| People have different tastes when it comes to how they like things translated. Here are mine: 1. I prefer seeing names with honorifics as opposed to their English equivalent (e.g. I prefer Kousaka-san over Ms. Kousaka) 2. Forms of address or salutations with no English equivalent (e.g. Onee-sama, Yahello!) should be preserved rather than localized. 3. I prefer OPs and EDs having both English translations and Romaji subtitles. 4. I'm not very picky with typefaces but I don't like bold fonts and have a slight preference for sans-serif typefaces. |
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| -Keep the original honorifics and forms of address -Make them white with black outline, I don't want them in a colour that's hard to see and I sure as hell don't want them in a fucking black box. -Use readable fonts |
| Poorly translated to the point that the fansubber is more like an author than a translator is the best way to go. |
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| I like my subs being faithful as possible and no major bullshit changes. Look like how Criterion translates Japanese films in their subs. They keep their subs professional as possible. You don't see stuff like "Baka". |
| Pretty much agree with you, but not a big stickler either way. I'm also not opposed to yellow subs like I know some are. |
| I don't really like the subtitles that have the black box around them. They're very distracting. I prefer yellow subtitles with a light shadow. As for the actual translations themselves, I'm really not picky. But it does make me shake my head when they translate honorific words into names. Like if a character only says "Senpai" and the translator translates it into the person's name...I don't like it, I think the subtitles should really just say "Senpai". |
"Wonder is always difficult until you forgive whoever destroyed your love of surprises" — Edmond Manning  |
| The only thing that grinds my gears is when they don't sub OPs and EDs in english.. |
| i like my subs black colored and on the left of the screen |
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| 1&2 - Same as you, but only in japanese situations. A european fantasy style (ex: Lodoss) , any western settings etc... should adapt those things. Imagine reading the leaving house sentence in an anime tooking place in the USA, it would be so weird. 4 - I dislike hard-to-read fonts (like Papyrus in a little size, really?) and shadow effect. I hate the old style of professional subs we had in France during the VHS era: yellow with black outline. |
| idgaf make it as english as possible, yellow is an awful color - white /w black outlines if possible. gl lasting a week thread! |
| Keep the honorifics, and if they're calling a character by their family name don't change it to their given name. Also white times new roman font with dark blue outline. |
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| As long as it's readable I'm fine. However when I really appreciate when they also put the original kanji in the OP/ED because I like using those for practicing how to read Japanese. |
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| I don't like anime keeping the honorifics Keep no near english equivalents in original language Do not use internet slang. |
| The only acceptable Japanese words to keep in subtitles are proper names (e.g. Yukiko Amagi--this one is obvious), location names (e.g. Yomotsu Hirasaka--once again, pretty obvious), titles and honorifics ONLY if the series takes place in Japan and refer to Japanese people (e.g. "Makunouchi-san talked with Mr. Ozuma"), and concepts that have no direct translation (e.g. "sakki," the use of bloodlust as deception or a feint). |
 This glorious signature image was created by @Mayumi! I am the Arbiter of Absolute Truth, and here is my wisdom: "Anime was always influenced by the West. This is not news. Shoujo is the superior genre primarily aimed at young people. Harem/isekai are lazy genres that refuse any meaningful innovation. There is no 'Golden Age.' There will always be top-shelf anime. You should be watching Carole & Tuesday." |
| The only thing I really don't like is when they change a name to have Ms. or Mr. in it instead of the proper honorific. I prefer as little localization as possible. Also they can keep something like onee-chan or onee-san instead of changing it to sister or brother....but thats just my personal taste |
SenPyres said: The only thing I really don't like is when they change a name to have Ms. or Mr. in it instead of the proper honorific. I prefer as little localization as possible. Also they can keep something like onee-chan or onee-san instead of changing it to sister or brother....but thats just my personal taste As far as I'm concerned, this is only appropriate if the series takes place in Japan and/or the characters using the honorifics are Japanese. Otherwise, it's stupid NOT to translate them. |
This glorious signature image was created by @Mayumi! I am the Arbiter of Absolute Truth, and here is my wisdom: "Anime was always influenced by the West. This is not news. Shoujo is the superior genre primarily aimed at young people. Harem/isekai are lazy genres that refuse any meaningful innovation. There is no 'Golden Age.' There will always be top-shelf anime. You should be watching Carole & Tuesday." |
| I like subtitles as long I can read it. |
