The Dark Wolf
Contributor
"Hey-all you kids!""
"Hut check m'nut sack!"
Classic Street Fighter 3 attack calls.
"Hut check m'nut sack!"
Classic Street Fighter 3 attack calls.
How geeky are you quiz.
- Thread starter Digital Black
- Start date
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The Dark Wolf said:"Hey-all you kids!""
"Hut check m'nut sack!"
Classic Street Fighter 3 attack calls.
Eh, whether it makes more sense or not doesn't really matter to me, in fact I'd really like it better if it was in Japanese as the cheesy-ness index increases. That way I don't know how corny it really is.
Ki-blasts in anime are the biggest one for me. Mouko Takabisha sounds better than the Tiger-whatever-the-fuck it translates it into. Sakura's attacks in Sakura Taisen just do not work in english either, and while the Japanese kids understand it, I don't want to, ruins the moment if you will.
I consider attack names and spell names to be like a person's name, you wouldn't translate the names of the cast, so why mess with it. Personally I like the way they handled the Kenshin sub, the attack names were translated in the notes on the DVDs, so that if you *wanted* to know you could, and those of us who don't didn't have to read it.
Naren
OldschoolGhettostyle
Funny post, by the way, Bob. Heh.
I can hear you. In games like Street Fighter, I'm all for not redubbing it and leaving it as the original (technically I'm always against redubbing, but I've come to accept that most people don't want to play a game with subtitles or watch a TV show with subtitles). Games like Street Fighter ARE cheesy, but the Japanese attack names being yelled before the attack is just essential to the genre.
Wow. That makes me want to whip out my arcade emulator and start playing some old fighting games like Street Fighter 2, Vampior Savior, and Marvel VS. Capcom.
Toshiro said:
Eh, whether it makes more sense or not doesn't really matter to me, in fact I'd really like it better if it was in Japanese as the cheesy-ness index increases. That way I don't know how corny it really is.
Ki-blasts in anime are the biggest one for me. Mouko Takabisha sounds better than the Tiger-whatever-the-fuck it translates it into. Sakura's attacks in Sakura Taisen just do not work in english either, and while the Japanese kids understand it, I don't want to, ruins the moment if you will.
I consider attack names and spell names to be like a person's name, you wouldn't translate the names of the cast, so why mess with it. Personally I like the way they handled the Kenshin sub, the attack names were translated in the notes on the DVDs, so that if you *wanted* to know you could, and those of us who don't didn't have to read it.
I can hear you. In games like Street Fighter, I'm all for not redubbing it and leaving it as the original (technically I'm always against redubbing, but I've come to accept that most people don't want to play a game with subtitles or watch a TV show with subtitles). Games like Street Fighter ARE cheesy, but the Japanese attack names being yelled before the attack is just essential to the genre.
Wow. That makes me want to whip out my arcade emulator and start playing some old fighting games like Street Fighter 2, Vampior Savior, and Marvel VS. Capcom.
Naren said:
Personally, I loved the original voices in Tales Of Destiny, and when Tales of Eternia(rebadged ToD2) came out over here I was horribly disappointed by the dubbing. I woulda paid I bit extra to get a subbed version, or just a silent one.
Same with Lunar, especially the newer PSX versions, where the dub actors couldn't act at all, IMO. Especially annoying because all but the movies are already subbed, the text is running at the bottom in time with the voice-overs, wouldn't take much to put out a version that wasn't hard on the ears... lol But you know, no americans watch subs, and everything needs to be in english.....
Naren
OldschoolGhettostyle
Toshiro said:Personally, I loved the original voices in Tales Of Destiny, and when Tales of Eternia(rebadged ToD2) came out over here I was horribly disappointed by the dubbing. I woulda paid I bit extra to get a subbed version, or just a silent one.
I've never played an RPG with vocal audio in English. I played Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII (about halfway through right now) in Japanese. I played Tales Of Eternia (Tales Of Destiny II in the US) in Japanese. Damn, I can't remember all of them, but any RPG I've played that had voices, I played in Japanese. For one reason, because the original is always better than a redub (even if it's a good redub, the original will be better). And for other reasons, because I live in Japan, want to play in the original language, etc.
Naren said:
Lucky.
I have a fansub of the ToE OAV, the original voices are sooooooooooo much better.
I'd rather not know what the hell is going on than have some of the voices prattling on in the dub. I mute my TV during every voice part in RPGs on reflex now. 
Naren
OldschoolGhettostyle
Toshiro said:Lucky.
I have a fansub of the ToE OAV, the original voices are sooooooooooo much better.
That's sad. When I was playing Tales Of Eternia, I always looked forward to movie scenes and long audio dialogue scenes.
I played literally over 100 RPGs before 2001 (on NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Gamegear, Nintendo Gameboy, N64, computer, and some on PS1). Since 2001, I've only played maybe 10-15 (at the most 20). Back then, no RPGs had actual voices. I actually loved FF10 (which had hours upon hours of voices in it), but I played in Japanese, so I can't tell you how good or bad the English dub was.
Naren I think you should be given an award for like "omg Japanese knowledge" lol.
