Cliffhanger ep. The cucking is real.
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Man, this site just loves timezones.
Okay, AOTY is here. Thanks.
thank u guys
Aww yiss Zombies on a Train!
y’know,
is DDY using the same release pic as Doki?
https://doki.co/2016/05/13/koutetsujou-no-kabaneri-05/
I know that people get to be in different groups all the time but I believe this is my first time seeing same release pic :v
No.
Period just happens to have the same shit taste as the guy in Doki, bless his little heart.
“how dare you say Mumei a shit taste!” – Period and Saeval
if you were to pick the release picture, who would you choose?
Well clearly the best move is to be a dick and use a spoiler post like the one with the giant smog attacking!
It just shows that Mumei is clearly best grill
This is entirely to volume of screen time, I assure you.
Thank you!
Yea question for the translators please, why did you decide to use ‘Corpse’ instead of ‘Kabane’ and ‘No-name’ for ‘Mumei’
Read the discussion* in the comments for the previous episodes, please.
* By “discussion” I mean the DDY staff calmly presenting their rationale and the opposing parties invoking variations upon “I disagree u suk”. Personally, I follow DDY for this show because the results of their reasoning make perfect sense to me—and English isn’t my native, either.
I appologise, figured there was a topic like this. Just gonna say I disagree, translating a name doesn’t sit well. The subs are great for OP/ED, best I’ve ever seen, but my OCD is acting too much on the naming so I’m gonna skip on this series
moozooh, I can’t find your name on the staff list?
re: “I disagree u suk”
There are very few comments like this and personally, I don’t believe the majority (if any) of the DDY staff have such a low opinion of the people who do proffer their views and yes, criticisms.
The only arrogant fansubber I’ve come across that does have such a low view of anyone who dares to differ in opinion to himself is one that used to (and still may for all I know) be on the Commie team.
If DDY (and I’d much rather they spoke for themselves) do have such a disregard for our views then perhaps they could let us know.
I like a few others have dropped this series (at least as far as DDY are concerned) but that does not make us haters, weabboos or morons and I’m sure the majority of us who do offer the odd criticism, watch and enjoy pretty much everything else that DDY release.
Thanks for your time and effort DDY, I hope you know it is appreciated.
> moozooh, I can’t find your name on the staff list?
Yes, because he’s not part of it :V
Have to agree with Marmotzel, OP/ED are superb,
I’m not a part of DDY staff, but I’ve been working as a translator and editor long enough for it to pain me whenever people can’t give a modicum of effort in understanding what it takes to adapt a body of fiction from a given culture to one that is nowhere close. (My work has nothing to do with anime, though, and I mainly translate from English rather than into English.) This isn’t directed at Marmotzel, as they have merely raised a valid question, but to those who keep arguing and spouting nonsense in some other comment chains, in MAL’s fansub list comments, etc.
There will always be some compromise involved in translating an object of foreign culture because different cultures have different codes, i.e. things that one would only fully understand by being raised within the culture in question. So a translator’s job with regards to fiction is, and will be, littered with decisions as to where on the sliding scale of “literal” to “liberal” the result should end up with so that the highest percentage of the target audience will get as much as possible of the original meaning and the cultural codes underneath, which at times will involve converting foreign cultural codes (“bushi”, a samurai-related lexeme unique to the Japanese culture) into ones of the target culture (“knight”, a lexeme well-known in cultures influenced by Anglo-Saxon tradition). Most of the times the decisions will be easy, but sometimes they will not, and to disregard these decisions as if they weren’t made after a careful deliberation, or demand them be reversed, or anything else inane like that, is extremely insulting to both the translator and the audience who supports those decisions as they are.
