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Well said, Kefka. Well said.
When translating something from one language to another, there are two major schools of thought about how to do it. The first is called formal equivalence. This is an attempt to translate word-for-word from the first language into the next. Some exceptions might be made for words that cover concepts in one language that they do not in another, word order, or grammar, but the overall attempt is to translate verbatim. The other school is a thought-for-thought translation, wherein the translator attempts to communicate the same ideas in the second language as are expressed in the first, but might not worry about which words were or were not used. This process is academically referred to as dynamic equivalence . While this has always occured a little bit over the millenia that the written word has existed, the practice gained some prominence in translation circles after the process of dynamic equivalence was codified by Eugene Nida. As videogames need to operate on a somewhat different level than, say, a book translation, the translators and editors in charge are often given a somewhat larger amount of freedom than editors in other fields and dynamic equivalence is somewhat more prevalent among the best in the industry ( [1]). While common throughout the world, this is most evident in Japanese to English RPG translations (these being probably the examples most tropers are best familiar with) and has been symbolized most of all in the minds of those who follow the industry in the figure of Ted Woolsey.
Woolsey was the primary translator for most of Square's SNES-era RPGs, including Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Woolsey is a polarizing figure in the video game community, even today — depending on who you ask, Woolsey was either an iron-fisted dictator who was convinced that American gamers were morons or a hard-pressed grunt who was the primary reason the scripts for these games weren't completely remolded, but either way his impact was keenly felt, as he frequently modified the scripts he was handed in order to render them more accessible for American release. Fans coined the term "Woolseyisms" to refer to places where Woolsey had obviously been tinkering with the original Japanese.
Sounds like Adaptation Decay, right? Well, not quite...
Here's the thing. Woolsey's changes? They worked. Some of the lines were so well integrated into the collective consciousness of the game that they have been embraced by the fandom instead of reviled. While a good number of the script changes were probably unnecessary, many fans have come to the agreement that they don't hurt the final product; sometimes they even make it better. The script has diverted from the original — maybe wildly — and yet, it works anyway, just like a good localized translation should. That's a Woolseyism: The Pragmatic Adaptation's answer to a Macekre.
This sometimes leads to the strange effect that rereleases with more literal or accurate translations (whether they are purely literal or merely closer to the original while still being localized) can actually start wars between fans of the Woolseyisms, the diehard purists, and the poor saps who only know one way to read the story and have no idea what's going on. Attempts to appease the first two groups have led more recent rereleases to reuse some of the more favorite lines. After all, who can think of Final Fantasy IV without wanting to scream "You Spoony Bard!" at the top of their lungs?
Woolseyisms and well-made dubs overall are most likely to be found within translated seinen anime, where even with the Animation Age Ghetto, translators know better than to attempt to turn an adult program into a low-quality kids' show. Shonen anime, with their younger demographics, usually don't fare as well. Woolseyisms are also so common in Latin American dubs, that many people actually prefer watching the Hispanic dub rather than the Japanese original.
Atlus.com lays bare the processes of Woolseyizing with their Production Diaries. (Keep in mind, some are about Woolseyizing, but others are about localization in general — marketing, website design, etc.) Atlus is currently considered the company that most does Woolseyisms to good effect, since their RPGs, being MUCH more Japanese-flavored than other companies' series, require lots of re-interpretation and adaptation of idioms and concepts. In the process, characters are given attitudes and verbal patterns that make them distinctive and sometimes even more fleshed out personalities.
Compare Good Bad Translation. Contrast They Changed It Now It Sucks. Please note that this trope is about script changes in translation that do not change the actual story flow and only exist to ensure meaning is conveyed between cultures; the process of throwing a script out entirely and rewriting it nearly from scratch is a whole other trope and can of worms.
Please note that this has nothing to do with Richard Woolsey from Stargate SG-1, or with his Stargate Atlantis appearances.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Any of the Disney-Ghibli dubs are not word-for-word translations, but are often Woolseyisms, although still faithful to the original scripts in tone overall. Fans were divided, but Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli applauded the Disney dubs, which have allowed new audiences to enjoy their films who have never experienced them in Japanese or in previous English translations. It should also be noted that Miyazaki believes that viewers should experience these movies in their native language of choice and hates subtitles.
- In Princess Mononoke, one particularly memorable line was rewritten to tie right into some previous forshadowing- "I told you...a wolf's head can still bite..."
- Kikis Delivery Service and Castle In The Sky contain similarly altered lines which tie into previous conversations. In the former, Kiki asks Ursula if she'll fly again instead of coming to see her again; in the latter, Sheeta refers back to the old miner, Uncle Pom's warning about her crystal in exchange for her talk about her crystal's heritage.
- Pom Poko was a very difficult movie to release because of the male tanuki's gigantic scrotums dominating every scene. However, there were a lot of Pom Poko fans at Disney that wanted to find a way to release the movie. Their solution: change the references from "scrotums" into "pouches". Their logic? A scrotum is, technically, a pouch. The English release was greenlit.
- Of course all three of those films (and a few others) would have some changes that caused controversy with fans. Jiji talks at the end of the Kiki dub, but in the Japanese original he does not, almost as if to indicate that she has grown into adulthood to the point that she no longer needs to communicate with him. Also, in Spirited Away, Chihiro has at least one line of dialogue that was not in the Japanese original; the English script writers included this because at the time of the film's release, audiences were unsatisfied with the originally silent ending. Also Kikis Delivery Service and Castle In The Sky both have extra lines of dialogue (some of them, however, are pricelessly humorous) and music (the former being soft piano music courtesy of Paul Chihara while the latter is an immense extension and reorchestration of the score provided, interestingly, by the original composer, Joe Hisaishi). Despite the divided reaction from fans over the changes, Miyazaki had no such problems—in fact, he is said to have applauded the rescore to Castle In The Sky, and several critics (as well as newcomers) echoed his words. Strangely, after these two dubs, Disney did not add anymore pieces of music to Ghibli's films, even though the occasional line change still occurs.
- There are also a couple of (minor) terminology changes to certain parts of the films. For instance, the Deer God in Princess Mononoke is the "Spirit of the Forest", the Sea of Decay in Nausicaa is the "Toxic Jungle", and the Volucite crystal in Castle In The Sky is "aetherium". These were only altered in the dubs.
- In ''Spirited Away'', Haku's explanation to Chihiro to hold her breath is not present in the Japanese original; this is such a common trope that Japanese viewers wouldn't need the explanation.
- Dead Leaves. The Japanese version is sort of short on humor, making it more of a strange action movie; however, the English dub has about three times as much dialogue, most of which is side-splittingly hilarious.
- A good voice actor will sometimes use Woolseyisms in the dubs of anime. Since many characterizations and plot points use pronouns, honorifics, word play, and accents that don't directly translate into English, the writers, directors, and actors in a dub will often have to search for a local equivalent in order to make those plot points work.
- Gin Ichimaru of Bleach speaks using the Kyoto dialect, which is polite but indirect. His voice actor in the dub, Doug Erholtz, uses polite language, but with a mocking, facetious tone of voice to indicate the character's duplicitous nature.
- Orochimaru of Naruto uses feminine pronouns in the original Japanese to make him seem more sinister. This cannot be accurately reproduced in English, so his dub voice is low-voiced and raspy to replicate the effect.
- Rock Lee never uses contractions in the English dub to match with the fact he uses a very polite speech pattern in the Japanese version. To achieve a similar effect in the Latin American dub, he was give a military pattern of speech with an enthusiastic accent.
- Also, in the Latin-American dub of Sailor Moon Queen Nehelenia uses rather archaic speech patterns without any contractions. It works very well, combined with her voice actress's contralto voice.
- Osaka from Azumanga Daioh speaks with, as could be judged, an Osaka dialect. Typically, characters with accents in anime might be given a southern accent in the dub, if it was acknowledged at all. The dub team for AzuDai went out of its way to think about the aspect, deciding that not only was a Texas accent more appropriate for Osaka, but a regional Texas dialect of an area of the state that they felt most accurately reflected a similar lifestyle to Osaka. See Kansai Regional Accent for more on the subject.
- ADV Films' being based in Houston might have had something to do with this...
- In a late chapter of the manga, Tomo is testing Chiyo with some really bad brainteasers. In comes Osaka, the Cloudcuckoolander, who thinks out of the box and nails every one. As the translation notes mention, these were extremely hard to translate - a few required Woolseyism to work in English. For example, "What bird gets in trouble with the police? / Sagi" (where the answer translates as both "heron" and "fraud") becomes "There are five apples on a table. You take away two. How many have you got? / Two." However, they left one alone that worked in both languages: "A truck carrying pumpkins, eggplants and tomatoes approaches a sharp curve, what drops? / The speed" remains.
- Oddly enough, "If nihongo (the Japanese language) is Japanese, what is eigo (the English language)?" changed. (The answer is "Japanese" - eigo is Japanese, as is furansu-go (français), doitsu-go (Deutsch), supein-go (Español)...
- The English dubs took a different route - they kept the same answers, but altered them mostly into puns. It doesn't always work. "What fruit do you eat in the summertime?" In Japanese: Persimmon (kaki) sounds like Summer (kaki). In English, "Persimmon, it's fer swimmin'!" "Who's always busting up cars?" In Japanese, "haisha" is both "dentist" and "smashed car". In English, someone who bangs up a car is a dent-ist. "What kind of bird doesn't get along with police?" In Japanese, as mentioned before, "sagi" is both "Heron" and "fraud". In English, "A rook", referring to both a crow and a card sharp (not to mention its similarity to the word crook). "Who built Osaka Castle?" In Japanese, the carpenter; in English, the mason. The Japanese/English and the truck riddles are unchanged.
- Another episode has Osaka pondering the nature of hemorrhoids. In Japanese, she asks whether it's spelled as "ji" or as "chi" with a tenten (which sounds almost exactly like "ji"). In the English manga, she instead asks whether she would look under H (for hemmorhoids) or R (for 'roids) in a dictionary. The anime, however, left the entire conversation untouched.
- Similar to the Cyrano de Bergerac example, the original dub of Ranma 1/2 switched out Kuno's quoting of Japanese poetry for quoting of appropriate Shakespeare.
