Forum - View topicAnime: Lost in Translation.
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Amorok
Posts: 21 |
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Alright, so a few days ago I stumbled across the following clip from an anime called Orguss 2. Everything's just fine until about a minute or so into the video, when something goes horribly, horribly wrong:
http://bit.ly/xykini My initial reaction: WTF. Besides the one obvious, glaring question (which is: how could the creators let something like this air?), this got me thinking: does anyone else have any hilarious examples of terrible anime dubbing (or subbing, as long as it's not a fansub)? It seems like errors like these are prevalent in anime, and there might as well be a thread dedicated to all the ridiculous things in anime that don't quite translate into English (or Western culture, for that matter). |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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"Bless you, thanks."
Hmm, interesting reaction . . . kind of kinky. |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 4021 |
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Considering that Orguss 02 was an OVA series, the creators didn't have to worry about airing it.
That reminds me that I really need to re-watch the original Orguss TV series. I've had the entire series on DVD for a couple of years now, but have yet to watch it. The last time that I watched Orguss, it from a real horribly-subbed Hong Kong bootleg that I borrowed from a friend. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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I'm not sure I understand the topic.. what's so bad that it couldn't aired? Or is it just a quality control issue of the dub being bad you mean?
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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It was his outrageous line coupled with her very, very, very odd response. What man threatens to rape a cute woman he's helping? And what woman would thank a guy for threatening to rape her?
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Cam0
 Posts: 4938 |
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Well I watched S-CRY-ed just recently so I can think of one. In episode 24 when Kazuma is fighting Kyouji Mujo, Mujo yells, in the subs, something like: "Know your place, you trash". In the dub it's translated into: "You fool. Come to your dad!". Unfortunately, I don't have a video of it.
Edit: By searching a little I did find something. May contain spoilers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo9CVlX7ZY8 Just jump straight to 9:22. Don't mind the edits, the line in question is there atleast. Last edited by Cam0 on Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:04 am; edited 3 times in total |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15595 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Oh that is a rather infamous, I haven't seen the whole thing but I know that scene. "I sure get sick of playing the good guy all the time."
I am not sure of what other examples I could use, there was that one localisation fail of "the jelly filled donut. Because the kids needed to be confused that riceballs are donuts. |
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The King of Harts
 Posts: 6712 Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia |
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Strawberry Marshmallow's dub is the first thing I thought of when I read "lost in translation". There's an episode that's focused solely on Ana and how since she's English and all the boys try to talk to her in English. Thing is, though, that since Ana spent most of her life in Japan speaking Japanese, she doesn't even remember how to speak English! Matsuri tries to help her out, but it doesn't seem to working. The jokes seem obvious from there.
Unfortunately, since Blue Water is an awful, awful dubbing studio, they cheap out and don't even bother to try and capture those jokes. Everyone just speaks English all the time, and so the episode comes off as really weird and stupid in the dub. If I were them, I would've made Ana French and had all those jokes be French related. I chose French since it was dubbed in Canada, and so I imagine there's at least one French-speaking actor in the area to be Ana. Something like that most likely would've gotten backlash, but for the sake of the dub, it would've been worth it. Besides, I think that Francis Coppola joke becomes a lot funnier if Ana is from France. Last edited by The King of Harts on Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:06 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Haterater
 Posts: 1736 |
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In the context, the man only said that so that she would just go already, while the woman said thanks for helping her escape. A better way of doing that scene(assuming that line isn't accurate to the original) would probably be, Man: "Hurry up before I change my mind." or Man: "Go on already or I'll shoot you." Woman's line is not a direct response of the last thing he said. |
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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OK, so it seemed like a non-sequitor, but believe it or not it was not fully.
I never have seen the whole story, but the context is pretty obvious. The guy is supposed to be her guard/tormentor who might actually be expected to take liberties with her if it weren't for the fact he decided on his own to help her escape for some reason. What he was saying, albeit poorly, was "are you going to go or do you want to return to your prior state?" No matter what the original Japanese script was the translation was not very good, but not disastrously so. |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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Hm. I guess if we're allowing the easy-target-able 4kids stuff, then Pocket Monsters is full of them. (I assume it means more than just "They cut out the boobies and blood" censorship, though, so I'll skip that long list and stick to the jokes and formats and stuff that they don't even bother to try to keep)
One of the biggest things lost in the dub is the Pokemon Sonansu, which Team Rocket get during the Jouto arc of the original series. It's origins are based on a Japanese comedian who's catchphrase was smacking his forehead and saying "So nansu!" or "That's the way it is/Them's the breaks/etc" in response to an absurd outcome or situation. Sonansu does it literally every episode up until it leaves at the end of Diamond & Pearl. It'll pop out of it's Monster Ball and say it after their motto, after a plan succeeds/fails, or at the end of a scene involving the trio. For example when Team Rocket threatens Team Galaxy, Sonansu pops up and looks angry and says it's name, which is more or less him saying "That's how it's gonna be/You better believe it" etc, as in it's actually threatening them too by confirming Team Rocket's threat. The dub name, like many, doesn't try to keep this joke so when it pops up and says its name all the time it doesn't really make any sense and just seems random. Team Rocket in general has a lot of stuff like that gets ignored in the dub. One joke in the original series was Satoshi and Shigeru mentioning they both have 'shi' in their names. Takeshi and even Musashi also said that occasionally with their names as a recurring joke. All lost in the dub. Speaking of names, one of the recurring themes is like 95%+ of the characters use three symbol names. Sa-to-shi, Ka-su-mi and etcetera. When Best Wishes hit, it was assumed Iris would break that mold, until you realize you can romanize it as Ai-ri-su if you wish, which is pretty clever. Also, up until Iris, all the Pokegirls had the "ka" in their name. Kasumi, Hikari, Haruka. None of this is in the dub, nor are most of the naming schemes. Hikari and Nozomi, for example, are named after two trains in Japan, and it speaks a lot of their rivalry and relationship to one another as the two trains travel in the exact opposite direction of one another, and the Nozomi is faster and stronger. I suppose the last thing I'll touch on, speaking of rivals, is the idea of a rival itself. Back when Pocket Monsters first came over to the US, the idea of a 'rival' was, I would assume, lost on American culture. There weren't really 'rivals' in American media, let alone for kids, and even to this day it's still mostly a Japanese thing. So in the dub, they made Shigeru a compete jerk to Satoshi. He called him mean names, acted like a jerk, like calling him a "loser" or saying "smell you dweebs later" and in general was an ass. They played him more like some high school jock bullying a nerd, which is a popular stereotype in American cartoons. In the original he was, well, a rival. They were pretty friendly, even if they did try to compete and get ahead of one another. They were both the shining stars of their home town Masara, it was up to one of them to become a champion and bring glory to their small podunk village and show the world Masara was just as important as any big city. They both wanted the same thing. This would continue until the end of the first series at the Jouto League where the two finally faced off and they flash backed to their childhood when they made that promise to one another. The thing is in the dub this felt incredibly forced given how much of a jerk Shigeru acted all the time previously, so suddenly "Hey, we're friends" was completely absurd. It was much more natural and believable in the original. I suspect this is the reason 4Kids wised up and took on the idea of a 'rival', and have kept them on more friendlier terms since then when it came to Satoshi's, Haruka's, and Hikari's rivals in subsequent series. Back then, though, they didn't really understand the concept of a 'rival'. Last edited by TitanXL on Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:57 am; edited 1 time in total |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15595 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Wow, you just blew my mind with that. |
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