Leaving specific terms, or proper nouns directly derived from the character’s descriptive trait, as mere transcriptions of the Japanese words is always the easiest way out. You might be sneered at by high-brow people but most wouldn’t even know what they’re missing. To give you a small example of how it might pan out, take Crunchyroll’s translation of One-Punch Man’s character, 無免ライダー, “Mumen Rider”. The name in itself is a clear pun on Kamen Rider (lit. “masked rider”), which is a somewhat similarly-looking Japanese tokusatsu/manga/anime hero from the 70s who rides a motorcycle. The vast majority of people who are very well-acquainted with Japanese culture (read: Japanese themselves, some foreign culture course students, and selected weebs), will get the pun immediately. The others, who (especially if they have to watch the show with subtitles in the first place) WON’T EVEN KNOW THE PUN IS THERE, constitute somewhere between 90–99.99%. The downside is that, by preserving the reading that carries the pun very few would understand, you also discard the ACTUAL, non-punny meaning of the name, “Licenseless Rider”, which is a meaningful thing that fully warrants translation. Had you been a translator, what would you prefer: a literal syllable-by-syllable transcription, a “westernized” transcription, a true-to-the-meaning adaptation, or, perhaps, something else entirely? That is but one decision out of hundreds to be made, and this might give you a small idea of the weight a translator must carry with each and every job they undertake.
Like I said, I’m not part of DDY, but I understand completely where they were coming from when they translated “kabane”, “Mumei”, “Kotetsujou”, “Barusu” (from Re:Zero) and the like. I could give you a breakdown because, frankly, it’s as easy to explain as it is somehow very hard to grasp for some people.
When you name something, you can either convert a common word into a proper noun (“Licenseless Rider”) derived DIRECTLY from the traits/meaning of its constituent words (“licenseless”, “rider”), or you can take something that is at best INDIRECTLY related to the object in question and slap it on (such as a character named Natsu, which is Japanese for “summer” because they were born in the summer). Both approaches are widely used in real world, but in fiction it is extremely important that the first category of names, i.e. directly derived ones, are adapted in such a way that their meaning is decipherable in the target culture. In roughly 99% of cases it is the right thing to do because a word that had clear meaning in the original language would just become a fancy jumble in the target one if left untranslated. So let’s move on to the examples in question.
Kabane is a word that means “corpse”. It has no wide precedent among abridged Japanese fiction, so people unfamiliar with the language wouldn’t know its actual meaning. A very liberal, immature translator could attempt to use “zombie” here (a successfully assimilated lexeme that is part of the common Western cultural codes), but it’s a loanword that came into our lexicon from Haitian folklore in mid-20th century, which the characters of KnK couldn’t have any knowledge about, and thus it would be very out-of-place there. The word “Corpse” provides precise meaning, is flexible and intuitive in its use, and it carries the flavor that suits the show. So when irritated No-Name corrects one of the minor characters calling her or Ikoma a Corpse by saying she’s “not a Corpse—a DEMIcorpse” you immediately understand why the distinction is important. In the official subtitles she says she’s “not a Kabane—a KabaneRI” and the viewer is left guessing why appending the “-ri” (lit. “person”) changes anything at all, or what it even means. What she says is that she has both the traits of humans and Corpses, and DDY has conveyed that meaning successfully, while the official subs (or Doki, for that matter) have not.
Mumei is a word that means “nameless, anonymous”. The comments to the previous episode have discussed it at length, but just to reiterate, it’s not a name one receives at birth. It belongs to the same category of names I’ve outlined above as the “directly derived from the traits”. Call it a handle, or an alias. It carries a very strong meaning that the girl does, in fact, have no name. There are reasons to believe she might get a name later on. If that actually happens and the “name” is left untranslated, this will make ZERO sense to the audience who don’t know why she’s called Mumei in the first place. They would ask, “didn’t she already have a name?” But no, she fucking didn’t, that’s the point they had missed by watching the show with subs that didn’t take the extra step. Additionally, “No-name” fits perfectly as the phonetic substitute for “Mumei”, to the point where it actually seems like the word they’re actually saying in the show, so extra kudos to whoever came up with this particular choice.
Sorry for the essay. Hope it shed some light onto whatever the fuck was unclear. :)
(To DDY staff, please keep doing the great job and ignore the haters.)
Kudos to you for your post, I don’t think anyone could have any doubts about the matter after reading it.
