Ever feel like anime translations used to be better?

[skykiii]

And no, I'm not just talking the autistic dub vs sub war. I've been a mostly-subs watcher for a long time.

But I feel like anime subtitles have gotten worse. It used to be they translated the lines in ways that sound credible, but now I feel like I'm watching a machine translation.

Other times an older sub will have important notes that the newer version doesn't.

For example, Hikaru no Go, a show about a kid learning to play Go (its better than it sounds). There was a fansub by Elite-Fansubs which was actually really good outside of some arbitrary cussing, and better yet actually explained Go terms and didn't keep any terms that weren't necessary--like the jar that they keep game pieces in was just called "a jar."

I saw a modern translation with HD footage, and the subs just sucked... arbitrary terminology (the jars now have some weird long name I can't remember) and it kinda just assumes you know Go already (when the entire point of the anime was it was supposed to introduce kids to the game).

I saw something like this with modern Lucky Star subs where they'll arbitrarily keep Japanese words... instead of "my dad" its "my otou-san." Like, seriously?

FIRST RULE OF ANIME TRANSLATION: If there's a perfectly viable English term that means basically the same thing, USE IT. You're not impressing anybody by showing off your vocabulary.

But yeah, its created a weird case where I often seek out older versions specifically because the translation was less autistic.

There are signs of hope tho. For example there was this anime called Clannad that had good subs, but then got licensed... and the licensed subs sucked. But now you can find HD but with the original fansub translation because even they knew the sub was better.

I'll stop now before this post becomes more spergy than it already is.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

People who cared about the material vs people who act like they know better.

 

[Tekken Enjoyer]

They assume anyone watching is a huge weeb like themselves, and their crippling autism prevents them from imagining what it would be like to be someone not well-versed in weeb shit. Old weebs weren't as autistic as the new batch for a variety of reasons.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I can't find that old Higurashi fan-sub that were colored subs (especially for episode eight) and also had little macabre quips in the eyecatches. I kinda miss the days of old where subbers just had fun whenever there was a breather to be had.

 

[Registration]

I think you are wrong.

Lets use this example:

There is an ogre.

There is a demon.

There is an oni.

Out of the three, there is context of the word itself (ogre, demon, oni). You could say that using demon could lead to some christianity related stuff. If you pick ogre, it could lead to some fantasy setting. If you pick the oni one it could lead to a japanese setting. Depending of the work, all three could exist at the same time and be different, by choosing a single one to use over all three, you lose context.

Some words carry context, japanese is full of this shit. And the thing is, english is a shit language that is simple as fuck, there isnt any lyricy to words and how you say it.

The same goes for treatment pronoums (-san, -sama, -kun, etc). I cringe every time I see some student using Mr with someone his age, ir sounds fake and it is even worse when they change the pronoum to the character name since how people call each other says much about a character than just his name. By translating to some other stuff in english, you lose context about their relationship and overall gets even worse when other pronouns get used. (For example today, I was watching a reaction video that the dub used Master but the word used in japanese was sensei), the problem is that the one who called master was the master. So just by picking a word they fucked up big time. Should've used mentor, teacher or whatever).

Tl;dr: english is a shitty simple language.

I really believe that anyone who has a latin romance based language as first çanguage, feels like it is incredibly limitating trying to translate a text with the full context, word play, lyricy to english. Imagine how japanese must be.

Watching City of God with english subs feels like is a terrible experience since the funny bits of the setting, dialogue and wordplay is like completely void of.

 

[Jeff Q. Anime]

Officially sanctioned corporate subs are less fun than good fansubs. Nothing deeper to be seen here.

 

[DYLAN ‘DIELAWN’ VOLK]

I kind of feel like the opposite, it seems like recent subs will take things like honorifics and bastardize them or add stupid current phrasing to the translation. I watched something recently, an official translation even, and it said "down bad" and I almost fucking necked myself. I can't remember what the series was but I was disgusted.

ETA it was Chainsaw Man

 

[Jack Awful]

Obligatory

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

I kind of feel like the opposite, it seems like recent subs will take things like honorifics and bastardize them or add stupid current phrasing to the translation. I watched something recently, an official translation even, and it said "down bad" and I almost fucking necked myself. I can't remember what the series was but I was disgusted.

That's the "localizers" who get contracted by Crunchyroll to do the translation. They love doing stupid shit like that which doesn't even make sense in the context of the scene or show but if you criticize them on Twitter they'll sperg out and call you a Gamergate Nazi. Every single one of them has a huge chip on their shoulder because they happened to pass enough Japanese classes to get that job. They also regularly whine about not getting enough credit.

Meanwhile the worst old fansubs did was call you a faggot for using VLC.

 

[FuckedUpDeer]

I can't find that old Higurashi fan-sub that were colored subs (especially for episode eight) and also had little macabre quips in the eyecatches. I kinda miss the days of old where subbers just had fun whenever there was a breather to be had.

That sounds incredibly annoying.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

yeah, they held nothing back.

