rpanons | Unfunny wanky stereotypes

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i always wonder if the subs in anime are supposed to sound as stilted and awkward as they often do or if that's the fault of the subber translating it poorly.

it's a little of both. or, rather, the dialogue doesn't sound stilted and awkward in japanese, but translating it to english makes it sound very stilted and awkward sometimes due to the inherent differences in the languages.

however, a lot of it does have to do with fan subs are not professionally done and so do not have the highest quality.

this basically.

subbers are rarely professional language experts who can translate a piece of dialogue in a way that's smooth to us as english-speakers yet still pretty much the same thing in japanese. watching subbed anime can be painful when it's obvious the subber is just literally translating the text from japanese.

Add to that, a lot of subbing companies have two steps to translation: one person does the translating, and a second comes in and smooths it over, to make it sound more natural.

It's part of why I really like Oren's LP of SDR2: they're actually taking the time and thought to make their translations sound good. Few fansubbers do that.

few fansubbers also completely change characters and get furiously buttflustered when you call them out on it

which characters did oren change completely? not asking in a "how dare you insult oren" way, just genuinely curious, as I wasn't aware of this.

souda

someone on wankgate explained it better than i could, read the dangan ronpa canon threads there over the past few posts

ah, thank you anon

i'll try to go dig them up

souda, hinata, komaeda. those three got the worst of it iirc. a lot of the remaining characters sound different in a bad way too but they don't read as completely different like those three, so they're still sort of recognizable.

seconding the anon who suggested going through wankgate's dr canon threads if you want more info, it's been discussed at length a few times there.

if it's any indication though, basically everyone i've seen who's played the untranslated game and understands japanese either really dislike oren's sdr2 lp because of how much he and fedule changed the characters, or they just plain treat it as entirely separate from the actual game. it gets that bad.

yeah, I actually ended up finding the thread on wankgate and am super surprised at just how bad he messed with some of the characters.

honestly, I'm really hoping now that NISA will do a good job with their SDR2 localization and that it'll be more accurate than oren's.

afaik the translator for sdr2 is a fan who's played both games, so i'm hoping they'll do a good job. not sure about the editor this time though, i think he's completely new.

sdr2 has a lot of parts that are really easy to fuck up but i think they'll at least do okay. just a bit wary about the editor.

a capable translator makes all the difference

it depends entirely on the skill of the subber

some sub groups manage dialogue that flows decently, some sub groups are extremely stilted, and some insert random german for no reason other than thinking it's funny

It's because subtitling isn't always localisation.

If you've played videogames that were translated professionally (through the big game companies) you'll notice usually minor differences in the language. This is because they aren't straight-up translations; they're localised so that the game makes sense in context of the region in which it is being sold.

Even if things can't be conveyed completely, there will sometimes be explanations as to what things mean in the context of the game.

This same process applies to anime. When something is translated directly, it's relying on the context of Japanese culture, slang, habits, etc. and some of it just doesn't translate well into english. Localisation is the process in which they cover for these hiccups and sometimes even alter the slang to be more appropriate for an english speaking audience. Professional translations will often also include a secondary subtitle to explain things that don't transfer over from Japanese contexts to North American/etc. ones.

One of the best recent examples (and also one of the most surprising considering Funimation's early track records) is the Funimation dub of Kuragehime/Princess Jellyfish. Though the series is still set in Japan with original Japanese names and subculture sets, these things are explained both in Tsukimi's monologues as well as in subtitles. Slang is also replaced with things that make more sense in context of American geek culture to equivocate the experience in a way English-speaking viewers would sympathise with.

~localisation~ is really awesome and you should totally look up some more stuff on it! But tl;dr the reason why things sound stinted is because they generally haven't been localised! It's not so much the fault of improper translation, it's just that some things don't translate well between any languages directly.

you sound condescending and annoying

Really annoying.

But localization has nothing to do with stilted speech. That'd be more in line with anime making jokes and references that seemingly don't make sense, because they don't apply when the characters aren't speaking Japanese (such as a pun or a joke about kanji or something).

Stilted speech would just be a poor translation, such as from someone who doesn't know how to properly differentiate between someone talking in tough-guy Japanese with someone talking in proper Japanese. It'd be like someone writing subtitles for something from English into Japanese, and having President Obama's manner of speech be the same as Snoop Dog's manner of speech.

Also, don't put professional translations on a pedestal. There are more than enough shitty examples of poor translations out there in video games and anime (and yes, translation -- sometimes even with proper localizing, if the translation sucks, there's nothing you can do other than make it more inaccurate).

Unfunny wanky stereotypes

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