“the viewer is left guessing why appending the “-ri” (lit. “person”) changes anything at all, or what it even means. What she says is that she has both the traits of humans and Corpses, and DDY has conveyed that meaning successfully”
Oh hai thar Wall Of Text, I’ve got to disagree with you on this specific part. Any tard with a partially functioning brain can figure out what’s going with Kabane vs Kabaneri on just by watching the show. They could have called them “Derps” and “Herpaderps” and you know what the difference is. It’s so blatantly obvious that for you to sit here and say that DDY has conveyed the meaning successfully while others have not is like you saying “every viewer here is a fucking moron and needs to be coddled extra hard and probably spoonfed”.
Other than that, really great wall of text and I totes agree dawg! Herpin’ and derpin’ wit my peep moozooh peace out.
@HerpaDerpa
>I’ve got to disagree with you on this specific part. Any tard with a partially functioning brain can figure out what’s going with Kabane vs Kabaneri on just by watching the show.
Yes, but so what? KnK isn’t Legend of the Galactic Heroes—I can figure most things here out with both the subs and the sound turned off completely, but this has nothing to do with the quality of translation which was my point.
Imagine a following dialogue, “translated” into English from another (actually existing) language:
— Go away. A nemestny isn’t welcome here.
— Oh, but I’m a mestny. Here, take a good look.
— Oh… didn’t catch that at first. That changes everything, sorry, mate. Here, have some tea with us.
…Catch anything silly or otherwise wrong with that exchange? Some word was changed and you’ve got no idea what either of them means, but apparently one of the speakers is satisfied enough with it that they change their disposition 180°. Wouldn’t you want to know what the words mean? Why should a minor change affect anything—is the “ne-” a honorific, a negation prefix, a part of a completely different root? It could mean anything and the two words could mean anything, but all we know *for sure* is that it makes a significant difference to one of the speakers. Let’s translate everything properly now:
— Go away. Foreigner aren’t welcome here.
— Oh, but I’m a local. Here, take a good look.
— Oh… didn’t catch that at first. That changes everything, sorry, mate. Here, have some tea with us.
You are correct that in the first case, much like with kabaneri, it’s easily possible to *approximate* this difference from the beginning going by various cues. But that’s not how a translation should operate at all, especially not when the original script doesn’t have any guessing element to begin with. It’s not some obscure knowledge; KnK screenwriters expect the original (i.e. Japanese) audience to be 100% clear on the meaning of those two words, so the translation should… not, it *must* represent them in its target language accordingly—so that the English-speaking audience is also 100% clear and all. Otherwise it’s a failed translation and it should be fixed. I know for sure I’m not watching subtitles to be left guessing.
Your examples are silly because they lack the repeated visual and other CONTEXT the show provided. You can say that your point was the “quality” of the translation, but what you SAID was that the meaning was not conveyed by the official subs which is simply snortworthy. As is your assertion that quality of a translation is purely objective, when that’s obviously a subjective thing.
As long as the meaning is clear, as you said, then all is well. In many cases this does NOT mean that you *MUST* “translate” everything, especially words that actually have no direct translation, because they’re made up to start with. Even with an example like Mumen Rider, I would be fine with translation notes. But that’s just me, it’s an opinion thing and __I don’t actually object to how DDY has chosen to handle things__. What I object to the assertion that it’s the ONE TRUE PATH and everyone who has a differing opinion is somehow a jackass weeaboo that should die in a fire. The Jihad to eliminate Japanese flavor from Japanese shows sometimes gets ri-dick-ulous. Have a nice day. Fatua.
@HerpaDerpa
Just in case you were serious with this comment I’ll humor you and give a non-sarcastic response.
>Your examples are silly because they lack the repeated visual and other CONTEXT the show provided. You can say that your point was the “quality” of the translation, but what you SAID was that the meaning was not conveyed by the official subs which is simply snortworthy.
“Visual and other context” isn’t subject to translation, text is. And wtf, of course it wasn’t conveyed by the subs. It was conveyed by everything else BUT the subs. You aren’t thinking your arguments through, my good man.
>As long as the meaning is clear, as you said, then all is well. In many cases this does NOT mean that you *MUST* “translate” everything, especially words that actually have no direct translation, because they’re made up to start with.
Give me an example of a made-up word that ended up translated in any of the examples I have discussed here or anywhere else. You will find that there were none; the closest was “Balse” in the discussion of Re:Zero, and that was still a lightly modified phonetic transcription (not a translation) where the official source for the particular modification also happened to be the most revered Japanese animation studio of all time. All the other terms and names that ended up translated weren’t made-up to begin with.
