@nozaki TL notes are pretty much only used now when a specific Japanese food, clothing, or other object is mentioned. Something like fairy tail that doesn’t take place in Japan would probably not have any TL notes today.

I don’t agree that the low quality of media translations is due to the low pay. It was a low pay job a decade ago too, but translations were better. I think the problem is that social media, particularly Twitter and discord, has shifted and continues to shift the culture of the industry in a negative direction. Basically, translators are technicians, their job is to methodically take Japanese words and render them in English. Since the two languages are very different, they have to sometimes make judgement calls, which one could misconstrue as a creative act, therefore every translator has this temptation to see themselves as an artist instead of someone who works systematically. Industry standards used to keep these inclinations in check, often in contrast with fan translations where you would see the creative urge running rampant with TLs that said “fuck” constantly or would make family guy references or whatever. It’s changed now that all the translators are on Twitter fanning each other’s balls about how great they are when they artistically translate, and the reaction from normal people against this fuels it further, especially because it fits into the wider culture war with trannies libtards and other psychotics on the creative translation side and normal people on the authentic translation side, so you get this cycle playing out in the heads of every translator and in their conversations on Twitter and their discord servers:

“I want to be creative with my translations” -> “the people I already hate are mad about this” -> “I want to be even more creative with my translations”

The industries then start to slowly shift to the new standard being pushed by the translators against the will of normal people because even if they may have some principles about authenticity, editors and other staff members are still libtards and usually women and consequently they really really don’t like pushing back against consensus. Gamergate caused a purge of right wing and normal people from the entire gaming industry, including translation departments, so it went to shit very very quickly, a similar thing happened with most anime translators, but manga seems to be transitioning more slowly, still definitively happening but rather than any big purges it’s the natural process of older editors and other company men retiring or leaving naturally only to be replaced by people who are always more dedicated ideologues who agree with their translators.