Anime? Thread #2

[Taffeta]

I hate it when the subs don't match what's being said in plain English Even if the English dialogue is a little off/Engrishy, it's just distracting when you can clearly hear that's not what they're saying!

This is how I feel about subs in general. It's been so annoying that even though my settings are no subs on CR, they insist on putting them on. They often crash the episode if I try to take them off (which means switching to another language sub and then back to 'none', which is what it should default as). The other day it was really having a laugh, though, as it refused to take the subs off three Japanese shows and then omitted them automatically on a Chinese show - where I would actually need them :'(. Subs on CR are so often off the mark/generalised/plain wrong that they become a distraction; CR not letting me turn them off all the time drives me mad.

I'm also remembering the horrible Engrish in Daiya's American/Japan baseball game...which was also censored from the manga iirc because I'm pretty sure the manga included an expletive.

Sometimes English in Japanese needs to be tidied up to make it make sense. But sometimes it doesn't.

I remember raging about the synopsis for Harukanaru Toki no Naka De Hachiyoushou, back when the US released it on DVD, where it described Yasuaki (who is an onmyouji) as a sorcerer (which is something totally different, sorcerer is a better translation for mahoutsukai or majutsushi) and reduced Ikutidaru and Sefuru to Icktidarl and Sefle. I am so glad that show never had a dub.

[Carrehz]

omg those romanizations X'D

That's so annoying that Crunchyroll doesn't work though :/

Sometimes English in Japanese needs to be tidied up to make it make sense. But sometimes it doesn't.

I can understand it if they're at least fixing grammatical errors or something - it's annoying, but I *get* it - but it drives me nuts when they're just straight-up making stuff up :p

Another one was Sugar Sugar Rune (fansubs not official, but still) translating "stick" as "wand". Yeah, I agree, that sounds better, and if it was a dub/manga translation/anything without the original audio I'd wholeheartedly support it... but it's just so silly reading "wand" when you can clearly hear the girls yelling "stick!"

[Ponyfan]

I'm also remembering the horrible Engrish in Daiya's American/Japan baseball game...which was also censored from the manga iirc because I'm pretty sure the manga included an expletive.

I was thinking about that when they starting speaking so slowly in A Sign of Affection.  It was such a jarring contrast to the way Itsuomi spoke in the first few minutes (although he says later he's fluent in English )  Let's not forget one of the American players in that Daiya game is named C. Weed. 

Another one was Sugar Sugar Rune (fansubs not official, but still) translating "stick" as "wand". Yeah, I agree, that sounds better, and if it was a dub/manga translation/anything without the original audio I'd wholeheartedly support it... but it's just so silly reading "wand" when you can clearly hear the girls yelling "stick!"

I found out recently that the new Eternal edition of the Sailor Moon magna has changed Moon Stick to Moon Wand because an editor thought it sounded more "magical" than stick.  It seems silly to change it after all this time just because someone decided that wand sounded better.



Ponyfan 

[Taffeta]

Haha yes, C.Weed. The names are all silly, they're mostly one initial and a name or a name and an initial and it's pretty horrible. Iirc the anime gave up on making them speak English at one point and they all start talking in Japanese *heh*.

Though this will always reign as my favourite engrish moment, ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwnoBu7eQA

I remember also how much trouble the subtitlers had with Kyou Kara Maou! when it was still at fansub stage (especially given there were a bunch of licencing issues with it originally, company went bust, etc). And nobody had a clue how some of the (frequently germanic) names were meant to be romanised. Gwendal had multiple surname options. You'd get Josak and Yozak. There's one regular character and I still, honestly, don't know what his name is meant to be.

Then there's Angelique and its naming sense, trying to be all western and all. Heuye and Ernst spring to mind...

[Ponyfan]

This discussion also reminds me of when Albert and Haru met in Free Dive to the Future.  I don't think Haru understands/speaks English fluently and Albert doesn't speak Japanese.  Despite that Albert is able to ask Haru how to order food in English and Haru is able to respond in Japanese as if they aren't speaking two different languages.   Haru is pretty preceptive though so it could be he realized Albert didn't know how to order without needing to understand English.


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

Iirc Albert is meant to be Swedish, yet randomly talks with an American accent xD.

...I think the overenunciated australian in the end of whichever season it is with Haru and Rin is less problematic (actual English speakers forced to speak very clearly and unnaturally?), and Miyano Mamoru does not too bad with Rin's lines, but still...

I remember that when they were doing the voices for the Haruka 5 game, Shitanda Michael was voicing Ernest Satow. Satow was a real person, an Irish born Victorian-age Briton (Ireland was part of Britain back then). Shitanda Michael's English is excellent. But again, very American...

[Ponyfan]

I always forget that Albert is supposed to Swedish.

Those scenes with Haru and Rin in Australia do seem slow and a little unnatural in places (It was a bit jarring to me to get used to everyone speaking Japanese and suddenly most characters are speaking English.)

I agree the English during the Daiya game is much worse. A lot of it could have been fixed by just changing the sentence structures a bit or getting rid of redundant lines.  Did they really need so may lines about Mei being a Japanese pitcher?  I tried to find a clip of the game on Youtube, but there's none that are useful.


I found part of the clip I was looking for from Sign of Affection.   Itsuomi is the one that appears at :13.  Eijun's va is at around 1:44.   The person that posted this has cut some scenes so the "It's wet" dialogue is missing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2UfiNsyUX0



Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

I have Sign of Affection on my to watch list, I've just been waiting for it to stack up some more episodes first .

