Blind Idiot Translation/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
The Japanese does the animation and manghe (Anime and Manga)
==Subpages==
 
{{subpages}}
==Other Examples==
* The French dub of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' messed up and forgot that Jack, other than being a proper name, is also the face value for a card. This resulted in card names like the Knight of the King, the Knight of the Queen, and the Knight of Jack, whoever that Jack may be.
** There is a Japanese version of one Yu-Gi-Oh episode that translates "Dark Magician" in the subtitles as "Dark Physician."
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** The title itself ''is'' actually officially translated as "Tetrad' Smerti", and the opening read "Zapiska ''angela'' smerti" (Death angel's note).
** Also in the first live-action movie Naomi Misora gets a comforting [http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/9255/pdvd001h.png letter] from the FBI.
** There's [[wikipedia:Mu chr(28)negativechr(29negative)|a Japanese response word]] which means "Your question cannot be answered, because it depends on incorrect assumptions". That word is ''mu''. It's what you might reply with if you can't answer either yes or no. At the very end of the series, the last three rules tell us about the afterlife in that setting: ''"All humans will, without exception, eventually die; After they die, the place they go is MU. (Nothingness); Once dead, they can never come back to life."'' The problem is that if you look at the Japanese rule for "the place they go is mu", and at the original [[Word of God|text for the author's explanation]] that is translated as "death is nothingness", it's pretty clear that they're using this "your question is invalid" sense of "mu" -- people don't go anywhere after they die, because there is nowhere for them to go! Yet thanks to the (perfectly understandable) wording of the translation, fandom is awash in people who think there's [[The Nothing After Death|a world of nothingness called Mu where people are supposed to go after they die]], or even [[Epileptic Trees|that the shinigami realm is the afterlife]]. This is despite ample [[Word of God]] stating that the message of the ''whole story'' was that this life is all there is and [[Downer Ending|death is final and forever]].
* The dub of the ''Garzey's Wing'' features this. Likely the translator just translated it verbatim from Japanese and CPM didn't bother with a script editor. [http://www.animenewsnetwork.comcc/buried-treasure/2007-09-20 A review (with clips) is available here]. Watch as Chris wrings his hands in stress and says "I must somehow make sense of our convoluted situation." in a dull monotone.
{{quote|"Oh my god! I feel like I just had a dream!!"|"He's just a human. Humans are just human."}}
* ''[[Transformers Armada]]'' and ''[[Transformers Energon]]'' were created on so rushed a schedule as to feature first-draft translations as finalized scripts, and even unfinished animation used for broadcast. Translation errors fly about freely, characters are regularly referred to with the wrong name, there are typos in the ''title cards'', and a hugely disappointing proportion of dialogue, put simply, does ''not make sense''. This is especially problematic in ''Energon,'' in which ''every single episode'' has plot points that are obscured by dialogue that apparently got most of the words but missed the point. Thankfully, their sequel series, ''[[Transformers Cybertron|Cybertron]]'', received a competent localization, appropriately peppered with [[Woolseyism|Woolseyisms]] and other cleverness that, y'know... made sense.
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* A particularly amusing example comes in the official dub of ''[[Getter Robo]] Armageddon'', where the dub could not decide on which giant robot would be known as Getter-2. Tradition and every other source of media has the silver Getter with a drill-arm being known as the Getter-2, but the name was also strangely applied to the rubber-armed and insanely-different-looking yellow Getter-3 as well.
** The dub also had trouble getting the attack names right. One example has Gou using the right name to fire Shin Getter's Getter Beam in the first episode, but the next time he used it, he called it "Fire Ray". Hell, the never said "Open Get" even though that was English to start with. Although, it did give Ryoma some interesting lines.
{{quote| Ryoma: Laugh while you have a head old man! <and> Payback is a bitch you bloated corpse!}}
* The [[Viz Media|Viz]] translation of the ''[[Read or Die]]'' manga was often overly literal. It gave Yomiko's organization as the "Library of England". While that's technically a literally correct translation, the organization in question is the [[wikipedia:British Library|British Library]]. Maybe a case of [[Creator Provincialism]], if the American translators had never heard of a British institution, or had never seen the (nicely translated) TV series that had come out the year before.
** [[Manga Entertainment]]'s translation of the OVA had an error involving the post-it notes left by Nenene Sumiregawa for Yomiko, which are seen near the beginning of the first episode. These say things such as "Clean this up. -- Nenene". However, the translators apparently didn't recognize that Nenene was supposed to be a person's name (which is understandable, since she doesn't actually appear on-screen in the OVA), and interpreted it as the question-tag particle "ne" repeated three times. As a result, the on screen translation of this note is "Clean this up! Up! Up!" (and similar things for the other notes).
