Subbing peeves

I've made my opinion known. I'm not interested in seeing a translation thats been worked over to eliminate the Japaneseness of the source.

I'm watching goddamn Japanese Cartoons. I don't want them turned into American Cartoons.

You're strawmanning, I think. Shay Guy isn't saying that anime should be stripped of everything that makes it Japanese! He's just saying (in my understanding anyway) that there is a trap of literalness that's easy to fall into if you're not thinking.

edited 10th Mar '11 5:07:28 PM by Sporkaganza

Ok, and? Fansubs have, by and large, gotten it right. There are extremes on either end (TV-Nihon in the dipshit not actually translating shit end, and GG on the over-localizing end), but the average fansub right now is (ignoring questions of actual accuracy, which is an entirely different issue) right about where I like it.

I still have issues with a lot of official translations, but then again, I don't actually watch most of the DV Ds I buy, and I'm transitioning into spending more money on imports, and less on domestic releases.

Both are traps though, trying to go so far in your translation you can reach either excessive literalness or ridding the source work of its home culture, both the dub group and the sub group have their problems but by and large we've worked them out.

Well... I'm not saying I don't think fansubs are pretty good right now. Fact is they are. But I'm just saying you should understand he has a point and not just shoot him down. Me personally I don't have a problem with fansubs; like I've said already, it's scanlations that piss me off.

I think you're right. I wasn't really speaking in practical terms, just arguing the principle.

edited 10th Mar '11 5:21:05 PM by Sporkaganza

Oh I agree entirely about Scanlations. There's a reason the only Manga I follow is Negima. Its just not worth it putting up with the bullshit that is the scanlation scene.

And nothing will ever make them interchangeable, as you were suggesting.

Right. This is an issue of writing in general — that's a perfectly serviceable way of introducing the term to an audience that might not know it. Sometimes this requires some tweaks, like the line added to explain the Important Haircut in the Princess Mononoke dub. That was a compromise for the sake of equivalence, because most Americans just plain wouldn't know the significance. "The Avatar State," on the other hand, was able to make its Important Haircut scene clear from the direction of the scene and the preceding events. That had the advantage of being made for an American audience from the get-go.

As for which terms should be kept, and how to ensure they don't throw the audience for a loop... well, I'll grant that's probably territory that even pro translators would argue over. Matt Thorn did say in his comment section that he thinks honorifics should be decided on a case-by-case basis.

BZZT. Straw man. Note my previous post: 'Removal of "sempai" is in no way equivalent to replacing "rice balls."'

I'm not advocating trying to disguise the country of origin. Even Disney's Ghibli dubs do nothing of the sort (and nobody even tries it with subtitles, for obvious reasons). Spirited Away has a prominent kanji-related plot point; Ponyo even kept the word "sensei." (Much easier to argue for retaining than "sempai" or "iincho.") The Summer Wars dub? Not the slightest pretense to being set anywhere but Japan.

Removing Japanese puns? That's part of the language, which is what a translation changes by definition.

For starters, much of that is so deeply ingrained in the product that, like I said, even watching with no dialogue at all you'd be able to distinguish it. But let's move on to your examples...

BZZT. Straw man again, unless I'm misinterpreting you. Nobody's trying to pretend any such thing with most anime releases of the past decade, certainly not Durarara!!, and dynamic equivalence doesn't change that. Besides, the fact that DRRR!! is a foreign product — that most people haven't heard of it, if you'll forgive my invoking the hipster stereotype — isn't remotely the best thing about it.

Ah, video games. I've mentioned before that the state of translation is very different in games, which I attribute to A) there being much more money in the market and B) the much greater difficulty in making and distributing fan translations. And gamers and game reviewers are quite all right with that — again I cite Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the translation for which was universally acclaimed.

So, here's my question. How exactly do exotic trappings give you more incentive to purchase? Is "foreign" intrinsically good? Is "domestic" intrinsically bad?

"Everyone"? You must not have been hanging out in the same social circles as I was. (Better find better recommendation sources. Know any other patterns in your tastes besides foreignness?) But this line of reasoning seems particularly bizarre to me — it sounds like you're saying exoticism contributes more to quality than quality does.

Good things are better than bad things. That's what "good" means.

If that's specifically what they want, they can watch in Japanese. Without subtitles, because the general Japanese audience wouldn't be watching with them. And the Japanese audience would understand what's going on nonetheless because their native language is Japanese, so our audience would need that same level of fluency. And if you want to really watch it as the Japanese audience would watch it, you'd need the same upbringing...

Nolo contendere.

We're talking about principles of translation. (And you'll note that immediately following the bit you quoted, I conceded that subtitles have different rules. But that doesn't mean they need to focus on seeming foreign.)

"Literalness" and gracelessness.

And when did you become the arbiter on what the "right" point was?

Granted, I don't personally have a problem with most recent fansubs I've watched, but I don't have very high standards for dialogue scripting.

