How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers • Hacker News Board

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#31

Post by bitwize » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 2:14 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #5

digi_owl wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example of impressive fansubbing i have seen was where the subs were color matched to the speakers hair, and contained cultural/historic/contextual info.

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.

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.

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#32

Post by gerjomarty » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 2:18 PM UTC

polymatter wrote: post #28

gerjomarty wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rea…

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…

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.

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#33

Post by thrillgore » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 2:22 PM UTC

cjslep wrote: post #15

I enjoy watching various anime but am by no means into Japanese culture, nor the American culture that is into Japanese culture. However, when I was first introduced to anime by a friend (minus Spirited Away) which was Naruto, I was introduced to the English-subbed versions even though English dubs were available. After watching a few episodes of listening to Japanese and reading the subs, I thought it would be a goo…

I would agree that a lot of english dubs are bad, but I consider Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell (Stand Alone Complex, not Arise) to be the two exceptions. The casting decisions were very well made.

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#34

Post by knodi123 » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #25

zyx321 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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…

> dattebayo, mostly famous for their Naruto releases. Their public attitude was as unprofessional as you could get.

I'll never forget the time I tried to download a Naruto movie from Dattebayo, and instead got a film called "Gay Niggers From Outer Space".

Wikipedia says the leader of dattebayo is also the president of the GNAA, which is actually listed as a cyberterrorist organization.

Looking back on my childhood, using the internet from '95-'05 really felt like a crazy fantasia on the wild west.

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#35

Post by Kalium » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 3:19 PM UTC

cjslep wrote: post #15

I enjoy watching various anime but am by no means into Japanese culture, nor the American culture that is into Japanese culture. However, when I was first introduced to anime by a friend (minus Spirited Away) which was Naruto, I was introduced to the English-subbed versions even though English dubs were available. After watching a few episodes of listening to Japanese and reading the subs, I thought it would be a goo…

> In the case of Ergo Proxy, the additional notes in the fansubbing really helped understand the bigger dialogue. Without it I probably would not have held that particular show in has high of a regard.

Ergo Proxy in particular sticks out to me as a case where the fansubs were superior to the commercial release. The DVDs didn't have any of those notes, and they added a lot to the show.

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#36

Post by djent » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 3:20 PM UTC

What really makes me love fansubs is when they include the honorifics when mentioning names. There's a lot of meaning that is put behind various honorifics, and that is lost when they are absent.

I'd say the largest reason to download anime from fansubbers rather than stream it is that you become part of a culture that dedicates their life to anime. It can be rewarding, time consuming, and you might end up taking Japanese classes hoping to one day translate anime and manga.

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#37

Post by griffinmb » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 3:24 PM UTC

thrillgore wrote: post #33

cjslep wrote: post #15

I enjoy watching various anime but am by no means into Japanese culture, nor the American culture that is into Japanese culture. However, when I was first introduced to anime by a friend (minus Spirited Away) which was Naruto, I was introduced to the English-subbed versions even though English dubs were available. After watching a few episodes of listening to Japanese and reading the subs, I thought it would be a goo…

I would agree that a lot of english dubs are bad, but I consider Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell (Stand Alone Complex, not Arise) to be the two exceptions. The casting decisions were very well made.

I would add Fullmetal Alchemist and Death Note to the list of well-dubbed content!

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#38

Post by PaulHoule » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

The anime translation business was on the brink of disaster until crunchyroll came around. They just could not sell DVDs of episodes that anime fans could afford and if took them 2 years to get product out and fansubs hit the street in 2 days the commercial product can't survive.

Note there is a genre of anime inspired video games (particularly for the PS vita) that I imagine are doing well commercially and there the complaints about bad voice acting do not apply. For instance the voices of Neptune and noire in the current gen of hyperdimensional neptunia are better in the English than Japanese in my opinion.

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#39

Post by mxfh » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

VeejayRampay wrote: post #3

French japanimation enthusiasts over 30 probably remember how official dubbers for Fist of the North Star/Hokuto No Ken in the late 80's actually took pride in providing bogus dubbing (with bad puns, changes in the dialog and purposely egregious voice-overs) because they thought "the show should not have been brought to young French kids" and just didn't care [1] This is precisely why you need enthusiasts providing q…

This kind of dubbing wasn't exclusive to anime in that era, publishers basically bought the rights to cheap visual content and produced their own stories and scripts on top of it for maximum impact in their respective local markets.

Germany: Die Zwei / The Pesuaders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persuaders!#Redubbed_versi...

Most famous and polarizing was probably the reworking of three different original programmes (Macross, ‎Southern Cross and MOSPEADA) into Robotech

Earliest example might have been https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_Up,_Tiger_Lily%3F

but the french perfected this sub-genre in the 70s:

http://physicalimpossibility.com/2011/05/22/movie-rip-offs-a...

Re: How American Fans Pirated Japanese Cartoons into Careers

#40

Post by jzelinskie » Thu, Jun 25, 2015, 3:32 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #35

cjslep wrote: post #15

I enjoy watching various anime but am by no means into Japanese culture, nor the American culture that is into Japanese culture. However, when I was first introduced to anime by a friend (minus Spirited Away) which was Naruto, I was introduced to the English-subbed versions even though English dubs were available. After watching a few episodes of listening to Japanese and reading the subs, I thought it would be a goo…

> In the case of Ergo Proxy, the additional notes in the fansubbing really helped understand the bigger dialogue. Without it I probably would not have held that particular show in has high of a regard. Ergo Proxy in particular sticks out to me as a case where the fansubs were superior to the commercial release. The DVDs didn't have any of those notes, and they added a lot to the show.

Fansubs are almost always better than the commercial releases, because if the show is even relatively popular (and shows that get official releases usually are), a group will edit the official release's script.

You honestly can't beat the time and passion fans will put in. Most of translators working for places like CrunchyRoll get paid per release, so they have no incentive to spend more time on a release and give it a quality translation. On the other hand, fans have already read/played the source material and will use background knowledge to properly translate the material.