Forum - View topicTitle translations, or lack thereof (rant).
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SalarymanJoe
 Posts: 468 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA |
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I think the real issue here then is that Japan needs to stop picking stupid names for its cartoons. 
Or, everyone can read Japanese so that the licensors can just release stuff with the Japanese titles in Japanese on them.
Actually, one thing I forgot to mention in my Yoroiden Samurai Trooper piece and ADV did with their Samurai X releases, was the inclusion of "alternate" covers. When I picked the YST/RW and Samurai X DVDs up off the shelf, they said 'Ronin Warriors' and 'Samurai X' but when I got them home and opened the packaging, I could flip the covers around and have the Japanese title (Yoroiden Samurai Trooper in English, Rurouni Kenshin Japanese logo). If there are alternate naming conventions between 'what the fans know it as' and a proper translation, I think the flipped covers is a great idea. |
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abynormal
 Posts: 427 Location: Louisiana |
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Can I get an Amen to this? When I'm browsing anime and manga titles, there are so many that just leave me scratching my head and wondering what the writer was on when he came up with that title. Often seems like a case of throwing words together that sound cool and roughly relate to the story or characters. All the interpretation magic in the world won't save you if the series has a silly name to begin with. Of course there are exceptions. "Cowboy Bebop" sounds strange to the uninitiated, but who knew such a wonky title would hide such a cool series? Or heck, look at "Bleach." The arguments over the origin of the name are still ongoing. To the Haruhi argument: I think it's a great translation. If I were interested enough in the picture on the cover and the blurb on the back of the case, I would be thinking, "Why is this bubbly-looking girl melancholy? What's up with that?" I might be inclined to watch and find out. Emphasis on "might" here. Regardless of whether or not the title is translated, there is no guarantee that it will pique a browsing customer's curiosity. It's up to marketing to package it with as much appeal as possible, and the rest is up to luck and word of mouth. I don't think leaving easy-to-translate titles in Japanese makes sense from a business perspective. Very few of my friends like anime at all, and they are easily turned off by foreign-sounding names. My brother is one of these. The last anime I can recall him liking were Fullmetal Alchemist, Inuyasha, Blue Gender, Dragonball and the first half of Evangelion. While everyone here is probably used to and interested in foreign ideas and cultures, most Americans don't like straying outside their comfort zones. That's why they watch incarnation after incarnation of CSI and season after season of The Simpsons. They prefer what's familiar to them, English titles included. To use a non-anime example, would Jackie Chan have been as famous if they'd left the titles of his movies in Chinese? You and I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I can't say the same for the majority of American movie goers. |
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frentymon
Forums Superstar
 Posts: 2362 Location: San Francisco |
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Yeah, but we're not debating it from a business perspective. I think everyone here except probably Ohoni agrees that English anime companies should translate titles to English as much as possible to appeal to a wider fanbase. The debate's primarily about fansubbers, and they're not running a business. |
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Kimiko_0
 Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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No you can't. I love the wacky titles. They make me want to see the anime even more. What's not to love about Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha or Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! or Fruits Basket or Full Metal Panic! or Kiddy Grade. Don't those titles make you curious what it's all about? They make you smile even before you've seen the anime. |
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valondar
Posts: 19 |
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And to me still does. The title doesn't make a lick of grammatical sense nor does it make any sense in the context of the series. There's Cowboys on the Bebop - but there's no Cowboy Bebop. Even Cowboy's Bebop would work. Maybe this makes sense in the Japanese language, but damned if I'd know. And will translating titles in the fansub stage really make a big deal insofar as the series is referred to? I've never heard of anyone call Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei as 'Farewell Mr. Despair', for example. I don't know, maybe it's a line drawn between already official English names and names coined by a fansub group. I generally agree in principle with the OP. I like using names I can understand and pronounce without having to do a little research, it's more convenient. In practice I just use whatever the hell is standard and give little thought to it. |
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Murasakisuishou
 Posts: 1469 Location: NE Ohio |
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It makes perfect sense - Bebop is a genre of music that's stylistically similar to a lot of the soundtrack and (by extension) the mood of the show. Therefore, Cowboy Bebop = bebop involving cowboys (bounty hunters). It's like how Samurai Champloo can also be interpreted as 'Samurai Mix-up', which goes along with the hip-hop feel of the series. |
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valondar
Posts: 19 |
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That would be The Cowboy Bebop. |
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_Emi_
 Posts: 498 Location: Langjökull |
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To add to that, the episodes are called sessions with each title being a reference to a music style, a song or an album. valondar: Now you're just being pedantic. The title is perfectly understandable if you know how important the music is to the show without have the The there. |
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valondar
Posts: 19 |
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No, I had no idea. The 'The' would clarify the title is meant to refer to the music concept (A Cowboy Bebop is also fine) and not the cowboys on the bebop, which is what I assumed the title to refer to. Neon Genesis Evangelion is another example of what I'm driving at, anyway. That doesn't make grammatical sense in Greek, but I hear the original Japanese title (which has the first two words in Japanese) makes grammatical sense. |
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SalarymanJoe
Posts: 468 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA |
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When I first mentioned this, it was half in jest. I just don't like when people complain about "OMG that soundz stoopid in english - Japanese iz bettar" or some other nonsense that makes them sound like a 13 year old girl, I just want to illustrate that if it sounds dumb with a good English translation, it sounds dumb in Japanese, too. I don't care whether the series is called Super Hyper Ultra Mega Death Extravaganza X23 or Chouhaipaa urutoramega shitou ekusutorabaganza X23; it sounds just as ridiculous no matter which way you do it.