People here like using the term strawman and strawmanning way too much in response to people they don't agree with.

As for your video game comment, do realize that for every competent english translation out there, there are also the same, if not more, number of outright terrible translations as well. Muramasa The Demon Blade  ^*

As for your exotic trappings comment, let's just say a large number of anime fans watch them because they don't like western animation, and same goes for western animation fans. There are those who like both and those who like none. Most people do not know, nor do they care about their reasons. But one thing consistent is that everyone wants what they are watching to be as faithful to it's original as possible.

Localization merely bastardizes it to better fit the taste of people who have trouble tolerating the fact that a show they're watching is made from a culture different from theirs.

edited 10th Mar '11 6:43:47 PM by Signed

Signed, do you even know what "straw man" means? No one has used this phrase inappropriately, as far as I can tell.

Also what the hell are you talking about? I love anime and Western animation. Truth be told, I just like animation.

edited 10th Mar '11 6:52:01 PM by Sporkaganza

And I don't give a flying fuck about Western Animation.

I don't hate it, but thats only because I don't care about it at all.

Translators are not writers. In fact, that's the entire problem. To get an "appropriate" translation the translator would need to be at least as good a writer as the original writers. Which is quite a bit much to expect. And even if they do succeed, that's still not a translation of the meaning itself. It's just a very good original writing based on another work in another language.

And yes, I do think that learning the language yourself is the only way to avoid the necessary pitfalls of translation.

edited 10th Mar '11 7:03:24 PM by Clarste

No, that's hyperbole. No translator has to be able to match the original writer's plot crafting abilities. Or pacing. Or artwork. Or character creation. Or world-building. Or atmosphere.

All they need is to be able to do is write dialogue. No, even that's too strong a statement, they don't need to worry about coming up with the dialogue's content. All they need to be able to write dialogue with the proper flow to it, and keep the character's voices intact.

Not having played Arc Rise Fantasia and I only played kingdom hearts awhile ago and only in english, what was the problem with these two games' translations?

edited 10th Mar '11 7:29:28 PM by Thenamelesssamurai

Okay, they need to be fanfiction writers.

Although I don't see how atmosphere and whatnot aren't directly related to dialog half the time.

^^ Ah, that's why I added a hot tip. On second thought, I realized that it was less the actual translation's problem, but the excessive edits that pissed me off about it...but in a way, that also counts as part of the translation, no?

I read the hot tips. I was hoping you could provide some specific examples of edits, as I'm curious about what changes were made, if it's not too much to ask.

This isn't exactly the thread for it...could you ask me it in the video games forums or something? It's mostly censorship related.

Ah, will do.

Yes you're misunderstanding me, Durarara is just an example of how yes you can switch cultures in a product, the only reason you can tell Durarara and other anime like it are from Japan without audio is because of the art style which is the only thing you can't really change, hell it's why most people think Airbender is an anime, because of the art style, the audio or dialogue or the "writing" has nothing to do with it nor does the work seem magically Japanese just because, it's the art style, if that weren't there you couldn't tell if you turned off the audio.

And literalness is a real word and last time I checked this aint some essay to my professor.

And I'm not going to watch the raw because I actually want to know what's going on, while the general stereotype is that everyone likes subs because they can't understand the Japanese, I like things better if I can actually know what they're saying hence why the subs help, they give an idea of what's going on, I might learn Japanese but it surely isn't on my priority list.

And BZZT does not solve all your arguments.

Localization merely bastardizes it to better fit the taste of people who have trouble tolerating the fact that a show they're watching is made from a culture different from theirs.

It also makes it more accessable to a wider audience, which is an important consideration when you're dealing with a company that's trying to make money. People tend to relate better to people similar to themselves. The mainstream audience isn't going to think twice about a guy named Micheal or Carl, but Mikado and Kida are going to be distracting at best and confusing at worst. The fact that you don't like that particular practice doesn't make it bad, and certainly doesn't make it a "bastardization" — changing names doesn't detract from the story or the characters at all, and insisting that it somehow does is just as shallow as you insist they're being by changing the names in the first place.

The issue is that the "wider audience" doesn't buy DV Ds.

They just don't. Pandering to them just pisses off the people who actually do.

Now, if you want to make the dub script more accessible, great. But don't fuck with the subtitle script unnecessarily.

I remember someone (speaking in this case about the old and new swedish Tolkien translations, the former of which is notoriously... Different, than the english original) saying that "Translations are like wives: The most beautiful are rarely the most faithful."

EDIT: Incidentally, what would be a decent translation of "Sempai"?

edited 11th Mar '11 6:58:09 AM by Arilou

"Upperclassmen" See the Ranma dub for how silly this sounds.

Boy did this thread explode like I expected it too. What is exactly wrong with scanalations now?

It doesen't only sound silly, but misses the entire hierarchical context, *and* sounds really, really weird when used between two people who have already graduated.

And I reiterate: Leaving titles untranslated is pretty damn common, almost a convention. It's not just done for japanese.