Forum - View topicINTEREST: Japanese Fans, Official Translator Weigh in on Netflix Evangelion English Subtitle Debate
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FelipeFR
Posts: 16 |
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Sorry, not trying to say you were, heh. Funnily enough, some people are trying to pan Netflix/Dan as AsukaXShinji shippers now, because the EoE coffee fight scene is changed to "I want us to be together forever" and "You are the only one for me". Which I think it's silly, it's clear that Shinji is still desperately looking for unconditional affection, something Asuka denies as she is unwilling to be used as an emotional crutch. I don't see how the new subs change this at all, it is just as ambiguous. As an aside... I think anyone that knows a thing about Anno and Eva know how much he trolls people and deliberately leaves out subtext, symbolism and ambiguity only in order to deconstruct that later or to make an entirely different point than some viewers might be inclined to think. Remember Evangelion 2.0, when everyone was absolutely certain Rei had finally become the perfect moe waifu, and she was absolutely, certainly, obviously getting together with Shinji? And, you know, then the following movie turns Rei into the lifeless "doll" that a lot of people have also interpreted her as. Then 3.0 does the same thing with Kaworu, who has his single most prominent and heavy appearence in the entire Evangelion franchise (people who point out to the spin-offs seem unaware that, even though he is more present in order to sell stuff to his own fans he still gets 10x less space than Asuka, Rei, or Misato). And, much like in 2.0, the movie is also filled with subtext and symbolism... including loads and loads of things that heavily contradict the interpretation of Kaworu as all-good and perfect and awesome, funnily enough that also happen to explain the movie's supposed inconsistencies. I mean, Shinji literally damned the world and said he did not care in order to save his waifu Rei, and that immediately caused the literal end of the world. I remember pointing this out to people 10 years ago and how it seemed strange that this would somehow be the beginning of a relationship in notoriously deconstructive and thematic Evangelion, but for 2009-2012 this was largely ignored by lots of people. Boo. https://forum.evageeks.org/thread/14454/Theory-about-Kaworus-intentions/ |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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You mean aside from the fact that it's anime, where non-Japanese and non-human characters frequently behave like Japanese people, at least in some specific ways even if not as a whole?
That sounds like a common justification for "it's not really gay because..." from people in denial. I mean sure it's still possible that it's actually not gay, but things in the episode do point to it with varying degrees of subtlety. I've actually shown this episode to a film historian intimately familiar with queer tropes in film and TV, and he's in no doubt about it. |
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FelipeFR
Posts: 16 |
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Unlike in most anime, the fact that Kaworu is not exactly a human being, and does not look or talk at all talk a like a normal Japanese person, because he is not a normal person, is actually super relevant both to his character, to the plot, and to the themes of Evangelion since he represents all the escapism, fantasy and idealization that have kept Shinji running away from reality and into a repeating cycle of mysery. This also applies, even more so, with Rei, the (initially) emotionless and apathetic character whose blue hair, pale skin and red eyes are actually a direct indication of her inhuman origins, not just funny anime aesthetics, and her (and Kaworu's) distance from humanity is also a part of her thematic significance. This did not stop her from becoming a gigantic symbol of moe, something which has pissed off Anno immensely, though. Anno has, in 1997, specifically denied "carnal feelings" on Shinji's part, one of the very instances in which he directly explained something Eva's plot.
As for queer themes, my opinion is that those are invoked precisely because Anno wanted to make a point out of Shinji's character, his desperation, his loneliness, and, again, the extremely convenient fantasy that Kaworu represents by having absolutely no sense of levels of intimacy or personal space, things that are crucial in Japanese culture (some things also tend to get lost in translation, like public baths in Japan being an a casual and common social occurrence, and having no *inherent* sexual meaning), just appearing out of nowhere to somehow magically fix all of Shinji's problems (with the great yaoi saviour being a common trope) and easily making Shinji open up to him while not having any sort of feelings, insecurities or needs of his own like the rest of the cast that reflect the central themes of the show, which is precisely about learning to deal with that in the first place. And then the actual end result of this is just more suffering, and even the literal end of the world. I think this was also deliberately amped in 3.0, in which Kaworu spends the entire movie telling Shinji to go along with his magical quick fix solution that also happens to allow him to erase mistakes and responsibilities - while also cleverly manipulating and lying to him. Again, the very same thing happened with Rei in 2.0, which was again used because a lot of the otaku interpreted her as the perfect moe waifu, not the "doll". The story never actually makes a point out of Shinji being bi or not, even though it has ample opportunity to do so as every single nook and cranny of Shinji's character is explored in Episodes 25, 26 and EoE's Instrumentality, from which Kaworu is completely absent except for 30 seconds when Shinji expresses guilt over killing a human being (just like Touji), neither does it foreshadow it beforehand, unlike pretty much every other plot point in the series. Although I do not think a bisexual reading of Shinji is completely invalid (just inconclusive and largely irrelevant), in a sense, unless the story bothered to make a point out of this, you could almost say it is saying it's wrong to be gay, or that it was just a phase Shinji outgrew (which is, incidentally, the standard view in modern, conservative, repressive and homophobic Japan), because the thematic implications the show presents are far more important. It is necessary to get the larger context of the series in order to make a proper analysis of the episode, as any other. |
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yurigasaki
Posts: 192 |
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Something I think it's important to mention that was left out of the article is the actual context here -- people aren't just upset that Shinji and Kaworu's scene was toned down, they're upset that it was done while at least one Shinji and Asuka scene was made laden with explicit romantic overtones that simply do not exist in the Japanese version. This was after the main translator had made a big portentous speech on twitter about how much be believes in "ambiguity" in a translation -- you can see why this left a bad taste in people's mouth or even came off as a translation with an agenda.
