April 11th, 2007 
AstroNerdBoy Negima! Volume 1 — Del Rey and Peter David
*sigh* I knew Peter David had made some changes to the Negima! English adaptation, to include adding at least one sexual innuendo joke. However, even people whom I heard complain about Del Rey’s early adaptation never mention the extent of the domestication in the early volume (I know some more recent volumes from Del Rey are pretty good from what I can tell). But just to give you a sample, here’s the Del Rey page on the top and a pretty accurate translated page on the bottom.
A page from volume 1 of Negima!, as adapted by Peter David.
Negima! volume 1, as done by scanlators.
You’ll notice a few things Del Rey got right, but most of the conversation between Asuna and Konoka is made up by Peter David.
So, why is this important? Well, Konoka mentioning that Asuna is fast is the first clue given to say that there’s more to Asuna than meets the eye (If you are reading the current chapters from Japan, boy is there ever more to her than meets the eye!). In another place (that I didn’t scan), the Del Rey version has Negi imply that his grades weren’t very good. However, you’ll note that Del Rey has corrected this in later volumes by actually mentioning that Negi had good grades in school.
Basically, it looks like Peter David took every opportunity he could to add sexual innuendo jokes that weren’t in the original Japanese. Then, he decided to add other jokes not in the original Japanese. However, Konoka making a joke about something else Asuna could do is dropped in favor of a re-write. I hate re-writes.
I’m told Del Rey fixed the egregious “Southern Master” errors in volumes 2-4, changing that to the proper “Thousand Master.” I don’t believe they’ve ever done anything to fix volume 1, and I for one think they should.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Del Rey is the best of the manga publishers out there. However, volume 1 of Negima! is just awful despite the good usage of Japanese honorifics.
See also: Del Rey is Slipping.
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They still haven’t fixed vol 1 yet…just checked the new collection of the first 3 volumes.
I had no clue there were so many changes. Thanks for letting us know.
I’m not surprised that they haven’t fixed volume 1. But, I do think Del Rey could use some encouragement in re-releasing the volume with a new adaptation. I know I’d re-purchase the first volume if they fixed it. If they inserted the color pages, even better. ^_^
Any chance of you throwing up a few more comparison scans?
I might do a few more, but no promises. It will depend on how busy I am over my weekend. ^_^;
I found your article very interesting. Thanks for posting the comparison.
Outside this, what do you think of his other works?
The other stuff I’ve read from him I’ve always enjoyed. He does have a wacky sense of humor. He also wrote an episode of “Crusade.”
My complaints here are directed at him not being an adapter but trying to insert his own stuff into Akamatsu-sensei’s writings. It would be interesting to ask him how he’d do things today.
“good usage of Japanese honorifics.”
No such thing.
Just makes a bad translation worse.
So, you don’t like the usage of Japanese honorifics I take it?
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[…] as well as a scanlation that I trusted. The results were quite shocking and lead to my writing this piece about Peter David’s adaptation. From that point forward, I refused to read volume 1 and 2 of Negima! from Del Rey and only […]
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