As for the "-chan," etc. in subs, I think it's missing something if I don't see it there, I mean...it's like leaving something you, maybe just to me though.
lol Rekuum had the dumbest attack names ever in DBZ, of all the characters I think his were the worst.
As for the "-chan," etc. in subs, I think it's missing something if I don't see it there, I mean...it's like leaving something you, maybe just to me though.
lol Rekuum had the dumbest attack names ever in DBZ, of all the characters I think his were the worst.
Naren
OldschoolGhettostyle
D-EJ915 said:
That is the attitude I hate.
A: You can hear them saying "chan"; so there is no need to WRITE it in the subtitles.
B: It is not English. You can't say you "translated" an animation if it has words like "san" or "chan." They can either be translated to English or be left out.
C: I have never ever met a "japanimation" fan who knew what these name endings mean. I have met lots and lots of people who thought they knew what they mean. Some huge Ranma fan gave me a huge explanation of their meanings and what they're used for, overflowing with pride and, when she was done, I said "Actually you're wrong." It kind of shattered the person's confidence because she knew that I knew a hell of a lot more than her (she had taken like 1 and a half years of college Japanese. So she was very very low level).
D: It does not create a "Japanese" atmosphere. It creates this language that is neither English nor Japanese. This annoying nerd language that improperly uses Japanese mixed with English. And the words used are very useless words. For example, "Hey, Jennifer-chan. Isn't this kawaii? I love nekos. This ramen is oishii." Now some Japanese exchange students in the US (or in Japan) combine English and Japanese, but not at all the same way. My friend, Erika (Japanese), would say that like this "Hey, Jennifer. Isn't this cute? I love cats da yo ne. This ramen is tasty da yo." Personally I don't like either usage much, but the one being used by Japanese is more grammatically correct and logical of a fusion.
You will pretty much not find "-chan" or any of the title/name endings in Japanese in a professional sub for an animation. The only place you will find them are in fan subs (which equals: amateur, low experience, and laziness). I think the 2 main reasons for leaving them in are: they want to put a more "American Japanimation" feel to the animation and they just don't know what to translate "chan" to (ever thought of just not translating it? There is no equivalent in English).
Do we say "Hey, what's up, Jack-chan? That was an oishii momiji-manju, right? I love momiji-manju, toku ni the chocolate kind. What shurui is your favorite? My ichiban suki na shurui would, of course, be the maccha flavor. You don't like maccha aji? Why not? It's oishii deshou?"
What I hate about the "otaku" community is that it's "cool" to use Japanese words, but it's not cool to use any Japanese words the other nerds don't know. So, I couldn't just bust out full on into Japanese.
This tendency in fan subbing (for animation) and fan translations (for manga) really really really got on my nerves about 2 years ago, so I did my own fan translation of Naruto book 1, chapter 8 (I think). On page 1, it was my completely normal translation. On the second page, I started leaving Japanese words like "-chan", "-kun", "-dono", "-san", "-sama", "-baba", etc. etc. in the translation. By the third page, I was leaving in words like "kawaii" and "neko." By the fourth page, I was leaving in a lot of Japanese nouns, so it'd be like "Kakashi-sensei, I lost my shuriken in the mori! I think an inu might have stolen my hirumeshi too!" By the fifth page, I was leaving in a lot of Japanese verbs, so it'd be like "Kakashi-sensei! I nakushita my shuriken in the mori! I omou an inu might have nusunda my hirumeshi too!" well, it kept going liek this, page by page until it was quite hilarious. By the second to last page, it was all romanized Japanese, like "Kakashi-sensei, ore mori de shuriken o nakushita n da yo! Inu ga hirumeshi o nusunda ja nai ka to omotteru n da kedo!" And the very last page was all in Japanese with kanji, hiragana, and katakana.
That's how I feel about the incomplete translations that proliferate in fan subs and fan manga translations.
I guess maybe it's more of a disconnect for me where I'm like "okay I heard this but it's different here." Whatever, it's really not a big deal. I'm also bothered by people whore are always like "OMG IT's SOO LIKE THIS" and spout their "knowledge" but they really have no idea what they're talking about, or even if they do it's just annoying. I used to be sort of like that so I guess that's where I got that attitude from.
Quick question, do people actually talk like it is in anime? With all the extended words and things like that...I can't really see people actually talking that way for some reason.
Quick question, do people actually talk like it is in anime? With all the extended words and things like that...I can't really see people actually talking that way for some reason.
Michael
Forum MVP
I scored 17. 
Naren said:
Man, Naruto as a whole seems to attract the largest percentage of morons of any show, outside DBz, over here. I'm just waiting for the finger-thing to start up, so I can flee the country.
Aren't honorifics part of the 'formality' level of who you're speaking to, sorta like how well you know someone? More a social respect thing, I'd guess. I can definitely understand someone getting confused using R1/2 as a basis, I mean shit they use them to describe which gender he is at the moment(especially in fan-fiction, where the englishese is run rampant).
It does bug me in a sub when they blatantly use the wrong word. Like a character calling someone aniki, or onee-chan, or what have you, and they use the character's name in the titles. Throws me for a loop listening to the audio.
Edit: Never post while you're still asleep.