- The noticeably old-looking Lupin III was redubbed for the US market with lots of pop culture references that certainly didn't exist in the Japanese original, and definitely not at the time of its writing. Arguably, a lot of the jokes got funnier, and it was otherwise faithful to the series - though it did create a problem when the cultural references in a show clearly set in the 70s were updated to something recent. Sadly (or gratefully depending on your point of view), once the TV deal for Lupin III ended, the dub dropped this convention and later episodes released to DVD are dubbed straight. Probably one of the best bits of new dialogue was when Zenigata had chased Lupin into a subway tunnel at night. When a train came by in the original, he just said there wasn't a train this late, and that there was anyway when it came. The dub changes it to this:
(train can be heard)
Zenigata: Nah, must have just nodded off for a sec. Probably one of those sex dreams I've heard about.
(train is coming down the tunnel toward him)
- Samurai Pizza Cats is a great example of a Woolseyism, if you discount the fact that there wasn't much of an option of translating the show to begin with. The translators were given the raw Japanese footage — and no transcripts. So instead of having to work out all the dialog, puns, and cultural references, a whole script was written from scratch that is still considered to be good entertainment. Considering the general irreverent nature of the source material, this actually works.
- Episode #14 of Neon Genesis Evangelion has a show on the radio in Shinji's hospital room. The Japanese version is a one-joke stupid pet trick about a counting dog (playing on "wan" being both "bow-wow" and how a Japanese person would pronounce "one"; "what's 325 minus 324?") The talking pup is in the dubbed version, but his vocabulary is a bit larger, since the translation crew adapted an old joke about a talking dog. Of course, since it's Eva, they subvert it by jumping to the punch line without explanation. "Who was the greatest baseball player who ever lived?" "DiMaggio?"
- Also from Eva, in the original Japanese version of the Alternate Universe segment at the end of the final episode, Gendo Ikari responds to his wife's questions with a series of disinterested affirmative "Mmm"s. In the English dub, they engage in playful banter instead... which is pretty unnerving after the cold-hearted normal Gendo we've seen up to that point.
- This scene includes Gendo referring to his wife sarcastically as "She Who Must Be Obeyed," a reference to Rumpole Of The Bailey inserted by the ADR writer. For double British points, he also managed to get a reference to "naughty bits" in episode 5.
- And say what you will about Tiffany Grant's delivery as a whole, but both the writing and the pronunciation of Asuka's Gratuitous German dialog improved vastly in the dub.
- The Mexican dub also turned Asuka's occasional Gratuitous German into full-fledged Poirot Speak (with Bilingual Bonus to bout), and replaced her flawless Japanese with Spanish spoken with a rough German accent.
- The infamous masturbation scene in End of Evangelion is followed Shinji saying "I'm scum" in the Japanese version. His line in the dub is quite a bit more poignant, also reflective of his mental condition at this point.
- In the fifth episode of Samurai Champloo, Mugen is looking through an ukiyo-e catalogue and just gives a vague description of it's lewd content (one fansub simply translates it as "Oh, oh. They're doing it."), while the dub gives a fairly humorous line indicating a specific kind of lewdness for which it is the opening quote in the article for said trope.
- This translation also has the side benefit of further deepening the series' Anachronism Stew, since the Dream of the Fisherman's Wife wasn't painted until about 200 years later.
- The shonen fighting anime Saint Seiya was translated into Italian by Enrico Carabelli as "I Cavalieri dello Zodiaco" (Zodiac Knights). Trying to convey for Italian viewers the same sense of mystery and awe that classical mythology, which they are all too familiar with, inspired in the culturally distant Japanese, he cranked up the "epicness" of the dialogues, added quotes from classical Italian poems and Dante's Divine Comedy, and generally raised the stylistic level of all dialogues. Though he also introduced a number of inaccuracies and misinterpretations of the original plot, the dub had exceedingly good reception; and to this day many Italian fans say that they don't actually like Saint Seiya, they like the Cavalieri.
- On a similar note, the (really good, voice-acting wise) Latin American Spanish Mexican dub of Saint Seiya used the Italian opening translated into Spanish, and to this day, any Mexican born between 1985 and 1990 insists that the good opening is the one from Caballeros del Zodíaco.
- Brazilian dub's Saga's laugh. Even if you don't speak Portuguese, you'll find it memorable. The redubbing did it as good as the original, and put a professional rock band to adapt the original Japanese openings into a nice Metal-driven Portuguese version, instead of the J-rock in the original version. It's claimed to be one of the best versions in the world, because not only includes the Woolseyisms of the Italian and Mexican versions, but adapt their own as well. Did I already mention Saga's laugh? I don't even like Saint Seiya, but I love Saga's laugh in Os Cavaleiros do Zodíaco.
- When Chrono Crusade was translated and localized, the staff researched and added 1920s slang to the dialogue. (The setting was America during the Roaring Twenties). To most viewers, it went pretty smoothly.
- Bobobobo Bobobo originally relied quite a bit on Japanese popular culture humor and puns that would probably not be understood well in the US. The English dub kept the spirit of the show by removing them and instead using many English puns and culture jokes.
- Of course, this results in many half-hearted puns coming out of nowhere, completely out of context, and sounding incredibly awkward. Good thing, then, that the show is supposed to be completely random.
- Crayon Shin-chan's Funimation dub also had to modify the reference humor so viewers would understand them. To add the icing on the cake, a lot of the dialogue was fit for where it ended up: Adult Swim. 40+ eps down, over NINE THOOUUUSSAAAAND more to go, Funi.
- The pun and portmanteau-heavy names of the Pokemon didn't translate with any degree of significance to non-Japanese ears. In every locale, new names were given to the Mons, with fresh puns - for instance, Hitokage (Japanese for "salamander" — lit. "fire lizard") was rendered into Charmander (char = to burn, mander = from 'salamander'), which hinted at the little creature's ability. The names of the humans were changed too - for instance, Kasumi (meaning 'mist') was changed to the luckily similar-in-meaning English name Misty. Strangely, Satoshi, an Only One Name, grew a surname in his Woolseyfied variant to fit the length and mouth-flaps - he became Ash (which sounds a little similar to 'Satoshi') Ketchum ('catch 'em' = Gotta Catch Em All, a clever tie-in of the then series catchphrase to the character).
- The most recently versions feature Dawn, as in Hikari means light, Dawn means sunrise, giving a beautiful meaning as the original version. Given that Pokemon USA is the american extension of the Pocket Monsters Team, it might be pretty much intentional.
- Also, Team Rocket's dialogue, which is probably the most memorable part of the show.
- In the Latin American Spanish dub, where several Team Rocket jokes are re-written with Mexican slang and jokes on Latin American pop culture. And it works.
- Used in the Pokémon Special Manga where Bill, speaking in Japanese as though being from a different part of Japan, is given a Southern accent in English.
- Another impressive Woolseyism in the Pokemon anime occurred in the second movie. The movie involves a Prophecy Twist, with the relevant line in the prophecy being "The water's grand guardian will rise to quell the fighting, but alone his song will fail, thus the earth shall turn to ash." The characters eventually realize that "turn to ash" refers not to destruction, but to Ash Ketchum. The Japanese version of the prophecy simply mentions "an exceptional trainer", eliminating the Prophecy Twist entirely.
- The Latin American Spanish dub of Magic Knight Rayearth replaced the girls' names with culturally appropriate equivalents. Therefore, Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu (light, ocean, and wind, in Japanese) became Lucy (from Lucía, a female name for "light,") Marina ("of the sea,") and either Anaís or Anemone (the first means "chaste" or "pure," reflecting the character's personality, the other is related to her element, wind.) Similarly, Magic Knight Rayearth 2's Nova was renamed Luz (literally "light.") Regrettably for the otherwise excellent localization, several other character names were victims of poor romanization or outright ignorance, such as Alcyone being renamed Alanis. Interestingly, "Lafarga" was altered to "Rafaga"...which is correct, as the villains were all named for cars and the Honda Rafaga was the sister car to the Honda Ascot.
- In the original anime of Naruto, the title character finishes many of his sentences with "dattebayo", which means something along the lines of "...you know?" This was translated into "Believe it!" for the Viz dub, which suits Naruto's character well enough: it's probably what a twelve-year old would say, it shows Naruto thinks people doubt him, and it's supposed to be at least a little annoying. It also conveniently matches the mouth flaps. Unfortunately, since Naruto ends almost all of his sentences this way, it got too annoying and they just dropped it entirely.
- This was arguably more an issue with delivery than with translation. Constructs like "... you know?" are common, if mildly grating, in spoken English—shouting imperatives at the top of one's lungs is not.
- Real life example of the above ('you know' being common and grating, not 'shouting imperatives'): Caroline Kennedy.
- "Believe it!" reappeared (possibly and thankfully for the final time) in one of the Filler episodes involving a clan that imitates people by ''copying their faces''.
- Brazilian version (based in the American) got something similar to "That's it!" ("É isso aí!"), sorta like the original one. It makes sense, if we take in consideration how kids here talk like these days...
- The Latin American dub got "¡De veras!" as the catchphrase. It roughly translates to "really!" (in the "seriously"/"not lying" sense).
- The mainland Spanish dub had "¡Vaya que sí!", which could be translated as "You betcha!" in English. Anyway, it's become a Berserk Button of sorts for most Spanish fans, sending them into fits of rage, or into speeches of praise for the original Japanese.
- The English adaption of the Korean manhwa Ragnarok gives several places and characters names pulled from Norse mythology, whereas in the original the names kind of brought together about a million different world mythologies; for example, a summoned dragon originally named after the Babylonian ocean god Tiamat was changed to Nidhogg, the serpent that gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil. Of course, this created a different problem because the anime is supposed to tie into Ragnarok Online, which used the original names.
- The English dub of Digimon Adventure renamed Tailmon as Gatomon, because Tailmon is a Digimon cat and "gato" is Spanish for "cat". This one doesn't quite work as well, though: being female, it should have been "Gatamon." Of course, the dubbers didn't know she was a 'she' until too late to change it.
- The Russian translation of the Ranma 1/2 manga added the secondary title "Пол Ранмы" (Pol Ranmy), which can mean both "One half of Ranma" and "Ranma's gender".
