Matching the speakers' hair is useful, but too often notes end up as showing off. A good translation is supposed to replicate the experience of watching something in its original language, not explain every reference.
Perhaps, but sometimes a show is just that much more impressive if you understand more of what's going on. The show 'Ergo Proxy' comes to mind. It's got a mysterious plot and some throw off episodes that will really mess you up, but aside from that it's also got loads of references to history and philosophy that I would just not understand because I haven't studied either. The fansub group had small blobs of explanation pop up every once in a while to explain something, it really aided to the feeling you were watching something awesome. The text would only be up for a second, so you'd have to pause to read it. I think my Ghost in the Shell S.A.C subs had something similar.
There's one instance I remember of the fansubbers breaking the 4-th wall unexpectedly. The line the character said as a cliff hanger came from absolutely nowhere and was so staggering that the subber added something along the lines of "We assure you this is no translation mistake", if they hadn't added that I'd think it was so they were right to. (The anime in question is Elfen Lied, I don't suggest you watch it if you're not already deep into J-culture.. and maybe just not at all)
Elfen Lied was one of the first fansubs I watched, and it was a good example of translators going too far. The version I watched used different text colors for the alien characters depending on whether their human (mostly sane) or alien(instinct-driven, homicidal) personality was in control. If you remember, there's a character later on who spent most of her life locked up in the basement under a government facility, so more than once I found myself disagreeing with the translator's assessment of whether or not she was supposed to be "sane" in any given scene.
And then there's the notorious scene in Code Geass where two characters are playing chess, and over 50% of the screen is filled with translator's notes about how that's not actually a valid move (when it's clearly an error on the animator's end of things).
Many, many fansub groups are just plain unprofessional in every sense of the word.
It's a bit like open source software in that regard. Often times the work is not professional, but it's a whole lot better than 'professional' commercial offerings.
The greatest fansub group there ever was in my opinion was dattebayo, mostly famous for their Naruto releases. Their public attitude was as unprofessional as you could get. They would often make fun of their viewers in announcements, and if you'd miss an announcement of a skipped episode due to Japanese holidays of studio co-ops or whatever you'd unsuspectingly download a troll episode. If episodes were filler or had a cheesy storyline they'd make fun of it in the sub of the title frame. But even though their public attitude was unprofessional, their actual subbing was the most professional operation I've ever seen in a sub group. They were always among the fastest, never missing a deadline. Their translations were always top notch, better than Crunchyroll, unlike other speedsubbers that would have frequent imperfections.
They basically held the entire Naruto community hostage with their high quality releases, while making fun of them for being the kinds of person who enjoy Naruto (which wasn't very highly regarded in the community at the time). When they had to quit because crunchyroll took over Naruto it really was a great loss for the community in my opinion.
> A good translation is supposed to replicate the experience of watching something in its original language.
I disagree. I prefer to have the literal translation and then have the reference explained. I want the purest, most literall translation possible.
Imagine this situation. A character says "He is like a modern Nobunaga". I want the translation to say exactly that and, is the translator feel the need to, have a quick note explaining who Nobunaga was[0]. It would be unnaceptable to have it 'translated' to "He is like a modern Napoleon".
And I believe most of the hardcore anime fans would prefer it like this.
This fenomenon is called Culturalization[1]. It is as disrespectul for the hardcore fans as it is for the anime's creators.
I can see what you mean in that case, but what about wordplay and puns? A running gag in Dragonball is Goku keeps calling Fortuneteller Baba (Uranai Baba) "old broad that nobody wants" (urenai baabaa). Do you want to read an explanation that takes up half the screen every time they do that joke? Would you even find it funny if you had to have it explained to you?
In fansubs it expected that the viewer sees all episodes in order (and why wouldn't he?), so the joke would be explained once.
In commercial subs you can't make that assumption so, yeah, you explain it every time. But you could get creative with it. Instead ov explaining every single time you can only explain once per episode. And you can use the Intro or the Bumpers to give some context on the joke.
In dubs that gets complicated but, well... Don't watch dubs :)
I think it's important to think about the audience a bit. In an academic translation, sure, go nuts with long footnotes. But I think in the case of something intended primarily to entertain people you should make some concessions to practicality. Even many fansubs just swap in some English pun to go for the same effect (which leads to kind of funny results like fans who watched the fansubs complaining the dub "changed the original dialogue" from something that was also not the original dialogue).
But while some people have no problem with "adapted references" other people have.
And I disagree with you dismissing it as "just entertainment". It is clearly very important to some people. It should be respected and cared for for the sake of not only the fans but it's creators as well.
