators.
John Werry Kaisen
It’s quite rare to see so many people know the name of an official manga translator, let alone actively compare their translations to those of fans and unofficial translators. John Werry has been the official Viz translator for the Jujutsu Kaisen manga since chapter 133 after the previously translator, Stefan Koza, was sentenced on 8 felony counts of possession of child p*rnography. Nowadays, you would think Werry had done something criminal from how often fans complain about him. Werry has also translated for series like DAN DA DAN and was the Viz translator for Demon Slayer.
Werry’s translations of some aspects of Jujutsu Kaisen are frequently criticized precisely because they contradict the translations coming from unofficial communities such as TCB Scans, from leaks accounts such as @Go_Jover, and from prominent translators (who have even done official translation) such as @lightningclare. Specifically, his translation of techniques, how techniques function, more archaic aspects of Jujutsu Kaisen mechanics such as barriers, and key moments of combat draw the most scrutiny. After all, it’s not that important if a throwaway background line is translated one way in the unofficial text and another way in the official. But when two translations offer entirely different understandings of how a character like Yuta or Sukuna’s abilities work, it alters the understanding of the series and alters each individual fight quite a bit. While I (and most people, be honest with yourselves) don’t speak enough Japanese to comment on the objective correctness of these translations, I will say that the general perception of more vocal Jujutsu Kaisen fans is that the unofficial translations are more consistent and have a more preferable translation. This opinion seemingly even includes Yuji’s English voice actor, who threw shade at Werry on Twitter.
Some notable examples of clashes between unofficial and official translations include:
Examples of contradictions from the manga (with spoilers)
- “No” instead of the iconic “Nah, I’d win”
- Malevolent Shrine adapting to Gojo’s abilities (official) vs Mahoraga adapting to them (unofficial)
- The official translation implying that Yuta was capable of copying Malevolent Shrine (Sukuna’s domain expansion) rather than just the slashing technique called Shrine. This stems from a translation difference in chapter 217 where Sukuna’s technique is called “Shrine” according to unofficial translations
- Referring to Yorozu as “he” in the official translation, though this was later fixed
- The official translation saying that both Gojo and Geto can use Curse Manipulation, rather than just Geo
- The official translation stating that Gojo can’t use Black Flash because of the Six Eyes technique
- Various callbacks and references that are lost in the official translation but often preserved in unofficial ones (such as the “Oppappi” callback upon Nobara’s return)
Like mentioned previously, these conversations used to be limited to places like the anime debate community and a small but vocal minority of people on social networks, as fans argued over the veracity of different translations when arguing why a certain character was stronger than another (using statements from authors about those characters’ speed, power, and abilities). Now, there are hundreds of thousands of members of subreddits dedicated to Jujutsu Kaisen leaks. Even more surprising is that, according to web analytics platform Similarweb, leaks account @Go_Jover is the 5th most popular Twitter account by traffic share, ranking above accounts such as Andrew Tate and American president Joe Biden.
Is This a Big Deal?
I’d say so. For the average Jujutsu Kaisen manga reader, some of the stylistic / tone differences in the unofficial vs official translations of the manga may make one version more preferable in a given chapter but won’t make one absolutely superior to the other. Inconsistencies in the official translation, on the other hand, are a bit bigger an issue. Unlike a leaks post, where a rough translation can be continuously corrected, socialized, and updated, words are locked in once they hit a printer. In other words, official translators really only get one shot to get it “right” and fewer chances to correct themselves later. And, quite simply, fans want to read the most correct version they can when they care about a series, especially one with as many complex powers and components as Jujutsu Kaisen.
What this phenomenon points to more generally is that people are beginning to care more about the quality of translations when something they see as a viable alternative exists. And because leaks are almost always going to come first (unless official translations start releasing digital versions before the physical magazines, which is where leakers get their copies) this is a problem that manga publishers are going to have to keep dealing with. One solution is for publishers to maintain a more semi-official relationship with unofficial translators and even make use of them as staff. Another, more likely solution is to simply invest more resources into the translation and localization process so that more eyes are on it and more people capable of taking a fan’s perspective can comment on a translation before it goes out into the world. Right now, the issue that the Jujutsu Kaisen manga has is one of perception. Because there exists a broad perception that unofficial translations via leaks are more accurate and more consistent than the official one, those who take in that perception feel as though they have to read leaks to properly enjoy the manga that they love. Tie that in with the fact that many of those same people and more believe that they only way to avoid spoilers from leaks is to consume the leaks, and you get an ever growing population of people beginning to show preference to the unofficial.
©Gege Akutami/Shueisha/JUJUTSU KAISEN Project
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