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*** When Sailor Venus introduces herself to the rest of the Senshi for the first time, one of the girls refers to her as "Sailor Five". While she ''is'' technically the fifth team member introduced, "Sailor Five" is likely a misinterpretation of "Sailor V" via Roman numerals... never mind she was constantly called Sailor V up until that scene.
*** Then there's the infamous ''SuperS'' dub, which appears to have been re-translated from the German RTL2 version, by people who have never seen the previous seasons even dubbed, let alone the original. It not only managed to be [[Inconsistent Dub|inconsistent]], but sometimes got downright crazy, particularly in early episodes. For starters, Super Sailor Moon's response to getting the Kaleidomoon Scope for the first time was something along the lines of [[Translation Train Wreck|"A rope?.. What for?.."]]
*** Another case of a crazy translation happened in episode 144. Tuxedo Mask, whose speeches were always given a somewhat... loose interpretation, ended his introduction by suddenly offering the listeners some "magic powder". Cue fandom jokes about what it could be and whether it could be the reason for such translation quality. [https://web.archive.org/web/20131007101921/http://www.freudsmagicpowder.com/ Really fits it].
*** Yet another case was introduced in episode 165, when Nehellenia was explaining the powers of the Golden Crystal. During that sequence, the "energy of children's dreams" somehow became the "energy of the epitomizer". The last word at least sounds to be English but means absolutely nothing in Russian, and it isn't clear where it came from.
** There were some horrible inconsistencies in the Tokyopop translation of the manga. Sailor Tin Nyanko became Sailor Teen or Sailor Tein, Ptilol became Petite Roll, and at one point, Haruka and Hotaru were referred to as 'Alex Haruka' and 'Jenny Hotaru'. There's no explaining why the Outer Senshi kept their Japanese names while the dub names (Darien, Amy etc.) were used for Mamoru and the Inner Senshi, either.
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* ''[[Air Gear]]'' has the "Rez Boa" Dogs. You mean ''Reservoir'' Dogs, right? Oh! Great sucks at English.
* Toei's official subs for the ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' TV series has quite a few mistakes (the humongous monster-like fighter called "Devil Rebirth" becomes "Devil Rivers") and odd translation choices (every martial art style and technique mentioned in the series is given a translated name instead of keeping their proper original one, yet all honorifics are kept), but it's a passable translation otherwise (if overly basic).
** The [https://web.archive.org/web/20190711025310/http://kentaifilmswww.blogspotkentaiblog.com/2009/05/fist-of-eastern-star.html?zx=b1f604a44ad646b Discotek sub] of [[The Movie]], on the other hand, is just filled with instances where the translator [[Did Not Do the Research|did not double check his translation]] or [[They Just Didn't Care|simply didn't care]]. ''Hokuto Shinken'' is repeatedly misspelled as "Hokuto Kenshin" (even though the correct spelling is used as well) and many terms used throughout are mistranslated as well (e.g. "''denshousha''" is translated as "savior" instead of "successor", while "''aniue''", a formal word for "elder brother" that Jagi uses when he's sucking up to Raoh, becomes "master" instead). Most egregiously there are several instances where a character is [[Calling Your Attacks|mentioning the names of their technique]] and the translator, not knowing what the characters were saying, simply replaced it with some made-up embellishment (i.e. ''Nanto Gokusatsu Ken'' or "South Star Hell Murder Fist" is translated as "Nanto cannot be harmed").
*** Discotek did rerelease it with correct subtitles in 2010.
* Although not an example of English or bootleg subtitles, the choice of words in the Finnish subtitles of the anime ''Final Fantasy: Unlimited'' was quite off rather frequently. A good example is during a pretty serious fight, when a swordsman, according to the subtitles, yells something that roughly translates into 'Have a taste of this sword'. Unfortunately, the phrasing made the request sound completely literal. And yes, the subtitles were official.
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** The same thing happened to the characters of ''[[Sister Princess]]'' in the English subtitles of a grey-market Hong Kong release of the series. None of them were called by their actual names, and the names changed several times during the course of the series.
* There was an ''[[Ask Dr. Rin]]'' subbing (I think of Chinese origin, because it was using Chinese names for everyone) that had Tokiwa call himself a "[[Lovable Sex Maniac]]." Now, ostensibly true as that may be for character description purposes, understanding Japanese, I can definitely say that he was calling himself a "[[Onmyodo|shikigami]] user" instead, which makes a lot more sense.
