We try to have high quality translations on our projects. A lot of fansubbers use Japanese language students who really are not qualified at all to do translations into English. Also, good script editors are what really make subtitle scripts look good. Before we release a tape, we watched it subtitled several times to try and catch all the errors. However, no translation can ever be truly ‘complete’. Since no two people will translate something the exact same way, when watching the anime for the nth time we may think “oh, I just thought of a better way to say that” and such things. Little nitpicks that we’ll ponder over that nobody is going to notice when they actually watch the anime. But we’re perfectionists. Eventually, we have to draw the line somewhere at revising because we could do it forever. If someone is flat-out wrong, we’ll revise the tape, but most changes we make post-production are incredibly tiny and only we ourselves notice them. Japanese is particularly frustrating since it is so unlike English. There have been countless times when we’ve clearly understood what was being said, yet struggled to express the sentence in English in a way that would look and sound good and not be awkward.
Just for the heck of it, here is the twelve-step process of our fansubbing:
Also, here is some info on our translators:
Maya Shinriki: Translator for Salamander, Pocket Monsters Movie 4 (short and feature). Maya’s an extremely nice Japanese woman. Very charming. Her English grammar was not perfectly worded at times, so she charged less for us. Maya disappeared from our radar two years ago and we don’t know where she is. Thanks for your hard work, Maya, wherever you are!
Marijuana Girl: Translator for Eiji, Ashita no Joe 1-4, Antique Heart, Cool Cool Bye, Diary of Anne Frank. MG’s a Japanese woman fluent in both English and Japanese. She was great, but in 2002 she too went MIA. Sad…
Tetris no Miko: Translator for Sexy Commando, Chibi Maruko-chan, Doraemon, Cat’s Eye, Pocket Monsters Movies 5 and TV Special. Genki gal on the West Coast who loves anime and has excellent translating abilities. Maybe someday she’ll go pro.
The Hentai Pope: Translator for Blue Flames, Call Me Tonight, Hiatari Ryoukou!. Not the infamous cosplayer, but commands love of animated pornography nonetheless. This makes him awesome, because he will translate complex-termed sci-fi shows and porn, the latter of which few female translators will touch. While he does constantly (though jokingly) ask me what porn have I bought for myself today, he rocks like the hurricane. PR0N!!!
Japanese suffixes:
Our rule is that unless the anime occurs in a place with is clearly not Japan and/or lacking Japanese culture, we keep Japanese honorifics like -san, -chan, -sama, -senpai, -sensei. We do this because you’ll never know when an honorific will suddenly become critically important in the anime. When characters switch or stop using honorifics to address someone, it marks a change in their relationship. In some anime, like Diary of Anne Frank, it would just look stupid if we had Dutch people saying “Otto-san”, “Margot-chan”, etc. For the same reason, we leave names in Japanese order of family name first, personal name last. This is because 1) we hate for the spoken name to be opposite of the printed name and 2) same as honorifics, the name change can be important. For example, in CardCaptor Sakura, one episode is about Sakura calling Li Shaoran “Shaoran” INSTEAD of “Li-kun”. If we would have reversed the names, there would be no way to translate and make sense out of the episode. The terms for brother and sister (generally, Oniisan and Oneesan) can be very annoying because in Japanese, you refer to people who are not biologically related to you with the same words as Aunt, Uncle, Brother, Sister, Grandfather, Grandmother, etc. So, the dilemma can arise when a child refers to an older adult as, for example “Oneechan” (lit: Big Sister). What do we do? In most cases, “big sister” sounds bad, and we don’t want to use the character’s name instead if it’s not spoken. (There have actually be anime where you NEVER know a character’s name because he is only referred to by other people not using his name).
Below, we have a handy guide to some common Japanese honorifics:
-san: Typical polite suffix used when addressing people.
-kun: Used mostly for addressing males, either peer-to-peer (ex, in Nadia the leader of the bad guys refers [almost insultingly] to his old chum-now-enemy Captain Nemo as “Nemo-kun”) or boss-to-employee. Slightly informal. Not for use with women EXCEPT a superior in an organization may address a female subordinate with -kun.
-sama: implies great respect from the person using it. In some cases equivalent to the English title “Lord”. Also used when writing letters to people: the addressee will be (name)-sama.
-dono: like –san, but out of date. More common around 100+ years ago. You may hear this one in historical history. Example: In Rurouni Kenshin, Kenshin uses “Kaoru-dono”.
-chan: Very informal. Used with small children (both girls and boths) and women who want to sound cute. Males above the age of 6 only refer to each with –chan if they have known each other since they were small children… or are trying to insult each other.
-senpai: In schools and organizations, what a junior uses to address someone senior to him in class rank and/or age.
-sensei: Title for not only teachers, but
politicians, doctors, lawyers and other people of knowledgeable professions.
Can either be name + -sensei or sensei without name.