Welcome to the third Manga Mistakes page which covers all of the errors in Kodansha's new English translation of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon #3 and #4.
As with the previous pages, this page will cover mistakes concerning strange or incorrect grammar, incorrect translations, regular and character name spelling mistakes and unnatural or inappropriate dialogue.
For more information on the manga re-release, make sure to check out my Sailor Moon Manga Shopping Guide and if you haven't seen the first Manga Mistakes page yet, make sure to give it a look for errors in the first volumes of Sailor V and Sailor Moon as well as some basic general errors and issues that span all of the manga volumes released so far.
Most importantly, if you've found an error that I haven't listed here, please Contact Me and I'll totally add it and give you credit.
Sailor Moon Says!
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon #3
On page 3, the first page of the story, Dark Kingdom is incorrectly written in lowercase letters.
On page 4, Metalia and Deimos are both spelt incorrectly as "Mataria" and "Demos". Metalia is spelt "Metalia" everywhere else in the manga so spelling it "Metaria" is a big mistake. Deimos (like Phobos) is named after one of Mars' moons.
Strange English happening on page 52 with "And the only love for me is you!" Japanese word order? Surely "You're the only one for me" is more natural.
"We need to get to where Artemis is!" on page 65 is the result of directly translating the Japanese word for word. Sounds very strange to an English speaker who would say "We need to get to Artemis!".
Bizarre dialogue and translation on page 75 where "Venus nanka" (Venus somehow...) is portrayed as "Poo on you, Venus!" Not only is this out of character for Princess Serenity (sure she can be childish but I doubt she'd be using the word "poo" being a princess who lived thousands of years ago) but it's way too creative with the original Japanese which I would have simply made "Venus...".
Blatantly wrong translation on page 77 in the bubble with Kunzite and Prince Endymion. In the original Japanese, the speech bubble on the right is spoken by Kunzite and the one on the left by Endymion. Both have been incorrectly rewritten as spoken by Endymion. In the original, Endymion is simply yelling out "Kunzite!" in response to Kunzite's comments to Venus about having her hands full with such an active princess like Serenity. (Special thanks to A Second Chance for the detailed analysis.)
On the same page, the whole "going to see him on a whim" reads awkwardly. Would be better to be rephrased along the lines of "Going to see him whenever you want... isn't safe!"
On page 82, the planet of death should either be "the Planet of Death" or "a planet of death".
"A place in my body is getting hot!" on page 83 sounds ridiculous and robotic. "I can feel heat building inside me!" or something would be a better replacement.
Artemis' line to Luna, "I could see you as a devine form" would sound better as "You looked so regal" or something.
Ami unintentionally sounds like a bitch by saying "See you, Mother!" which would be a fairly rude thing for most English speakers to say to their mothers. "See you, Mum!" would be a lot more appropriate.
Note: For some unknown reason it seems as if the translator has some issue with characters using Mum/Mom or Dad despite the fact that those are the words the majority of English speaking people use to call their parents from around the age 8+ (sometimes even younger). In this volume, Chibi Usa uses the word "Mommy" which is perfectly in character due to the character's age however every other character regardless of age also uses "Mommy" instead of "Mom" throughout the series. The above instance of Ami using "Mother" is the exception yet that sounds unnatural for other reasons.
On page 137 the "kitou no hi" is strangely translated as "exorcism flame". Would be better as "sacred fire", "holy fire" or something along those lines.
"Wise man on page 153 should be "Wise Man" or maybe "Wiseman".
The park name on the map on page 157 should be Arisugawanomiya Park". No random hyphens. Here's a photo I took of the real life sign. :)
Speaking of hyphens, there shouldn't be one in Chibi-Usa. "Chibi Usa" is the proper spelling.
The "howmany" on the sign on page 171 is spelt without a space.
Raye's "bad premonition" on page 176 sounds strange. "Bad feeling" would be more appropriate.
"Meet with an accident" sounds unnatural on page 180. A simple "Something bad could happen to you" sounds more threatening and natural.
On page 210, "They bear a whiff of secrets" sounds ridiculous. Possibly replace with "They have an air of mystery around them" or simply "They're so mysterious" or "They're more than meets the eye".
"Malefic Black Crystal" on page 215 really would be okay if named "Dark Black Crystal" or "Evil Black Crystal". The word "malefic" is unnecessarily complex.
Sailor Jupiter's attack on page 228 was incorrectly translated as "Spark Ring! Wide Pressure! Should be "Sparkling! Wide Pressure" or "Sparkling Wide Pressure!".
