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NEWS: Death Note Release Won't be Limited to Downloads

See, that's what bugs me about subtitled anime. This case in particular stands out as I've been reading (and buying in English) the manga. If I wanted to read the story, I'd pick up the manga. Anime is meant to be watched and heard, not read. Sure, there is original Japanese dub, and let's not forget it's a dub in Japanese too, but it's not my native language, so how the hell is watching that more like the Japanese experience?

sabriyahm wrote:

Zalis116 wrote: AstroNerdBoy wrote: If they truly want to stop fansubbers, they will need to emulate fansub releases. So that will not only mean non-domesticated subtitles, but use of Japanese honorifics and use of cultural notes either during the episode or at the end (or ultimately both if needed). YES, this is what I've thought for a long time; people don't just watch fansubs because they're fast and free, they watch them because they like the way that fansubs present anime. Unfortunately, among all the professional companies, Viz's practices are pretty much the farthest from fansub style as you can get. I have no idea what you are talking about. Mabe it's cause I am an older anime fan, I don't know but I watch fan subs because they are fast and free. I don't watch them for honorifcs or cultural notes. I would take a professionally subtitled series over a fansub any day of the week. As a matter of fact one of my pet peeves with fansubs is incomplete translating. Putting Onii-chan instead of big sister. Stuff like that irritates me. [....] My point is don't assume most anime fans are hoping for professional releases to be more like fansubs. I would really really hate that and so would my other anime loving friends.

I pretty much agree with you here. Some people think the average fansubber do a more professional translation job than an average professional translator because fansubber keep japanese honorifics in subtitles and do flashy karaoke stuff in the op/ed, and other stuff. Professional translators however translate one hundred percent from one language into another, instead of some halfbaked japanese-english honorific style (which is supposed to sound exotic and "cool" I guess), and they try to provide the shortest yet most accurate translation possible instead of trying to be only as fast and accurate as possible (which often ends in way too long sentences). Moreover, professional translations usually are directly from japanese, whereas fansubs often depend on korean and chinese translations.

Sorry for the mini rant.

The Xenos wrote:

See, that's what bugs me about subtitled anime. This case in particular stands out as I've been reading (and buying in English) the manga. If I wanted to read the story, I'd pick up the manga. Anime is meant to be watched and heard, not read. Sure, there is original Japanese dub, and let's not forget it's a dub in Japanese too, but it's not my native language, so how the hell is watching that more like the Japanese experience?

I'm not trying to start a sub-vs-dub fight here, but some people simply prefer subs because they think the original dubs are better, most of the time. There's more variation (more voice actors to choose from), the voice actors are usually more into it (and yes, I know enough Japanese to know when a performance of a seiyuu is not good - see Tenjou tenge that has a particularly bad Japanese dub), etc. I personally happen to prefer subtitles (not just with anime but every time I'm watching something on a different language), but then my native language is not English, so I'm in a different situation here.

But my main beef with English dubs is all that needlessly excessive dialogue. It's as if the writers were convinced that the audience will get bored if no character talks or makes a sound for like one full minute. Pick a show at random and watch the English dub with the subtitles for the Japanese dub and you'll see what I mean. I find this horribly annoying. Plus, English dub writers are prone to change things about the story. I'm not talking about completely rewriting the original (see Heroic Legend of Arslan, where dub and sub are two different shows at times), but like ROD TV, for example, where the dub has resurrected a character's parents, changed a perfectly innocent question ("Are you a half?" or something along these lines), and eradicated most hints of a "more than best friends" relationship between two characters... among other things.

And as for the "meant to be watched and not read" thing, some of us are perfectly capable of reading the subs and watching the video at the same time. I never understood why some people find this difficult.

Well, I think the adding of words might be something to do with the language. It's somewhat like how so many Japanese puns just cannot translate because English just doesn't rhyme as well as Japanese.

I'm not talking about difficulty, I'm talking about purpose of anime. Anime is not made to be read. It's made to be watched and heard. That's what the Japanese do. Why would I want to do it differently? The Japanese pretty much don't read subtitles with their anime.

and they do change dialogue when the do english sometimes which affects small tidbits in the story. however, in japan they also change somethings or miss out on somethings when moving from manga to anime.

And what's manga->anime adaptations got to do with dubs? I've always thought that the purpose of a translation was to present something in another language, as close to the original as possible while sounding natural in the target language. Not randomly changing story elements because "hey, the audience may not like this" or "they may like this better."

And what's manga->anime adaptations got to do with dubs? I've always thought that the purpose of a translation was to present something in another language, as close to the original as possible while sounding natural in the target language. Not randomly changing story elements because "hey, the audience may not like this" or "they may like this better."

Oh my God!!! I said I didn't want to start this fansub v. pro argument, and it gets started by someone else!! Let's go back to the original thread. There's enough crap in the fansub v pro argument and MORE than enough people here that this argument could go on for thousands of posts. Let's just finish the argument with "to each his own" and get back to Death Note, nee?

[Some idiot being a childish, babbling idiot. -N]