- In Martian Successor Nadesico, Ruri plays an edutainment game that has her pick out the kanji pronounced "ai." The dub gives her the irresistably obvious pun "the ayes have it."
- To say nothing of the approximate doubling of Neon Genesis Evangelion shout-outs, since the two shows were dubbed by the same studio.
- The Argentine dub of Serial Experiments Lain replaced the line that Lain tells to the gun-toting junkie from chapter 2, from vaguely prophetic nonsense to pure prophetic awesome. In the Japanese original, she says "No matter where you go, everyone's connected"; in the dub, however, she says "Nobody will escape, not even you, once everyone's connected".
- Also, the voice that says the chapters' names was made much more scary and ominous.
- The name "Wired" was also translated as "Nexus", which is much more descriptive and fits much better the context.
- In Star Blazers, a toast originally made in sake is changed to a toast made in "water, from a favourite spring on Earth". At first it looks like Frothy Mugs Of Water, but given the context, the change adds considerable depth and pathos to the scene. This comes up later, at the end of the series, and again, the scene is far more moving than it would have been with simple sake.
- In Suzumiya Haruhi, the title character starts a club called 'Sekai o Ōini Moriageru Tame no Suzumiya Haruhi no Dan' (Haruhi Suzumiya's brigade which will greatly enliven the world), or SOS Brigade. In the English dub, this became the 'Spreading Excitement All Over the World with Haruhi Suzumiya's Brigade, a name which manages to get the same point across while maintaining the silly acronym.
- Also, Kyon's "Supersize me!" comment about future Mikuru's breasts was not in the original Japanese dialog; it was added by the fansubbers. In the actual dialog, he merely said "Huge!" when he saw her chest. Humorously, this line actually made it into the official English dub.
- When Bleach was translated into English, shinigami became 'soul reapers'. The original author commented that this was a better name.
- Wasn't it Kubo Tite himself who came up with "soul reaper"?
- In Hunter X Hunter brazilian dub, the character Kurapika was renamed Korapaica, since "Cu-ra-pica" can be translated to something like "Ass-penis". Or "Heals penis".
- Similarly, Count Dooku became Dookan. Sounded like "from the ass", for the curious. Dooku can also sound like "Dou o cu", "I can be ass-fucked". Weird.
- Star Wars' Sypho Dias was renamed Typho Vias, since the original name sounded so much like "fucking himself".
- And don't forget Aku, who becomes Apu (or Abu, depending on the season). Because it would sound like "Ah Ass" in Portuguese.
- One of the more bizarre villains in Dokkoida?! was Hyacinth, a bondage queen who could make her slave Pierre transform into various space critters via acts of BDSM. In the original Japanese, the joke was that Pierre would hentai (transform) through hentai (BDSM). When being told about this ability, the hero Suzuo gets the two meanings confused. The English dub attempted to retain the joke by calling this ability the Special Morph attack, referring to it as S&M attack for short and allowing Suzuo the same type of mix-up.
- Despite her reason for existing at all, DiC's Zoisite has quite a fan following of people who were just that impressed by Kristen Bishop's performance. Enough that when she was announced as Emerald's voice actress, there was much rejoicing.
- Captain Tsubasa, apart from being renamed Oliver and Benji and Superchampions in Spain and Latin America, had every single name changed from Japanese to Western. Although this might look rather odd being everybody from Japan, the names stuck, and to this day, nobody in the Hispanic world knows who are Tsubasa Ohzora, Genzo Wakabayashi nor Kojiro Hyuga, but everybody knows who are Oliver Atton, Benji Price and Steve Hyuga.
- The re-dubbing made it as Oliver Tsubasa, which sounded pretty badass, too.
- This situation was also found in Hong Kong, but a smaller range of characters were renamed. In the three names mentioned above, Hyuga was kept, Genzo Wakabayashi was renamed Lam Yuen-sarm by dropping the kanji of "waka" and pronounce the rest of the name in Cantonese. Tsubasa was a more extreme example: he was called Dari Chi-wai, nobody know how that name came from, and it stuck.
- Dai Chi-wai may be named after the actor working for TVB (the TV channel that dubbed the anime) who also belonged to the HK Stars Soccer Team. Also Misaki Taro was changed to Mak Tairoi with only the 'ta' kept, probably in part because one of the Kanji in the surname is pretty much Japanese exclusive.
- Same in the Arab world. Everyone knows Captain Majid, few people know it's really called Captain Tsubasa.
- Ah, Death Note. A story so intricate that it leaves very little room for changes of any kind... and yet, this little gem somehow snuck in:
Misa: I would never dream of living in a world without Light!
L: Yes, that would be dark.
- Light's name is pronounced "Light" even in Japanese, so I would not be surprised if the original dialogue also used this joke.
- Possible, but if it had, wouldn't the joke have also shown up in the manga version of the scene and the DVD subtitles?
- The Pioneer/Geneon dubs for both Tenchi Muyo and El Hazard The Magnificent World both occasionally employed Woolseyism, usually for the improvement of the script. For instance, in the scene where Washuu has Tenchi restrained in her lab with the intent of getting a semen sample, the original Japanese dialogue makes her sound like a bored hooker offering options to her customer ("Should I use my hands, or my chest, or...?"); the English dub dialogue, on the other hand, plays up her whimsy without ever really disguising what she plans to do ("Let's shake the dew off this lily!").
- When Dotto Koni-chan was brought to Latin America, the local Japanese jokes and double entendre were replaced by allusions to local culture and fads as well as Mexican slang. Combine this with a very enthusiastic cast that was clearly having LOTS of fun with this, and the fact that the popularity of anime in Latin America made several jokes VERY easy to localize, and it works really well.
- From Four Kids Entertainment dubs: One Piece, where the Royal Marines are changed to the Royal Navy, averting confusion with the US Marine Corps. Also, the Kirby anime, where Customer Service of the Holy Nightmare Corporation is changed from a polite and humble Japanese salesman to a shady used car salesman-style merchant.
- There's another pretty good one in the Kirby anime, where the Holy Nightmare Corporation is renamed "NightMare Enterprises" so that it abbreviates to "NME".
- A line in Yu Gi Oh 5Ds is only funny in the context of the original, where Yusei is being marked a criminal and he mutters, "Is this supposed to tickle?" Taken in the context of the original, where they used a laser to etch a mark into his skin, well...
- The dub of the first Project A Ko movie slipped in several extra jokes which proved to be pretty popular, such as C-Ko's rambling plot summary at the end (in the original Japanese she simply shouted "Yoohoo!" over and over.) The following sequels were all dubbed by another company, who played it pretty straight for better or worse.
- In the Combining Mecha anime Go Lion, one of the five founding members of the Five Man Band was a Sacrificial Lamb, killed off in the sixth episode, his position on the team filled in by The Chick. Sometime later, his brother showed up for a few episodes before commiting a Heroic Sacrifice in the Grand Finale. When World Events Productions imported the show to America as Voltron, it had a strict Never Say Die policy. So in Voltron, the two brothers were merged into one character, Sven, a founding member who was "seriously injured" in the sixth episode, came back sometime later, played a key role in the finale, and survived. The result was an Ensemble Darkhorse, so popular among fans that when Voltron was renewed for a Post Script Season, Sven turned up in a quarter of the remaining episodes.
- Stephen Paul's fan-translation of Pluto, a manga based on a storyline from Astro Boy by Naoki Urasawa (of Monster fame) gives President Alexander's speeches a repetive, buzzword-loaded style based on that of George W. Bush. Considering much of the events that drive the plot originated in the Middle East, this is incredibly appropriate.
- Star Blazers had a lot of things changed in the translation (including Frothy Mugs Of Water) but many of the changes were very wise. In the first episode, Mamoru Kodai refuses to retreat because he can't face the shame of defeat and prefers an honorable death in battle. Alex Wildstar (the dub version) refuses to retreat because he decides Avatar needs cover for the retreat. Essentially changing a Japanese version of Honor Before Reason (that American viewers would not understand) into a Heroic Sacrifice- and thus increasing the poignant effect of Alex's younger brother blaming Avatar for Alex's death.
- In the original English dub of Dragonball Z it would be easy to miss because it is so small and because of heavy cuts and edits, but the very name of "Saiyan" is a Woolseyism. The original Japanese name is Saiya-jin, with "jin" meaning roughly in this context, "people." So their society's name would be "Saiya." It might have worked by referring to them as the Saiya people, but the English language helps denote nationality by adding an "-ian" "an" or "n" at the end of cultural titles (like American, Mexican, Canadian, etc). By adding the "n," Saiyan sounds like a cultural name.
- Actually, the anglicized form "Saiyan" was a purely Japanese invention. Bandai originally used in their Super Battle Collection action figures released during the early 90's (long before DBZ was officially brought to America).
- Unfortunately, in the Brazilian dub they originally just left the Saiya-Jin of the japanese, adopting the Saiyans only a few arcs later. Why is it bad? Because in portuguese, it sounded something like "jean skirt", so for a good part of the anime they were called as a feminine wardrobe piece... It got a lot better after the renaming to Saiyan, since, although it is the English denotation, it works in Portuguese as there's no fixed rule to denote nationality. German is Alemão, French is Francês, Spanish is Espanhol, American is Americano, Russian is Russo and Brazilian is Brasileiro, so you can see there's not much of a rule (although the -ês denotation is somewhat common).
- At least they made a nice Woolseyism out of Saiyajin in GT, when Paresu is asked by a possessed Goten about Saiyajins, she mistakes it for, well, a jeans skirt.
- The Latin American spanish dub, however, didn't seem to decide itself on one or the other at first, and liked to throw around both "Saiyans" and "Saiyajin" ("Saiyan" and "Saiyajines", in their corresponding translated versions) at least once every two episodes. They get better, though, and end up deciding on a spanish-ization of the japanese name ("Saiyajines").
- Over 9000! is a Woolseyism. In the original, it was 8000 and the screaming was more subdued.
- In one episode, Goku went to Hell and encountered Oni wearing shirts with the letters HELL. In the dub, this was bowdlerised so that the shirts said HFIL which stood for Home For Infinite Losers. HFIL has caught on as an in joke amongst fans.
