Fansubbing - Past, Present and Future

[Kraco]

He does realize this, however he works under the mentality"If a job is worth doing, its worth doing right" if a fansubber doesn't work under that mentality fine, that's their choice, but it doesn't mean their product is good, it just means they choose not to make it good.

And what exactly is right or good? The whole premise is wrong. You and the author of the video start from the assumption the commercial DVDs are the perfection and then move on to list any differences from them as faults. Fansubs aren't commercial subs and don't need to have anything in common with them, or any professors from the 70's revealing ancient Chinese wisdom about the art of translation.

Fansubbers do fansubs for fun or personal training, and they do them for the other fans who can't sufficiently understand the Japanese language straight from the TV or raws. They are perfectly free to assume the audience has an interest in Japanese, and thus might be willing or has already learned a few Japanese words and customs. They aren't selling the fansubs in shops where some random joe from the streets might buy it and then curse how there appears Japanese words on his screen.

This is the exact reason why it's appropriate so say the author of the video hasn't realised he's not talking about some wannabe-commercial subs but something totally different.

[KrayZ33]

No, they are only there because ITS RUDE to NOT have them there in Japanese, unless you are VERY familiar with a person, you can change the way of showing affection easily by playing with the word structure, you don't need to have "big brother name" you can ignore the big brother part unless its important to the story or the character.

So why not just leave the honorifics after a name and shorten the sentence?
instead of making the senteces 1-6 words longer than it should be? Its difficult enough to read fast enough AND get the scene this way.

Its all down to making use of the language to convey the same message, the English language doesn't follow the same rules as Japanese, so you have to adjust it to fit properly, you change the way something is said slightly, you replace oneesama/oniisama with their name, or some other equivalent to fit the situation, there are times when leaving something intact (such as Daimyo if the story is set in feudal Japan) would be acceptable, because its set in Japan, but something not set in Japan, where the characters aren't even speaking Japanese really should not have any Japanese words, honorific or titles left in.

ya change the way its said...
example: Rozen Maiden - Suiseseki
Japanese: "Come and help me ~desu" (natuarlly its said in japanese)
and you know how they translate this sentence in the manga which came out here?
English: "Come and help me, yes!"

He does realize this, however he works under the mentality"If a job is worth doing, its worth doing right" if a fansubber doesn't work under that mentality fine, that's their choice, but it doesn't mean their product is good, it just means they choose not to make it good.

who is he to decide whats wrong or right? In my opinion its bullshit and WRONG to leave honorifics out and thats what they did with NGE... actually whenever shinji speaks to/about Misato it must be translated all the time with "ms. misato"
and because he still says this even though they are living in the same house and know each other very good he still says "ms misato" and that says something about his character, doesn't it? back then however I didn't care about that because I didn't know what this means anyways... (which is the reason why DVD-subs don't have honorifics btw...)

Just a quick note, you don't use learning stuff as defence, because you aren't supposed to be getting a Japanese language/culture lesson, you aren't supposed to be watching it to learn, if you are, you are either a Japanese student reinforcing their knowledge of the language (not some dude who wants to learn, you already know enough to understand a lot of it yourself but not all or you need some reinforcing, linguistics students do this sort of thing,) you are not the intended audience, you are not getting the same experience as the original audience, the translation is bad. If you want to learn you read a non-fiction book, or watch a documentary or something, you don't watch a cartoon, you may learn something because you read a book on Japanese culture and you saw it in an anime which helped you understand it better, that's great if that happens in fact, but you aren't watching the shows to learn.

Thats exactly why DVD- subs don't have honorifics but fansubs do...

DVD-subs are made for the WHOLE audience, even those who have never seen an anime in their whole life, they don't want to ****BUY**** something they don't understand... fansubbs are basically made for fans, its even written down in most fansubbs.. "subbed by fans for fans"

If nobody had told me what exactly ~desu means I would never think that its some way to say something very polite or in a more cute way..
If I read "help me, yes!" "let's do it, yes" "stop it,yes!" I would think something totally different from the character.
so not only they change the meaning, it even makes the whole sentence wrong AND the important part, it changes the personality of a character which is in my opinion as a fan who learned quite much about japanese-culture and behavior by watching fansubs.

