[[quoteright:350:[[Franchise/CodeGeass http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/WTF_fansubbers.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:What happens when subbers get bored. He wasn't actually even saying anything here.]]

So your favorite anime is coming over from Japan. You've followed this show almost religiously using [[FanSub fansubs]] and are interested in how the localizers will handle it.

What's this? The DoubleEntendre dialogue and {{UST}} has been replaced with NoHuggingNoKissing! That one character who
always launched a ClusterFBomb is using {{Unusual Euphemism}}s and GoshDangitToHeck instead! Surely the American distributors are to blame for this {{Macekre}}!

They aren't. The show is a more-or-less faithful translation of the original. The dirty jokes and language of the fansub were added by the fansubber in an attempt to "improve" the show, or to cover up the fact that they're not as fluent in Japanese as they want us to think. Looks like the fansubbers wanted to '''Spice Up the Subtitles'''.

This also happens frequently to official releases that want to get out of the AnimationAgeGhetto as fast as possible by adding as much family-unfriendly material as they can to the subtitles.

Much of this confusion is caused especially by the Japanese expletive ''kuso''. This word is an all-purpose expletive, and, despite being really not ''all'' that offensive, ends up being translated to many things all over the English profanity spectrum, including but not limited to "shit", "[[OhCrap oh shit]]", "dammit", "damn", "damn you", "god dammit", "[[ForeignCussWord crisse de tabarnak]]", [[GoshDangItToHeck "rats", "darn", "crap", "drat", "crud"]], "not good", "this is bad", "oh no", or even, in some cases, "help" (when you don't actually expect it). Needless to say, [[{{Fansub}} fansubbers]] will almost always utilize the more explicit ones, whereas dubs tend to lean on the tamer side.