I'll still stand by my point though, which I believe concurs with the OPs - if there's a viable English translation of the title, why not use it? After all, the point of fansubbing is to expose anime fans to anime they can't* get a hold of, with translations that they can understand. Even still, if they think it is important to have the Japanese name still there, why not use it as a subtitle like "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu ep1.file" or just a nod in the subtitle on the opening title screen. Gawd knows with all of the other BS they plaster all over the title screens that they've got the ability. *I know, in this day and age, it's a very big stretch of the word. Bear with me. |
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Kimiko_0
Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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Then again, do cartoon titles like Ren & Stimpy or X-Men or Gummi Bears or Spongebob Squarepants make it clear what the cartoon is about? Hardly.
I think of wacky titles as just another of anime's charms. |
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frentymon
Forums Superstar
Posts: 2362 Location: San Francisco |
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I think too many people here are making an assumption that fansubbers care about this issue. The truth is, they don't, really. It's not like they put an awful lot of thought as to what they release their titles as, they just pick whatever and roll with it. If they were taxed 50 cents for every episode they didn't release with an English-translated title, I'm sure they'd translate every single one of their releases. But the truth is, fansubbers don't have to care about snaring their audience and trying to maximize profits in which case the title they pick would actually matter. I don't think it's always true that they're being elitist when they release a title in Japanese. Maybe some are, but I doubt all. A group that releases "Last Exile" as "Rasuto Eguzairu" definitely are, but it doesn't take much really just to pick "Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu" and roll with it. I agree that ideally a lot of these titles released by fansubbers in Japanese should end up translated e.g. Mugen no Ryvius, Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, etc., and that'd be better than what they're doing now. But in the end, is this really such a big thing that we believe fansubbers should create a Council of Anime English Naming prior to every new season that comes out? Or have influencial groups translate large numbers of titles into English because it's an eyesore to a minority of fansub watchers? |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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The reason that the first two titles you mentioned are popular is because they were on TV, and on TV in rather visible timeslots to boot. The titles didn't matter; most people who saw them probably first did so without having any idea of what their titles were. And as someone mentioned earlier, InuYasha is the titular character of the series, so using that title makes just as much sense as calling a Batman movie "Batman." As for Fushigi Yuugi, I've never heard of it myself, nor does anything about the title encourage any interest in me. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7357 |
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I'm usually ok with most title translation as long as:
a) They make sense from either a direct translation or in respects to the show. b) They don't sound incredibly stupid. I think one of the most annoying translation to me is Tweeny Witches, it barely has anything to do with the show (they don't really act like "tweens" which I think is a stupid word anyway) and I don't see how they got that title out of Maho Shojo Tai Arusu. Ok, so "witches" is accurate, and leaving it in Japanese wasn't a terribly viable option for a US release, but did they have to rename it Tweeny Witches? I think they could've come up with something a lot better. I'm not even going into the fact that they didn't translate the character Arusu's name back to Alice, since Arusu was taken from Alice to begin with. That's equally stupid an annoying, but its not a title issue. One translation I have mixed feelings about is Tetsuwan Atom to Astro Boy. Now, "Tetsuwan", mighty arm, is not going to make much sense in an English translation. It really has almost no meaning whatsoever in English, it looks like a mad lib. I can see why that was not translated as is. This is more a personal preference on my part I'll admit. I could not stand the 1980 dub and watched the entire show subbed and got into the habit of hearing "Atom" instead of "Astro", and I most definatly have the tendancy of referring to him as "Atom" now as a result. I don't think Astro is a terrible replacement name, I just think its an unnecessary one. For that matter, so are all of their name westernizations except for Dr. Ochanomizu, whose 2003 rename of Dr. O'Shay seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Still, this isn't entirely out of lack of accuracy, its out renaming the character, but at least they're consistent in calling him Astro all the time. I suppose "Astro" sounds more original, but I kinda prefer how "Atom" sounds. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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Regarding Mahou Shoujotai Arusu / Tweeny Witches: I think the Japanese side chose that title, rather than Media-Blasters. And keep examples like this coming, as I didn't want this thread to be exclusively complaining about fansub practices. Like with "Higurashi no naku koro ni," I'm tempted to think that simply "Higurashi" would've worked better than "When they Cry - Higurashi." Now, I'll admit that I have no scientific basis to quantify this, but I think titles with 1 words and no more than 4-5 syllables are memorable enough to get away with. It's when you get into multi-word phrases like "Kannazuki no Miko" and (heaven help us) "Kimi ga Aruji de Ore ga Shitsuji de"* when confusion sets in. So "Higurashi" could be considered cool/intriguing enough to spark interest. "When they Cry" is just excess baggage, and as pointed out earlier, creates confusion when paired on packaging with a bunch of girls. Since "When the Cicadas Cry" isn't really indicative of the show's content (other than its time setting), not translating it could be justified. Last edited by Zalis116 on Thu Nov 13, 2008 10:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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) they might be better off left as a string of incomprehensible characters - or even changed entirely. 'Hell Girl' is another that I think sounds bad in English (as did an earlier poster), but 'Jigoku Shoujo' is a bad idea marketing-wise since a lot of people won't know what it means - 'Hell Correspondence' would have worked for me.
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