So... who again can decide its wrong or right to sub it this way?

ah and btw... I'm not too sure about that but I think [NF] used the DVD subs from Rebuild of Evangelion but those have -kun etc in it too.

[NF] doesn't translate in english normally and I downloaded the DVD subs from somewhere and they were the same (if i did load them right)
well, BoC could check that because he has those subs if I remember correctly

[shinta|hikari]

No, they are only there because ITS RUDE to NOT have them there in Japanese, unless you are VERY familiar with a person, you can change the way of showing affection easily by playing with the word structure, you don't need to have "big brother name" you can ignore the big brother part unless its important to the story or the character.

Its not just that. The titles themselves can mean something that is integral to the story and characters, like the word Senpai, which does not really translate to English, but has a whole host of meanings and implications, especially in terms of how one interacts and treats that person.

You mean the properly translated one? because I'm pretty sure university professors, experts on the subject are the ones who study this and all of them come to the conclusion that you should translate it into the native language of the viewer as much as possible, even if it means rewording things to make it flow better, last time I checked, these are the people I should listen to, maybe I should stop listening to Stephen Hawking and start listening to some dude who "knows a little science"

This is why I pity people who tend to drown in "expert" opinion enough not to be able to judge for themselves. If you wish to reason it out, give points. Don't just say that the experts say so and therefore they are correct. The experts being quoted in that video may not have even been using the same source material, and they may have said that thinking of some other medium or example completely.

So you don't think its insulting to display the fansub groups name bigger than the companies name? bigger than the shows name? and above the whole cast and crew's names in the credits? if anything a small note at the end of the credits and in the corner of the OP is more than enough, anything more is egotistical, they still get the same amount of credit, this all breaks down to e-peen.

Err, so what if it is egotistical? That was the entire point of what I said. They do it for free, why should you care if they put their name there. It is not like it appears constantly on the screen and disrupts the enjoyment of the show.

However all the big names and experts agree the best translation provides an experience as close to that the original audience had as possible, they did not see a bunch of brightly coloured distracting karaoke over their scenes, therefore in a good translation there wouldn't be any special karaoke, if the director didn't put a bunch of Karaoke over his scene it shouldn't be there, you can say "I enjoyed X" while X could have been really bad from a technical point of view, you liked it, it doesn't make it good, it just means you liked it.

Here we go about the experts again. So what an "expert" or a big name says is right? Experts can disagree, and just because the ones quoted do agree does not mean any other points of argument are invalid. Going with the expert opinion just because it is the "expert" opinion only shows a lack of ability to defend one's views.

That's the point, its basically what a fansub would be like, if they stopped with the hypocrisy of not translating some things and translating others, he said it himself, the words at the end of a sentence can reflect a lot, age, anger, familiarity, ect, as can ways of saying you, I and a lot of other things, the English language equivalents of this would be the way older people speak compared to newer people, how you speak when you are angry, ect.

It is extremely arrogant to think that anything can be translated to English. What your statement implies is that with a bit of effort, Japanese (which is extremely different from English, duh) can completely be converted, which is simply not the case.

A severe test of a translators skill, many times it can be, other times (rare) it can't.

It is not as rare as you think. If you think so, you do not watch enough anime. Wordplay is extremely common in anime, mainly because it is part of Japanese humor. Wordplay (at least most) cannot translate. An example would be the latest release of Spice and Wolf ep 7. Yaku is to bake and to be jealous in Japanese. Good luck converting that into English.

He does realize this, however he works under the mentality"If a job is worth doing, its worth doing right" if a fansubber doesn't work under that mentality fine, that's their choice, but it doesn't mean their product is good, it just means they choose not to make it good.

He uses the wrong term over and over then. Please read the definition of "professional" so that you understand. It is also a very limited and selective view, since a lot of fansubs, and many will attest to this, do a great job, both in technical aspects and in the translation itself. In everything there are bad examples. Only sticking to those to prove your point while ignoring the rest is simply foolish and biased.