See also: ObligatorySwearing, AvoidTheDreadedGRating, AnimationAgeGhetto. May cause MisBlamed. Related to FunWithSubtitles and GagSub.
----
!! Examples:
* Early ''DragonballZ'' fansubs added almost hilarious amounts of ObligatorySwearing. The original didn't have that much.
* [[FanTranslation DeJap's]] ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia''. While Arche wasn't exactly an innocent little flower in the original script, the translation made her so horny that she was practically the DirtyOldMan of the party (although she was neither old nor a man). The much, ''much, MUCH'' tamer official translation was one of the ([[PortingDisaster numerous]]) problems that players of the FanTranslation had with the GBA version.
** [=DeJap's=] translation of the boat scene (in)famously punched up Claus's Japanese line "Mint may be clean and composed, and that's good, but Arche is Arche. There's something charming about her, you have to admit" into "Mint has that quiet elegance about her, but I bet Arche fucks like a tiger".
* Manga Entertainment, particularly their UK branch, was notorious for this as well in their earlier days. This sort of translation even gained the nickname "fifteening", for the age rating that resulted.
* There's at least one ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' fansub out there that gives Nnoitra constant [[ClusterFBomb F-Bombs]].
** This also happens in some manga scanlations.
* Shinsengumi Fansubs added quite a bit of cursing to its fansubs of ''FlameOfRecca'' and ''RurouniKenshin''.
* Spanish Fansub [=AnimeUnderground=] seems to work by the following rule: "If there's the chance of using slang/[[ObligatorySwearing swearwords]] instead of a normal word, then do so, no matter the context or who's saying it. (Unless it's a very polite character. Emphasis on ''very''.) They especially are fond of using the word "joder" (Spanish for "fuck"), which they seem to find a way to work into just about every circumstance, even if the Japanese word is something like the rather mild "shimatta", or ''isn't even swearing'' (Like "Impossible!" or "This is bad!"). Fortunately, other than that and translating {{Lolicon}} as a word that means "Child Molester", their translations are alright... Too bad [[ScheduleSlip they release series when they feel like it]] and incur some {{Narm}} when leaving some perfectly translatable words untranslated.
* An unusual example from an official release - Disney's dub of ''PrincessMononoke'' took a harmless line ("This soup tastes like water!") and punched it up ("This soup tastes like donkey piss!"). This was later admitted to have been an error in attempting to determine how "rude" the choice of phrasing originally was. The subtitles use the original phrase.
* A group called "Your-Mom" fansubs took some liberties with their ''CodeGeass'' translation. In addition to the gem pictured above, there was also the wonderful spectacle of [[spoiler: Viletta Nu]] angsting about "having wild sex with that Eleven," and contemptuously sneering "why would I have wondrous sex with you, Eleven?"
** There's also an infamous scene with Shirley Fenette being particularly explicit when it was really out of character for her...
* The official subtitles of ''{{Hellsing}}'' are significantly more subdued than the dub; the dub has its share of {{Cluster F Bomb}}s, while the subtitles are generally profanity-free. Yet the dub is the ''more'' faithful of the two translations-- as those who viewed the series in fansubs will know, Jan Valentine's dialogue was vulgar enough in the original Japanese to be ''bleeped out'' in the original Fuji TV airing.
* Evident in fansubs of ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', where the main characters would yell out "Who the fuck do you think we are?!" The line is more accurately "Who the hell do you think I am?"
** Also, the BSS fansub group had Kamina call Viral a "fucking [[AcceptableLifestyleTargets furry]]". The original was more along the lines of "cocky bastard."
* One ''BoboboboBobobo'' scanlation changed "underwear" into "gay pants". Yeah, we don't know either.
* Fansub group gg has a history of this, especially when they start to get bored with the show they are working on. Their ''Manga/{{Axis Powers Hetalia}}'' and ''LightNovel/BakaToTestToShoukanjuu'' subs are the most extreme examples.
** Example: ''Hetalia'' Episode 48- Italy (after "growing up" from Chibitalia) says "Koe hen na no" or "My voice sounds weird." Subs read "I sound like a fag."
** Funnily enough, Funimation's official dub [[GagDub isn't much better]]; their dub of the above scene is almost identical, except with "fag" replaced with the slightly more PC "homo".
** Another ''Hetalia'' one: "[[DudeNotFunny These rumors are spreading like AIDS!]]"
** Don't forget this ''[[LightNovel/BakaToTestToShoukanjuu Bakates]]'' line: "[[TooSoon There are people dying in Haiti, you know?]]". Also "Damn you liberal America"... on a show set in ''Japan''.
* Much like gg above, [=CoalGuys=] is... Huh... [[ShapedLikeItself Like this trope]]. Especially apparent on their ''BGataHKei'' subs, though not the only ones.
* TV-Nihon's ''SamuraiSentaiShinkenger'' subs often offer us some "bastard"s and "bitch"s... in what is very clearly a children's show. One of the most particularly jarring examples is seeing ''[[YamatoNadeshiko Mako]]'' reacting to a striking revelation with "This is ''bullshit''".