- There was a cool Woolseyism in the official Russian dub of The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya, namely, the episode zero, which was a parody of low-quality fanmade movies. The original opening song of this episode featured a line of heavily accented Gratuitous English "Come on, let's dance". The Russian dub also featured this line, with Russian accent as heavy as the original Japanese one.
- The original Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy) intro was instrumental. When NBC dubbed the show for their English audience, lyrics were added, sung by a children's chorus. The Japanese producers were so impressed, the following season a similar intro was created for Japanese audiences. This started the trend of animes featuring songs in their intros.
- Sempai Kohai can often be a difficult concept to convey to non-Japanese audiences, especially when the characters explicitly mention such relationships between them, forcing some alternate ways of showing their relationship. For example, in Episode 46 of the Bleach dub, Renji addresses Hisagi as "sir" rather than "sempai", and in Episode 56, Yoruichi refers to herself as Soifon's "mentor".
- In Naruto, after Orochimaru breaks out of Sasuke during his fight with Itachi, his "Yamata no Jutsu" (referring to Yamata no Orochi, an eight-headed snake of Japanese legend) is sometimes translated as the "Hydra Jutsu". While this technically describes the jutsu in a way that's easier for Western readers to understand, it doesn't convey the nod to mythology when Orochimaru tries to attack Itachi from one of the Yamata no Orochi's mouths with the Sword of Kusanagai, only to be defeated by Itachi's Susano'o technique, named after the god who defeated the Yamata no Orochi.
- In the Japanese version of Full Metal Panic, Kurz Weber is quite foul-mouthed. His English voice actor, Vic Mignogna, is famously rather strait-laced and asked the writers if they could tone down the cursing; they responded by giving Kurz more jokes and witticisms, which perfectly fits his fast-talking Casanova personality.
- The original introduction of Anderson in Hellsing TV has Alucard simply call him a pervert. The dub, on the other hand, has him bring in a conflict from the original otherwise absent from this version: "You Catholic!"
- The english translation of the Negima manga has some rough spots, but it compensates by throwing in some truly funny quotes not present in the original (Such as Negi meekly asking for a cookie when wedged between a woman's breasts).
- While most of the changes made to Sailor Moon are rightly hated by fans at least one is considered a good cultural equivalent. The teasing nickname "meatball head" as a replacement for "odango atama", which means "dumpling head" because an odango is a specific small round dumpling about the size of a meatball the same size as the balls of hair in the title character's hairstyle. In the west saying dumpling would of course call to mind something much bigger and differently shaped.
Comic Books
- European example: the characters' names in Asterix are puns. When translated from French to Spanish, these puns still worked fine, probably because French and Spanish are both Romance languages. However, these same puns often came out rather silly in English: the fisherman, in French, was called Ordralfabétix, from "ordre alphabétique" ("alphabetical order"); now imagine a fisherman called "Alphabeticalorderix". So, the translators created new names out of whole cloth, based on the characters' traits and flaws. For example, the fisherman was often blamed for selling stale fish, thus he was called Unhygienix. The chief was called Vitalstatistix because he had the "vital statistics" at hand, the bard was called Cacofonix because of his awful singing, and so on. One rather clever example: the name of Obelix's pet dog, Idéfix (from the idiomatic phrase idée fixe, meaning "fixed idea") was translated as Dogmatix.
- Several of the English dubbed animated films called the fishmonger Fishtix and the Druid who creates the strength-potions called both Panoramix and the infinitely cleverer Getafix.
- Moreover, the narration is full of puns and sly allusions, many of which also didn't translate — but the translators manage to keep the number of jokes per page pretty much unchanged.
- Sometimes the translators even one-up the originals: in Finland, the Asterix book Asterix and the Normans was translated as 'Asterix and the Landing of the Normans'', an obvious, but still very functional pun on the landing of Normandy.
- Aaand sometimes they don't; recent translations published in North America seem to be translated by someone with a remarkably tin ear - as an example, the druid, who in the British translations had been named "Getafix," which includes a bit of sly adult humor, is now named "Magigimmix". Most, if not all, of the offhand humor of the series is now rendered leaden and inert, as if the translators had been explicitly told to take the comic straight into the Animation Age Ghetto as fast as possible.
- One of the comic magazines in Poland - "Komiks Gigant" (which is exclusive to Poland) - contains Disney Comics which have been masterfully translated, with lots of puns and new jokes added in.
- Ditto on the Finnish version of Walt Disney's Comics & Stories, which is often superior to the originals.
- The popular Belgian Tintin comic books by Herge feature a pair of bumbling twin detectives named Dupont and Dupond in the original French language version, pronounced the same way. In adapting Herge's work for foreign audiences, translators usually rename the detectives, giving them names that sound the same in the language they're speaking but that are spelled different. The English version, as just one example, calls the less-than-competent detectives Thompson ("with a 'P', as in 'Pennsylvania'") and Thomson ("without a 'P', as in 'Venezuela'"), keeping Herge's original intent.
- The same happened in many other languages, including the Dutch Janssen and Jansen, the German Schultze and Schulze (in German, "lz" makes an audible plosive, just like "ltz"), the Icelandic Skapti and Skafti, the Spanish Hernández and Fernández...
Film
- Examples from Czech dubbed versions of foreign movies:
- In Jumanji, the hero said when attacking the carnivorous plant: "It's harvest time, Adele!" Adéla ještě nevečeřela (Adele hasn't had supper yet) is a Czech movie, and the titular Adele is a man-eating plant created by a mad scientist.
- In the Czech version of the first Shrek movie, the translators have smuggled in a number of references to popular Czech fairy tales.
- Polish versions of Shrek are loaded with Woolseyisms, pretty much like all movies translated by Bartosz Wierzbieta.
- Various dubs of Robin Hood: Men In Tights change the gag when Robin Hood tells the Sheriff, "unlike other Robin Hoods, I speak with an English accent" because foreign viewers who saw the dubbed 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves wouldn't get the joke. So, it is changed to another line deriding Costner. For example, the German dub changes the line into something like "because unlike that other Robin Hood, I do not cost the producers 5 million", putting stress on kosten (cost) as a pun on Costner.
- The Latin American dub of the recent Get Smart movie got back the original voice actor for Smart and he add-libbed many of the jokes, sometimes placing mexican pop- culture references over the original ones and overall made the film much more true to the original.
- In this troper's Spanish class, she watched a movie in Spanish with subtitles, that featured a little girl, who, being a little girl, couldn't pronounce "solidaria" ("devoted") correctly. So she says "solitaria" ("solitary"). The subtitles translated it as "divided."
Literature
- A literary example is Anthony Burgess' excellent translation of Cyrano De Bergerac. He substituted lines and allusions to Shakespeare and Marlowe which were appropriate to the classical French theatre quoted in the original text. For instance, in Cyrano's famous speech about his nose, the mock-pathetic line "Oh, that this too too solid nose should melt" is introduced.
- Another literary example which comes to mind is the decision of one translator of Lysistrata to call the organization of Obstructive Bureaucrats the "Committee of Public Safety", historically the name of the French Revolution government better known as "The Terror". As obviously anachronistic as this may be, given that Athens' government was somewhat similar to Robespierre's and that the modern reader would be unlikely to know much about the real organization, the translated name seems appropriate.
- The Portuguese translation of H. Rider Haggard, being made by the XIX century writer Eça de Queirós (nowadays recognized as one of the best portuguese writers of all time) is considered world-widely as a better book than the original, making this trope Older Than Television. There are even translations to English, French and Italian of Eça's translation.
- A very famous John Keats poem, On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer, is about how the author had read the sober academic editions of ancient works, but was never truly enthralled by Homer until he read George Chapman's more liberal translation. This makes Woolseyism Older Than Radio. As a side note, the literati of the time ignored or dismissed the point entirely - one even going so far as to propose that, since Keats was relying on translations instead of reading the original Ancient Greek, he was obviously not qualified to be an authority on the subject. This may mean that Fan Dumb is also Older Than Radio.
- Every single translation of Harry Potter, ever. Each language has a different silly acronym for Hermione's house-elf-helping organization, and a different Significant Anagram for Voldemort's true name.
- In the English version, people who search for muggle-borns and catch them (so the corrupt government can round them up in prisoners camp because of racial discriminations) are called "snatchers." The french translator adapted it to "râfleurs." Le mot "râfle," in the mind of any french citizen, refers to the "râfle du Vel d'Hiv," an horrible deception the french government used during WW 2 to gather jewish citizens in one place, catch and send them all to german concentration camps as a token of "friendship" to the german forces located at the time in occupated France. "Collaboration" (the fact that many french citizens the idea of helping the nazis and worked actively for that goal) is a traumatising issue in France, linked to antisemitism. So the use of the word "râfle" here is not only extremely powerful and symbolic to French audiences... It's also completely appropriate given the political situation of the story, and brillantly highlights J.K.Rowling's views on racism and resistance to oppression. The situation of Britain in The Deathly Hallows matches indeed almost perfectly the fate of France during WW 2.
- Every one with the exception of Polish one, which uses English version straight-up. Some things were still Woolseyised, to mention the surname of Cornelius Fudge (translated as "Knot" - Polish equivalent of "fudge up" is "sknocic") or Diagon Alley (translated as "Ulica Pokatna", similar to the word for "diagonal" (przekatna) and referring to small, not-quite-legal vendors). On the other hand, the Banshee was utterly Macekred into "Szyszymora" (should be Kikimora, if anything - the name comes from Russian mythology, where Kikimora is a bog hag that lures people with her screams).
- When Harry Potter was translated into Hindi, all of the Dog Latin incantations were translated into appropriate Sanskrit incantations.
- Sadly, the Swedish version is more of a Macekre...
- And so qualifies the Spanish version... The Knight Bus = "El Autobús Noctámbulo" (the night-trotting bus) and Diagon Alley/Knockturn Alley = "Callejón Diagon"/"Callejón Knockturn" (Diagon side-street/Knockturn side-street), I ask you. Although on the translation's defense (which isn't much to speak of, to be honest), most of the english puns rely heavily on english pronunciation and idiomatic expressions to sound right in the first place, so they had to make do with what they had.
