Discussion DubInducedPlotHole / AnimeAndManga

• Death Note:
  • In an early arc, Light sends L three messages by having criminals write them down before dying, which add up into a single mockingly cryptic phrase (more or less, "L, did you know shinigami only eat apples?") as a means of taunting him. Later on, L gives Light the three messages and has him try to guess the order the messages were sent before giving an incorrect answer (swapping the second and third messages). He figures Light might be caught off-guard at the order being different from what he expected. The thing is, in Japanese, the sentence mostly makes sense either way, so someone latching onto a specific order would indeed be suspicious. In English, it's much harder to write a long sentence that can similarly be divided into thirds and swapped around while staying grammatically correct. The English version's initial three messages are "L Do You Know" "Gods of Death" "Love Apples", and there's an order that makes obvious sense there, making L's claim that the message was "L, do you know love apples? Gods of death" something that would surprise anybody.
  • Later on in the same conversation, L produces a fourth note (which is fake), and claims it completes the message: the final version reads as "L, did you know shinigami that only eat apples have red hands?" In the original, L's stated order was a bit of a sentence fragment, so Light latching onto the idea that there had to be three messages would indeed be somewhat suspicious. But in the English version, "L do you know love apples? Gods of death have red hands" is still a grammatical nightmare. While the sentence is meant to sound weird in both versions, in the original, it's because it's a casual claim about mythical monsters, while in the translation, it's because the grammar is bizarre.

I don't think that's a plot hole. Even in the dub, it's still clear that the notes were written in Japanese and Translation Convention is in full play. While the fact that it's translated to english makes it harder to follow, the scene still makes sense. If the notes THEMSELVES were in english (rather than merely translated to english) then yes, that would've been the case but the story never pretends they are.