Dark Horse vs. Hawks
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:00 am
I read most of Berserk via that Hawks' fan translations, but I've been steadily replacing them with the official Dark Horse version (aside from the elusive vol. 15, I have everything up to the fight with Ganishka's monsters on the beach). Since then, I've noticed quite a few differences in the translation. Aside from some matters of word choice, and a few obvious flubs (like having the King of Midland knight the entire Band of the Hawk, rather than just its unit commanders), there are still places where the official version and the fan version say completely different things, such that you have to wonder what the original was like.
In volume 14, while Guts fights the pig Apostle, the Dark Horse version has Godo worrying that Guts' new sword isn't up to fighting monsters like this - which makes sense when you consider that the sword breaks on the very next page. The Hawks version, on the other hand, seems to have him in awe of the Apostle's unnatural... Apostle-ness:
DH: "This is bad... I doubt it would nick, no matter how many people he cut with it... but I didn't make that.. for cuttin' inhuman things!"
Hawks: "To think of how many men it must've killed, it's got too many damn teeth... How could such a thing have been made? It's an inhuman killer!"
Later in Vol. 14, when Jill chases Guts and apologizes for not warning him after he's been chased out of the village:
DH: "No kidding. Thanks to that, I missed out on some valuable info."
Hawks: "Forget it. You gave us a lot of other useful information." (Completely opposite meanings, here.)
Then in Vol. 16, during Jill's monologue at the end of the Lost Children chapter...
DH: "Maybe the fluid from that cocoon he doused me with, mixed with Rosine's blood, washed away my childhood."
Hawks: "While she had me basking in that cocoon... some of Rosine's blood may have mixed with mine; maybe it will flow on in my own children."
There were other examples that jumped out at me while I read, but these are the only ones that spring to mind right now.
Does anybody know which of these were "closer" to the original? I didn't question them at all when I was reading the scanslations, but then when I bought the DH version, I kept stopping and thinking "wait a minute, that's not what he says!"
In volume 14, while Guts fights the pig Apostle, the Dark Horse version has Godo worrying that Guts' new sword isn't up to fighting monsters like this - which makes sense when you consider that the sword breaks on the very next page. The Hawks version, on the other hand, seems to have him in awe of the Apostle's unnatural... Apostle-ness:
DH: "This is bad... I doubt it would nick, no matter how many people he cut with it... but I didn't make that.. for cuttin' inhuman things!"
Hawks: "To think of how many men it must've killed, it's got too many damn teeth... How could such a thing have been made? It's an inhuman killer!"
Later in Vol. 14, when Jill chases Guts and apologizes for not warning him after he's been chased out of the village:
DH: "No kidding. Thanks to that, I missed out on some valuable info."
Hawks: "Forget it. You gave us a lot of other useful information." (Completely opposite meanings, here.)
Then in Vol. 16, during Jill's monologue at the end of the Lost Children chapter...
DH: "Maybe the fluid from that cocoon he doused me with, mixed with Rosine's blood, washed away my childhood."
Hawks: "While she had me basking in that cocoon... some of Rosine's blood may have mixed with mine; maybe it will flow on in my own children."
There were other examples that jumped out at me while I read, but these are the only ones that spring to mind right now.
Does anybody know which of these were "closer" to the original? I didn't question them at all when I was reading the scanslations, but then when I bought the DH version, I kept stopping and thinking "wait a minute, that's not what he says!"
The advantage that obviously DH have is that they can ask Miura what was meant if they need to. Or look ahead and work out what fits best.