We need to Break that circle

Paul is right on point when it comes to the translations of digisubs. As a person of Japanese descent, I find it hilarious that some of these people think that we speak that way. I digress…

Regarding the old school subber’s ethics, yes it’s true that they had respect for the creators, but this has been said many times on many different forums, especially animenewsnetwork & animeondvd. Moreover, it also has been said there is 0 respect for creators. Until anime companies make a serious effort by taking legal action that will most likely cure the since of entitlement mindset that these people are suffering from.
It is now at the point that any and everything is being subbed; regardless if it already has English subtitles, licensed and available it doesn’t matter. Being that media is free and abundant for anyone to do whatever they want; why would anyone expect to have good or even average translations? Or have the same fansub code of ethics mentality? I’m not surprised that you got a negative reaction, especially on digisub forums such as animesuki or any other amateur sub forums. The majority of these people do not support the anime they subtitle, download or upload. My experience is that those who support the industry will LISTEN to both arguments and form an opinion without resorting to infantile behavior.

You strike me as a person that only wants things his way, and if they do not go your way you whine about it. Just because some one uses honorifics does not make them wrong. It is a matter of opinion. You are forcing your opinion on others and insulting those that don’t kiss your ass in agreement.

“Bad fansubs” put too much flashy, translation note or japanese terms. It’s half a real translation. OK, that’s true, but first, it’s not the average fansubs. And second, why should we make the opposite with absolute seamless (boring) translation ?

His own vision of translation (as simple, fluid and unjapanese as possible), it’s not good translation. It’s levelling down everything. People can understand what an onigiri is. Learning honorifics is quite easy. Reading from right to left also. Introduction of japanese terms in english, french, spanih, or whatever your language is, is not a bad thing. It’s a normal process with lot of historic precedents.

Don’t think people are dumb, don’t let them becoming or staying dumb. Just let them learn a lot of languages and mix them…

“But of course, there are exceptions to the rule. a.f.k., for example, does a very good job at dynamic translation. The Haruhi Suzumiya sub is almost devoid of explanatory notes; in the last chapter, when Kyon says “I have a pigtail moe”, they translated it as “Pigtails turn me on”; in the Lucky Star sub, when Konata says “Tsundere girls wear pigtails”, they translated it as “You oughta have pigtails if you’re bipolar”.”

You continue to cherrypick your examples, man.

I’m gonna paste my response to you from AnimeSuki cause I’m not sure you ever read it.

“OK, now I have a moment to pen a proper response.

I have to be honest, I am most definitely impressed by your academic background and your obvious dedication to the art of J/E translation. Your unbridled passion is quite commendable as well. I am sure you’ve worked on some great translations (I may have even seen some of your work, Phantom Hourglass was great!).

The CV you have up online, of course, didn’t document any of that, so forgive me for not knowing such information. I also realize you’ve only had 2 years out of college to build your portfolio.

You do seem to attempt to exude an aura of a seasoned professional J/E translator and I was just making the point that, according to the information publicly available, I do know quite a few people who moonlight as fansubbers who have more extensive professional careers.

The issue of “target audience” is nary raised in your quite well-produced documentary. I’ve completed translations for professional publication here in the US and the UK. In those, I dropped all honorifics and maintained a typeset style that would undoubtedly be to your liking.

I also maintain honorifics in my fansub scripts and have been known, on occasion, to keep the original Japanese name order. (BTW, most published/professional foreigners in Japan maintain their western name order in Katakana so I’m not sure why you feel you need to reverse it, but I digress.) If the subject matter calls for it, I will leave in a -sama in the script because fansub viewers, by and large, want that sort of treatment. The cherry-picked examples of “YOSHA!” and “Nakama” in your documentary are extreme and would not be considered “protocol” by most fansub translators, but again, I digress.

There are times when -sama should be translated as “Lord” or what have you. You’d better believe we didn’t maintain honorifics in the scripts for Rose of Versailles, for example. But is calling the protagonist “Kasuga-kun” in KOR really going to harm anyone? I think our target audience for that is a group of folks who’d prefer the honorifics maintained.