You also seem to be confusing close approximation with clarity. The terms “kabane” and “kabaneri” were clear in the original language, they became unclear in a translation so they have to be approximated—while they could be perfectly clear using the existing words of the target language. A translation that omits content without a good reason is a failed translation; a reason that incurs a greater net loss of the original meaning is a bad reason. You may have a second opinion about it, and I don’t dispute your right to it, but there are also second opinions about the Earth being round and/or solid; if you find yourself paying no mind to them, why do you think that is? Possibly because there are scientific disciplines that have devoted centuries into figuring this out. Linguistics isn’t different.
>What I object to the assertion that it’s the ONE TRUE PATH and everyone who has a differing opinion is somehow a jackass weeaboo that should die in a fire. The Jihad to eliminate Japanese flavor from Japanese shows sometimes gets ri-dick-ulous.
No such thing. You seem to be thinking that I treat translation as a binary right/wrong entity—I am not. But leaving Japanese words untranslated is one of the most contrived and retarded ways to “keep Japanese flavor”. Where exactly do you draw the line in that case, and why not someplace else? Could it be that you have no methodology to make that distinction, yet you’re arguing with somebody with an access to at least some sort of methodology? For the sake of your argument I hope you’re not. :v
Like I said, there are many things in translation that people may have different opinions about, but the notion that all (or even most) of it is subjective and unclear is very misguided. In the overwhelming majority of cases there will be a consensus among people educated in the subject as to what would be the best of the available options for any given piece of text, or, if the given language pair allows that at all, even an optimal translation by which all the aspects of the original message are preserved in full. Needless to say, when we’re talking about opinions, there are educated opinions that rely on knowledge, logic, and experience, and then there are those that are substantiated by nothing more than “I like this more than that”. Translators that easily forgo the former in favor of the latter, i.e. lack methodology, typically find themselves looking for a job in a different field.
After all, if one wouldn’t bat an eyelash at Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας translated to Alexander the Great and cares little that “Paris” or “Moscow” aren’t even close to their phonetic transcriptions, yet becomes triggered by a simple translation of a random Japanese word just because they happen to be emotionally hooked on Japanese pop-culture, then there’s probably—just probably—too much prejudice in that person’s words to ever bother with in serious discussions.
“You seem to be thinking that I treat translation as a binary right/wrong entity—I am not.”
*proceeds to treat translation as a binary equation anyway*
*proceeds to preach about how much more intelligent moozooh is than the peasants*
*proceeds to look down on a person or persons and use strawman arguments*
No you’ve convinced me of your One True Way. 99.6% of all viewers of subtitled Japanese shows are too stupid to learn a word or two per show and instead need some “close enough” translations. Which may or may not be agreed upon by different translators (or they may not agree on whether they should be translooselated) even though it’s totally a perfect translation and there can be no debate. In fact, I think we should start fanDUBBING more often, to make it easier for the peons to consume. Maybe make three different dubs. One for hill billies (do they have internet?? oh well), one for urban youths, and one for more-or-less ordinary ‘muricans. That way you can always give the easiest-to-understand translation to the target audience, you feel me, dawg? Shooooot. Nigga please.
And again, it’s not that I think a particular method is wrong or that DDY is “doing it wrong”. It’s the high brow holier than thou One Allah death to infidels shit that cracks me up.
Naww I ain’t too sure wutz makin’ ye think that wutz being said is that the method DDY’s chosen iz da one true path or far holier than …whoever said holy guy actually is… m(￣.￣)m m(─.─)m m(＿ ＿)m However, all I gotz from all that is DDY did a fine job in translatin’ such terms and that translations are supposed to convey the meanings to all audiences. Or am I just some dummy who cannot even comprehend this so called english language…? (ﾉ≧ڡ≦)
@HerpaDerpa
Okay, I’m afraid I can’t help with the reading comprehension problems, mate. Why should the audience of a translation learn words that could just be translated?… Ah, forget it, we’re just going in circles.
> It’s the high brow holier than thou One Allah death to infidels shit that cracks me up.