Just a quick note, you don't use learning stuff as defence, because you aren't supposed to be getting a Japanese language/culture lesson, you aren't supposed to be watching it to learn, if you are, you are either a Japanese student reinforcing their knowledge of the language (not some dude who wants to learn, you already know enough to understand a lot of it yourself but not all or you need some reinforcing, linguistics students do this sort of thing,) you are not the intended audience, you are not getting the same experience as the original audience, the translation is bad. If you want to learn you read a non-fiction book, or watch a documentary or something, you don't watch a cartoon, you may learn something because you read a book on Japanese culture and you saw it in an anime which helped you understand it better, that's great if that happens in fact, but you aren't watching the shows to learn.

That was not a defense, as you so perceive it. My point there is that it is not too difficult to actually learn a bit of Japanese language and culture, especially since it will make the experience a lot richer. If you do not want to do this, then DO NOT FUCKING DOWNLOAD AND WATCH FREE FANSUBS. Sorry for the outburst but someone had to say it. No one is forcing you to watch it, and following your line of reasoning in one of your points above, just because it does not match you taste does not mean it is wrong.

[Ryllharu]

@GL - Why is half your post about Macross 7? I don't see how it has anything to do with your point.

Because OtaKing mentioned it as an example of excellent anime, and I subsequently panned it.

Macross 7 was fantastic, theres nothing wrong with a Guitar piloting a Fighter, hell he have Luffy expanding his body for one of the stupidest reasons ever known to man, and it's not okay to have Basara pilot with a guitar? Honest Macross 7 is a work of art, maybe people shouldn't take it so seriously. I guess bad Fansubbing is the price people pay for piracy. It's just my opinion anyways.

Sorry, Macross 7 sucks. There's really no if's and's or but's about it. Macross 7 seems very much like an attempt to cash in quick on the franchise.

The plot is infantile, a sad derivative of SDF-1's. "Protodevlin" are little more than a demonic spin of the Zentradi, in an attempt to make a new villain that covers both feel of facing a race of giants and a phantom of the Protoculture. They are even blatantly described as an evil vampire version of the Zentradi.

Another trademark of a crappy cash-in series, one of the main characters is the [insert familial relationship] to one of the major characters in SDF. I'm referring to Mylene being the youngest (another key element in the spinoff forumla) daughter of Milia Fallyna Jenius (Zentradi giantess in SDF).

Combine that with a stupid gimmick. "Let's fly a plane with a Guitar Hero controller!"

and he doesn't attack the enemy with weapons, choosing instead to fire speaker pods into enemy mecha, and playing his songs to the enemy.

....anyway, what possible justification for creating this might there be? I don't know, what's the other big franchise in Japan that involves mecha, and as usual would be watched by many people? I know, G Gundam!. They both ran from 1994 into 1995, with G Gundam starting 6 months prior to Macross 7. Either it was a trend to come up with ridiclous control schemes, or Macross 7 felt it had to compete with the holographic-whatever-they-called-it-cockpit that G Gundam used with it's special control suits, etc.

The sheer absurdity of controlling a highly maneuverable machine (far more than most Gundams, being based off a fighter plane) and especially seeing what Isamu Dyson in Macross Plus was able to do in the YF-19, prototype of the Valkyrie, with the standard controls and even trying to imagine that any of that fancy flying would be achievable in a VF controlled by a guitar controller makes me queasy.

Macross 7 is a stain on the franchise that usually takes itself very seriously, has considerably more mature character development (read: sexual situations) than Gundam, pulls no punches, and does not hesitate to kill when they have to. Macross 7 is the Gundam SEED of Macross (and for fans of SEED, I mean all the parts you hate about it).

[Yukimura]

I have to agree with the majority of posts here, as I watched this guy's videos (I only made it to the middle of Part 3 before losing interest) all I kept thinking was that he was coming down on fansubbers for not catering to the whims of people who probably don't watch anime in the first place. What linguistics experts think 'should' be done in terms of translation has no bearing on what individual fans might actually want.

This guy defines 'good' subbing practices as those which would be approved of by the 'experts' in the fields of translation and such. While that sounds very nice, following what experts say because they are 'experts' in a subjective arena like this is stupid. Their 'expertise' is just their agreement on an ultimately arbitrary set of standards that the 'council of experts' came up with and maintains with no regard for how average people might actually feel. For science the opinions of average people don't really mean anything, however for entertainment I think they might be a bit important.

