PDA

View Full Version : So how much dialog from Princess Mononoke was "Americanized"?



Videogamer555
10-15-2010, 04:43 AM
I saw this from Wikipedia (bolded the important parts)


The US and UK DVD releases have both the English and Japanese soundtracks, together with subtitles for both the English dub and a more literal translation.

At Miyazaki's insistence, the film was uncut for the English release, so that only the soundtrack was altered. The English dub of Princess Mononoke is a translation with some adaptation by Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman. The main changes from the Japanese version are to provide a cultural context for phrases and actions which those outside of Asia may not be familiar with. Such alterations include references to mythology and specific names for groups, such as Jibashiri and Shishigami, that appear in the Japanese version, which are changed to more general terms, such as Mercenary and Forest Spirit, in the English version. The rationale for such changes is that the majority of non-Japanese viewers would not understand the mythological references and that the English language simply has no words for the Jibashiri, Shishigami and other terms. However, some critics (Michael Atkinson, Mr. Showbiz) have said that the translation from Japanese to English and the alterations in which it has resulted have weakened the film somewhat.

The English dub received mixed reviews from critics. While most of the reaction was positive, others criticized the dub for most of its casting choices, notably Billy Bob Thornton as Jigo and Claire Danes as San, claiming that they detracted from the experience. Despite this love-hate atmosphere, the dub has been hailed as one of the best ever done alongside Spirited Away, which has been met with the same criticism.

The film has also been dubbed in Mandarin, Cantonese, Czech, French, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian and Spanish.


This leaves me wondering, was only the English dub "Americanized" by changing the terminology to something more familiar to Americans? Or also did they do the same inaccurate* translation for the English subtitles?

*Inaccurate because the names of Japanese mythological characters have no English counterpart, so even an English sentence containing the name of such a creature should (if translated correctly) leave that one untranslatable word in Japanese (just like with the names of human characters that are Japanese names because the people in question are Japanese so they are meant to not have an English translation).

For example I could have character called Yakosaki (Japanese name I just made up for the example) and in sentence that is CORRECTLY translated to English it might say "Then Yakosaki ran to attack the enemy", but incorrectly "Americanized" it might be "Then John ran to attack the enemy" (an English name picked at random to take the Japaneseness out of it to pretend it was written in English to start with). Now I can almost certainly gauranty this "Americanization" has been used on dubs (dubs useually are messed up), but I'm not sure if the subtitles (not fan subs, but OFFICIAL subs) are also messed up along with the dub (I'm not sure if subs are useually on an official/nonpirated basis designed to match the dub word-for-word or not, but usually pirated/bootleg copies have subs very different from the dub in order to be more accurate in translation).



To sumarize, I just want to know if the OFFICIAL subtitles do a better job of translating that the OFFICIAL dubs (don't care about the fansubs right now, because I'm actually looking to BUY this anime and want to know if I should just stick with the fansubed pirated copy I already have [such as if the official subs the same as the dub and therefore are much worse than the fansubs], or if I should buy the real thing [such as if the official subs are better than the dub and about the same as the fan subs]).

Please let me know the know how accurately the official subs are compared to the official dub.

Thanks in advance.

wolfgirl90
10-15-2010, 01:09 PM
Umm...interesting. Let point out some things first. When it comes to Princess Mononoke, there are two sets of English subtitles: one for the English dub and one for the Japanese dub (in fact, you could have found this out in the exact same Wikipedia article; it was the very first sentence that you quoted). And while there were some name changes and Americanization, these things shouldn't be treated as "inaccurate translations". I mean, to admit that Japanese names don't need to be translated (that is NOT to say that they can't; so long as Kanji is used to make the name, a Japanese name can certainly be translated), but then turn around to say that changing the name causes an inaccurate translation doesn't make any sense. For example, "Yakosaki" literally means "happy yehu", but no one is going to change it; however, simply changing it to "John" doesn't really mean that the overall translation of the show is incorrect.

Now to your question. Unless you are fluent in Japanese, you technically can't tell the difference between an "accurate" translation and an "inaccurate" translation. Fansubs are usually of worse quality than official translations simply because the people who translate them are usually amateurs (simply knowing Japanese is not enough to properly translate on a professional level). English DVDs will usually use the more direct translation for the subtitles or even have two separate subtitle tracks (the practice of "dubtitling", using the English dub scripts for the English subtitles, is not really practiced anymore). What happens with the subtitles depends on the anime, the age range that its aimed at, whether the show will appear on television and the company doing the translation.

Videogamer555
10-16-2010, 01:29 AM
Umm...interesting. Let point out some things first. When it comes to Princess Mononoke, there are two sets of English subtitles: one for the English dub and one for the Japanese dub (in fact, you could have found this out in the exact same Wikipedia article.
Does that mean that the English DVD of Princess Mononoke has 2 dub tracks (original Japanese voice, and translated to English voice), and 2 separate subtitle tracks (each one for the corresponding dub, both English but two slightly different translations)?

wolfgirl90
10-16-2010, 10:51 AM
Does that mean that the English DVD of Princess Mononoke has 2 dub tracks (original Japanese voice, and translated to English voice), and 2 separate subtitle tracks (each one for the corresponding dub, both English but two slightly different translations)?

Yeeeees. It was the very first thing that you quoted (no offense, but how in the world did you make the decision to bold parts of that article, yet miss the sentence that answered your own question?).

The English DVD has the English (yet Americanized) dub and the Japanese dub. There are two subtitle tracks, one for the English dub and one that is a more direct translation of the Japanese dub.

I did, however, point out that having this idea that fansubs are better than official subtitles on a general level is rather flawed if one doesn't know enough Japanese to actually know the difference between the two.