Naren
OldschoolGhettostyle
D-EJ915 said:
No, people do not really talk like they do in "anime." I'm not sure what you mean by extended words, though (could you let me know what you're referring to). A few years ago, I wrote a LONG essay called "How To Sound Like An Idiot In Japanese Part II: Animation" (Part 1 was how to talk like little kids, old ladies, Shibuya girls, tough cool guys, and like 1 or 2 I can't remember). The essays (both of them) were big jokes. If you're interested, I could send you the essay or post it back up (it used to be on my old website, but I took it down, partially because I got so much hate mail from "otaku"). I had a whole section in the article on words for how to kill someone, another section completely on boasting, swearing, etc.
All words and grammar in animation are real and are used to some extent in real life, but sometimes not to the extent they are in animation. For example, you will probably NEVER EVER EVER hear anyone say "kono oresama" in real life, but a lot of characters in Japanese animation say it. You will also probably never hear contextually someone say, "I will send all of you to the netherworld with the new powers I've developed from obtaining the Moon Rod of Darkness." Obviously, people in real life don't talk about "destruction spheres" or "crystal blade sorcerers." Also, girls in real life do say "wa" to assert their femininity (my ex-girlfriend used to say it all the time and my current girlfriend says it sometimes), but no one says it after every single sentence like some characters in animation.
Also, one thing I noted in my essay was that ANY normal Japanese sentence can be changed into "animation Japanese" by how you say it (either saying it really overdramatically or sinisterly and laughing maniacally or whatever). A lot of Japanese sentences or phrases in an animation might be completely normal, but the person saying it is saying it in a weird voice and in a weird way.
The Japanese in video games is a lot closer to real Japanese than animation Japanese.
If you could make the question more specific, I could probably answer better.
Toshiro said:
Yeah, Japan is a stratified culture. The Japanese language has like 7 different levels of politeness. There is really low level Japanese, low level Japanese, regular polite Japanese (teineigo), extra polite Japanese (keigo), honorific Japanese (sonkeigo) and extra polite humble Japanese (kenjougo). I don't expect the regular japanimation viewers to understand that since most people who have studied Japanese for over 5 years don't properly understand how to use the levels (my Japanese professor told me that most young people under 22 nowadays don't know how to use them properly. Maybe a bit of an exageration, but it points to how complicated it is).
In Ranma, the female Ranma is referred to as "Ranma-chan" and the male Ranma is referred to as "Ranma-kun" which made a lot of stupid fanboys think "chan" = used for girls, "kun" = used for boys. That's wrong, both "chan" and "kun" can be used for both guys and girls. And neither word has the assumed meaning that most fans read into them. Seeing subtitles that have stuff like "Natsumi-chan, let's go to the mall" or "Hey, Hiroshi-kun, what's that?" really irritates me.
Toshiro said:It does bug me in a sub is when they blatantly use the whole word. Like a character calling someone aniki, or onee-chan, or what have you, and they use the character's name in the titles. Throws me for a loop listening to the audio.
I tend to like the idea of just writing the character's name when "oneesan" or "oniisan" is being said outloud because no one in English yells "OLDER BROTHER! OLDER BROTHER!" It always bugged me when I saw someone just put that into the subtitles, showing that they obviously didn't know what to put it as. Put his/her name. Put "KENTA! KENTA!" instead of "ANIKI! ANIKI!" or whatever.
Naren said:
I guess, but it gets a bit confusing, especially to people who don't know what some of the words mean. It's like "He/she didn't say that person's name in the dialog, how did it end up in the sub?"... And of course, they ask me, and I'm like: "ughhh, I don't speak Japanese". lol
Naren
OldschoolGhettostyle
Toshiro said:
Well, I was watching a movie a few months ago where they only mention the characters name once in the Japanese through the whole movie and he's always referred to as "oniisan" everywhere else, but in the subs he's always referred to as "Hiro." So someone said to me, "It doesn't sound like she's saying 'Hiro'... why does it say that in the subtitles?" and I usually give a smart-alec reply, "Because that's his name." If they pursue it further, I explain that Japanese siblings almost always refer to their older brothers and sisters by "older brother/sister" instead of their actual name (for example, my ex-girlfriend's younger brother never once called her by her first name). It's a cultural and linguistic difference. Even though some people may ask why, putting the person's actual name in the subtitles is the most appropriate thing to do and the most accurate translation.
I see what you're saying, it's just strange sometimes. lol
Naren
OldschoolGhettostyle
Toshiro said:
Agreed.
Luckily I never had to deal with that in any of the films I translated and subtitled. I had a few difficult parts to translate, though... Ended up coming up with translations that satisfied me, which is always a good thing.
From all my asian friends using things like "kuya" and all that I'm used to hearing of the "older brother" things all the time, lol. Funny thing is, my one friend from Japan is an only child and I've never heard him speak Japanese even once. I don't actually ever call my family by their names either, lol, and it's not "mom/dad" lol, I'm not gonna talk about it though because we're weird (well my sister and I) and it just make us look dumb.
Naren
OldschoolGhettostyle
D-EJ915 said:
"Kuya"? What does that mean? And what language is it from?