- J.R.R. Tolkien planned that his works are translated in this manner. There is even a list of the linguistic roots of names to help with translation. The Finnish translation provides a perfect example of a well done adaptation (complete with an appendix describing the decisions that the translator made). The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit are themselves supposed to be adapted from the common language of Middle Earth (see discussion under Literary Agent Hypothesis and Translation Convention)
- Done by Tolkien himself in the appendix to The Lord of the Rings, where he explains that English puns such as the Branduin river being nicknamed the Brandywine are based on similar meaning puns in the original languages.
- Tolkien, of course, was rather a master philologist who pretty much created The Lord Of The Rings to give his made-up languages appropriate backstory.
- The Japanese edition of The Lord Of The Rings (Yubiwa Monogatari) is notable.
- The first Polish translation of The Lord Of The Rings was fairly simplistic and a lot of names were left in from the original. A second translation was made which attempted to reproduce the effect of the English names in Polish ("Bilbo Baggins from Bag End" became "Bilbo Bagosz z Bagoszowa"). Unfortunately by this point the Anglicized names were so prevalent in Fanon and tie-in materials that Fan Dumb won the day, and all modern editions of the books use the first version.
- A similar effort to that of Tolkien was that used by Richard Adams in Watership Down which presented the names of characters and other vocabulary as Woolseyism translations of the "Lapine" language.
- The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe claims to be a translation of a book from the future. Subverted in that the "translation" uses obscure and archaic terms instead of contemporary equivalents.
- From a contributor who decided to translate Dune into his own language: "I got a bit stuck when it came to translating Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles. Struggling to translate the acronym as to make it as easily pronouncable as the orriginal, I turned to translations in other languages for inspiration. One of those was the German one, Merkantile Allianz für Fortschritt und Entwicklung im All. Keep in mind that the organisation in question is basically a intergalactic space monopoly."
- What?? CHOAM stands for this monstrosity? We Hungarians got really lucky then... Until now, I knew only the abbreviation in English and I tried to match CHOAM with the Hungarian meaning with no luck. Now I know why...
- Not to mention that 'Honnete' is a French word, not an English one. Nice work, Mr Herbert...
- Herbert has a point, however. The history is set in a distant future, where many of the nowadays languages are 'ancient', and probably evolved into one single behemoth, as many cultures/religions did in the Dune Universe.
- When the Spanish publisher Ediciones B got to translate Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, they soon had to figure out a way to translate the word "dæmon": they couldn't use "demonio", Spanish for "demon", because dæmons are more like Spirit Advisors rather than Always Chaotic Evil beings. The answer? The translators took a look at Greek mythology, found out that a daimon is a supernatural being between mortals and gods which can be good as well as evil, saw that this word was the closest thing to Pullman's term, and thus, they translated "dæmon" as "daimonion", which is essentially the same word but more transparent to Hispanic eyes.
- Similarily, the scandinavian translations couldn't use the word 'dæmon', because that LITERALLY means 'demon' in Danish (in Norwegian and Swedish, the spelling is "demon"), so, like in Spain, the translator changed it to 'daimon'.
- Of course, the terms "dæmon" and "demon" are both derived from "daimon" - the Always Chaotic Evil aspect is due to early Christianity declaring all non-Christian supernatural beings to be diabolic in nature. Literally demonizing them, in other words.
- Douglas Hofstadter's Le Ton Beau de Marot is practically a tome about Woolseyism— it's all about the stylistic choices involved in translation, centering around how to best translate a poem by French poet Clément Marot but with digressions on all manner of other works.
- Another famous example would be the translation of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front from German to English. The 1930 English translation by Arthur Wesley Wheen gives the title as All Quiet on the Western Front. The literal translation is "Nothing New in the West" (Im Westen nichts Neues), with "West" being the war front; this was a routine dispatch used by the German Army.
- Averted by Tamora Pierce with regrettable consequences: When the German translators of her Immortals series asked if they could change the name of the "Ogre" species, she said no. She later discovered that they had asked because the German word for "Ogre" (Menschenfresser) literally means "man-eater", not a connotation the peaceful farmer Ogres of the books really needed.
- Ocurred with some words in the Spanish translation of A Clockwork Orange, "La naranja mecánica". In the original, most of the nadsat language is taken from Russian with little or no change. Some terms, however, were morphed into similarly sounding English words. Take for example gulliver for "head". As the Spanish word for it (cabeza) sounds nothing like it, the translated nadsat (via Word Of God) became golová, a direct transliteration from the Russian original word. Same happened with horrorshow (which turned into joroschó). Some others changed in less correct ways ("the old in-out" became "el viejo unodós", lit. "the old onetwo", when it could have been "el viejo metesaca"). Several untranslatable terms of jargon were silently converted to their "normal" counterparts, and most of the rest were adapted to comply with the ending and concordance rules of Spanish, but still sounding a lot more like their Russian counterparts than the English portmanteaus (portmanteaux?).
- Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves - The line 'open sesame' isn't a pun in Arabic, it doesn't sound at all like 'open says-a-me'.
- The Swedish Discworld translations are regularly very good, replacing English language-specific puns with equivalent ones and changing references to Anglo-Saxon culture, etc. to Swedish ones. This troper's favourite example: the movie business troll in Moving Pictures is named Rock, a reference to Rock Hudson. The Swedish translation changed his name to Bergman. (Berg being Swedish for "mountain", and all Discworld trolls having rock-related names.)
- Most Polish translations of the Discworld books are equally good. For example, in Soul Music, "Music With Rocks In" is translated as "Muzyka Wykrokowa" (not only the phrase sounds like "muzyka rockowa" - "rock music", but also brings to mind an energetic dance step forward - "wykrok"). There are some problems with the names of the bands.
Live Action TV
- The German dub of Hogans Heroes gives Sgt. Shultz and Col. Klink Bavarian and Saxon accents respectively; the original was not specific.
- Power Rangers varies from time to time on how close it resembles Super Sentai, sometimes for the better. A good example would be the Power Rangers in Space season 6. The original Super Sentai "Megaranger" showed ships flying through space and in preparing for the next season, the production team ended Power Rangers Turbo with a change of scenery to space. What they discovered was that Megaranger was a virtual reality/ gadget based series, never an outer space setting. So they mixed and matched the sentai footage with original American scripts and footage. What was originally just another Super Sentai series became one of the most popular seasons of Power Rangers and Growing The Beard for the entire franchise.
- The current season "RPM", seems to be doing a similar thing—taking a lighthearted Japanese series about heroes fighting with sentient talking car/aircraft/train toys that can be transformed into giant talking cars/trains/aircraft and robots, and turning it into a series set After The End in a Crapsack World where, in the wake of an attack by a computer virus and the robot army it constructs, humanity only survives in domed city called Corinth, protected by a small but elite team of Rangers, and even those Rangers are in dire straits when the series begins, forced to recruit two new Rangers, one of which they're not sure if they can trust and the other of who is, at best, a bit shy of the skills necessary for the job.
Video Games
- The most famous example of Woolsey's handiwork is probably the aforementioned Final Fantasy VI.
- Terra Branford was originally named "Tina" in the Japanese version. That's a western name, so a translator today would probably let it pass unchanged. However, the reason she was named that was because to the Japanese ear, "Tina" sounds exotic and unusual. Obviously this was not the case in the west, so Woolsey changed it. The earth connotations of her new name also unintentionally created a parallel between the other heroine, Celes.
- The game's antagonist, Kefka, was given dozens of new lines, many of which were absolutely hilarious and excellently established Kefka's character as a misanthropic nutcase. Recurring comic relief Ultros got a similar treatment.
- The Final Fantasy VI Advance remake for the game, released twelve years later, contains an NPC who takes a shot at a Fan Translation of the game which was far more literal — and not nearly as entertaining.
- Funny enough, the remake changed, among other things, Kefka's line in said picture to "son of a sandworm". Both work in the context, but there are no submarines in the game.
- Muad'Dib, is that you?
- The name of "Espers" for the summon beasts was another Woolseyism - in Japanese, they have always been called "Phantom Beasts". Though the actual reason for the name change was to get around the six-character limit (five for menus), the new name was appreciated for being unique. Other localizations have similarly deviated from the Japanese term to great effect on the script (Eidolons and Aeons in particular) and Final Fantasy XII re-used it is an homage.
- Similar to the Tina/Terra case, there's an urban legend that the two principal characters in Final Fantasy VII were originally named "Kuroudu" and "Arisu", Japanizations of the English names "Claude" and "Alice", and that to make these sound less prosaic in the English release, the translation team re-Anglicized the Japanese names to arrive at "Cloud" and "Aeris". Of course, the katakana is quite obviously "Kuraudo" and "Earisu", and Cloud and Aerith are clearly supposed to evoke the English words "cloud" and "earth" (as stated by the developers) but the fact that the rumour still survives makes it a strong example of the original Woolseyisms' impact on later games and their fans.
- The Goldfish Poop Gang in Chrono Trigger were named after condiments (Vinegar, Soy Sauce, and Mayonnaise) in the original Japanese. This was not very intimidating, so they were changed to heavy metal stars (Ozzie, Slash, and Flea) instead. However, the name scheme is quite common to the character's creator, Akira Toriyama, whose work was still obscure in the U.S. at the time - fans argue over whether this was actually a good change or whether the names would have been left alone had Dragon Ball been more popular at the time.
- This created something of a problem when the Japanese version of Chrono Cross actually included a main character named Slash that was supposed to be a rock star, which could have been handwaved if they hadn't also included an optional boss fight with the aforementioned Goldfish Poop Gang in the same game. This led to his name being changed Nikki, a reference to Nikki Sixx, in the English version.
- The Chrono Cross team deserves a medal for how well they handled translating some incredibly long names in the face of space constraints. "Snakebone Master Jakotu", for one example, was changed to the similar "Lord Viper" (just "Viper" on the character menu). But they lose a point for totally ruining a reference to the first game by changing "Alfador" to "Guile".
- "Guile" is a reference to Magil, a character in Radical Dreamers, the game Chrono Cross is based on. Since Alfador wouldn't fit, and calling the character Alf would conjure up the wrong images, they actually made quite a good decision.