See, it doesn’t matter what cracks you up and what doesn’t, or how you think things should be done, or anything else like that. What matters is that you don’t really understand what you’re talking about, and it undermines everything you say. But instead of at least trying to understand you assume the defensive position and reiterate your ignorant argument with some added sarcasm as if it’d help. Whether I am more intelligent than yourself or not doesn’t even enter the equation here because your fervent pursuit of rebellious ignorance prevents you from having so much as a claim for intelligence in this exchange. Bringing me or my argument down won’t help your case either. As you entered the discussion of your own accord, what did you expect to gain out of it? A bit of self-affirmation for calling me out… with witticisms alone, really? I truly hope that has worked out for you, because your writing style is so flamboyantly pretentious itself, as well as heartily peppered with passive aggression, that your own position seems a little disingenuous. I mean, does bringing down those holier-than-thou asshats by being an asshat yourself even work? (I also can’t tell for sure, but Muslims seem to have bitten you as a child. You should probably go check that out.)
Being a headstrong rebel seems cool when you’re 16-17, I do remember the times fondly. Unfortunately, life’s not too much like a shounen anime where that particular character trait can carry one through their adulthood. Just a piece of friendly advice: when you enter a discussion, especially with the intent of calling somebody out, be prepared to contribute something meaningful to it, or at least stand on firm enough ground yourself so that you don’t fall flat on your face when things don’t immediately go your way. An ignorant opinion will remain ignorant until you put some honest effort into validating it, and I’m afraid witticisms and wishful thinking are notoriously bad for that purpose. This will be my last post on the matter, so take it as you will.
If the closest translation for “cake” was “frosted round sugarsweet fluffy bread” I’d say just leave it cake. But yes you’re 100% correct on everything, even on subjective matters. I’m sure no other possible outcome ever entered into the equation, from your point of view.
@HerpaDerpa
> If the closest translation for “cake” was “frosted round sugarsweet fluffy bread” I’d say just leave it cake.
You are wrong. Because Cake isn’t a name. It is much closer to a title or nickname. After it lost it cakemannity, it lost it name. It brother called it Cake simply because it brother didn’t know what else to call it.
Even it brother did named it but I think it still not a name, OK? Cake means Frosted Round Sugarsweet Fluffy Bread, so I translating it as “Frosted Round Sugarsweet Fluffy Bread.” It’s not it real name. It is much closer to a title or nickname. Of course, a title and nickname is categorized as a name but still not a name because ‘reasons’. Translating names is stupid. Anyone who did that is an idiot, if you are working as a translator or/and editor then you are going full retard. But it’s fine for me even I did it because ‘reasons’. Cake is not a name, it’s more like a title. It has no name. It’s Frosted Round Sugarsweet Fluffy Bread. It’s sounds so stu- I mean- it’s sounds so “intelligent than yourself” and all the intelligent people should love it. Even your question and logic is all good but if I don’t agree with you I’m gonna called it “an ignorant opinion.” And don’t expect me to answer your question directly because I’m gonna keep dodging your questions and keep using strawman on you.
> If the closest translation for “cake” was “frosted round sugarsweet fluffy bread” I’d say just leave it cake. But yes you’re 100% correct on everything, even on subjective matters. I’m sure no other possible outcome ever entered into the equation, from your point of view.
Of course. I would choose to translating it to “frosted round sugarsweet fluffy bread.” Because I’m “intelligent than yourself.” I said I’m not treat translation as a binary right/wrong entity but I still gonna do it anyway because I standing so firm on my ground. Also, it sounds so intelligent and it not stupid as “cake.” Only stupid weeboos still called a “frosted round sugarsweet fluffy bread” as a “cake.” If you don’t agree with me then I’m gonna called you a weeboo and I’m gonna top it up with some other shits. Because there’s something wrong with my brain and then my logic gone down to toilet. So be prepared.
Premised I ain’t a TL, but:
tl;dr version: Because “Kabane” is not an English word. Same for “Mumei”.
Long version: What moozooh said.
I think we should start translating ALL nouns (proper or otherwise), to the best-sounding equivalent.
