Forum - View topicAnswerman - Who Are Subtitles Written For?
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I've definitely seen this happen as far as food goes. Food neophobia is still a pretty prevalent thing, but it's lessened a lot over the past 10 years or so based on my experiences. In the 90's, I doubt the "sushi burrito" would've caught on. Nowadays, the food truck Jogasaki, which specializes in that, is one of the most sought-after local ones. That being said, this level of acceptance also requires some exposure, or at least some observations, of other cultures. If you grow up surrounded only by your own culture, it will take longer to get used to other cultures than if you grew up in a melting pot environment. Where I went to college, about 85% of the population was white according to the then most recent census. And the business Asian restaurants were getting (as in the entire continent) came mostly from the students. A lot of the locals won't touch the stuff. (I mentioned prior that I failed to find a Chinese restaurant, but there was a Thai place, three Middle Eastern restaurants, and two sushi joints. They're of varying quality though, and all six places are thoroughly westernized.)
TV Tropes is for people who want to go there on their own, and Cliff Notes are mainly used for school studies--that is, learning something forced upon people. In other words, neither of them were really meant to reach out to the vaguely curious. People need to get started somewhere, and that somewhere, I guarantee, had some level of stumble-across. I know I got into anime because it just happened to be readily available and in my path. I'm sure it's the same with you as well. People don't stumble across TV Tropes or Cliff Notes. (Heck, most people within the industry have never heard of TV Tropes.)
Why doesn't it need more "casuals"? What's the downsides of that? But I suppose I'm speaking as someone who enjoys mingling with said casuals, regardless of what I'm into.
Which, personally, is quite odd as Howl's Moving Castle is an adaptation of a book with a British author. But I suppose Miyazaki would throw in his Japanese-ness into it.
I have one likely answer: For increased exoticism. This seems to be the reason behind, say, changing Gurren Lagann's Lordgenome's name into "Genome-sama," or why Digimon names with English names in the official dub get translated back into Japanese (such as Bearmon becoming Kumamon). There's also how, at least up to a certain point, fan translators could pass themselves off as being more genuine if they always kept some term in Japanese and point out, "Look, none of the other translators are doing that. We're staying truer to our source material!" I think this is less likely though.
I fail to see how "chuunibyou"is something that's as widely known as sushi.
That sort of expectation is dangerous as it heightens barriers of entry. How would someone get started if everything available just expects them to know? Why would someone get started in it if there are easier, more accessible alternatives?
Not to mention the people who take Japanese because they're so into anime and want to watch it raw, but proceed to struggle in the class and have to drop out. That's when they realize they're not as into anime and manga as they thought they were. Well, that was the case of someone I knew. He had to withdraw after about two semesters--he barely got by with a C- grade at the end, and it discouraged him enough to that he got into a funk and stopped being into Japanese media altogether.
There's also the fact that it's a pun: Zoro's theme naming is that his attack names are both something intimidating-sounding that also happens to be a food or drink. In this case, "Onigiri" can be both the "Rice Ball" (O + Nigiri) and "Demon Slayer" (Oni + Giri). (This same pun is also used in Pokémon as Glalie's Japanese name.)
I had an extended discussion on another place, completely unrelated to anime, where the fandom is actively trying to promote newcomers getting in. They spend big money every year on programs that lower barriers of entry and are always looking for suggestions on how to lower it even further (though it's still pretty high, but it's due to fan myopia than any intent to keep it high). And while I won't be naming anyone here as I don't know anyone's true intentions except my own, I did realize that for some fans, survivability of the fanbase is simply not a high priority among them (and this is not just anime/manga, but any groups of fans with a hardcore group unwelcome to newcomers), if it means living as a fan will remain unchanged.
Something will get lost in every translation. This goes from translating anime into English to interpreting for the leader of a country. And it cannot be avoided. Hence, it loops back around to the explanation given in this article: Who are the subtitles for? Is it for people who know Japanese name suffixes well enough or people who don't? Because if it's for people who don't, keeping Japanese name suffixes loses a lot more than substituting it with something reasonably similar in the language translated to.
Just wanted to point out that each year, Webster adds several new words to their dictionaries (and is widely considered where a word has officially entered the English language), and in 2016, "senpai" was one of those additions. This indicates the people at Webster consider its usage widespread enough to be included in their dictionaries. I don't think it's at the point where every English speaker on the streets is expected to know what a senpai is, but there are plenty of words undoubtedly in the English language fewer peolpe know of.
I've been watching subbed anime for well over a decade and I still don't know any Japanese, let alone enough Japanese to understand raws. (But that's mainly because I don't actually listen to the words being spoken, but rather the acting. I watch anime to be entertained, not to learn the Japanese language. Not that there's anything wrong with building your vocabulary through anime, but it's something I don't actively attempt to do.)