I suppose what I meant to say is that being entertaining and giving painstaking analysis of every pun are goals that are sort of at odds with each other.
> I have never found this to go too far - I have always wanted more local context.
I really dig for those fansubs that explain the context. Some even go extra mile by adding text frames in the video explaining why the speaker said that and what this line actually means.
We tend to miss a lot if we only have a literal translation of what the speaker have said - like a joke hidden in plain words. I remember one anime where the hero's name if written in another way meant pervert - I would have never understood why other characters used to get horrified(in a comic way) upon hearing his name for the first time if the sub had not explained it.
My opinion on this has changed over the years. I now tend to look at any translation which needs to include translation notes on-screen as having failed, usually because they explain something that isn't absolutely necessary to know, which isn't a good enough reason in my book to distract from the dialogue.
If you can't explain what you need to in the translation itself, just don't. Or include a TLNote.txt if you really must.
what made you change your opinion? I love it when there are translation notes on screen. It feel inclusive to explain to me what's going on.
I can't speak Japanese, am not embedded within current popular Japanese culture and did not go to a Japanese high school and therefore there are references which I will not understand. These include jokes that rely on wordplay such as puns and malapropisms, and historical notes about Japanese history, geography and society which I am mostly ignorant of.
Without those translation notes, you exclude me from understanding anything but the surface of what's going on.
Many fansubbers didn't know where to draw the line, or didn't have very good editors, so sometimes you got the situation where there were so many TL notes they were stacking on top of each other.
Others have noted the most egregious TL notes ("Keikaku means plan" and so on) but there are some other bad examples, including "This is a reference to..." (not even everyone in Japan is going to get references either) and even a few explaining what the English words they used meant.
There are many fewer these days, thankfully.
>jokes that rely on wordplay such as puns and malapropisms
While many disagree, I like translations that attempt to localise these. You can never get literal accuracy this way, but you can make a fun, entertaining and engrossing script. You might say it's not the job of the fansubbers to write the script, but it is their job to translate the one they have, and the best translations in my view are ones that take intended audience into account.
I watch anime comedies to laugh, not to read an explanation of what the joke is and why it's funny.
Some actually do that. Either have a note saying that they'll explain the reference later during the credits(like the "[0]" we do here) or preemptly give context in the intro or bumper[0]
I found the infamous *TL note: Yuki means Snow very offputting. (It came in the middle of a very deliberately sparse, emotional scene - simple scenery (mostly snow IIRC) and very little dialogue).
There's a pun in Azumanga Daioh about a cat's tongue. In Japan the expression "cat's tongue" means one dislikes spicy food; the joke would not have been translatable without some flavor text explaining the expression.
A lot of anime is like this: full of dualogue that should be translated as-is to capture the immediacy of a joke or expression, but that has context that doesn't make sense to a non-Japanese without explanation.
I wish there were more English subs of shows like this. I watch them now and then on Youtube but I can only get the most obvious physical humor because I don't speak or read Japanese.
Story about that clip: I was in Osaka getting wasted in a tiny bar. The bartender and some of the patrons were pretty into anime and games -- but the ones we tend to think of as "quintessentially Japanese" aren't universally known there. My compadres for the evening were big fans of ONE PIECE (which was the hotness in Japan at the time) but none of them had heard of Azumanga Daioh or even Katamari Damacy.
So when I said that my poor, drunken Japanese must sound like the cat thing from Azumanga Daioh, I showed them that clip on my cellphone by way of an example. Laughter all around. Those Japanese folks found the "American Sailor Moon" (a.k.a. Saban Moon) pretty funny as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS027mYtRu8
The atmosphere in that bar was so friendly that a few days later I endeavored to return. It took me like an hour to find it using my GPS and photos I'd taken from the first time around but eventually I did, and announced my triumphant return to the patrons with a hearty "HALLO EBRY-NYAN. HOW AH YOU. FINE SANKYU." Again, laughter, as they seemed to get the reference.
I haven't been to Japan since and the bar has closed down. The owner, I believe, decided to open a sports bar elsewhere in Osaka. More's the pity.
> A good translation is supposed to replicate the experience of watching something in its original language
That's a difficult line to walk, you can do lighter adaption but require more cultural context (which translates into notes to explain said context to those unaware of it) or heavier adaptation removing the cultural context. Depending on the show, the latter may not make any sense, or require significantly more investment to get an acceptable result, and it divorces the translation from the original to a much higher degree.
I agree with you, but in general the fansubbers' audience demands the style that's being used and will go nuts if they don't see one of the handful of Japanese words they know somehow reflected in the subs directly.