This is also part of a larger trend in localized anime where queer subtext and relationships are toned down or outright erased (remember Dragon Maid? I SURE DO), so to have one of the most iconically queer on screen confessions effectively reduced to "I just think you're neat, Shinji-kun" was pretty much the proverbial straw breaking the proverbial back. I definitely think some of the outrage about elements of this release are overblown (I am so tired already of people shitting their pants and crying about fly me to the moon) but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with people talking about these sorts of translation changes. Edit: something I forgot to mention; on top of this, there's a scene in a later episode (I want to say 20 but I'm on my phone so I can't easily check) where a news report mentions spoiler[a terrorist attack on Tokyo-3.] The Netflix subtitles assert that this was done by "a leftist" despite the Japanese audio literally just saying "sect". When asked about it on twitter, Kanemitsu's response was basically "WELL THAT'S HOW THE POLICE USE IT SO THIS IS REALLY A MORE LITERALLY ACCURATE DEFINITION" which really stinks of hypocrisy after his earlier statement about "ambiguity" - it kind of comes off like "ambiguity only matters when I'm talking about queer people" Ftr, I'm not like, defending any undue fire Dan Kanemitsu has come under because of all this, I'm just doing my best to fill in some important context that I think the article is lacking. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2250 |
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@yurigasaki, Thanks for all that. I'm definitely out of the loop, so I was missing a lot of that context. Still not saying the Twitter harassment is warranted (and I don't think you are either), but that does explain why people are pretty mad about that "ambiguity" line when some of the other translation choices either lack that nuance or are just straight up odd (WTF at that "leftist" nonsense?)
EDIT: Forgot to add this, but while I get the "In Japanese it's too direct to say "love", so we use "like" instead" doesn't really work for me. We just don't have that kind of context in English--if anything, we see "like" show up when English speaking people are not all that confident about their love, and want to save a little face for themselves in case they get rejected. That's just not at all part of Kaworu's response, and it seems odd for English subs to try and force a sense of context that's mostly only available to Japanese speakers into English. By all means, have us wonder about what kind of "love" Kaworu meant, but Kaworu himself is not at all subtle about his feelings--it should definitely be "love". |
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kgw
 Posts: 1084 Location: Spain, EU |
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As a translator (not into English), my two cents:
if "suki" is "love", what happens then with "daisuki" and "ai suru"? "Love a lot"? "Love a LOT, LOT more"? In many, many animes, translators have used "like" for "suki". Why is this single case special? Last edited by kgw on Fri Jun 28, 2019 8:35 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2568 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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When Eva was being made, the Sarin gas attacks happened in Japan, which were perpetrated by the Aum Shinrikyo (now known as Aleph)... An organization which was (& still is) described as "leftist". That's why the term "leftist" was used by Kanemitsu in the new translation; he was literally following the script, & ADV likely decided not to use the term back in the day. Anno was making a reference to what was then a major piece of current news in Japan, calling the terrorist attack in Eva a "leftist act"; that's all. Anyone who's reading into that with any modern reasoning is only trying to work themselves up into a rage, because the show was made 25 years ago, so it obviously wouldn't have anything to say about the current political climate. It's literally no different than a modern American story stating that a group of terrorists were "radicals" or from the Middle East, or one in the 90s making a Unabomber or OJ Simpson reference, i.e. it dates Evangelion as a mid-90s Japanese production, more than anything. |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1040 |
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One of the most important lessons for people learning Japanese is, if you see a word that's obviously derived from English, look it up anyways. The Japanese often alter meanings when they adopt loan words. "Bichi" means a promiscuous woman; "(hai) tenshon" means excitement. And apparently, yes, "sekutsu" has a connotation of leftwing radical groups. |
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docsane
 Posts: 53 Location: Boston, MA |
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Just jumping in here to point out that "high tension" as "very excited" in Japanese most likely comes from the British use of "high tension" in relation to power lines. In the US, we call that "high voltage". |
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whiskeyii
Posts: 2250 |
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I appreciate the added context (I finished reading that biography on the Sarin gas attacks a few months ago), but that's kind of my problem with such a literal translation: it's using English terms with Japanese connotations, like with "bitch" being more like "slut" in Japanese--if a character says "bitch" in Japanese, the subs should (imo anyway) translate that as "slut", because an English reader probably isn't going to grasp the exclusively Japanese nuances of how the Japanese "bitch" differs from the English one. Same with "leftist"; in English that term has wildly different connotations than it does to a Japanese audience, so why not translate it as "radical terrorists" or just "terrorists"? It just seems like an added layer of unnecessary confusion. |
