| Any changes at all you think are good, or should it be an exact 1 to 1 translation? Even something like the honorifics, should they keep them? What about the deeply cultural jokes that nobody who's not Japanese would be able to understand. (IE: A sub referencing a japanese politician. Azumanga Daioh for instance had a reference to a PM called Mori but in the dub, it was changed to Bill Clinton) Should everything be exactly the same as the original or are there any changes or omissions you're ok with? (Obviously, the voices to english and basic sentence structure to match lip flaps don't count for this) |
| My waifu is the most wonderful waifu. Mai Valentine. |
Prioritize faithful translation over localization, keep the Japanese cultural references intact and don't try to give them western equivalences even if it confuses the viewer for not knowing who or what is being referenced. Honestly it's a moot point, there is no one definitive answer or solution to this issue. |
| dubs have to make these changes by necessity, which in my opinion is part of the reason to not like dubs |
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| VAs that sound the exact same as another popular character they just did or if the same vocal inflection is being used for all of their characters that gets too quickly noticeable Sub tends to do this as well but I've seen a few instances where it works in a clever way |
NonAtmosphericDec 8, 2022 9:48 PM
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| it should be changed, and it should be localized when needed. but, they also need to get people who actually know how to do it. honestly, if it was possible, I would say every dub script should be written by john micheal tatum. every show that he has wrote the dub script of has a TOP tier script. the madlad has made 2 of the best dubs out there possible "steins;gate and assassination classroom" like it's nothing. |
| Also available at: YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK8spdL1M_J-z0vO2C7jPLw Second Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AshPolygonsDo/videos Why You Should Watch Akudama Drive: https://youtu.be/Yw0r52wRjgA A Love Letter To Anime「AMV」: https://youtu.be/YQyqxFM2m9Q My referral code to a website/app that gives you free money (a few cents a day) by using a few megabytes of your internet for file sharing. We both get a bonus if you use my link: https://r.honeygain.me/ARSHIA7942 |
| It should be localised. If you cared about things like honorifics, the "culture", etc then you wouldn't be watching a dub in the first place. |
| About honorifics etc. it should be changed as I've seen only 2 dubs in my language not only the honorifics were skipped but also there was a usage of Polish grammar which is saying the name per grammatical cases. With something else here is my examples where I think the Dubbing made a better job than the original: As I have seen only 2 animes so far in Polish Dubbing to know the difference is Cyberpunk Edgerunners and Romantic Killer. In Cyberpunk I don't know how much changes there were but in I guess 3rd episode when Lucy is smoking in original you can't hear the sounds of her making the smoke circles, while in Polish dub you can hear it. In Romantic Killer there were 2 scenes where I've seen difference, first one is just a "poetic" roasting from Anzu to Kirinji, second is just making the memes references into dubbing [btw as much as I like original, I prefer Polish Dub in RK, voices are more fit to highschoolers, Anzu + Riri voices are top tier, surprised me completely]. Also gonna translate, first is the use of a 2 words which appears only in classical poettry of Alexander Fredro with the book "Revenge" -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zemsta and there was a specific saying "Mocium Panie", which he was saying in stressfull situation or when he was surprised/broken, it is something of comedic "Oh Lord". Here is how it sound like in this clip from movie of Zemsta -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsshKjshUfQ . And Anzu said to Kirinji or however that prince was called when bringing tea to table during his first arrival to the home she was saying "Mocium Panie, Proszę o dzioba zatkanie" which means "Oh Lord/Oh Prince, Please of Shutting the hell up [it is in a ryme here which is the most important in Polish]" while in Original according to subs it was said "Not like your palaces, prince" -> Episode 7, around 11:50 you need to find when Kirinji is commenting Anzu house and right after it is that scene. The second difference I've noticed is from Episode 8 with the date scene and pretending to be cousins in front of other guys, in original it is said "They are too close for the cousins" while in Polish dubbing it was said "Czy to Alabama? Są dość blisko jak na kuzynów" which means "Is it Alabama? They are quite close for the cousins". These are only 3 little scenes in which I think Polish Dubbing roasted and deafeted completely the original. |
| don’t dub ops/songs. (special exception for pokemon) |
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| Exact 1 to 1 translation are literally impossible even with subtitles. English and Japanese are 2 very different languages culturally and structurally. As someone who is learning Japanese here are my personal preferences regarding translation especially regarding dubbing: Honorifics and diminutives should generally not be kept in the English dubs. They do not really sound all that natural in the English language at all. They should be replaced by whatever makes sense regarding context, character relation and personality, and even in some cases nation. Sometimes nicknames may be an appropriate replacement (For example Yachiru calls Kenpachi Kenny in the Bleach dub which is a pretty good substitute for Ken-chan in English), sometimes replacing it with the character's name may be appropriate (very rarely do you refer to your sibling by their status in English) and depending on context sometimes maybe even keeping them in may make sense. In most cases though replacement or removal is the most appropriate solution. Rewording/Punching up dialogue can sometimes be very important. Lines as written in Japanese may sound very awkward or redundant in English via a direct translation or may sound very generic. Rewording dialogue to sound more natural in English can avoid the audience feeling weirded out by the dialogue, and in some cases exaggerating what is already there can possibly even