Let's look at an easy example. The film that won the Oscar for best picture in 2006 (The Departed) came in 15th in total box office revenue for films opening that year. All the people who voted with their wallets for 14 other movies ahead of 'The Departed' are apparently wrong because they didn't agree with the assessment of the 'experts' on what was 'good'. I do make the assumption that being 'good' implies people will prefer it over other things that are not 'good' but if the 'goodness' of entertainment has no impact on how effective it is what purpose does it serve? To make an even more obscure analogy, Galileo and Copernicus were considered wrong by the 'experts' in the field of Astronomy because they had ideas (backed by observations no less) that the experts didn't agree with and so their ideas were 'bad'. Box office figures aren't nearly as objective as repeatable observational experiments but they are less subjective than "This is hard for uneducated people to grasp, therefore it's 'good'"

If anime translation was a hard scientific process like changing from meters to feet then there would be a right and a wrong way to go about it and expertise would come from knowledge of the right way. However, entertainment and translation both involve too much fuzziness and are more art than science. To use an example from these videos, Picasso's works were initially criticized by experts as well. 'Experts' define quality, however the same painting can go from bad to good with nothing but a change in the 'experts'. To me this seems like evidence that 'good' and 'bad' are arbitrary labels assigned using the opinions of the current oligarchy of 'experts'.

Fortunately, despite what any number of 'experts' think translation should be the only thing that actually matters is what the viewers of the translation prefer. If fansubs are 'bad' yet anime DVD's with 'good' subtitles (and the illegal rips of the same ) continue to be unpopular maybe producers will start incorporating some of the 'bad' practices of fansubbers in order to make money. I'm sure the experts will line up against this but I don't think they're going to offer to pay the bills at any anime distributors so they can shove it up their 'expert' asses.

[Silvanas]

Ok just to answer all the "who is to say what is right" questions, every time I said good or right in my post, I mean right/good according to everyone that has sat down and studied this matter, I do not know of anyone in translation studies that came to the conclusion that giving the new audience a different experience than the original one is a good idea, or that leaving anything in the native language of the medium is a good idea, when a lot of people do research and come to the same conclusion, I think its safe to say that its right or at least is the strongest position.

Its like, you could watch an amazingly good movie and not enjoy it, just like you can watch an amazingly bad movie and enjoy it, that doesn't mean that one isn't better than the other, but it means you liked it.

It is extremely arrogant to think that anything can be translated to English. What your statement implies is that with a bit of effort, Japanese (which is extremely different from English, duh) can completely be converted, which is simply not the case.

You don't have to be literal, you just have to convey the same message, if you can't find anything in the English language that can make the line mean the same thing then you try to reword the lines before and after slightly, to suggest that the English language can't do that suggests that Japanese is better, which is not the case, no language is better.

Its not just that. The titles themselves can mean something that is integral to the story and characters, like the word Senpai, which does not really translate to English, but has a whole host of meanings and implications, especially in terms of how one interacts and treats that person.

Then you work with that and turn it into the way its spoken, you make the way they speak more polite, ect, the same effect can be achieved without the need to say senior or something to that effect a lot.

This is why I pity people who tend to drown in "expert" opinion enough not to be able to judge for themselves. If you wish to reason it out, give points. Don't just say that the experts say so and therefore they are correct. The experts being quoted in that video may not have even been using the same source material, and they may have said that thinking of some other medium or example completely.

I can judge for myself, however diasagreeing with people who have done research onto the subject, have discussed it with their peers and all come to the same conclusion, surely that means something, again I do disagree with the results of some research in some fields, translations studies happens to not be one of them, I agree that the product you view should be as close as possible to what the original audience saw, that as much as if possible should be converted to the native language of the new viewer, so on and so fourth. I'm not saying that its not ok to like what fansubbers do, I'm just saying that it isn't good according to people who spent years researching the subject, if you want to take this up with them I'm sure they will be able to present you with an entire thesis of reasoning behind it which I can't because I don't do translation studies.

Here we go about the experts again. So what an "expert" or a big name says is right? Experts can disagree, and just because the ones quoted do agree does not mean any other points of argument are invalid. Going with the expert opinion just because it is the "expert" opinion only shows a lack of ability to defend one's views.