Mumei = Stevie Nicks
Shogunate = Gubmint
Ayame = Kim Kardashian
O.o Here we go again…! :P Here comes a new challenger!! ;)
Just askin’ if Hanamonogatari has been dropped.
So, since I stopped watching due to not liking the choice of “translating” Mumei(it’s a translation, but at the same time it’s a name in this case…haven’t seen MÄR-Subs translating “Nanashi” either, although his name is taken upon in the same way that Mumei is), but to each their own. What made me drop this even harder was the choice of completely changing “Bushi” into something not even closely equivalent(Knight)…I mean, a Bushi with a lord would be a Samurai…so…what about a Knight without one? Is there a term for that? Either way, this leads to my question: What haver you guys done about “Bakufu”(Shogunate) in your translation? Don’t tell me you actually used “Shogunate”, ’cause that would show quite the inconsistency and put the whole sense out of that argument of “feeling to have to translate” that stuff.
First of all, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Second of all, you can’t “drop even harder”. You either drop or you don’t.
Thirdly, if you dropped because of the choices we make, there’s really no need to post here. Personally, I’m quite glad you have an abundance of options. Go out there and enjoy!
Thanks.
Was sleepy, so I wrote…strange to say the least. My fault. I meant to write “what made me really drop this”.
The question was: Did you guys just leave “Shogunate” in the Subs or not? I might have the wrong episode and it came up in 4 actually, but might one not wonder? I usually like the subs of this group, but changing terminology(Bushi, the other stuff passes as translating of course) is something I don’t like. To each their own, as I said.
Reactions like that only make it seem as through that word was completely omitted…
I believe it was pointed out before somewhere in the various arguments that ‘Shogunate’ is not a Japanese term exactly anyways. It was coined to describe part of their political system. It is very much pronounced Show-gun-ate (like Consulate), not shou-gu-na-te (if it were your expected nihongo). So your disbelief that they would possibly deign to use it is a little strange.
As for ‘Bushi’, I think they also went over that in some posts before. ‘Warrior’ is another possible translation, I believe. But… calling the group ‘Warriors’ doesn’t have that same regal feel that ‘Knights’ does. I also don’t really understand why it is important yet that ‘Knight’ have some kind of equivalent to what I guess you meant as ‘Ronin’, per your question in the first post…
I’ve already said in my comment before that that “bakufu” is the Japanese term that is usually “translated” into “Shogunate”.
But either way, let’s disregard wether I was wrong about Bushi or not, I don’t want to argue about that…the question was what they put their instead of “Shogunate” if they felt the high need to westernize “Bushi” already…either way, if “Shogunater” was used, then that pretty much proves that they realized at that point how stupid this westernization(Bushi)/translation of terms is…through I get it if they would not admit it.
The point being: If they left “Shogunate”, then that would straight out kill any reasoning to have changed “Bushi” to “Knight”.
I’m still really, really not understanding your argument then. Shogunate is a term taught even in public schools in the West during World History classes to describe the political regime of Japan during a historical period. Bushi is not at all ever mentioned – like EVER in common public education – from my own experience (this may have changed, but I doubt it). Therefore, a western audience can generally be expected to get the meaning of Shogunate… but, they would not understand Bushi.
Leaving it as Bushi when your intention is to provide the target audience understanding of what is happening is senseless – regardless of whether or not Knight is the best way to go about it. Singling out an accepted western term (shogunate) to attack the logical attempt at conveying the meaning of other words not commonly known is pretty… strange.
Point: Using Shogunate should not be considered to have bearing on ‘reasoning’ to translate other words.
No, not “in the West”. At the very least Japan never comes up besides in World Wars here in Germany. Your whole argument just voided itself by being shortsighted and thinking what’s teached in your country and maybe 1 or 2 others is what’s teached everywhere.
Also, no. That’s just stupid, to start about wanting to westernize this with CHANGING Bushi to Knight, and it’s nothing but that. And just for the record: No one not interested in Japan at least a bit I ever knew here in Germany even knew what a Shogunate is…amd just to make a comparison for “Bushi” and “Knight” using “Shogunate”…might have as well changed it to “Royal Court”(or if there’s a better word, out with it), it’s just as close in meaning…
Go find a German sub group then or stop complaining. DDY does whatever the fuck they want and attempting to use some universal Engrish for every country that happens to have English speakers is fucktarded.