If I might bring up an idea, perhaps it's due to the more subdued, realistic-sounding acting predominant in English-language works, particularly live action. It doesn't match how people actually talk in real life, but the purpose of this acting style is to sound as natural as possible, to make you believe they are actual people somewhere. And because this sort of acting reflects how people talk in real life (even if it's not an exact match), maybe some anime fans watch anime and think people in Japan really talk the way they do in anime when in fact Japanese acting stems from their own traditional stage performances, which were not intended to look realistic. They probably genuinely think that people in Japan are always shouting when they're feeling passionate, have weird short phrases said at the end of each sentence that's different between people, and other dialogue quirks found in anime but not for real.
Those cases will eventually solve themselves. They'll eventually come across a situation that their knowledge of anime, manga, and Japanese video games cannot solve and that they cannot pass through via sheer force of will.
Has Babymetal pulled off a Top 40 Billboard list for anything other than the Foreign Music category? (I honestly don't know, but Billboard does a prettygood job of determining the level of cultural impact songs and bands produce.)
Something else is that such people are a very marginalized group (though personally, it's of their own accord, but they are still marginalized). Now, I am not a psychologist, but because so many other social groups look down on them and may be abusive to them in some manner, I think they would grow a persecution complex--that is, the thought that the whole world is against them and that anyone they don't know well is an enemy first and must gain their trust.
And it goes the other way too, like with "Goodbye Jojo."
If they're like me, they might not have even known there are two categories of engines like that. How could they possibly do the research to figure out if it's a V6 or a B6 if they didn't even know there were different categories? (I can tell you the make, model, and year of my car, and the color obviously but that's about it, and I don't know which one refers to the company and which one refers to the type of car that company makes.) |
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Banken
Posts: 1280 |
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Well, one is a type of engine, and one is the name of a specific engine, which you would have only known if you had either read the manga, the script (which most translators do not have access to), or simply had knowledge of the Mazda MX-5 Miata/Roadster. Initial D really needs to be translated by someone who understands Japanese car culture, which requires actually living in Japan. But a decent translator would have thought "Did he say V6, or B6?" and a cursory Google search would have told him/her that the car's engine is named B6. Come to think of it, "V" is usually pronounced "BUI" and "Bee" is prounced, well, "bee" in Japanese, so if they had been listening carefuly and not making assumptions ("V6 is a type of engine, so..."), they probably wouldn't have made that mistake. |
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Banken
Posts: 1280 |
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Actually, if they had been listening more carefully they would have probably heard the difference between "bui" (VEE) and "bii" (BEE). |
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Polycell
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Banken
Posts: 1280 |
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Well, that's just lazy, then. Even a cursory glance at Wikipedia would tell you what's what.
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jymmy
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Sure, if you're talking growling or screaming vocals. They have those in Babymetal, with the backing male vocalists. But that's hardly all metal singing (the most popular and successful metal bands in the world pretty much all have clean vocals), and that's not how the three main vocalists in Babymetal sing. You can take a listen to the original and English versions of "THE ONE" and they're obviously sung in different languages (excepting all the English lines the original has in the first place). It seems a weird point to bring up when it doesn't apply to the band in question. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I can understand the "Bui" vs. "Bee" distinction (that does explain the Arinamin V commercials Arnold Scwarzenegger acts in), though I don't really get the rest of it. Does the manga/script explain what "V6" and "B6" mean and that they're two different things? That being said, the criteria there--can translate Japanese to English, understands Japanese car culture intimately, has been in Japan to study it firsthand--does sound very specific, and I don't think there are that many people in the entire world who'd fit those criteria. I think that's the tricky thing about any sort of translation, or any sort of interpretation, for that matter: If you're not well-knowledged in something, you might not even realize there is something that needs research to accurately convey. In other words, something you might think is obvious might not necessarily be, but you still have to restrain yourself from checking every single statement, or you'll never get your work done. |
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Banken
Posts: 1280 |
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No, but anyone with knowledge of the car in question would know it's not a v6. The Miata is a straight four.
*raises hand*
Mistakes are expected in interpretation, especially between languages so different. Translation should be 99.99% accurate. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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That statement sounds like complete gobbledygook to me. I see your point though: If the translator knows as little about automobiles as I do, then he or she should stay away from translating Initial D.