In this field, they all basically agree, there are slight differences in their theories however they all share many common traits, simple text that doesn't catch your attention,as much as possible in your native language as possible, wordplay is converted as much as possible but left in if absolutely can't be converted, any and all suffixes in the original should be converted in such a way that they are converted into your native language without losing their meaning, often though the way a character speaks to a person.

Ok I'm gonna go off this line here because.

It is not as rare as you think. If you think so, you do not watch enough anime. Wordplay is extremely common in anime

I don't see it but I watch a lot of sci-fi anime where it doesn't really come up a lot.

Macross 7 is a stain on the franchise that usually takes itself very seriously

This is Macross, you realize the official explanation behind why Max doesn't seem to age is "He's so awesome he doesn't age." Shōji Kawamori (Macross' creator) doesn't take Macross seriously, he thinks its a fun show that has some serious things going on, he LOVES Macross 7, Macross is not a serious show, it does some serious things but overall its pretty trippy but overall its fun, if you want serious business mecha go watch VOTOMS.

Macross 7 is the Gundam SEED

I'd say its the G Gundam of Macross, goes out and has more fun with stuff while being over the top and being awesome.


Anyway, this is all opinion, you can agree with the experts and that's perfectly fine, but its also perfectly fine to say "I like this more" I personally agree with the experts on some fronts, however I do believe that some exceptions should exist, specifically with the use of titles and wordplay providing the setting is Japan, but everyone is allowed their own opinion are they not? but I just want to clarify that every time I say good or right, I mean from a technical point of view as established by respectable researchers, I am bias towards their point of view I will admit.

[Yukimura]

So basically the 'experts' are a bunch of people who studied how random schmucks reacted to translations of stuff and then noticed that the majority of said random schmucks preferred to be spoon fed everything in their own language rather than needing to learn anything about the cultural context that gave birth to the original material. If they did research I assume they showed people different styles of translation to laymen and compared how well the material was recieved by the test subjects. I'm guessing they found that any references to the original culture tended to make the random schmuck test subjects unhappy and thus concluded that references to the original culture should always be avoided when translating. Then since they all used random schmucks to test and al got similar results they got togeather and agreed that to make the largest number of people happy (AKA to appeal to the lowest human denominator) XYZ should be done/not done.

Since there are far more people who would rather remain ignorant then there are people who are either knowledgeable enough or interested enough to seek out the knowledge necessary to understand nuances of Japanese culture on their own I can see where the "doing it for the schmucks is the 'right' way" mentality comes from. No truly random sample of people from a particular culture will contain enough members interested in any given other culture to produce data that would suggest hundreds of thousands of people happly download 'bad' Naruto fansubs every week rather than not do so because of the badness of the translation efforts. Not enough people in the world care enough about anyone but themselves to learn about any other culture than their own in the process of viewing entertainment, even if that entertainment was originally intended for other audiences.

Basically fansub fans are like the Academy and DVD sub fans are like the average Joes who buy movie tickets. The Academy judges based on its own standards of quality which are different from the average persons and do not select for the same thing the average joe's select for. The average person does not care about the level of detail the fansub fan is forced to care about by the nature of the medium. To those people who don't care about the details I would say the same thing the Academy says, good riddance n00bs. If someone else wants to cater to their laziness then more power to them. But I don't mind having to learn in order to enjoy something exotic and I think those who do mind should just go play in their sandboxes with their DVDs.

And for the record, anyone who could enjoy a show like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei or Lucky Star directly translated into English with no notes, no translations of any kind for the on screen text, and no understanding of Japanese language or culture must have the most amazing sense of humor ever.

[shinta|hikari]

Ok just to answer all the "who is to say what is right" questions, every time I said good or right in my post, I mean right/good according to everyone that has sat down and studied this matter, I do not know of anyone in translation studies that came to the conclusion that giving the new audience a different experience than the original one is a good idea, or that leaving anything in the native language of the medium is a good idea, when a lot of people do research and come to the same conclusion, I think its safe to say that its right or at least is the strongest position.

And this is why I think you are a fool. Have you not read the posts of everyone before (and after) you?

You don't have to be literal, you just have to convey the same message, if you can't find anything in the English language that can make the line mean the same thing then you try to reword the lines before and after slightly, to suggest that the English language can't do that suggests that Japanese is better, which is not the case, no language is better.