| I agree, I like to see the '-san' or '-kun' in subtitles bc apparently in slice of life animes (im talking about the fluffy ones) those are kind of a big deal if the main character makes friends. well thats just my personal opinion. oh and also yES i really dislike serif fonts being used for subtitles. i don't mind if it's times new roman or anything of the like, but why would u even use fancy fonts in the first place like the aesthetics are even better if its simpler (peRSONAL OPINION) |
| I don't watch much anime these days, but I prefer my subtitles to have no grammatical error. #grammarnaziforlife Also, sometimes, it would be good to have some explanations on cetain thing in the anime to better understand the context, or what they meant, for examole if it was a pun in japanese, I'd like to be explained properly of what happened. For O.P and E.P, I also want the romaji and translated lyrics, and also the lyrics in japanese( because why not... ) It's more fun for me. Keeping horifics and other such things is nice as well. And while I agree that it's important to properly translate everything within its context, there was some times, that I've seen a line of 2 or 3 words in Japanese being translated to a line of 7 or more words or something like that. It's kinda hard to know that I suddenly have to read that line as fast as possible because I'm not going to be able to fully read it at my normal speed. |
| I HAVE TWO RULES: RULE ONE: I'M ALWAYS RIGHT RULE TWO: IF I'M WRONG, REFER TO RULE ONE... |
Zelkiiro said: SenPyres said: The only thing I really don't like is when they change a name to have Ms. or Mr. in it instead of the proper honorific. I prefer as little localization as possible. Also they can keep something like onee-chan or onee-san instead of changing it to sister or brother....but thats just my personal taste As far as I'm concerned, this is only appropriate if the series takes place in Japan and/or the characters using the honorifics are Japanese. Otherwise, it's stupid NOT to translate them. I can agree with that, although I pretty much stand by my thinking because I would say 99% of the anime I watch does take place in Japan or at the very least the characters are meant to be Japanese or have Japanese origins. Something like Full Metal Alchemist in which Al is always translated as saying "Brotherrrrrr" does not bother me in the least though. |
| 1. Translating Kousaka-san as Ms. Kousaka makes it easier for newcomers, so that doesn't bother me. 2. Same thing with onee-sama. The point of subtitles is to make a show understandable for non-Japanese speakers, not require a translation dictionary. 3. I rarely read the lyrics to OP and ED songs. 4. I prefer bold typefaces like this (see below) because they're easier to read on different devices. I don't like skinny or overstylized text. |
| I'm definitely all for honorifics staying. "-san", "-chan" and so forth have no direct equivalent in English. Sometimes character speak too quickly and it can be hard to understand what exactly the honorific is. It's an integral part of Japanese culture and very important to understanding character relationships. |
| WEAPONS - My blog, for reviews of music, anime, books, and other things |
| I agree with almost everything you said OP. |
| O_O |
| Translating to English as much as possible but without overdoing it (replacing dish names with western ones? Dude, that's funny.) Honorifics... well, sometimes they are a big deal tho so it's better to keep them. Sometimes it's not necessary at all tho, depends on the setting. Well, I like when translators have some sensitivity. ^^ I dislike when all those nii-chans and nee-sans are kept, just translate it to English. Subbed OPs and EDs; sans-serif fonts, white with a black outline, not too skinny. |
| yangires > yanderes > tsunderes > other deres |
| Same as you OP (1-3). Also for OPs/EDs I like karaoke subtitles if they include the romaji. Ignite (Opening 1) from Sword Art Online II is one of my favorites with karaoke subs. Seeing it bounce syllable to syllable really fasincates me for some reason. Especially when it is fast paced. Often times I just watch the karaoke subs and don't even pay attention to the English, lol. I don't really care for the JP Symbols w/ the romaji though. Is it necessary? Is romaji like a separate language that not all Japanese know? |
 “Don’t just mindlessly judge people as you please.” – Rin Okumura “Your past shouldn’t stop you from achieving your goals and dreams.” – Rin Okumura |
Nagirah said: I prefer the subtitles to be kept as original as possible so no bullshit localization, removing the honorifics and stuff like that. Even if a joke does not translate well into english, I'd prefer there to be translator's note explaining it instead of turning it into a completely different joke or just directly translating it and not explaining it. So you're opposed to subtitles doing the very job they're supposed to be doing, which is taking dialogue from one language and fully translating it into another? |
This glorious signature image was created by @Mayumi! I am the Arbiter of Absolute Truth, and here is my wisdom: "Anime was always influenced by the West. This is not news. Shoujo is the superior genre primarily aimed at young people. Harem/isekai are lazy genres that refuse any meaningful innovation. There is no 'Golden Age.' There will always be top-shelf anime. You should be watching Carole & Tuesday." |