I also advocate keeping a translation that maintains the exact intent, feeling, and meaning of the Japanese line without sacrificing any of the “native flow” in English. If a native (in my case, American) speaker wouldn’t say something, I don’t want it in my scripts. Some fansubs I completed in the last few weeks used such phrasings as “Pearls before swine,” “Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” and “More than one way to skin a cat.” Do you think those are literal translations from Japanese? I don’t think so. I am with you on those points.

That being said, you are choosing examples from admitted amateur hobbyists. I wouldn’t expect them to be the next Donald Keene!

Let’s get back to the issue of target audiences. There is a reason there is an English wikipedia and a “simple english” wikipedia. No matter what form of communication one partakes in, you must always curtail it to your audience. You are making assumptions about the fansub scene that I am not sure you are qualified to make.

In regards to the ideas of ridiculous karaoke and exploding text effects for One Piece attack names… That’s just a way for an amateur hobbyist to have some fun with scripting languages, Adobe Premiere/After Effects, etc. Nothing more, nothing less. Same thing goes for signs that seamlessly blend into the background. It’s a person’s hobby to see what they can come up with. If you were entrenched into the scene like the folks producing said effects are, you’d understand.

I never meant to attack you personally but you opened it up yourself with your admitted flame bait documentary! You even alluded to your “true identity” at the very end of it and “let the flames begin” or what have you. You knew what you were getting yourself into ^^;

As stated before, I admire your dedication to the craft and would be honored to have you evaluate my scripts, but do keep in mind the target audience and the motivations behind the choices made for the final product. Also keep in mind that these are by definition free amateur works that are never intended for professional critiques or comparison. I’ve been known to fudge a translation here or there, or do a lazy job typesetting something, if time or motivation or whatever doesn’t allow me the chance to really fine-tune it. I don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s a fansub, not a replacement for a professional release, and if it has a few mistakes in it, it’s not the end of the world! We might get some flames in our irc channel, but after more than 7 years of digitally fansubbing, I think I’ve heard it all

So don’t take anything said personally, but please understand why so many of us take offense with what you have to say. You knew you were entering this realm and opening yourself up to the flames that would inevitably occur, so anything stated in your documentary is 100% open for criticism. (Yes, like the trite comment about the aforementioned “dumbness” of claiming Substation Alpha was required software to create a sub or the “30 minute” comment).

I hope that clears the air. I understand where you are coming from, but ignoring the motivations of the people creating the fansubs (or rather, oversimplifying it to make it merely about “pwning those fags”) and the intended target audience gives it such an air of bias that it becomes almost humorous.

Anyway, I would still like you to let me know how the shows I referred you to compare to the examples you choose in the video.

BTW, on a side note, using examples of shows released in just the last few years by a very modern fansub group (Anime-Classic “The Enemy is the Pirates” and Guardress) as examples of VHS subs (and not even getting the aspect ratio correct) was pretty weak. You could have dug up some more VHS tapes to prove your point. You basically negated your argument with those examples and the folks in Anime-Classic were not happy about it.

-Tofu
__________________
The only MMORPG I play is fansubbing. “

Many times fansubbers make amateur mistakes and that’s fine as long as they don’t then try to justify them with excuses. I think it’s easy enough to eliminate -san and replace mother, father, brother and sister. I also agree that many objects should be replaced unless they’re common enough to be recognized like sake. Translations are about understanding. And in NA teachers are often referred to as mister, misses or miss such as “Mr. Johnson” or even “Professor Johnson” so it’s sufficent to just translate that way and the meaning would come across.

Fansubbers should try as hard as possible to keep all the translations at the bottom so that one doesn’t have to look all over the screen. What’s wrong with using brackets () so that one could write “Shinigami (Death God)” or “Shinigami (similar to a Grim Reaper)” instead of having to fill the top with an extra note that breaks from the reading. As long as the bracketed note is used the first time in every fansub, one can generally follow what’s going on.

But I think it’s understood that Japanese signs don’t have English translations on them. And remember that the Japanese would be able to read the original words so the translations on the signs only helps to enjoy the translation the way a Japanese person would.

Besides. The wider anime-watching audience watches in dubbed anyway. And they don’t actually CARE about whether or not it’s culturally accurate. It’s the otaku who obsess, and I’m guessing that they AREN’T the new fans.

I’m an otaku-ish, but lets not get picky eh? I just wanna watch the show. Well translated. That’s all I ask for.