One other thing with annoying subtitling is when you have a series set in an ancient Chinese world and the subtitlers insist on putting the 'proper Chinese' names for the characters, even when the Japanese voice artists are saying all the names with the Japanese character readings.

With Apothecary Diaries, the original dialogue uses pseudo-Chinese pronunciation (MaoMao is MaoMao, for example, which is the chinese reading). But with the Raven of the Inner Palace, the dialogue uses Japanese readings and the subtitles writes the names out in correct Chinese. This may not be an issue if you don't understand the Japanese dialogue, no idea, but it's very jarring when you do and really hard to keep up with who is who. Hence why turning off the subs was so important, LOL

I remember the manga for Fushigi Yuugi did a similar thing, turning the Japanese country names, place names, and personal names into Chinese ones, but I saw the anime first and so know all of them as Japanese names (eg Nuriko's sister Kourin is Kang-Lin in the manga translation...I think Tasuki's sister Aidou is Ai-Tong. I've blanked out all the seishi's Chinese personal names and can't remember them xD). To make it worse, though, I'm pretty sure all the stellar names are left in Japanese. So Nuriko is still Nuriko. Tasuki is still Tasuki. Even though their personal names have been changed. Gah.

I also remember the writer of Saiunkoku Monogatari asked for Shuurei's last name to be changed in the English translations, because she was Kou Shuurei in the Japanese and it might have been confusing given there were two families with the surname Kou (different kanji). So she became Shuurei Hong, which was so annoying. Especially when in the anime you can hear her announce herself as Kou Shuurei over and over again.

So yeah. Changing things when you can hear it's meant to be something else is...not great.

(I also have a few twitches with some of the Yona romanisations, but not to the same degree.

[Carrehz]

Oooh that's so annoying about the Chinese vs Japanese name thing!! I would totally understand it if they did that just for the dub, that would make sense, but:

So yeah. Changing things when you can hear it's meant to be something else is...not great.

*nod* This!!

Ponyfan, I was thinking about the Moon Stick when I typed that xD I didn't know they'd actually changed it for the most recent translation though. I guess I can understand where they're coming from, but I'd rather they just left it as Stick :/ Yeah it sounds silly (frankly I think the old dub name "Crescent Moon Wand" is nicer), but it's what the author intended (plus it's hardly the only silly name/term in Sailor Moon ) so... *shakes head* It just feels unprofessional to me, making stuff sound "fancier" is the sort of thing I expect to see from fan translations, not official ones...

[Taffeta]

It also allows for the hackneyed joke about stick and the Japanese word suteki (which means something like awesome), which sound a little similar when pronounced the Japanese way.

[Ponyfan]

Some of the attacks in Sailor Moon have always made me wonder where those names came from or if the author was just putting different words together.   Names like "Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss" and Star Maker's

Spoiler

"Star Gentle Uterus"

Spy Family Season 1 part 2 is out in the US on Blu Ray.  I saw it at Target, but haven't found it at Walmart yet.

McDonald's is also getting in to the anime world again.  This time instead of using already established characters like Mao from the Devil is a Part Timer, someone has created a new anime short series featuring new characters including a person with a McDonald's hamburger for a face.  There are short manga scenes on the bags and I guess you can watch the shorts by scanning the QR code on the cups or bags.  Someone posted a pic of one of the new bags and I'm assuming you get a different bag every week with a new manga scene.  The one I saw on Facebook was about the new "wicked" sauce.


Ponyfan


   

[Carrehz]

Star Maker's attack is the best but I like "Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber" too. Jacket the jacket jacket. Heh.

[Taffeta]

Japanese use of English is sometimes...lol

I was digging through some of the older anime themes and character songs I have had for literally years, sorting out playlists. Came across Evil Eyes by Kanna Nobutoshi, one of my favourite seiyuu back in the day. It's a character song, not a theme, but erm, it really sounds like he's singing about Evil Rice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz3tGpwsSSc

"Just look into evil rice. Evil rice..."

Classic.

On a slightly different note, I also found this one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iloR-ElB6I

Team Rocket's original Japanese theme song (Roketto-dan yo eien ni, or Team Rocket Forever!)

The very first ever CD I had in Japanese was back in 2001 or 2002, years and years before I started getting into seiyuu or anime in Japanese. It was only much later that I discovered Kojirou (James) is voiced in Japanese by Miki Shinichirou, one of my absolute favourite seiyuu. I mean, now I listen to it, it's so obvious it's him, but back then I was just innocent.

I don't know how funny it is if you don't speak Japanese. It's pretty funny if you do.

Makes me want to watch Pokemon in Japanese...

[Ponyfan]

Star Maker's attack is the best but I like "Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber" too. Jacket the jacket jacket. Heh.

That's a good one too.   It's really interesting to me that Tuxedo Mask/King Endymion can perform that attack in his future form alongside his current self during the Black Moon arc, but Sailor Moon can't do the same with her future self. 

I found this on Youtube that has a little of Moonlight Densetsu in a lot of different languages. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWbQRadlw20&list=RDhWbQRadlw20&start_radio=1&rv=FxaktdII8OI


It shows clips from all 5 seasons so there might be a couple of spoilers in there. I saw the Sailor Starlights and Sailor Galaxia

@Taffeta

I listened to both songs.   The first one does sound like he's singing "Evil rice" instead of "evil Eyes"

I've never really been in to Pokemon, but that Team Rocket theme is pretty catchy.


Ponyfan

[Carrehz]

I love that song - Team Rocket get the best songs <3 At least in the original Japanese. Wish it was easier to find fansubs for Pokemon...