I just finished watching the latest anime from the Shakugan no Shana franchise, specifically the OAV called Shakugan no Shana Special: Love and Onsen Off-Campus Study Session! You can read my review from the link.

As you may know, the Shakugan no Shana series is based on a series of light novels by Yashichirou Takahashi-sensei. The original TV series caught my interest enough to make me want to read the novels at some point. After watching the OAV, I was reminded of this. To my surprise, I saw that it appears the novels have been licensed. Unfortunately, Viz did the licensing, meaning I won’t be making a purchase short of knowing that they aren’t domesticated.

You see, back when Viz did Maison Ikkoku, they did it wrong by domesticating the translation. So instead of the main character Godai-kun failing his college entrance exams, Viz said, “America-jin to stupid to undastand such things. We make it simple for them to undastand by saying Godai fail his midterms. That be ticket, yes?”

OK, maybe I went a bit overboard there but you get the point.

Anyway, I purchased the flipped manga and was very dismayed to see this obvious domestication along with others. However, when Viz announced they’d be re-publishing the manga in an unflipped form AND with chapters they’d removed in the initial publication placed back into the series, I thought I’d give them a chance (despite knowing they’ll never give me my smegging Japanese honorifics). Unfortunately, Viz didn’t bother re-translating the title to get it right like Dark Horse has done with Oh My Goddess (which has its early volumes being republished in an unflipped form to match the Japanese tankoubons). Instead, Viz just used the same crap and only unflipped it. Needless to say, I was not happy.

Seeing that they were doing similar things with the Inuyasha manga, I decided that I’d never purchase from Viz again.

So, it saddens me greatly to see this hideous company score the Sakugan no Shana novels for publication. Why couldn’t someone good like Seven Seas get it (Del Rey wouldn’t because they have an exclusive deal with one company in Japan)? Since most folks don’t care about the domestication issues like I do, Viz will continue on its merry way changing things as they see fit for dumb Americans, who continue to feed their efforts.

Well, if you read this novel, you’ll have to let me know how it is.