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EP. REVIEW: Kyōkai no Rinne


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hooliganj



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 113
Location: Longhorn Central
PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 3:14 am Reply with quote
Quote:
As for his mention of an anime featuring “a clumsy housewife,” I have no idea which work Rumiko Takahashi is memorializing here.

I'm pretty sure that would be the immortal Sazae-san.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 3:19 am Reply with quote
Well, Shippo has arrived now, and it looks like Miroku is on deck for next week. Smile

I haven't decided how I feel about Sakura. I think the most I can say is that I don't dislike her. She doesn't yet seem to have enough personality to like her. She's just kind of there.
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Zoneflare



Joined: 11 Mar 2015
Posts: 521
PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 5:52 am Reply with quote
I keep waiting for sesshomaru to show up
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MysticMew



Joined: 07 Mar 2015
Posts: 91
Location: Bremen, Germany
PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:21 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
I haven't decided how I feel about Sakura. I think the most I can say is that I don't dislike her. She doesn't yet seem to have enough personality to like her. She's just kind of there.


I personally find her rather monotone. It's like she has only one mood setting. She doesn't get upset (at least not very noticeable), she doesn't get fazed or surprised (as is evident when the cat snuck up behind her or her general reaction to freaky stuff), she reacts in pretty much the same way to everything. While this might be a positive character trait in form of perfect self-composure, I find it generally unappealing in an anime setting like this. So far it's hard to form an opinion about her.
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2401
PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 2:47 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
While the music works well, the translation effort could use a little work. I had no idea that “hinotama” meant a fireball spirit, though I guess Yu-Gi-Oh! has popularized that spirit name among Westerners.


Why do you think that means they need a better translation effort? How exactly would you translate kirin? Unicorn? They can have 2 horns though. Giraffe-spirit? The giraffe part isn't technically wrong, but if we're talking about a mythological Kirin, they tend to be more deer and dragon like so the connotation is quite different. I checked and those seem to be the main two, both of which are pretty bad which is probably why you see kirin (and the chinese qilin) pop up in english. I think its pretty stupid to try to translate the names of made up mythological creatures. You might have some that aren't that hard to come up with something for, but there are potentially a rather large amount that don't have real equivalents. Seems like they decided to just put 'hinotama' in that category and leave it as is.

Also hinotama 火の玉 doesn't literally mean fireball spirit. It just means fireball (incidentally the name of the hinotama yugioh card in japanese is the katakana for fireball so essentially the japanese card's name is in english so they made the english card's name japanese). It is also used to refer to a supernatural ball of fire and is essentially a 怪火, but that doesn't have to be a fireball spirit. For example hitodama 人魂 are described as a hinotama (火の玉) despite being a dead person's soul and not actually related to fire (source here, first line: link ).

Anyway the whole point is that the friend is essentially saying she saw a spooky light and thinks the place is haunted. She was using a pretty vague term that could encompass a lot of different things. If you translate that as fireball spirit, it makes it seem like the friend knew what it was that she saw which would be weird because she shouldn't know that kind of thing.

Sure, they could have localized it to something else, but their script is clearly going more for translation than localization.
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kgw



Joined: 22 Jul 2004
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Location: Spain, EU
PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 3:06 pm Reply with quote
I wonder what's wrong with "will-o'-the-wisp". It's supernatural & has a spooky meaning and fits the image. I mean, the point of having a translation is that viewers can understand what's happening, even if it's not 100% literal.

But, well, it is not use complaining now for that.
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2401
PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 6:21 pm Reply with quote
kgw wrote:
I wonder what's wrong with "will-o'-the-wisp". It's supernatural & has a spooky meaning and fits the image. I mean, the point of having a translation is that viewers can understand what's happening, even if it's not 100% literal.

But, well, it is not use complaining now for that.


Again, high school girl freaks out after seeing something spooky and then specifically names the super natural thing causing it? Its pretty clear that her friends aren't suppose to really know about those things, and having her specifically name it would go against that. I think this works out really well. Even if you don't know what a hinotama is, it is clear it is super natural right? So you know she saw something super natural but don't know exactly what... which is exactly like the friend's situation.

And I would disagree. The point of a translation is to get the meaning across and lose as little of it as absolutely possible. A good translation does not just change things which is what you're suggesting.

The point of a localization is to make foreign content easily understood by the local audience. This is probably more what you want, but if that was the intent, then they wouldn't have the -kuns and -chans in there. If this is what you want, I'd bet you will get it if the show gets dubbed.


Last edited by SilverTalon01 on Thu Apr 23, 2015 6:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Hameyadea



Joined: 23 Jun 2014
Posts: 3679
PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 6:31 pm Reply with quote
I found the pragmatic and calm Mamiya Sakura as a quite likable character; she doesn't "kyaaaa", punches the male lead into oblivion, pinning the blame on the male lead while calling him "pervert" and the likes. From the ever-increasing "Typical" High-School Girl trope, she's a breath of fresh air. Also, she isn't a know-it-all like Aldnoah.Zero's Kaizuka Inaho, so she doesn't have that layer of arrogance that he had.