add more emotion to it. As controversial as 4Kids was, they tended to be really good at adding a bit of flavor to lines that were originally rather sterile via a direct translation by adding in slight jabs at other characters and some added humor. Yu-Gi-Oh was a great example as a lot of the trash talk was punched up considerably compared to a direct translation of the Japanese version which made the characters seem more confident in their strategies by allowing them to trash talk their opponents a bit more. Seto Kaiba was already a lovable jerk in the Japanese version, but he was made even more snarky and rude in the dubbed version with the punched-up dialogue that it added even more personality to him while still being in line with the original intention. Punching up dialogue can be a bit of a fine line though as sometimes it could lead to unintended consequences such as the original Dragon Ball Z dub adding in some trash talk from Vegeta during his initial fight with Goku claiming that it was Bardock who created the artificial moon and that he was just "an average fighter but a brilliant scientist" in order to add some dramatic tension that Goku was going to lose to something his own father created, but it directly contradicts the events of the Bardock TV special where we see that Bardock was not actually a scientist but a pretty powerful warrior. It could introduce big continuity issues like that. In other cases it could also potentially go against some of the core themes of the work. In the English dub of Dragon Maid Season 1 when Tohru begs to be Kobayashi's maid the dub adds in a remark of her "not being into women or dragons" which definitely goes against the lesbian undertones of the series. Overall, when done right it can have a huge impact on the performance and writing quality of the dub. Some reccomendations to look into that have these are the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise (even if it is censored the in-duel dialogue is more what i am talking about), the Pokémon franchise, the incomplete dub of Interspecies Reviewers, Yu Yu Hakusho, and the Shaman King dubs. Added slang and dialects and accents. I love when this is done since it helps add realism to these shows. This is also very controversial since it can very easily go into "how do you do fellow kids" territory, but when done right it can do so much. Regarding dialects and accents this is a good thing especially when the cast has characters from different cultural backgrounds. The Jojo part 6 dub did a pretty good job at this by adding in a little bit of Spanish into Ermes' dialogue in natural places, just like a lot of Latin-American people I know do where I live. It adds realism and makes these characters actually feel like they come from the country or region they are supposed to, and hiring actors from these places can add an extra layer of realism to this. Jokes and puns tend to need to be rewritten entirely. Since Japanese and English are so fundamentally different, we may not find the same things funny, or a pun may make sense only in one language. This tends to lead to creative workarounds needing to be made. That Azumanga Daio reference of PM Mori being changed to Bill Clinton is a good example of this but there are quite a few examples of Japanese wordplay that just would flat out not work in English and just need to be changed to work. Bring back Dubbed songs. It was really cool to see English renditions of iconic songs like Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku, We Are, and Dragon Soul, but we rarely ever see dubbed versions of songs in anime anymore, especially done by native speakers. Dragon Ball Super and Jojo Parts 4-6 have English versions of their opening themes, but they are sung by the original Japanese vocalists which leads to mixed quality as some of them are really good, but others feel really clunky due to the singer not having native level English skills. I just like that extra effort to translate the songs and have them sound natural in English. I'm ok with dubs editing content that may have been accidentally made offensive in the Japanese version. What I mean by this are editing lines that may have unintended racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic etc. undertones. Censorship generally is not a good thing, but in cases where something may have a completely different worse meaning in one country it probably makes sense to change it. A great example would be how Jynx from Pokémon was changed to have Purple Skin so that it didn't look like blackface. Pokémon definitely didn't intend to be racist, but the dark face and big red lips definitely raises a few red flags for international audiences due historical issues with racism towards black people, so it made sense to edit it. With LGBT stuff this is definitely sure to get people mad at me. I am a trans woman myself, so I tend to be rally uncomfortable with stuff that is hateful as I want everyone to be able to understand us and see us as regular people. Sometimes anime accidentally does things that cross a line like that unintentionally. A great example would be how the anime adaptation of Re-Zero decided to hide the trans identity of the character Ferris Argyle referring to them as a boy and by their deadname unlike the source material in the light novels. If I were dubbing the series I would go with the original light novel version of the character with the correct name and terminology. Another example would be Miyuki from Yu Yu Hakusho who was a minor villain who was a trans woman. Yusuke said some pretty invalidating things to her when he found out about her identity and about her not having gotten bottom surgery. Togashi as an author is very interested in trans people and has made great trans characters in future works but his first attempt at a trans character in Miyuki just looked like something that would be written by someone who hates trans people due to how he was still learning about us. I would have completely removed the line about her genitals and rudely misgendering and invalidating her from the dub since it was clearly unintentionally bad when you see Togashi's later work. The CN version of the dub did fine by completely changing her secret being that she was trans to being that she was faking her injuries, but I think her being trans could have been kept and instead of Yusuke feeling ok to beat her up because she isn't "fully a woman", that it could have been changed to something as simple as her gender being irrelevant to the matter at hand. This is probably gonna trigger some hateful responses so yeah... Thats pretty much everything on my mind at the moment. Some of these are pretty controversial but these are just my personal takes that I have gathered by seeing what works, what doesn't, personal experience, and my current level of Japanese studies. |