** They did that in ''{{Zoids}} Genesis'' too...
** They might have passed that in ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger.'' I'm not sure what Marvelous was saying to [[ChoujinSentaiJetman Yuki Gai]] when he confronted him in the middle of the night, but I'm fairly positive it wasn't "Fuck off."
*** Actually, what he said was "Fuzaken na" (ふざけんな), a phrase which literally means "quit joking" but tends to get rendered (by everyone, official and fansubs) as things like "quit screwing around" or "you're full of shit", so TVN isn't quite as far off-base as it might seem. Apparently how strong it is changes with context... but some subbers will make it an F-bomb even when the situation (or as with Mako, the character) makes "quit playing around" was more like it. While it does always mean the person didn't like what they just heard, if you turn ''every'' "fuzaken na" into "bullshit!" "Go to hell" and "Fuck off!" you can turn ''SesameStreet'' into ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark.''
* Here's a fun game to try. Look around for a fan-translated item - anime, manga, video games, anything will do. Check to see if it ''doesn't'' translate any Japanese interjection, even a mild one like ''kuso'' (Japanese is notoriously low on "dirty language"), as "damn" or "shit" at least once. This is perhaps most noticeable with fansubs of children's shows; by translating every instance of ''kuso!'' as "Dammit!" or "Shit!" (and many fansubbers do), even ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' or ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' would be rated TV-PG-L at least.
* Ayako's fansubs for {{Needless}} are known for doing this. As well as adding swearing, they also added ridiculously long "TL notes" which explain the "science" behind the techniques used in Needless.
* Polish fan-translations of {{webcomics}} and NewspaperComics do that sometimes, changing generic lines in the original by spicing them up with wacky slang and Polish memetic references.
* Some [[{{Scanlation}} scanlations]] of ''{{Naruto}}'' have Killer Bee often dropping [[ClusterFBomb the f-bomb]], probably, because he fancies himself an rapper and rappers are expected to swear worse than the cliché demands it from Marines. In particular, his catchphrase ''kono yaro, baka yaro'' is often fan-translated as "mother fucker," though the actual meaning is closer to "man, you're stupid, man."
* Done in the subs provided by KirbysRainbowResort for ''KirbyOfTheStars''. Especially jarring is that, aside from the occasional NightmareFuel and the Fumu-tan segment (which, it should be noted, made it into the official dub mostly unedited), the show is relatively family-friendly.
* Whoever did the subtitles for ''LimboOfTheLost'' was a bit cracked. The subtitles are peppered with [[LaughingMad demented laughter]], regardless of the fact that the dialog contains none whatsoever. This is actually a VerbalTic -well, Textual Tic; DoWeHaveThatOne- of one of the developers, as observed in some of his responses to reviewers on forums. Yeah...
* The [=CSCentrl=] sub of ''HikariSentaiMaskman'' takes a Okelampa, a "character" whose only role is to MakeMyMonsterGrow and then say "Good grief!" (''Yare, yare!'') OnceAnEpisode and makes him a DeadpanSnarker of a PunchClockVillain. It got straight translated (and then different acceptable translations for the same term) a few times, but once CS got bored, ''yare, yare'' could become "I need a raise!" or "[[WhyDontYaJustShootHim Why don't the Maskmen]] [[ShootTheMedicFirst shoot me first]]?" or even "[[MachikoSoga Baraba's mom]] [[HeyItsThatGuy is Rita Repulsa]]!" It was something different every week and [[TropesAreNotBad part of what you waited for]].
* Unusual live-action and official example: the official English subtitles for the first season of ''Series/{{Forbrydelsen}}'' on TheBBC caused complaints from Danes, as whether down to ignorance or laziness every Danish profanity from mild to extreme was translated as some form of "fuck", giving a misleading impression of the dialogue and characters.
* Another rare official example, the subtitles of ''RedLine'' [[ObligatorySwearing contain many instances of the word 'fuck']], even when what's actually being said is a good deal milder. Bear in mind this is ''not'' a fansub, it's ''the official DVD release.'' (And oddly enough, the fansub was actually ''cleaner!'')
* Horrible Subs' version of ''Anime/{{AKB0048}}'' translates dialogue into ImageBoard memes wherever it can, and adds some slurs that the script wasn't even remotely implying.
* [=J2e=]'s FanTranslation of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' purports to be more faithful than the original SNES version's translation, and it is... in some places. In others, it cribs liberally from the SNES script (including the SpoonyBard line) and inserts swear words and pop culture references that were never in the original.
* For the North American release of ''VideoGame/{{Hakuouki}}'', the Aksys Games translators opted to convey Hijikata Toshizo's aggressive manner of speech by peppering his dialogue liberally with profanity and crude idioms, including quite a few f-bombs. The Sentai Filmworks translation of TheAnimeOfTheGame - which in the original Japanese lifts a lot of dialogue directly from the game - is much milder.
* With very few exceptions, the FanTranslation of ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'' is very good about profanity, generally only using it where it appears in the original script. (Having a professional translator on the team helped.) Why does it belong here? WordOfGod is that, for the most part, lead translator Clyde "Tomato" Mandelin tried to do what he thought an official Nintendo translation would have gone with, and "this stance on including swearing is [one] thing where I’m certain I strayed from what an official localization would’ve done".
----