It also helps in her role as the Straight Man (tsukkomi) during the more comedic moments, which made me laugh a few times.
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kgw



Joined: 22 Jul 2004
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Location: Spain, EU
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 6:41 am Reply with quote
SilverTalon01 wrote:
And I would disagree. The point of a translation is to get the meaning across and lose as little of it as absolutely possible. A good translation does not just change things which is what you're suggesting.

The point of a localization is to make foreign content easily understood by the local audience. This is probably more what you want, but if that was the intent, then they wouldn't have the -kuns and -chans in there. If this is what you want, I'd bet you will get it if the show gets dubbed.

A localization is a translation. Telling one from the other is a way of giving a higher/better/faithful-er status to what is a matter of decisions by the translator. Or sometimes, by the copyright holder, but that's another story.

Of course, that's my opinion, but seriously I cannot see how translating a vague Japanese word about a not-natural phenomena for a vague English word about a not-natural phenomena can be wrong in any sense. Apparently, you can say "spirit", "ghost" and "bonito" but not will-o'-the-wisp because... reasons.

In any case, this is a matter of opinions, which are all good and fine, but they are not absolute.
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Nyaomix



Joined: 13 Apr 2015
Posts: 127
PostPosted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:51 am Reply with quote
Hinotama is a pretty well known term, and since it`s about Japanese stuff makes sense to leave easily understood words like that as is. I was more confused by the use of reidou in episode 1 with no explanation.

Yes a will-o-wisp is exactly the same type of thing, but if they translate this as something non-Japanese it suggests they should do things like call oni ogres. Plenty of things don`t translate well such as oni, and subbers tend to be working more for the Japanese language fans than the foreigners who aren`t interested. Hence the fact the characters are still speaking Japanese.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 12:20 pm Reply with quote
I thought with the arrival of Koga Jumonji, Sakura might show an emotion. But no, she's as impassive as ever. What the reviewer kindly called her "down-to-earth personality" looks like traumatic lack of affect to me. Though she can see spirits, she seems to have none of her own.
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Jex2193



Joined: 28 Jan 2014
Posts: 283
PostPosted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 9:28 pm Reply with quote
I actually caught Genma, but not the others. Gotta go back to look for 'em, I guess.
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MysticMew



Joined: 07 Mar 2015
Posts: 91
Location: Bremen, Germany
PostPosted: Fri May 01, 2015 1:35 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
I thought with the arrival of Koga Jumonji, Sakura might show an emotion. But no, she's as impassive as ever. What the reviewer kindly called her "down-to-earth personality" looks like traumatic lack of affect to me. Though she can see spirits, she seems to have none of her own.


This... my thoughts exactly. Not that a character not shrieking at every little thing isn't nice for once but Sakura is to extreme in that regard. It's like she has one mood setting and no more. She didn't even flinch when the cat showed up in her house the second time and talked to her from behind. And in this episode I was thinking: Girl, there are two boys practically fighting over you! Show some reaction.

The rest of this ep was okay but I am honestly not sure whether or not I really like this.
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2401
PostPosted: Fri May 01, 2015 2:11 am Reply with quote
I like the setting and the characters, but if some kind of plot doesn't show up soon, I'm not sure how long I will stay interested.

kgw wrote:
A localization is a translation. Telling one from the other is a way of giving a higher/better/faithful-er status to what is a matter of decisions by the translator. Or sometimes, by the copyright holder, but that's another story.


No, sorry. That is just wrong. Translating is just converting what is there to another language and nothing more. Localizing is when you change things so that they can be better understood by a local audience. Really obvious example of a localization is when they flat out change the names like in Case Closed where all the characters were given western names. You don't translate a person's name. You don't see the news giving western names to Japanese Prime Ministers instead of just using their actual name right?

Nyaomix wrote:
Yes a will-o-wisp is exactly the same type of thing, but if they translate this as something non-Japanese it suggests they should do things like call oni ogres.


The larger problem I see with that one specifically is that there is a word in japanese for will-o-wisp (actually its just that but in katakana). If that was the intention, they could have just used that word. Also it is possible that one might actually show up. Probably won't, but I'm not familiar with the source material and I kinda doubt whoever is translating it is either.
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Fronzel



Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1906
PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2015 5:51 pm Reply with quote
Nyaomix wrote:
Hinotama is a pretty well known term...

It is?

Nyaomix wrote:
...if they translate this as something non-Japanese it suggests they should do things like call oni ogres. Plenty of things don`t translate well such as oni...

Yeah, if they used "ogre" the viewer might get the impression that the show is talking about a big violent monster that eats people. What a mix-up that would be!
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