FYI, “shogunate” is not a Japanese word. It’s an English word that means office/government of the shogun (see also other words with suffix -ate: directorate, rabbinate, protectorate, etc.). The Japanese word for shogunate would be bakufu or shōgunshoku.
BTW, how do you define when a thing is “changed” as opposed to “translated”? That would be very interested to hear.
> Your whole argument just voided itself by being shortsighted and thinking what’s teached in your country and maybe 1 or 2 others is what’s teached everywhere.
It’s funny, but it’s your argument that is essentially voided because neither the Japanese nor the English terms in question are being taught in your country, so there’s still no sense to go with a basic transcription anyway.
I already mentioned that it’s “Bakufu” further up, since it’s the word used in an(I think it was this one) episode, just to mention that too…as it was the prompt for me to comment on this here in the first place. The reason being me wanting to know if they at least were consequent with pulling this imho overly strong westerniazation in this case, which would be total fail if they would keep the “shogunate” in. A Shogunate with Knights? Seems legi—not. I hope you get the point.
Also, for your question about defining “translated” and “changed” in this case…yes, let’s go with a few examples:
First for “translated”: “Mumei” to “No-Name”(while I don’t like it, but that’s besides the point) would be a translation. “Bakufu” to “shogunate” would be a translation. “Kabane” to “corpse” is one, while I personally find it inappropriate here for hopefully obvious reasons, but preferences/opinions aren’t the point now.
Now for “changed”: “Bushi” to “Knight” is clearly a change, as they don’t mean the same thing. “Shugomegami” to “Console Patron Unit” is a change(if you get that, stupid stuff that happened to the localization of Hyperdimension Neptunia). I could go on with examples from the latter, but I hope you get what I mean. Finding examples just like that ain’t easy in this case.
And for the “essentially voided”: English is teached here, so no, not neccessarily. If I was born and raised in Munich, chances would be there that I even would have had Japanese in school, voiding that side. Since we were talking about country, not something more specific.
Another point on that however: “DameDesuYo” should rename themselvers if we were to go by that logic, since ther name isn’t English nor are these words teached to most people living in an english-speaking country..!
But going for the translation of easily accessible terms like “Bushi” is the same as saying that the people using this Subbing-Team have ALL been shown this side, as they would clearly have to be completely incapable at using something simple as Google or Wikipedia.
SRY; if something’s not formulated clearly enough, for some reason I always end up making walls of text when being sleepy, for whatever reason…
Not really sure what is the issue with these translations and such… And I would not bother going through them walls of text either. But it is somewhat clear to me that you are implying that such words are not to be translated and viewers who are not familiar with them words should just google it every time they encounter a word they are expecting to be translated, right? I don’t know about you. But if I’m going to have to consult google or any reference while viewing these chinese cartoons. Then I don’t see the need for getting translated episodes anymore… Am I right? ;)
M’kay, I believe I’m beginning to finally see your point. It was a little obfuscated due to your choice of argument phrasings and some missing words there on my initial readings of your posts. I had assumed (as can be read in my post further down) you were promoting the non-translation of the word like the Amazon script. Essentially, you’re only unhappy that a translator would choose to use a European-origined title (Knight) together with a word that still has a root in Japanese (Shogunate)? I can certainly see why someone might find that kind of choice inconsistent.
However, English itself is quite the hodgepodge of languages as it is, so I don’t personally think that particular type of inconsistency would really irritate the average native speaker – especially since Knight does do a very good job of expressing that they are not only fighters, but of higher social standing than others. Maybe that was obvious from context elsewhere and maybe more directly translating as Warrior would have been ‘better’, but I feel you’re also splitting hairs a little, I’m afraid. Technically, in the strictest sense of the definitions, Knight may not equate to Bushi. However Bushi is commonly equated with Samurai (even jisho does it). Do I really have to argue at the similarities between those two? It’s not as if the stretch was nearly as far as your example of Shugomegami. There’s ‘conveying the meaning’ and ‘changing the meaning’. They are very different approaches.
