I look at translations as works by themselves. I don't think it's possible to recreate the feeling of experiencing a work in its original language without actually learning that language. One truly cannot experience Shakespeare unless one reads him in the original Klingon.

That doesn't mean that translations are useless, but you're kidding yourself if you think you understand the phrase that translated to "smells of" in the same way that a Japanese person would. It's evocative to you, but native speakers may not even think of it as a metaphor. As an example, do you think of a human face when someone refers to the "face" of a clock? Do you imagine an organist when someone says they are "pulling out all the stops"?

Only real Japanese speakers can experience works of art in Japanese, just as Germans who don't speak English can't actually experience Hasselhoff the way Americans do, try as they might. People can create works of art inspired by the originals, and call them translations, but they are new works.

I would watch the movie adaptation of a book I enjoyed, or vice versa, but I wouldn't read a book in translation that I'd already read in the original, and I don't think many people would. (I might read the original after the translation).

So in some sense a translation is less of a unique work than a film adaptation.

Classical scholars are an exception here, who might read Homer in half a dozen translations. But that's for two reasons: firstly, classical scholars are likely translators themselves, or at least students of the art of translation; secondly, there are only so many great Ancient Greek texts to read in the original.