| I have no preference as long as the English is fairly coherent and readable. |
  ♰ ἡ φύσις οὐδὲν ποιεῖ ἅλματα. ♰ συκεροκυ™ |
| Agree with OP on all points. And for the love of God use a freaking readable font. Just a basic ass font is fine no need for fancy crap. Sometimes I watch anime on my 58" TV while sitting on the coach. Bubbly ass bolded colored ass fonts are so hard to read when not sitting within computer monitor distance. |
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| No fucking honorifics goddammit. Can't stand it. |
| Anyone who doesn't hate anime hasn't watched enough anime. - Anonymous |
| Honorifics: Does not matter to me, because I can hear them anyway. Leave them in, translate them, ignore them, whatever. Forms of salutations should be translated. There's nothing cultural about them and they have English equivalents. OP/ED/Insert songs (especially insert songs) should only have English translation as to not clutter the screen. I'm a strong advocate of using clean OP/ED for DVD/BD releases. Fonts should be simple white with black border. Vertical padding of at least 30 is an absolute must. |
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| Keep the subs as faithful as possible, especially where there are no equivalents. Localisation is bad, and it gets worse the more familiar you are with Japanese. I have no idea why, but in the currently airing Ace Attorney anime, all the names are wrong. The subtitles are giving off some random bullshit names that are completely different to what the names being spoken are, and it's rather off-putting. Not to mention things like "miso ramen" are getting subtitled as "burgers." The fuck's that all about? Where naming conventions and honorifics are concerned, keep them the exact same as they're spoken. Don't translate them at all. Do a TL note for them. When things like onii-chan, onii-sama and aniki are all translated to "brother" it defeats the purpose of having different manners of address completely. They are not the same, so they shouldn't be translated as the same. It's also just weird seeing siblings call each other "brother" and "sister". I don't know of anyone here in England who actually refers to their siblings like that. Keep it as faithful as possible. Another giant pet peeve of mine is when they don't bother separating multiple conversations that are happening concurrently. Have one conversation at the top of the screen and the second at the bottom. Don't lump them all together because it quickly becomes confusing trying to figure out who the fuck is saying what, and to whom they're replying. |
 It's an entirely different kind of flying, altogether! It's an entirely different kind of flying. |
TheKillerAngel said: 2. Forms of address or salutations with no English equivalent (e.g. Onee-sama, Yahello!) should be preserved rather than localized. This is the most important. I can't stand it whenever the translator changes "Sensei" to "Ms. *insert teacher name here*" , just translate it into teacher only if they had to do it. it's also pretty annoying when I saw "Nyanpasu" was translated into "Meowning" |
 (っ◔◡◔)っ 𝓘 𝔀𝓲𝓼𝓱 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓱𝓪𝓿𝓮 𝓪 𝔀𝓸𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻𝓯𝓾𝓵 𝓭𝓪𝔂 ♥ |
| I like them off. I haven't watched anime with subtitles in months and my viewing experience has been much better for it. |
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| - White with black outlines should be the standard. If multiple characters are talking, I prefer color-coding, rather than having text on both the top and bottom, that shit is distracting as fuck to me. - Fonts must be easy to read, so no fancy type face or anything. - Honorifics are preferred when no English equivalent exists. Personal titles (like Dr., Ms, Mrs.) must always be translated whenever possible, depending on the context. So, if we have a character called Miyazaki and he's a doctor, his handle should be translated as 'Dr. Miyazaki", and not "Miyazaki-sensei". - Puns are only acceptable if the show is wacky and silly, and doesn't need to be taken seriously. Same goes for using (old) internet memes, unless, of course, the show itself is filled to the brim with puns,-jokes and memes. - If possible, take into accounts the various ways characters talk. If one speaks very formal, use formal language to translate. For characters who speak in an archaic way, use Ye Olde English. - No crazy effects, like spinning, following a character across the screen, or whatever. Don't be a second Commie. - OP/ED/INS: at the very least, show the romaji and English translation. Songs used in anime often have a deeper meaning, or are somehow related to the show, so having a translation on board is helpful. - Proper spelling and grammar is a must. If English is not your native tongue, try to find someone to proofread for you, and correct anything that's wrong. Also, no internet speech or (as far as that's still used) 1337-speech. If I can't read what is said, you're doing it wrong. - Typesetting: try to show both the original text and the translation on-screen mas much as possible. - Translation notes: I'd prefer seeing those in separate text document that I can download. If they get included within a batch, all the better. |
Firelord76May 29, 2016 3:35 AM