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FelipeFR
Posts: 16 |
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Like I mentioned before, I think this only irking people because of their shipping sensibilities. The news subs do not at all affect the context of the scene, it is still obvious that Shinji is desperate for any sort of affection and to use her as an emotional crutch and escape, and not simply declaring romantic love for Asuka, which is exactly why in that very same scene Asuka calls him out on his bullshit. The scene is just as ambiguous as before. |
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yurigasaki
Posts: 192 |
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I know you were shitposting but yeah, that's basically it! A lot of people seem to think that it's a one-to-one translation of "suki, daisuki, aishite" to "like, really like, love" but that's not really the case. All of those words mean 'love', but they don't necessarily fit every situation where you would want to express your love for something – it's worth noting that you would pretty much never hear someone use "aishite" to express their love for something because it's such a Big [expletive] Loaded Word and throwing it around lightly just ain't what you do with it. Basically: context is key. A teenager telling their crush "suki" is probably where you'd use "like", but in this particular situation with all the surrounding context that is Neon Genesis Evangelion, "like" feels like a very weedy word choice. As others have pointed out, "love" is both much more direct and startling (which fits in with Everything About Kaworu) and neatly ambiguous, if you really want to get stuck on that.
Just to be clear, I wasn't necessarily saying in my post that Dan's translation was actively wrong or incorrect! Maybe that was the intent behind that line – I obviously can't say that I know better – but my point is that him suddenly being a stickler for Literal Accuracy and even making a point of saying so completely contradicts his own previous talk about "ambiguity" in translation and letting the audience make up their own minds. In that sense, it really comes off like he only cared about "ambiguity" when it came to heaping a dollop of plausible deniability on something that was pretty screamingly queer before. I do agree with whiskeyii though that "leftist" was a bad word choice here. That conjures up a very different image in the mind of a western viewer than it does a Japanese one, and I really do think "terrorist" or "terrorist group" would've gotten the point across just as well with minimal confusion. Sorry about the confusion! I'm mobile bound right now, so it's a bit hard to get across all my thoughts and fully as I'd like. Edit:
Honestly, and I don't mean to come off like I'm picking a fight here, but acting as though this comes down to butthurt shippers is pretty willfully ignorant. I personally don't give a shit either way about Shinji/Asuka or Shinji/Kaworu, but I was pretty irritated by these changes regardless. I know people who are really into Shinji/Asuka and other people who can't stand Shinji/Kaworu, but they were calling out these changes just as hard as people who might have had a horse in the race, shipping wise. As for ambiguous... I'm sorry, but that's just blatantly not the case. No, Shinji doesn't ever outright say "I love you" but just look at these scenes side by side: Original translation on the left, Netflix subs on the right. Are you really trying to tell me that "I want to be with you forever" and "You're the only one for me" aren't loaded with romantic subtext? And that's putting aside the fact that Shinji is literally not actually saying those words in the audio track. You could only make the jump from "Asuka, help me. It's no good if anyone but Asuka helps me!" (super clunky but literal) to "Please, you're the only one for me!" if you were intentionally looking to add romantic overtones. Last edited by yurigasaki on Fri Jun 28, 2019 1:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1040 |
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But the issue isn't that the Japanese used "leftist" in a way that means something different from English. They used "sect" which has a context of actual, honest-to-god leftwing radicalism. The usage apparently goes back to the '60s and incidents like the Mount Asama Lodge hostage crisis. |
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whiskeyii
Posts: 2250 |
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I get what you're saying, but I still feel like "leftist" was an odd translation choice. An English viewer probably wouldn't be familiar enough with modern Japanese history to equate "leftist" with "Sarin gas attacks/the Mount Asama Lodge incident". Just saying "terrorists" gives non-Japanese speakers a lot of more context for what's going on in that news report than "leftist" does. |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1430 |
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I wish Kanemitsu had consulted Anno or someone else from Khara before mistranslating Misato's line about Adam and Lilith in End of Evangelion just like Manga Entertainment's translator did. |
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