There are cases when that is not possible. I even gave an example of wordplay to show this. You are severely underestimating the differences in language here. On the second part, I never said or implied such a thing. Just because something cannot translate does not mean one language is superior. The same can be said for English to Japanese translations. There are tons of expressions that I know will not translate properly. Language is intimately connected with culture and meaning. Are you trying to say we can simply separate both since viewers did not watch it with intent to learn anything about the culture? What happened with keeping the original experience?

I can judge for myself, however diasagreeing with people who have done research onto the subject, have discussed it with their peers and all come to the same conclusion, surely that means something, again I do disagree with the results of some research in some fields, translations studies happens to not be one of them, I agree that the product you view should be as close as possible to what the original audience saw, that as much as if possible should be converted to the native language of the new viewer, so on and so fourth. I'm not saying that its not ok to like what fansubbers do, I'm just saying that it isn't good according to people who spent years researching the subject, if you want to take this up with them I'm sure they will be able to present you with an entire thesis of reasoning behind it which I can't because I don't do translation studies.

Then you are a drone. You do not even know the content and reasoning behind their studies and you agree with them? Even to the point of using it as evidence for your points? This is exactly what it means to take the "expert" position for its own sake, and I believe you have been attacked more than enough on this point by now for even you to comprehend it.

I also mentioned this earlier, but I will put it in simple terms so that you may address it if you wish. Are these experts talking about anime? Translation is a broad field, and differences can arise (yes, even opposing views) depending on what is being tackled. Just because it applies to french novels does not mean it applies to Japanese anime.

Times change. Its 2008. Global and intercultural exchanges have become much more common than let's say a decade ago (and I believe these experts' quotes are from before that at least). Have you (or Otaking) not stopped to think that this change may be mainly due to the change in global cultural climate rather than the "ineptness" of fansubbers? Just because some are averse to change does not make it negative.

I don't see it but I watch a lot of sci-fi anime where it doesn't really come up a lot.

And sci-fi anime is a small percentage of anime out there. Before you speak about it, please do your research. I am starting to think you and Otaking are related or something.

Anyway, this is all opinion, you can agree with the experts and that's perfectly fine, but its also perfectly fine to say "I like this more" I personally agree with the experts on some fronts, however I do believe that some exceptions should exist, specifically with the use of titles and wordplay providing the setting is Japan, but everyone is allowed their own opinion are they not? but I just want to clarify that every time I say good or right, I mean from a technical point of view as established by respectable researchers, I am bias towards their point of view I will admit.

I said this before to Yuki. There is no right or wrong opinion, but there is a better or worse one. Just because you escape by pulling this on a topic you are losing does not mean you can degrade our valid arguments and associate them with our preferences alone. That italicized line right there already shows how immature your arguments are. but it is a good thing that you admitted it in the end. At least this can end here.

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention that you did not even notice (in other words ignored) the point about the selection of anime in the video. It was definitely biased, and the claim at the start that 90 percent of anime is like that is well, for the lack of a better term, BULLSHIT.

[bagandscalpel]

Somewhere in the world, somebody is thinking to himself: "This thread- just as keikaku."

[Silvanas]

Then you are a drone. You do not even know the content and reasoning behind their studies and you agree with them? Even to the point of using it as evidence for your points? This is exactly what it means to take the "expert" position for its own sake, and I believe you have been attacked more than enough on this point by now for even you to comprehend it.

I also mentioned this earlier, but I will put it in simple terms so that you may address it if you wish. Are these experts talking about anime? Translation is a broad field, and differences can arise (yes, even opposing views) depending on what is being tackled. Just because it applies to french novels does not mean it applies to Japanese anime.

Times change. Its 2008. Global and intercultural exchanges have become much more common than let's say a decade ago (and I believe these experts' quotes are from before that at least). Have you (or Otaking) not stopped to think that this change may be mainly due to the change in global cultural climate rather than the "ineptness" of fansubbers? Just because some are averse to change does not make it negative.

Actually I think my bias towards their side makes me more willing to accept it, whereas someone who doesn't agree would want to question it more, though I would like too read a published thesis on the topic now I wouldn't know where to find one, however it would be quite interesting. Perhaps the point they try to get across is made clear if you do read one I also expect they account for a lot of the points you make which I can not.