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So I remembered Shout Factory having forums at one time that Briand Ward actually talked to people on, but that seems to be a thing of the past because I can't find it. I've heard that Shout's people read this forum tho so I'm hoping they see this topic (also if this is in the wrong place, please move it, altho remember I want it to be seen).
Simply put, I have heavy concerns about Kakuranger on DVD. Specifically, the handling of the translation.
I'll be frank.... over the last decade, I've noticed a disturbing trend among licensors of Japanese media. That being that in their official subtitles and translations, they pay no attention to meaning or nuance, or in some cases even basic viewing or narrative considerations, and in doing so wind up creating subtitles that, at best, are followable but lose a lot of the "character," and at worse make a show un-followable without translation notes.
For a case of this, in the anime Clannad there's a character named Fuko who always referred to herself in first person, ie "Fuko wants you to come to her big sister's wedding!" This was a major character quirk, one even commented on by other characters, and contributed to her "cuteness." But when Sentai Filmworks licensed the series and brought it over... they made the dialogue too formal, and that included eradicating her quirk, and in doing so rendering any lines that referred to it nonsensical.
Another case of this was in Lucky Star. In one scene, two girls are looking at a picture they think is of Konata close to her dad, and Konata says "that's my mom." The fansubs translated the next line as "She was legal, right?" But the official DVDs translated it as "I hope it wasn't a crime!" While the same meaning gets across, the latter sounds stiff and inhuman, while the former sounds like what people would actually say.
This brings me to Kakuranger.
As the group GUIS noted, Kakuranger is a very Japanese series, and also one that needs to have care taken in its translation, otherwise its rendered incomprehensible, or at the very least it becomes on the level of Sony's official translation of Final Fantasy VII, where you can follow the basic plot but a lot of other essential information is lost.
One example of this occurs in episode three, with the introduction of American Ninja Jiraiya, a character who speaks fluent English in much of his scenes, but whose Japanese starts out bad but gets better as time goes on. He also rather consistently uses certain Japanese terms (such as the series transformation phrase, "Super Henge!") despite being a native English speaker. As GUIS's notes said, "if the creators intended the term to be translated, they would've done so themselves." Besides which translating certain terms loses some of the wordplay, and again would make some parts incomprehensible--for example, there's a part where an old word for scroll, makiniko (if I spelled that wrong, sorry), is left as-is by the fansubbers because there's wordplay on it later.
My fear is that Shout might, for example, simply translate the word as "scroll" in all instances, thus losing the wordplay and making that conversation confusing. It's a minor example, but if enough of these pile up, it'll make the entire translation no better than one of those Hong Kong bootlegs.
Now, I've talked up GUIS so much I must sound like a shill, so I'll go all the way: my recommendation is that you simply license their subtitles and include a printout of their translation notes as a booklet.
If for some reason that is impossible, I hope your own translators are at least aware of these issues and are trying their best to preserve the show's nuances, and will include their own notes. My purpose is simply to hope Shout Factory is aware that the quality of translation could make or break this particular season. If done wrong, it'll be boring, if not impossible to understand, and likely will sell the least of all your releases. And to me, that would be terrible, as I hope Shout keeps translating Sentai well into the next millennium.
Anyway, I've advanced my concerns. What you do with this info is up to you.
May the Power protect you always.
Simply put, I have heavy concerns about Kakuranger on DVD. Specifically, the handling of the translation.
I'll be frank.... over the last decade, I've noticed a disturbing trend among licensors of Japanese media. That being that in their official subtitles and translations, they pay no attention to meaning or nuance, or in some cases even basic viewing or narrative considerations, and in doing so wind up creating subtitles that, at best, are followable but lose a lot of the "character," and at worse make a show un-followable without translation notes.
For a case of this, in the anime Clannad there's a character named Fuko who always referred to herself in first person, ie "Fuko wants you to come to her big sister's wedding!" This was a major character quirk, one even commented on by other characters, and contributed to her "cuteness." But when Sentai Filmworks licensed the series and brought it over... they made the dialogue too formal, and that included eradicating her quirk, and in doing so rendering any lines that referred to it nonsensical.
Another case of this was in Lucky Star. In one scene, two girls are looking at a picture they think is of Konata close to her dad, and Konata says "that's my mom." The fansubs translated the next line as "She was legal, right?" But the official DVDs translated it as "I hope it wasn't a crime!" While the same meaning gets across, the latter sounds stiff and inhuman, while the former sounds like what people would actually say.
This brings me to Kakuranger.
As the group GUIS noted, Kakuranger is a very Japanese series, and also one that needs to have care taken in its translation, otherwise its rendered incomprehensible, or at the very least it becomes on the level of Sony's official translation of Final Fantasy VII, where you can follow the basic plot but a lot of other essential information is lost.
One example of this occurs in episode three, with the introduction of American Ninja Jiraiya, a character who speaks fluent English in much of his scenes, but whose Japanese starts out bad but gets better as time goes on. He also rather consistently uses certain Japanese terms (such as the series transformation phrase, "Super Henge!") despite being a native English speaker. As GUIS's notes said, "if the creators intended the term to be translated, they would've done so themselves." Besides which translating certain terms loses some of the wordplay, and again would make some parts incomprehensible--for example, there's a part where an old word for scroll, makiniko (if I spelled that wrong, sorry), is left as-is by the fansubbers because there's wordplay on it later.
My fear is that Shout might, for example, simply translate the word as "scroll" in all instances, thus losing the wordplay and making that conversation confusing. It's a minor example, but if enough of these pile up, it'll make the entire translation no better than one of those Hong Kong bootlegs.
Now, I've talked up GUIS so much I must sound like a shill, so I'll go all the way: my recommendation is that you simply license their subtitles and include a printout of their translation notes as a booklet.
If for some reason that is impossible, I hope your own translators are at least aware of these issues and are trying their best to preserve the show's nuances, and will include their own notes. My purpose is simply to hope Shout Factory is aware that the quality of translation could make or break this particular season. If done wrong, it'll be boring, if not impossible to understand, and likely will sell the least of all your releases. And to me, that would be terrible, as I hope Shout keeps translating Sentai well into the next millennium.
Anyway, I've advanced my concerns. What you do with this info is up to you.
May the Power protect you always.