- Chrono Cross gets another medal for making an on-the-fly accent and dialect generator. Instead of writing generic dialog seven times, they wrote it once and ran it through the generator.
- The gurus in Chrono Trigger were originally named Bash, Mash, and Gash. Woolsey changed them to the Biblically influenced Belthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar, much more appropriate for three old wise men. Plus, they start with the same letters!
- The way Frog speaketh. In the original, he spoke in normal Japanese, and in a rather blunt manner. In the DS version, he lost his accent, but remained quite polite. It was quite baffling that no one else in 600A.D. talked like this, and that he used to speak normally before his transformation. However, many old school fans mourned the loss of the accent.
- The DS version corrects one of the less enjoyable "Woolseyisms" - the conversion of "Kamaitachi" to "Slash", mucking up the solution to the Puzzle Boss Masamune/Granleon (the move interrupts its charge, because it's the wind, whoosh!). This was quietly retranslated to "Wind Slash".
- In Super Mario Bros games since the 1980s (notably with the exception of the Super Mario Bros Super Show and the They Just Didnt Care So Bad Its Horrible Super Mario Bros Movie), the original 大魔王 クッパ Daimaō Kuppa ("great demon king Koopa") has been rendered Bowser in most Western localizations of Mario games, while Kuppa or a variation on the name has been kept as Bowser's only name in Japan and Korea. Whereas Kuppa is the Japanese word for 국밥 gukbap (a Korean soup with rice—Shigeru Miyamoto wanted specifically to name him after a Korean dish), the name Bowser has no real relation to kuppa or gukbap in sound or meaning. (Interestingly, Bowser's only name in Korean isn't the original Gukbap, but 쿠파 Kupa, a phonetic round-trip translation from Japanese.) Kuppa isn't abandoned though, as it has been refashioned as the name of the Koopa race and as Bowser's surname Koopa. Though Bowser is never used in Japanese, it has become unthinkable that Bowser's name in English should be anything less than Bowser, making this one of the most enduring (and endearing) Woolseyisms in video games.
- The Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi games frequently use Woolseyisms, to the point of tossing out large portions of the original script. (The pianta yakuza gang in The Thousand-Year Door becoming Goodfellas-style mobsters, for example.) Despite this (or perhaps because of it), the games have some of the best localizations out there.
- And who could forget the hilarious Internet speak employed by the mind-controlled Hammer Brothers in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time? After you free them from spouting off phrases like "PREPARE 4 TOTAL PWNAGE. WOOT! WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!", one of them wonders who talks like that. (In case you were wondering, they were speaking just in katakana in the Japanese version, which definitely originated nowhere near the Internet.)
- Another notable example is Fawful from Mario And Luigi Superstar Saga, whose speech is a deliberate spoof of poorly translated games. As he himself says, "I have fury!"
- The characters in the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney series all had their names Americanized in the localization, but the writers took great care to retain the subtle wordplay and puns of the original. "Kamen Mask", for example, was translated as "Mask*DeMasque", since kamen is Japanese for mask. The English version's references to pop culture and Internet memes also easily replace similar jokes in the Japanese script while endearing the games to the fanbase.
- In a truly mind-bending example from the third-game, the Judge protests that he's "no spoony bard." This may be the first example of a recursive Woolseyism.
- One instance that didn't go perfectly was setting the series Twenty Minutes Into The Future to explain the legal system, due to a few complications it made. For example: The judge is surprised at a digital camera, something that at current adoption rates, should be near universally adopted by 2016. Of course, several games later, the judge later asks the bailiff to get him his "steed" and in the fourth game doesn't know what rock and roll is despite that game being set in 2026. Udgey is just not right in the head...
- Opinions on the translations of the late Working Designs are split — fans of the company insist their changes are Woolseyisms, but others consider them Macekres.
- One excellent Woolseyism occurs in the first two Shadow Hearts games, where, for the US and EU releases, the Half-Japanese, Half-Russian male lead's name is changed from pseudo-Russian Foreign Sounding Gibberish to "Yuri", a name that's authentically both Russian and Japanese...even if it's normally used for differing genders in the countries (male in Russia, female in Japan).
- Planet names in the European version of Meteos were heavily Woolseyised compared to their American counterparts (often straight transliterations from the Japanese planet names), giving them a more Greek or Latin feel. Example substitutions include "Gigantis" for "Yooj", "Aetheria" for "Brabbit" and "Insomnis" for "Dawndus".
- An early, minor Woolseyism took place in the translation of Castlevania 3, as the characters Ralph C. Belmondo and Grant DaNasty became Trevor Belmont and Grant Dynasty, respectively, due to the localization team feeling that the original names came off a bit silly. Curse of Darkness gives the impression that the Japanese adapted the name "Trevor" in the Japanese canon when one chooses to hear the Japanese voice track. In truth, he is still called Ralph in Japan. They simply rerecorded the Japanese dialogue so that the Japanese actor says Trevor instead of Ralph (confusing, isn't it).
- "DaNasty" was originally taken from Danesti, half of the Wallachian royal house — consider them Romanian "Lancasters"; their "Tudor" counterparts were the Draculesti lineage.
- The name Castlevania itself is a Woolseyism; the series is called Akumajou Dracula (literally "Demon Castle Dracula") in Japan.
- In the Sorrow arc, native Japanese student Souma Kurusu became a foreign transfer student, and his name became Soma Cruz.
- Despite the terrible translations of Mega Man Battle Network 4 and 5, there were some gems in the first few games. In the first game, shopkeepers and at least one boss used basic AIM-speak. Many of the new names were also more obvious puns in English or simply more recognizable (the puns in the Japanese version are just as blatant). And at least one pun was made on the proper French pronunciation of a character's name (Eugene Chaud), which was more respect than Mega Man NT Warrior gave him (they pronounced it "Chodd").
- Several Woolseyisms in Valkyrie Profile. Most notable was the change of "Ahly"'s name to "Hrist", as the latter is a valkyrie in Norse mythology.
- Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume actually translated the original, modern Japanese into dated English. The result was that the localized version had a very great deal more immersion and atmosphere than the original.
- The head of the Mother 3 Fan Translation, Clyde "Tomato" Mandelin, has a position at Funimation, so it only figures that said fan translation would have a few examples of Woolseyisms. For just one example, at one point in the original Japanese, a sunbaked pig says that the name of a famous Japanese ham company came to him in a dream; in the translation, he says that the words "Oscar" and "Mayer" appeared instead.
- A lot of the enemy names were made into puns, in keeping with the comedic feel of the Mother series. A short list: Einswine (a brain-augmented pig), Navy SQUEAL (an aquatic Pigmask), and the Squawking Boomstick (an exploding chicken head on a stick)
- As well, his choice to change Yokuba, a rather major villain figure in the game, to Fassad, is considered by many to be a Woolseyism. Yokuba came from yokubari, meaning greed, something most players wouldn't get. Fassad comes from facade and fits remarkably well with the character.
- Not to mention the fact that 'Fassad' is also Arabic for 'corruption', which makes it fit even better.
- In the US version of the SNES ports of Final Fight and Street Fighter Alpha 2, the character Sodom has his name changed to Katana. Considering that his character is a Japan-ophile, the As Long As It Sounds Foreign sword certainly seems more appropriate than the Unfortunate Implications Biblical reference. As well, in the same port of Final Fight, the metalhead thug Damnd has his name changed to Thrasher, which many fans felt was more appropriate. These changes were most likely made due to Nintendo of America's policies regarding religious references and offensive material in games, rather than any sort of desire to punch up the translation, however.
- Woolseyism could also be seen as the reason for the boss name shift in the Street Fighter II games. The names Balrog, Vega and M. Bison were shifted around (what with the whole "Mike Tyson might sue us!" mentality at the time) so that the boxer was named Balrog, the claw-wielder was named Vega, and the final boss/"dictator" became M. Bison. Not only was it conceded that Bison was a more intimidating name for a final boss/"dictator", but the claw wielder, who in-story hails from Spain, now gets a Meaningful Name; "vega" is spanish for "meadow" or "fertile plain."
- Your Mileage May Vary. Some think that the Japanese names seems to fit the characters better than the English switched-up. Aside for Tyson/Bison, the name Balrog for "Claw" could be interpreted as intentionally ironic (a pretty boy named after an ugly Tolkien monster), while Vega is actually an Arabic word for Vulture (which is fitting for "Dictator", considering that the logo of Shadaloo is a winged skull).
- The Advance Wars series has had a long history of doing this: For instance, the villain of the first two games was called "Herr Böse" — meaning "Mr. Evil/Angry/Nasty" in German — in the Japanese game. While undoubtedly exotic to the Japanese ear, it was slightly less impressive to the American/European markets and the villain was renamed "Sturm" in the English script. Many of the other CO names were similarly reworked.
- Granted, this was also responsible for turning Jake Totally Radical, so they weren't all perfect, unless you count that as So Bad Its Good.
- Considering Jake's Japanese counterpart John was generic and boring beyond measure, It is still an improvement.
- The latest installment in the series was translated independently by Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe, creating two translations — the American Days of Ruin and the European Dark Conflict. While the European version is more true to the original Japanese version, including the names, the American one contained a good deal of woolseyisms, including making Lin into more of a Deadpan Snarker and giving Ax Crazy Creepy Child Penny (Lili in Dark Conflict) some extremely hilarious dialogue involving her stuffed bear.
- Through the magic of the Woolseyism, a decidedly average Famicom platformer titled Magic John became a hilarious sendup of '80s surfer dudes called Totally Rad. Check out all the gnarly differences, dude!
- In Metal Gear Solid, Mei Ling, a character responsible for saving the game, would read out a Chinese proverb, and then read out the same characters with a coherent Japanese reading to relate to Snake's current situation. Since it was completely untranslatable, the localiser Jeremy Blaustein rewrote Mei Ling's dialogue from whole cloth, with the result that her sphere broadened - she now quoted Western literature and various thinkers as well as Chinese proverbs.
- Another change was that of Psycho Mantis's dying words - 'It feels very nostalgic'. Since the nostalgia could only be explained by a thought process Hideo Kojima would have to explain in supplemental material which would be very unlikely to be released in the West, Blaustein changed it to the more internally consistent 'it feels kind of nice', which gave the character a Psychopathic Manchild feel, making him more sympathetic. This change was reverted in the Video Game Remake, and even after explanation, few fans regarded it as an improvement.
