hakuryuukun

sillydicemaze:
“ josukes-crazy-diamond:
“ With the Part 4 anime coming out, I’d like to try and clear up some confusion that might exist about what Duwang is. It’s a very important part of the history of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and it should be...

josukes-crazy-diamond:
With the Part 4 anime coming out, I’d like to try and clear up some confusion that might exist about what Duwang is. It’s a very important part of the history of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and it should be understood.
Duwang is the name given to the translation of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable that was done in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was done by a Chinese student as part of his English class project (Which he allegedly failed). He translated and typeset it in earnest, not doing anything as a joke.
The first page of Part 4 in the Duwang translation
For the most part, Duwang is loosely accurate. The translations are nowhere near perfect, but almost all of them make sense. A common misconception is that Duwang is gibberish, but it’s actually fairly comprehensible. There are two main reasons for the lack of nuance in the translation.
The translator was not proficient in English
It was being translated from Chinese, so it had already gone through the Japanese to Chinese translation. The more languages you go through, the more you lose.
Some of the biggest issues with Duwang come from the pieces of text that are left untranslated. There are various bubbles that were just forgotten about, and the Chinese character 啊 was always left untranslated. This character just translates to “Aaa” or “what”, so it it equivalent to yelling.
啊 in action
Most translation mistakes are mundane, but a few can be funny, as seen with these:
Some of the funnier lines
The name Duwang actually comes from the translation of the name of the town Morioh. In Japanese, the name is written as 杜王町 and is pronounced Morioh-cho. These same character can be read as Duwang in Chinese. The most infamous use of this name is from Yoshikage Kira.
The beautiful Duwang
Most importantly, I want people to understand that Duwang was not a joke. It was done in earnest, even if the end result was not great. Duwang exemplifies an honest attempt with good intentions, not the purposeful butchering of something. It was the only method of reading Part 4 in English in its entirety for over a decade, and it should be respected.
Thanks for reading!
Duwang is a rite of passage!