MISSING CONTENT! As with Volume 2, the two pages of bonus comic strips that Naoko Takeuchi drew/wrote for this re-release have not been included in this English version. As these were lazily excluded from the official release, you can get these two pages by downloading the Act 16 from Miss Dream.
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon #4
Incorrect page numbers on the contents page. It says Act 19 starts on page 97 when in fact it starts on 95 and says Act 20 starts on page 147 but it starts on 146. Thanks to Mirai for the heads up!
On page 41, "So go! My droids!" sounds awkward and should be one sentence. Perhaps "Now go, my droids!" would work better.
"She's been able to produce a friendly face" on page 59 is incredible unnatural. Noone would say this in any situation. Something along the lines of "She's been a lot happier" would sound a lot better and less robotic.
On page 66 "Re*birth" should be "Rebirth". The dot after the "Re" is just a quirk of English language use in Japan (possibly a play on the "RE:" in the subject of a reply email). Has no place in an English book unless there's a specific reason for it to be there... and there isn't.
On page 90, Tuxedo Mask's first real attack, "Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber" is awkwardly presented with random exclamation marks mid-phrase, "Tuxedo La Smoking!! BOMBER!!" Random exclamation marks after English words are actually rather common in Japan, and are used to place emphasis on select words. An example would be "Look! at our cheap prices!" This of course has no place in any English text.
The random ":" returns on page 91 in "Moon Crystal Power: Make Up!". Very little consistency with how the attacks are written (on page 41 in this same volume it's written as "Moon Crystal Power! Make Up!!", also suffering from the random exclamations issue) plus there is no need at all for the ":" to be there. This does not exist in the Japanese version and is a seemingly random inclusion of the translator.
On page 93, Chibi Usa's "I already know it!" sounds very strange. There's also an arguably big error in the translation which suggests that she's stolen several other crystals previously. She should be suggesting that even if she had more she wouldn't be able to use them.
On page 98, it's not the first time a character has used the unusual "Urrn" in this release but sounds incredibly strange here, mid-sentence coming from Chibi Usa and kind of makes her sound like she's becoming a zombie or something.
Page 116. "Re*make" should be "Remake".
Big grammar mistake with Luna's dialogue on page 116. "If we don't to meet up..." should be "If we want to meet up..."
Sailor Pluto's dialogue on page 123 really brings into question the translator's ability to read Japanese. "You're doing now what I've been doing for a long time." is completely off the mark and makes no sense. Sailor Pluto should be commenting on how Chibi Usa and Sailor Moon are always arguing.
Inconsistent translation on page 137. Sailor Venus and Tuxedo Mask's attacks (on the same page) in the original Japanese read "Venus!! Love Me Chain!!" and "Tuxedo!! La Smoking Bomber!!" yet are translated as "Venus...Love Me Chain!!" and Tuxedo!! La Smoking BOMBER!!". Venus' attack comes out better but honestly they both should be written as "Venus Love Me Chain!" and "Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber!". I doubt Sailor Venus is pausing several seconds mid-attack and as previously mentioned, exclamation marks shouldn't be appearing mid-sentence in English literature.
Inconsistent translation continues with the cat noises in this volume. On pages 142 and 143 the original Japanese noise Diana makes, "Mya" is left untranslated as "Myaa" but then on page 149 her "Myala" (or "Myara") is selectively "translated" into "Myow". They really should be translated as "Meow" with possibly a "Purrrr" or something for the later.
On page 170, Ichinohashi Park is strangely spelt "Ichi-no-Hashi Park".
The bizarre hyphens continue to appear on page 175 when "Abracadabra" is written as "Abra-kadabra". Also on the same page "raise spirits up again" sounds incredibly unnatural.
MISSING CONTENT! As with previous volumes, the two pages of bonus comic strips that Naoko Takeuchi drew/wrote for this re-release have not been included in this English version. As these were lazily excluded from the official release, you can get these two pages by downloading the Act 21 file from Miss Dream.
Just to confirm, these missing comic pages are not the manga short stories that were repackaged into the two Short Stories volumes (due for release after #1-12 are out). They are also not the small side notes that were in the original manga release and have now been replaced with cute chibi pics of the characters. These two pages are special comics that were made specifically from Naoko to thank fans for reading Sailor Moon and were included with the re-release of the manga in Japan (which this English re-release is based off of). These specific pages go into the creation of Sailors Pluto, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
<- Sailor V #1 + Sailor Moon #1 ->
<- Sailor V #2 + Sailor Moon #2 ->
<-- Sailor Moon #3 + Sailor Moon #4 -->
<-- Sailor Moon #5 + Sailor Moon #6 -->
<-- Sailor Moon #7 + Sailor Moon #8 -->
<-- Sailor Moon #9 + Sailor Moon #10 -->
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