(Before I continue I’m going to correct you on a word, because it bugs me how many times you’ve used it and because I like being helpful to people that learned English as an additional language – I’m not just calling you out. ‘Taught’ is the proper past tense of ‘Teach’, not ‘Teached’. Speaking of inconsistencies… heh. English is weird~)
Moozooh was saying those terms (Shogunate and Bushi) are not taught as ‘common’ education. Some special circumstance student in a particular city doesn’t cut it. The country on the whole does not generally know those words, as you’ve admitted. Just like my whole country probably doesn’t know Bushi or Regelrung. Let’s stop ‘voiding’ things already!
As for renaming the sub group, you appear to be taking this supposed logic a little ridiculously for no reason more than lashing out, so I’m not even going to touch that.
We’re all more than *capable* of using sites to go and translate our anime one word at a time. It’s, again, ridiculous to even mention. Our beloved fansub groups operate in order to spare us poor, uncompromisingly leeching consumers that dreaded use of our time.
Well, I’ll start further down: Munich was just an example, but Japanese as additional choice for the 2nd foreign language in schools is available in multiple locations, not even depending on the actual “state”(for lack of a better word) of Germany, just the availability of teachers. Same goes for Spanish here, amongst others, although Spanish for example is appearently considered to be available in all of Germany as 3rd language, at least from the people I talked to(including teachers), but again, not in small towns like the one I grew up in.
Thanks for noticing me about wrongly using “teached” instead of “taught”, knew that, but well…wrote wrongly. Thanks for the correction through, I personally welcome that.
To answer your lower comment: German Sub-Groups are – according to the state of 2 to 3 years back – mostly either just “idiots”(my opinion, sry if anyone finds it offending) directly translating English Subs without appearently understanding any more Japanese then any random watcher of fansubbed Anime would(so, barely), so in these cases it depends on the source naturally. In the other cases of German subs I watched, it was just as much of a mixed thing as it is in English ones.
Getting back to the point of “Bushi” and “Shogunate”: The thing I meant here was simply that it does not make much sense to leave “Shogunate” when you already use “Knight”. Taking up on what you said: IF they would have known that “Shogun” and “Shogunate” would come up, maybe just using “Samurai” instead of “Bushi” might have made more sense. I personally don’t think that DDY knew that beforehand, so that’s another thing. (I’ve seen this kind of thing done for “Shinobi” and “Kunoichi”, where they were both changed into “Ninja” collectively, just as an example.)
SRY for ranting so much again. Yes, I am personally unhappy with that choice, but would have at least wished for them that it wouldn’t have created so much inconsistency.
Also, sry that it wasn’t clear, but the point of DDY renaming themselves…that was sarcasm. I hoped it was clear enough, but meh, seems it wasn’t. ^^”
@AnonimitY: No, you’re not right. Also, learn what the difference between Japanese and Chinese is. I usually don’t take offense to that shit and just ignore it, but well, in the case of someone implying that words like “Ninja” and “Samurai” should be changed to – let’s say – “Spy” and “Knight” everytime they come up in an Anime actually even taking place in the Sengoku, I do make exceptions.
I don’t think the argument I presented could be completely voided simply because I admittedly made the ‘short-sighted’ mistake of equating Western culture with English language… when the whole issue is over an English-oriented translation in the first place. I’d apologize for that slip at least, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you seem to be arguing for NO translation of words – specifically in the case of Bushi – by originally using the example of Shogunate. Shogunate is a non-japanese term, therefore using it would not be ‘inconsistency’ as you said. That was the main focus of my own posts. I ask that you kindly give that more thought rather than immediately trying to invalidate the entirety of what I said.
Does every German national with *any* interest in Japan somehow naturally understand what Bushi means? I’d clearly doubt that. If this *were* a German translation instead, is it common for the translators to leave specific words like that as they are? I’m asking in earnest here, so please don’t get offended. I’m certain I’ve watched English subs in the past that likely did that, but I would not have called it common practice and it nearly always involved a TL Note.
TL;DR: I, like moozooh, am also curious what criteria you use to consider something changed or ‘westernized’ as opposed to merely translated?
I cannot be the only one anticipatin’ discussions about Ep. 07 where true name(s) before getting new from Big Bro gets mentioned… :P