- The Fan Translation of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, while being of rather dubious quality, had a Czech speaker in the translation team. This meant they were able to turn Kio Marv's dialogue from Foreign Sounding Gibberish which was vaguely intelligible with some knowledge of Russian into completely new dialogue in real Czech, giving a Bilingual Bonus.
- So many American and European Sonic The Hedgehog fans still prefer "Robotnik" over the Japanese "Eggman", even after the name Eggman got transplanted into the Western continuity in Sonic Adventure (just look around the site!). Of course, so many of them don't. It doesn't help that the first name was extremely well established because of the spin-off media - it would be like renaming "Mega Man" back to "Rockman" after 20 years.
- So much so that as of Sonic Adventure 2, Robotnik is his official name worldwide (though he's still only referred to as Eggman).
- In Persona 3: FES, the two game modes, called "Episode Yourself" and "Episode Aegis" was changed respectively to "The Journey" and "The Answer" in the localized version. Considering the theme of the story, this a much welcomed change compared to the rather Engrish names the original version used. Furthermore, the ultimate Persona, Orpheus Kai, which means "Reborn" or "Custom", was changed to Orpheus Telos. Telos is the Greek word for "goal" or "purpose." Similarly, Lucifel, the Angelic form of the demon Lucifer, had his name changed to "Helel" (the Hebrew name of the fallen angel) out of necessity to differentiate it from the demonic form of Lucifer.
- Additionally, in the original game, the period of time during which the team fought the Shadows was originally called "Shadow Time" in the Japanese release. The American localization changed this to the much more ominous-sounding "Dark Hour."
- One of the social links is related to playing an MMO. In the Japanese version, the MMO was based off the original two Megami Tensei games for the Famicom, which were never released outside Japan. In the English version, all of these references were changed to refer to the earlier Persona games, all but one of which were released in America.
- The soft drinks in vending machines. What was a Japanese-only drink turns into Starvicks (An unusual blend of coffee and cough syrup), 1up, Fountain Dew (an unusually yellow drink), Dr. Salt, Etc.
- The archaic words used in the Arc Words "Nanji wa ware, ware wa nanji" gets changed into the similarly archaic "Thou art I, and I am thou"
- The translator of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, a member of the Something Awful forums, edited much of the the NPC speech in the game to include Internet slang. The player character is repeatedly called a "noob" by other trainers, "for the win" is used at least once, one Galactic Grunt threatens to hit the player's weak point for massive damage, and a clown even exclaims "a winner is you!". This is appropriate, as D/P was the first game to use Nintendo's Wi-Fi Service, and most friend codes are traded via the Internet. They also have a few Shout Outs to the Something Awful forums ("My Pokemon is fight!")
- And a Shout Out to a Something Awful forum member as well. A goon did a Lets Play of Pokemon Crystal, starring a character named Roxy, whose main Pokemon was a Wooper. On Thursdays, you can go to the TV station and fight an interviewer/cameraman pair in a double battle. The interviewer uses a Wooper, and the interviewer's name is Roxy. It kind of helps that both the interviewer and the female PC from Crystal both have blue hair.
- In the original generation Pokemon games, it is possible to purchase medicines for your Pokemon which improve their stats. In the Japanese version, the medicines were compounds like taurine (an antioxidant used in treating blood pressure disorders) and bromhexine (a chemical used in some cough medicines to dispel mucus). These names had no relationship to the statistical benefits of using the medicines (for instance, how would taking indometacin, an anti-inflammatory medicine, improve your monster's speed?). In the English version, the translator decided to change them to vitamin and mineral supplements, which, as they permanently increase stats, seems more sensible. It also meant the medicines could be renamed to things that made sense with what their effect on the Pokemon was, even if only in terms of association - Protein (which builds muscle) for attack, Iron (which is a strong-sounding metal used in protein synthesis) for defence, Calcium (which is needed to build strong bones and teeth) for special attack, Zinc (used in homeostasis) for special defence, and Carbos ("carbohydrates", energy-giving compounds) for speed.
- And again with Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, there is the case of Fantina/Melissa. Once again, like the FFVI example above, is a textbook case of Appeal Dissonance (Westerner's names sounding exotic to Easterner's ears). It's stated that Fantina is not from the Sinnoh region, or for that matter, whatever country the Pokemon games are set in. So, in the original Japanese, she's given a Western sounding name: Melissa, and uses Gratuitous English in her speech. When localized, they kept the "foreigner" aspect of her personality, but changed it so that she now drops French phrases and expressions in her speech (e.g. "Tres Bien!" and "___ how you say, "___").
- Alexander O. Smith's work on Vagrant Story, the first Phoenix Wright game, Final Fantasy X, and Final Fantasy XII(alongside Joseph Reeder) is rarely passed over in reviews of said games, usually being held up as hugely successful Japanese-to-English translations (at least when they're not being criticized for Purple Prose pretension).
- Apparently this sentiment is echoed in Japan as well - he was asked to provide the English lyrics for the two vocal songs on The Skies Above, the second album by Nobuo Uematsu's band The Black Mages.
- The English translation of Odin Sphere added many more references to Norse mythology than were in the the Japanese script. Most fans appreciated how much deeper this made the game.
- A special case for Osu Tatakae Ouendan - an entire sequel was made that transplanted the gameplay concepts to a setting (and soundtrack) that could be appreciated outside of Japan while still retaining the quirky appeal of the game that spawned it.
- And interestingly, the result was also a success in Japan.
- The English translation patch of La Mulana renames a few MSX ROMs (not the ones you download, the ones you collect in-game). Vampire Killer, which has officially been released under only one other name, Akumajou Dracula, gets renamed to Castlevania, and Uranai Sensation gets renamed to Diviner Sensation.
- The American version of Final Fantasy X had many changes made to fit the lip-movement of the characters - thanks to that, "shibito" (corpse) became "unsent" (which is a very good word given the setting of the game), "inorigo" (Child of Prayer) became "fayth" and "shokanju" (summon beasts) became "aeons", among others. The words chosen by the English version were very well accepted though. The lip problem also led to many sentences ending with "You know?" in the english 'dub', among other small line changes. In the game's finale, originally Yuna just thanks Tidus (for protecting her), while in the dub she says she loves him (since "I love you" fits the lip movements for "Arigatou" better than "Thank you").
- Final Fantasy V Advance has a fairly ridiculous English translation, but probably intentionally so, with things such as Gilgamesh saying "Inconceivable!" after being defeated, or Bartz commenting that a defeated enemy crab has been served.
- The World Ends With You probably has way more than these few examples, but these are the obvious ones—all the characters use modern American teenage slang properly (i.e. "Totally Radical" is avoided except in one intentional case); Beat goes even farther with a stereotypical "gangsta" speaking style, whereas in Japanese his speech is simply rather rough and impolite.
- Impolite speech in Japanese is very hard to translate into English, because the polite and impolite versions literally mean the same thing; however, using the impolite version in an appropriate setting connotes familiarity or intimate friendship (depending on how impolite you go), while in an inappropriate setting, it connotes disrespect, disgust, or hatred. Thus, "gangsta" speech is actually a really good analogue.
- The entire game was saturated with slang, which may or may not be a good thing for you. Even a certain button labeled simply "run from battle" in Japanese was edited to say "Gotta bounce!"
- As the creator of Katamari Damacy decided to leave the project when Me and My Katamari was being made, the Japanese script was therefore very dry and empty. The American translator was given the task to ghost-write the script entirely from scratch, and did so brilliantly. The King's dialogue was full of obscure literary and cultural allusions and his campness was played up to new, hilarious heights.
- In Super Robot Wars Original Generation, one of the original character, Giado Verendi, was originally supposed to be Italian. When translating the game, Atlus took one look at his portrait, a dark-skinned man with dreadlocks, and took the obvious route, mon.
- In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn's the Black Knight's survival replaces a Phlebotinum Breakdown Hand Wave with Ike being allowed to win for reasons that mesh well with the existing story. In the original, the Black Knight's warp powder malfunctions, teleporting only his spirit and leaving his body behind, meaning he was weakened in his fight with Ike, and he regains his true power when his spirit returns after the defeat. In the English version, during the climactic battle, Ike reveals that his father's sword arm was crippled years before (this detail always existed), a fact that the Black Knight didn't know. Since the Black Knight's true goal was to surpass his teacher (Ike's father, Greil), this revelation makes the Black Knight realize that his victory was hollow — he was fighting a weakened man, and never got to experience Greil's true ability. He allows Ike to win in the hope that Ike will someday become as powerful and skilled as his father, and become a substitute he can test his skills against.
- Not...quite. Nice try, though. The detail regarding the Black Knight's desire to surpass his teacher is also found in the original Japanese script, albeit in a slightly different location. While This Troper is no purist, the English localizations do have a tendency to change things around to make it fit the "screen-click" requirements better. You get a fuller version of the story if you look at all the sides, though.
- Also in Fire Emblem, many names are completely changed in translation, the fandom is mixed on these, but the one that is generally accepted is Maji and Saji to Cord and Bord.
- Persona 4 continues the tradition of P3's translation by retaining important Japanese honorifics and certain cultural concepts (though the manual includes a handy glossary), while taking their own spin on certain other things that aren't as essential to plot or characterization, such as:
- Again, the soft drinks are all reminiscent of American beverages, though there's less variety this time around. Sadly, "Cylon tea" didn't return.
- The cartoony mascot bear character was called "Kuma" ("bear") in the original. The English translation changed his name to "Teddie," as befitting a cute, cuddly bear. In addition, he originally had a habit of ending his sentences with "-kuma," while in the translation, he resorts to un-"bear"-able puns, to the same effect.
- "Sensei! That was senseitional!"
- Mr. Morooka, the hated homeroom teacher, is known to his students as "King Moron." Apparently, the nickname he bore in the original Japanese was "Morokin", a play on his full name, Kinshiro Morooka.
