Forum - View topicAnswerman - Is There Anything To Miss About Old School Subtitles?
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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And those who remember old arcade games would respond to the villain with a defiant, heroic cry of https://fsmedia.imgix.net/b6/e5/63/78/37ee/43fa/98a1/89ee4543a3d4/why-should-it-goes-well.png |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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↑
Would I be correct in saying that phrase belongs to the same canon as the infamous locution of "Welcome to Die"? |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5920 |
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Will you be escaping too?
How bad are we talking and how did it get on a professional release? |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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And sometimes it really is impossible to tell without context - I've definitely seeing problems telling whether some high school girl does "ballet" or "volleyball," it's all バレー. Of course when the next episode or volume makes it obvious, oops. Translators don't always have the time to get context. While there are still translations I have problems with, in most cases I view it as a difference of taste or choice. Most of the translation arguments have to do with things like trying to preserve a pun, trying to catch a reference (whether pop or literary), or trying to make something into natural, colloquial or elegant English instead of a stiff "literal" translation. I do find, e.g., some of CR's translations superior to others. |
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Saku-dono
Posts: 801 |
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This is why I don't watch with subs anymore. Good thing I was able to learn Japanese 5 years ago and it saved my watching standards. The problem with subs nowadays, especially one labelled as "official" translation that came from retail is it's very localized and thus, immediately loses a definitive 50% of the original line essence. Plus, they also have that terrible timing issues which is glaring. CR has always passed this obstacle as shinji had hordes of competent translators/timers. Netflix also fixed this shortcoming with their 2-3 frames in-and-out per line, but still, they were pestered by mistranslations. However, to "save" time which literally meant to spare themselves from the lack of effort, they will plaster capitalized text for their own definition of typesetting.
Used to work as a translator through a third-party for Daisuki and Netflix, but got axed for my literal translations and using name suffixes, romaji songs and most of all, ditching that annoying linebreak, when often, there's no need to have one. Still, I agree to this thread that there's not a single sane person who would miss bad subtitles. I mean, even if you're looking for a joke, it's inappropriate. |
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nechronius
 Posts: 275 Location: So Cal, USA |
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Last year in April I was in a subway in Seoul, South Korea when I saw two people sitting next to each other. I just had to take a picture. Girl on the left had a hat that had: "Feel Like Happiness Cause Your Best" Guy on the right had an even better one: "CROWD MY EYES ARE ONLY ATTRACTED TO YOU MINTASTE" Yes, overall translations are better. I just get the feeling there are still plenty of exceptions or they're just deliberately trolling. FYI they weren't traveling together. |
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dgstoronto
Posts: 2 |
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I remember seeing at least two (likely more) 80s era OVAs that had "ROCK ON" on a display when something was targeted in crosshairs.
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belvadeer
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Mega Man: Power Fighters had that happen when Dr. Wily used his crosshairs attack. On the other hand, ROCK ON fits in that case. |
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koinosuke
 Posts: 271 Location: Fukushima, Japan |
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As an elementary school teacher living in Japan, I can tell you the age of Japanese Engrish is far from over. Every single day two-thirds of my students have English emblazoned on their clothing, and whatever is written is consistently terrible, hilarious, bemusing, or all three at once. I even have a tradition of asking my students at the beginning of class if they'd like me to translate their shirts so they know what they say - to hilarious results. Bad English on clothing, ads, etc. is just as prevalent as ever.
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Guspaz
Posts: 25 |
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You know, sometimes I like the bad translation, and don't want it to be fixed.
Example: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The translated dialogue (and voice acting) is pretty damned corny (a miserable little pile of words!) but that's the script we grew up with and love. The corny dialogue felt special, and when the spoony bards did later releases that fixed it with a better translation and more professional voice acting, it kind of ruined it. It took away what was special about it and just made it generic and unmemorable. But enough talk, have at you! A comparison of the original (1997) and fixed (2007) translations. Also keep in mind that the 1997 version had wonderfully terrible voice acting that was amazing and the 2007 version is just normal modern game acting.
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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While not too funny, in the current legit Captain Harlock TV Anime they encounter the enemy and prepare the Heavy Thunder Canon. But Hourai are canon and projectiles, as things like bakurai and gyorai are depth charges and torpedoes. So the line should be closer to prepare for gun and torpedo/projectile combat, but they translated Rai as thunder. As easy mistake as it leans on military jargon rather than more common use.
So these things still happen even in official subs on DVDs. |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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I saw a “scroll rock” key on a keyboard in an anime as recently as December:
Let alone smartphones, a genuine computer keyboard can’t have been far away when this was drawn. The To Love-Ru Darkness simulcast subs remain the best translation trainwreck I’ve seen in recent years: https://photos.app.goo.gl/7mdjRn4Zgb068cdp2 |
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vallum
Posts: 58 |
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I agree katakana can be confusing sometimes, just like your example: ballet would actually be バレェ or バレェー . 
バレー is definitely volleyball. Or valley. Oh, well... |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 975 Location: Kansas |
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I disagree 100%. At least in terms of Japanese (or German, or any other widely spoken language) to English. Any time I've dealt with a word salad translation it's because 1. the translator is not a native English speaker or equivalently fluent. (Despite what one might think, it's usually more important that a translator be more fluent in the target language than the source) or 2. It's a machine translation trying to be passed off as original. There is no shortage of translators these days. If someone was consistently giving me word salad I'd have no faith in the quality of their translation and kick them to the curb. I'm sure it was very different 20 years ago. It would have been very difficult to find someone in the US who spoke Japanese and English, and if they did, they probably grew up in Japan and their English may have not been the best. Nowadays there is not only a lot more people interested in learning Japanese (Thanks to anime, I'm sure), and the Internet means that you have access to any translator in the world. The only time you should have to deal with a piss poor translation is maybe large fan projects, like LNs or VNs, since you tend to get what you pay for. Even then, there are some pretty great amateurs out there (not even talking about myself  ) although I imagine few of them have the free time to devote to larger projects.
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Usagi-kun
 Posts: 877 Location: Nashville, TN |
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Even when a Japanese translation is done by a professional company, it can still feel a little weird in English. I remember several older BL novels by DMP just sound odd. Spelling is correct, sentence structure is fine, but the way the narrative sounds is just...strange. Preserving the integrity of the original author's work is priority number one, but in addition to grammar and spelling, I believe you also need to grasp the context and writing style. Manga has been successful in narrative and panels, but earlier novelization translations did not seem to balance at the time. Unfortunately this matter is closer to my own personal tastes, which I just stated should not be subjective to me personally, to justify a successful work. Rather than labeling an entire genre, I switched to anime-only consumption several years ago and have not turned to light novels because I want to avoid a similar sentiment. I am glad the industry is growing (except for DMP)...
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