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Just Something I've Been Noticing




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Romuska
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Joined: 02 Mar 2004
Posts: 848
PostPosted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:29 am Reply with quote
I couldn't help but notice that lately I've been seeing a lot of anime that display the title of the episode in Japanese and with English as well. But what I also couldn't help but notice is that a majority of the time, what's written in Japanese has nothing to do with what's written in English. Has anyone else noticed this?

Examples
Kino's Journey
Samurai Champloo
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Cowboy Bebop (series)
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CyberViper



Joined: 16 Dec 2005
Posts: 218
Location: Matsumoto, Nagano Japan
PostPosted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:53 am Reply with quote
There was another post about translations of titles. You can view it hereanimenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20081 In fact, it's two posts below this one...

Here is one example of what's been said:
Edensin wrote:
I'm no expert on the subject, but i always thought it was basically based on how well it slips off the western tongue (to sue your words). Rurouni Kenshin sounds pretty damn good, and can still attract viewers. Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, on the other hand, cannot.


And I agree, the name of the anime can attract viewers, and what native Japanese speakers interpret something as is a lot different than the results you'd get by translating it using a Japanese/English dictionary.
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violetsquirrel



Joined: 06 Nov 2004
Posts: 69
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 5:06 am Reply with quote
This is a different issue, though... It makes sense to want to have anime titles that sound good and are easy to pronounce/remember, but that doesn't really matter so much for episode titles... It makes more sense to have the translation be as close as possible for those.
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Tetsujin



Joined: 19 Jun 2005
Posts: 216
PostPosted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 2:38 pm Reply with quote
I don't think that's a new trend. It's definitely not a recent trend.

Neon Genesis Evangelion shows the series title in both Japanese and English as part of the opening credits.

This series first aired in 1996.

NGE also translates a good number of Japanese "signs" (posts, messages, actual signs, IDs, etc.) into English-- more so than Paranoia Agent or InuYasha.

Here's a question:

How common is it for lyrics of themes (opening or closing) to appear as subtitles? I know the closing credits of Cowboy Bebop do this as well as the opening credits of NGE. In the case of Cowboy Bebop, though, the subtitles and and vocals are out of synch.

S-CRY-ed shows lyrics to both opening and closing themes in Japanese kanji with carefully scattered English words (namely, "Reckless Fire" and "Drastic My Soul").

NGE takes it a step further, though, and alternates on an episode basis between Romanized Japanese and English subtitles for the opening theme. This feature alone keeps the vocals in my head for a while.
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patch



Joined: 25 Mar 2005
Posts: 677
Location: New York, NY
PostPosted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:02 pm Reply with quote
Tetsujin wrote:
How common is it for lyrics of themes (opening or closing) to appear as subtitles? I know the closing credits of Cowboy Bebop do this... In the case of Cowboy Bebop, though, the subtitles and and vocals are out of synch.


I think you are refering the [adult swim] airing of Cowboy Bebop. It seems the version they licensed has the ED hard-subbed, and they were unable to remove it for the television airing. They actually speed up the credits/visuals just so you could see all them all since the images and song translation you see are key elements to developing the story line. Unforunately because of this the song had to be cut short and this caused the hard-coded subtitles to be out of sync. If you have the DVD, you can toggle the subtitles on and off for the ED since they are soft-subbed, and in-sync of course.

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