- Finally, your character can benefit from some Woolsefying of his own when he takes a part-time job as a translator. Occasionally, you'll be given a choice when you run into something culture-specific, like children's dialogue or humor, and have the choice of creatively fudging the translation to retain the intended effect, or just do a Blind Idiot Translation. You get a chance to be paid much, much better if you do the former...though there's also a random chance of failing and getting paid nothing.
- This Troper's favorite Woolseyism is a sidequest for a novel. In the dub, a Twilight joke is involved.
- In another Atlus example, the Japanese version of Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha Vs The Soulless Army, set in the 1920s, had most of the characters speaking modern Japanese (aside from some characters, like Raidou's ancestors, who used very archaic language). The English translation, however, has them using slang appropriate to the time period. Of course, it's English slang. Try not to think about it too hard.
- Disgaea has a few. Most obvious to are their handling of the terms "Makai" and "Tenkai." Their literal translations are the awkward-sounding "Demon World" and "Heavenly World" and they don't have very good equivalents in English — Hell and Heaven aren't quite the same thing. So they translated Makai as "The Netherworld" — although not even close to a literal translation, this does a good job of evoking the appropriate imagery. Similarly, they made up the term Celestia for Tenkai, for the same reason.
- Another example is translating Maou as Overlord. Overlord is much closer to the connotations carried by Maou than the literal translation, "Demon King", and is a much more familiar and less awkward term in English.
- Don't forget the battle cries used during certain attacks. The best example is probably Laharl shouting "Bite the dust!" before finishing his "Overlord's Wrath" attack.
- Also, Champloo becoming essnetially Emeril in the dub, or the Mexican Orcs.
- The second Art Of Fighting game had a very peculiar English translation. All of the endings were altered in some way, resulting often in comical twists that are arguably more fun to watch/read than both the originals and the more faithful translations to other languages.
- In Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, if you've lost so many units that you don't have enough left to deploy for the next map, you'll be given generic units. In the PAL version, they have normal names. However, in the NTSC version, their names are insulting puns directed at the player.
- Jeremy Blaustein's localisation of Snatcher tightened up some of the more egregious plot-holes, and contained the most delicious Woolseyism ever - Neo Kobe Pizza. A comedy sequence in the game involved Gillian attempting to buy a dumpling-based food from a vendor, but Blaustein changed it to a dish consisting of a pizza dropped into soup. Fans, naturally, tried doing this with their own pizza, to univerally tasty results. A recipe even got onto Kotaku.
- The "form" Wii Remote poses in Wario Ware: Smooth Moves get changed into more familiar-sounding names, similar to what Nintendo also did with Elite Beat Agents. For example, the "Tengu" pose which involves holding the remote up to your nose is changed to "The Elephant". Since one of the first games using this pose involves helping an elephant gather apples, this works well. The pictures and dialogue during the narrator's speeches are changed accordingly. They're hilarious.
- The Japanese-exclusive original release of Tales Of Phantasia for the SNES got a fan translation by the group DeJap. If you want an accurate translation of the game, play the localized Gameboy Advance port; except for one glaring spell-check-failed (apparently "ragnarok" = "kangaroo") moment, the translation is quite true to the original. However, if you want a fun translation, boot up an emulator and download DeJap's translation. There's all sorts of gags and innuendo that weren't anywhere near the original script, and it's awesome.
Western Animation
- An hilarious example in the french dub of Aladdin. At one point, in the famous "Prince Ali" sequence, you see a group of pretty courtesans at a balcony, joined by the genie disguised as a courtesan too. What's the point ? Well, in french "Il y a du monde au balcon" ("it's crowded on the balcony") is an extremely popular, ironic euphemism used to say "wow, these breasts are big." It's inherited from the tradition of "precious language," which tends to use hilariously far-etched metaphors to describe trivial things (the bra is supposed to represent the balcony, if that's still not clear). And in Aladdin, you see a little balcony. With four courtesans on it. And ALL of them have big breasts. The opportunity of using this joke was just so good that the dubbers threw it in without any regard for the original line. Hilarity ensues.
- The Mexican dub of King Of The Hill had the title translated as Los Reyes de la Colina; fortunately, since "Reyes" turns out to be a real Hispanic family name, the Hills had their names changed and their family name was replaced with "Reyes", thus keeping the pun on the Hills' family name and the phrase "king of the hill". Hank Hill, for example, had his name changed to Héctor Reyes.
- The French Canadian dub, however, refers to the Hill family as living in Quebec, despite the prevalence of American flags, and lack of any snow on the ground in episodes set during Christmas...
- Not that they make much of an effort on the whole "this is Quebec" thing either - the entirely random placename-dropping gets rather annoying very shortly.
- Transformers serieses sometimes translate the meaningful names of the characters along with the dialogue. For example, Starscream becomes Gwiazdowrzask (literally "Starscream") in the Polish dub.
- In the German translation of Transformers Animated, the garbage-loving Wreck-Gar's name is Wreck-sauger. It's a play on the German word "drecksauger", which means "vacuum cleaner".
- Drawn Together, as translated into Russian by TNT (although it did have its share of flat-out Adaptation Decay). Most jokes specific to American culture that wouldn't make sense to a Russian audience were replaced with Russian-specific ones. In a particularly Anvilicious moment, Foxxy and Spanky recite the names of Russian reality show participants, like "This is for Olga!", in the first season finale.
- When The Magic Roundabout made the transition from France to the United Kingdom, the plot for each episode was completely rewritten and narrated by Eric Thompson. Although the show's creator, Serge Danot, expressed concern over these changes, Thompson's thoroughly British revamp of the animations gained cult status.
- Eric in fact wrote the scripts without looking at the original French ones; he based it entirely off of the film.
- Then there's the strange case of the 2005 computer-animated movie... It was made as a joint French-British effort, and had a voice cast from each country. Then it had a separate American dub, which is just considered terrible in of itself.
- When The Flintstones was translated to Spanish, nearly all of the characters' names were changed: Fred Flintstone became "Pedro Picapiedra" (Peter Stonecutter), Barney Rubble became "Pablo Marmol" (Paul Marble) and so on. In addition, the Voice Actors (who by and large do NOT sound like the originals) apparently add-libbed most of the jokes. Still, the series was a hit in Latin America.
- In fact, many Hanna Barbera series were given this treatment, to great success and increased funny.
- Guilherme Briggs is a famous Brazilian Dubber. Most of the fame comes from the exceptional voices he makes for incredibly different characters (he dubs Superman from the Animated Series/Justice League and Cosmo from The Fairly Oddparents, as well as Jim Carrey in his movies), but few know that he also largely improvises on his more comedic personas with jokes easily understood by Brazilians. In fact, many consider his version of most of these characters to be superior to the originals. For instance, he dubbed Hank for the Sealab 2021, managing to make this above average cartoon into comedy gold singlehanded.
- He was the dubbing director, too, so, it helped a lot. His work on Mewtwo in the Pokemon movie made a cute pokemon clone that happened to be wicked in a wicked clone monster that happened to be a cute pokemon. And it was adapted from the 4Kids version. Even my older brother thought Mewtwo was awesome. And he's the kind that only likes overpowered muscular no-brainers like Goku or Superman.
- The original Mexican dub of Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends left virtually no line of dialogue untouched, turning a stock-standard superhero action cartoon into a legendary, hilarious show that many Children of the '80s (and even the parents of those children, for various reasons) quote to this day. Sadly, this dub was replaced for a dead-literal one in post-2000 reruns, and the show lost most of its charm.
- Count Duckula's Latin American dub, also produced in Mexico, inserted rapid-fire references to Mexican culture (pop and otherwise) that make it one of the most beloved cartoons in the country's history. Such as "patolín" (how Nanny refers to Duckula in Spanish instead of "Ducky-Boos") wanting tortillas made from Maseca-Seca for lunch; or how he almost never refers to Nanny as such, preferring to use "Gordis" or "La Gorda" (think "fatty/fatso" as a very affectionate term of endearment) and "Gorda de la caridad!" when especially irritated with her.
- A few examples from Winx Club:
Other
- The name of Tel Aviv, Israel is a Woolseyism- The intent was to name the city after Theodore Herzl's book Altneuland (An Old-new Land), but this didn't translate well into Hebrew. Thus, to get the idea across, a combination of Tel, refering to an ancient archeological site and Aviv, a fresh spring was used instead.
- The King James Bible is full of more-or-less Woolseyisms. More modern translations such as the New International Version have preserved the most famous ones in only slightly modernized form. The KJV Twenty-Third Psalm, for example, begins "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." In the NIV, this has been translated to "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want," which is both more awkward-sounding and almost as anachronistic, even if it is a somewhat better literal translation.
- That is also a case of an ever changing language. There are more technically accurate translations of the Bible, but what has made the King James Version so popular is the poetic 16th Century prose they used. Putting it in modern language may make it slightly easier to understand, but it loses a lot of its charm.
- Ironically, plenty of subtle meaning is actually lost in translating The Bible's ancient languages according to overall meaning instead of word-for-word. A well-known example is Jesus' face-off with the Pharisees in John 8, where they ask Jesus how He could possibly think He is older than Moses. The Worldwide English (New Testament) translation of the response goes: Jesus answered, `I tell you the truth. I already was before Abraham was born.`, which while accurate in conveying the blunt meaning, misses out on the (intentional) back-reference of other translations. For example, the New International Version translation: "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!". This is a reference to the name of God (God said to Moses, "I am who am." - Exodus 3:14), and thus signified that Jesus considered Himself God... Which explains why the Pharisees immediately flew into a rage and tried to stone Jesus (for blasphemy) when they had earlier just put up with being called the children of the devil with far less outrage.
- Incidentally, the idea of "dynamic equivalence" in relation to the Bible tends to draw a lot of, well, heated reactions; most of the problem stemming from the fact that many people are unaware of the "Woolseyisms" of editions like the KJV detailed above, and thus assume that the version they are familiar with, often the KJV or Vulgate Latin, is the true, unblemished version straight from the mouth of God. Needless to say, this can make discussion of proper meaning in the Bible very, very difficult.
- Neopets does it with their own site sometimes, since some of the jokes, even when adapted, are still horrible as the original ones. But then, since Viacom expelled Adam and Donna from the team, it was just bound to happen.
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