A 99.99% accurate translation sounds like it'd be impractically slow and expensive though. I'm guessing you mean the 00.01% refers to incorrectly translated jargon like the above though, but I'd say the likelihood of that increases the more niche the subject of the work of fiction is. Something I noticed is that Japanese writers tend to be much bigger sticklers for accuracy than those of other countries. American and European fiction tends to play fast and loose with facts and terminology, as western viewers, unless they're enthusiasts, really don't care as long as the story is entertaining. You wouldn't see this describing of a car's engine in a Fast and Furious movie, for instance, unless it's technobabble to make the character appear knowledgeable, as it's otherwise plot-unimportant padding. I feel like I'd like to address that in a future Answerman column as to why this distinction exists, though I wouldn't know how to word it. |
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0nsen
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I learned both English (through subtitles) and Japanese (through audio) that way, though. It only took about 300 anime to learn English and about 800 to learn Japanese. Emphasize on learn, mastering English took longer and I don't think I've mastered Japanese yet. It's good enough to watch most Anime RAW, though. English was easier, because I had subtitles and thus could look up every word I didn't know, which was every word. Participating in discussions online also helped. Both involve more effort when it comes to Japanese. I still can't read Kanji. Mostly because they're not a huge part of anime. Only some standard ones come up frequently, like 人 or 火. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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As a whole, audiences in Japan and Western countries care roughly the same amount about accuracy and details of subject matter. And plenty of Japanese works play just as fast and loose with facts and terminology and other details as the worst of Hollywood. (Sword Art Online, for example, was clearly written by someone who had no real knowledge of MMORPGs; Log Horizon on the other hand, the author clearly knows them well.) The difference, I think, is that in Japan you tend to get more writers (and directors, producers etc) who are writing stories on the subject because it's a subject they're passionate about; of course they want to get the details right. And of course, some Western writers do it too. Just about everything Neal Stephenson's written is a good example; he puts in lots of detail about technical and "flavour" stuff, and small amounts of artistic license aside, it's all accurate. As to why there's more like that in Japan, I'd say it's down to the traditional Japanese attitudes of putting in the absolute best effort to do the absolute best workmanship you can. |
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peno
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The problem with this, however, is that most of the time (actually more like practically always) the translators don't have audio and video of the source material. They are translating from re-written dialogues which may or may not have some additional notes. They are unable to hear if the ビー written in their script is spoken as "bui" or "bii", unless they have some additional note to lead them in the right direction. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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How do the actors know what to say then?
There is definitely a lot of passion for accuracy in western fiction too, but it seems that's mostly concentrated at the lower-profile media like literature or video games, or from smaller companies, and even then it's concentrated in science fiction. I'm talking about the big, mainstream productions and media that reach very wide audiences (or did in the past): Television, film, comic books. The difference I see is that in Japanese works, the story adapts to the research (which I see in every sports series, for instance), whereas in western works, the research adapts to the story (the most visible case is the CSI franchise, where they bring in advisors but ignore them if it means they have to change what they wrote in advance; and in Doctor Who, ultra-advanced technology is more or less magic as far as their capabilities go). One thing that always comes to mind, though, is people getting on Roland Emmerich's case with the impossible physics of 2012, upon which Emmerich had a simple response: "I am not a scholar." The implied corollary to that is, "I am a storyteller and thus am not obligated to get the facts right." During the brief moment I worked in Hollywood, there were a lot of research-phobic people, even during a time when using Google or Wikipedia is as easy as a snap of the fingers. While I was just a lowly assistant, any time I read a script and pointed out an inaccuracy to the writer, the writer invariably got defensive and refused to speak to me. (And it would not be changed in any subsequent drafts.) Ultimately, the executive told me directly that while he appreciated what I was doing (as he had game show levels of trivia knowledge), it's not worth it to correct these inaccuracies, both because of said defensive responses and because it's time- and money-inefficient to get something right when you might persuade like 2 people at best to go see the movie just because that background information is now scientifically, historically, or culturally accurate. To that extent, I find it admirable that I keep seeing accounts of manga authors dedicate months to understanding all the finest details of what their next manga will be about and then start drawing when they feel they're ready. You are right though: Plenty of Japanese media exists where they don't let accuracy get in the way of telling a good story. In the end, my best guess is mindset: If a writer thinks research is boring, they won't do much of it, and I'm sure there are plenty of writers like that in every country with big mass media output. And pride: Some writers just detest being told they're wrong and also don't want to be reminded that they might not be that knowledgeable on particular subjects. (While he wasn't a media major or any, when I was in college, one of my roommate's friends didn't like watching quiz shows because it made him feel stupid.) |
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vonPeterhof
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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I do, and it does. In this case Emnwtwiht is the "original" term and it is the Japanese watchers who are getting something different.
[I did not click submit! Stupid laggy phone.] I remember in Danmachi , the first time "Kenki" (剣姫) comes up in the anime the dialog explains it means "ken no hime" which should have made things easy for the subtitlers, but they stuck with "sword princess" anyway, and I think there was some dialog in Death Note about Light's name. What they've done for this anime is ignore the furigana completely in the dialog, which is odd when they're using it on the anime site. For the English subtitles however, they've gone back to the "proper" term (presumably at the request of the licensor since I doubt they researched that far) but there's no explanatory dialog this time. Last edited by Shiroi Hane on Tue May 16, 2017 3:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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