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| A) Keep the subtitles as faithful and non awkwardly worded as possible. Idioms/proverbs and such should be not be translated literally (e.g. 十人十色 should be translated into "Different strokes for different folks", not "Ten men, ten colors") but dishes, names etc. should. Explaining untranslatable puns is a must. I don't really care about honorifics – they're not a necessity but at the same time I don't want super localized/literal/w-e subtitles (E.G. translate "Student's Family Name-san" to "Student's Family Name-san", "Student's Forename-san" or "Student's Forename", not "Mr./Mrs. Student's Family Name"). B) Doesn't matter if they choose to keep the original word or translate it to the character's name as long as they don't translate it to "Big Brother", I hate that shit C) I often skip OPs and EDs but sure D) I like my subtitles very simple white with black outline. Comic Sans is also nice but I almost never see anybody use that font |
 Nico- said: Conversations with people pinging/quoting me to argue about some old post I wrote years ago will not be entertained@Comic_Sans oh no y arnt ppl dieing i need more ppl dieing rly gud plot avansement jus liek tokyo ghoul if erbudy dies amirite |
| I have no real preference, but I somehow like it when the subs translated some words into completely different meaning from the original for the lols. |
| I've seen some fansubs in the past with multiple subtitles tracks. (can't remember what group or what anime) One track using Japanese honorifics and phrases, with the other using the closest English equivalent. Obviously this requires a lot more work by the subber which will go unnoticed by the vast majority of viewers. My major gripe with subs is seeing phrases like `yoroshiku(onegaishimasu)` contextually translated to several different phrases within the same scene. Sure it's probably the only way for it make sense in English, but it messes with my head regardless when I'm paying attention to the Japanese voices. |
| I like them Nice and Clean, pure white and without any unnecessary borders. OT : Just keep the meaning same as original if possible |
Z-DanteMay 29, 2016 6:30 AM
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-Maz said: Keep the subs as faithful as possible, especially where there are no equivalents. Localisation is bad, and it gets worse the more familiar you are with Japanese. I have no idea why, but in the currently airing Ace Attorney anime, all the names are wrong. The subtitles are giving off some random bullshit names that are completely different to what the names being spoken are, and it's rather off-putting. Not to mention things like "miso ramen" are getting subtitled as "burgers." The fuck's that all about? Uhh, have you ever played the Ace Attorney games? They're not "random bullshit names" but are the names/jokes/etc from the localized version of Ace Attorney, which is what most Westerners/English-speakers are familiar with. (Ace Attorney, btw, is famous for having an amazing localization.) If you watch anime illegally, then most subbers use the localized version, but I know on crunchyroll, they also have the original subs as an option. --- Oh, and to answer this thread, I'm okay as long as they don't change too much (change the meaning entirely) or change too little (awkward transliterations). |
Tpfang56May 29, 2016 6:27 AM
| I prefer the Japanese honorifics to be retained (personally, I thought Lord Raku was too much though that's the closest English equivalent of -sama lol do I make sense). Also, if possible and not too much, provide explanations for puns and/or idioms. Other than that, as long as I can read the subs clearly, can't ask for more. Can't Japanese so I can't be too choosy/demanding. |
Comic_Sans said: A) Keep the subtitles as faithful and non awkwardly worded as possible. Idioms/proverbs and such should be not be translated literally (e.g. 十人十色 should be translated into "Different strokes for different folks", not "Ten men, ten colors") but dishes, names etc. should. Explaining untranslatable puns is a must. I don't really care about honorifics – they're not a necessity but at the same time I don't want super localized/literal/w-e subtitles (E.G. translate "Student's Family Name-san" to "Student's Family Name-san", "Student's Forename-san" or "Student's Forename", not "Mr./Mrs. Student's Family Name"). I mostly agree with this. I like it when subbers let you choose between having honorifics and not having them. Personally, I prefer as little localization as possible, but some is necessary for new anime watchers. Everyone here already knows what an "onii-chan" is, but this would confuse people hearing this for the first time. Regarding the dialog, there's no need to Westwash it with excessive slang or profanity, or make it sound overly casual if the original dialog isn't. You shouldn't have to become an expert in Japanese culture to watch an anime, but the qualities that make anime distinctly Japanese shouldn't be erased either. |
| Hell i'm okay with any subs as long as they are understandable,one thing i don't get is what is all the hate behind yellow subs ? I think they look gorgeous |
| I like them in English. Understandable English, not like it's all been put through Google Translate. Also in a font and size that is easily readable, and preferably in a colour that I can actually see against the animation. |
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