* There is a bootleg of ''[[XxxHolic×××HOLiC]]'' in which every time Watanuki's surname appears, it ''always'' appears as its literal translation ([[Meaningful Name|"April 1"]]).
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V413_i-HGg This Mazinger Z sub]. [[Mazinger Z|Tall Evil God]]. Doctor Hill. Asla. It just... it just keeps going.
** As mazin sounds like majin (demon god) this may explain why Mazinger is translated as Tall Evil God.
** Crabstick. Asia directs the beast king armies of Dr. Hill with its Crabstick.
* In an early episode of the ''[[Ranma One Half½|Ranma 1/2]]'' manga, there is an elaborate pun on "panda," "pan da" and the sound effect "pan". The English translation turns this into a slightly less elaborate pun on the sound effect "pop" and "I'm Ranma's pop", which got literally translated in the French version to the pun-less "Je suis le père de Ranma, pigé?" (in English : "I am Ranma's dad, got it?"). What the...
* A hilarous example in the polish translation of ''[[The Slayers]]'' has Death Fog renamed to "Dead Frog".
** An infamous fansub of Slayers Try had Lina uttering the line "the barrier to the Out World has fallen because a beautiful sorcerer defeated Pedroso." (She was explaining to Gourry that the barrier to the outer world had fallen because she defeated Phibrizzo.) The same fansub also referred to Zelgadis as being a "cyborg."
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* The Brazilian dub of ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'', aside from being completely [[Inconsistent Dub|inconsistent]], has one or two instances of plain weird phrasing. For example: in the second episode, Joe is lecturing the other children -- "A group of people form a party. Our party has 7 people...". The problem here is that the word used for "party" ("festa") doesn't mean "a group of people", but "festivity". Cue fandom joke.
* ''Initial D 4th Stage'' out of Malasia has some particularily horrid examples. The subs appear to be translations of the Chinese dubs, which seem to have been censored to aviod giving people ideas. When Itsuki turbocharges his Levin, a couple of car otakus comment that it has "the part" and when Takumi gets snubbed on Akina, he clearly says ''something'' (my Japanese isn't that good) about "braking," but the sub just says, "That is not an easy opponent." Names can be as-they-sound-in-Japanese, as-the-kanji-sound-if-read-as-Chinese (Takumi ends up being something like "Liagjang"), or transalated into English (Daiki is often "Big Tree"). Then later in the stage Keisuke damages his own car and the team has to get a "shopping car." My personal favorite is when Daiki brings his car into the garage before the battle because, "I need to check the car baker. Lend me some glue."
* The Brazilian dub of ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'' managed to mistranslate "Caster" as "Castor" (Beaver). Seriously.
* Early English fansubs of ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' translates the line which is supposed to be "That violates the laws of cause and effect!" as "That's treason against the wish itself!"
** Not that Kyubey saying that would be incorrect, though. The wish is compensation for becoming a puella magi, {{spoiler|a witch}}, and eventually {{spoiler|a source of energy for Incubators to harvest}}; if Madoka makes it thus that witches can't exist, then there would have not been a reason {{spoiler|for Incubators}} to offer the wish.
* The Dutch sub of Miyazaki's ''[[Film/HowlsHowl's Moving Castle (anime)|HowlsHowl's Moving Castle]]'' translates "The Witch of the Waste" as "De Heks van Verspilling", i.e. "The Witch of Waste", rather than "De Heks van de Woestenij".
* ''[[Super Atragon]]'': The battleship ''Ra'''s Captain Hayate shouts, "ENGAGE!" when issuing "Fire" commands.
** He also refers to the main guns' shells as "Missiles" despite the animation clearly showing they're shells.
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* ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'' features an egregious example of bad translation when Kagato is finally killed by Tenchi he says 'I see, Tenchi can't be copied' which makes absolutely no sense and should have been easily caught by any number of people. The line should have been 'I see, regeneration is not possible'. Considering this is an especially important moment because it's how Kagato is defeated it's especially jarring.
* ''[[Deadman Wonderland]]'', one example:
{{quote| '''Ganta''': Is there only bad stuff in reality? (Are there only bad things in the world?)}}
* The original Finnish translation of ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' by Agapio Racing Team was just as bad as their dubbing. It appears that the translators had no idea about the context when translating the dialogue - whenever a word could be translated in two ways, they picked the wrong one. Especially hilarious when the word is ''dropping''.
 
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