This post is brought to you by your local transfem gamer goblin. Will not tolerate bigotry and will fight against "anti-woke" sentiment to make the anime community a safer place.  |
| Anime dubs need more Deez nuts jokes. |
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Saku_k said: If you cared so much about an authentic experience you'd learn Japanese first before watching any anime...It should be localised. If you cared about things like honorifics, the "culture", etc then you wouldn't be watching a dub in the first place. |
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| Localization is paramount when it comes to dubs, I don't want some awkward sounding direct translation or jokes/references that largely only work through subtitles. Now, that sure as shit doesn't apply to injecting obnoxious political views into the dialogue. |
| If you reply back to me and I never respond, I lost interest and don't care. Sorry about that. |
LSSJ_Gaming said: Not to start another debate with you about whether certain characters are trans, but is it not true that Ferris is only written as canonically trans in a side novel? I'm not going to bother arguing they're canonically a boy in the main story (because I literally don't care) but it would be shortsighted to criticize the character's portrayal in the anime if their transness is a contentious viewpoint in the LN to begin with. Admittedly, I don't remember the specifics of either account, offhand. With LGBT stuff this is definitely sure to get people mad at me. I am a trans woman myself, so I tend to be rally uncomfortable with stuff that is hateful as I want everyone to be able to understand us and see us as regular people. Sometimes anime accidentally does things that cross a line like that unintentionally. A great example would be how the anime adaptation of Re-Zero decided to hide the trans identity of the character Ferris Argyle referring to them as a boy and by their deadname unlike the source material in the light novels. If I were dubbing the series I would go with the original light novel version of the character with the correct name and terminology. |
| If you reply back to me and I never respond, I lost interest and don't care. Sorry about that. |
| Awkward translations like changing "onii-chan" to "big brother" or translating "senpai" as "upperclassman" should be avoided. If you're going through the effort to make a dub you might as well make it sound like natural English rather than trying to find English equivalents for Japanese terms. |
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| Use natural language when dubbing something into English. For example nobody, and I mean literally nobody in the west refers to their older sister as "big sister" past the age of like 5, they refer to their sister by name. |
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| The only things that should ever be changed are things that just wouldn't make any sense to the audience it's being dubbed/subbed for. Like translating one slang word to the closest equivalent in the target language. Even this though, i think depends on the context. I feel like if the show takes place in Japan (or whatever or other country) any cultural things, including slang, should be kept. You shouldn't change something just because it would be offensive to the target audience, ever. If they don't like it, they can just not consume it. On the subject of honorifics, if the show is set in Japan it should be kept. If it's somewhere where it wouldn't make sense for the characters to use them, i think it's fine to remove them and replace them with the appropriate replacement. Ultimately, a translations goal should be to provide the target market with a translation that's as close to both the original content and original context. |
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| When localizing, it's important to know your audience. The translation should be what works best for your audience. I think the majority of weebs knows what a senpai is, and what honorific affixes are, so they should be left untranslated. Of course, the expectation is a little different for kids shows, but those should probably be dubbed anyways. Of course, the audience isn't necessarily going to be a homogeneous block, especially for something big like Spy x Family, so maybe pretend everyone is a weeb. Those others are just weebs in training anyways. The dub is allowed to change much more than the sub. The purpose of the sub is to provide a translation for what is said, not to localize the experience. That's what the dub is for. The dub has to sound mostly natural in the dub language. People address people differently in Japanese and English. But it's still fine most of the time. Translating "onii-chan" to "big brother" causes no problems whatsoever even if people don't often say that in English. I would even keep names in place when names are used to refer to people who would typically be referred to by pronouns in English, as pronouns aren't used much in Japanese. It's not going to cause problems. |
JaniSIr said: Saku_k said: If you cared so much about an authentic experience you'd learn Japanese first before watching any anime...It should be localised. If you cared about things like honorifics, the "culture", etc then you wouldn't be watching a dub in the first place. Yes I agree. 30 character limit.... |
| As someone who is planning on doing Japanese to English translation work (at least on the side), an appropriate amount of localization is always necessary. Japanese and English could not be more different from each other. There are so many Japanese words, phrases, and expressions that don’t exist in English. If you don’t rephrase things at least a little at best you get a stiff literal translation that sounds completely unnatural. At worst you get similes and metaphors that would make zero sense to a native English speaker who has no background in Japanese language studies. If you want a literal translation that changes and rephrases nothing that’s what Google translate offers. |
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