 

[Schwarzwald]

There's no question that fan subs are infinitely better than official subs in many cases. I think that has to do with the fact that those doing it have a passion and understanding for the source material versus somebody doing it as a job following a company's directives to make it as marketable in a certain region as possible, even if it loses some or much of the original meaning. If you have even a basic understanding of Japanese or how language works and listen closely, you can appreciate what a difficult job that it is to translate something, and are left with a lot of difficult choices with each line. Humor and jokes are especially tricky subjects to pull off or directly translate, and official subs are a lot more likely to find an "acceptable alternative" versus weeb subs being much more willing to present it more plainly.

It's equal parts art and science to take somebody else's words in another language and convey them to a completely different audience faithfully, impactfully, and sensibly in an entertaining manner which continually matches the spirit intended. Official translations are especially handicapped on matters where the leftist sensibilities of most teen and twenty-something western anime fans are concerned, such as addressing matters such as Momoiro Island in One Piece.

The biggest issue since anime has become "mainstream" amongst Millennials and especially Gen Z is the TikTok-esque localizations, as some others have touched on. On the other hand, most of the show that falls victim to such a thing is ephemeral flavor of the month copied and pasted garbage that isn't exactly high art or worth much thought to begin with. The whole arena has become especially bad since about 10 years ago when every big box store started carrying shirts of popular shows and 15 years ago when companies started trying more earnestly to market their non-children shows in western markets. It's only going to get worse.

 

[skykiii]

Officially sanctioned corporate subs are less fun than good fansubs. Nothing deeper to be seen here.

Unless they're by Discotek. That's pretty much the only company (in my experience) that carries the feel of a classic Animeigo or AD Vision-era subtitle project.

EDIT: I do find it weird that a lot of replies seem to have picked up on the relatively-minor "Official vs Fansub" part of my post when I spent more time saying that even fansubs have gotten worse overall.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Unless they're by Discotek. That's pretty much the only company (in my experience) that carries the feel of a classic Animeigo or AD Vision-era subtitle project.

EDIT: I do find it weird that a lot of replies seem to have picked up on the relatively-minor "Official vs Fansub" part of my post when I spent more time saying that even fansubs have gotten worse overall.

You mean the company run by SJW loons like Mike Toole which hires some of those same cancerous localizers like Zack Davisson (who has stated in regards to his manga translations that he is contributing as much to the reader as the original creator)? I highly doubt it. At best they wouldn't be much better than the best groups who'd sub those shows (i.e. not HK subs-tier shit or cleaned up HK subs-tier shit), at worst they're soulless and stilted like everything else. Off the top of my head, I guarantee their subs for their official Symphogear release are boring compared to Commie's fansubs.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I guess anime translation in America could've gone like this: when the pendulum was in the right it was "think of the children", then as the pendulum swung towards the center translation was overall OK, and in Current Year it's "think of the marginalized groups" as the pendulum went hard left.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

I kind of feel like the opposite, it seems like recent subs will take things like honorifics and bastardize them or add stupid current phrasing to the translation. I watched something recently, an official translation even, and it said "down bad" and I almost fucking necked myself. I can't remember what the series was but I was disgusted.

ETA it was Chainsaw Man

I think both have suffered in different ways. The Sony ones have been getting predictable amounts of Cali Twattery/Net ebonics in them to reflect the west's zionized populace. I don't think I need to remind anyone about Funimation's post-GG woke dub shenanigans. Compared to that fansubs have generally remained higher quality but I think they have also begun to dip in this twitchy age of insta-streaming. For example, Crunchyroll didn't have a 4 year old Anya calling Damian a "Shithead" in SxF, the rushed fansubs did.

 

[skykiii]

Okay this is news to me guys. Every bad sub I've ever seen has been a result of just incompetence, I've never heard of an anime sub being butchered for SJW reasons.

English dubs doing that I can believe. But the only example with subs that have been mentioned so far is one case where a fansub used the term "shit head" when the professional subs did not.

Which I think its a bit knee-jerk to say that's an example of the professionals caving to SJWs. Fansubs have always had a tendency to insert arbitrary foul language (as demonstrated by the DBZ screencap one poster posted). This goes back to the 1990s when people were trying to push anime as being "edgy" and "not for kids" (which is ironic on two levels... one, most anime is indeed for kids, and two, it wasn't stuff like Ghost in the Shell that made anime mainstream.... it was fucking Pokemon. As in, the show... not the actual act of fucking Pokemon. Bestiality is a hanging offence in civilized cultures, and I'm sure Gardevoir doesn't want your dick anyway).

I'm not defending the big corporations... I'm just saying "you need better evidence than that."

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Colors. Definitely colors. Nadia bluray was awful because white subtitles. Yellow or bust tbh.

 

[skykiii]

Colors. Definitely colors. Nadia bluray was awful because white subtitles. Yellow or bust tbh.

On that note I've noticed some companies are retarded with their subtitle fonts. I have the Ranma 1/2 blurays from Viz and their subtitles are practically unreadable because they use thin lettering.

 

[Epoch]

Anime is gay and anyone who watches it should kill themselves, anyway, when I watched Evangelion I got a torrent that took the remastered bluray versions (the Netflix translation) and re-added fly me to the moon and swapped the subs out for the original version. Because Netflix.


also anime is gay