Kamen Rider Ryuki - Talkback

[mmartina]

Time to ressurect this thread, as I'm now in the middle of watching Ryuki (episode 20 to be exact).

Asakura Takeshi is actually starting to become one of my favorite characters, besides the fact that he is the most suicidal lunatic I've ever seen in my life.

I love Asakura's reasonings for everything he does ".......because I'm vexed."

Asakura my favorite Rider, it's always cool when 1 Rider stays evil the whole series.

 

[garfield15]

Not like that Leangle guy. He was like Kusaka gone even more wrong (but then right).

 

[Forever Knight]

Asakura my favorite Rider, it's always cool when 1 Rider stays evil the whole series.

Damn right. Asakura is still one of my favs.

Not like that Leangle guy. He was like Kusaka gone even more wrong (but then right).

Kusaka was one of the best assholes in Rider history. As for Leangle, the kid was just too young. Plus I still laugh at how Toei chose Jiro Okamoto as the suit actor for Leangle. Jiro is like 4x the size of Mutsuki's actor. :laugh:

 

[MegaRed]

Yeah, the movie is great!
I still don't know how an injured Shinji [HIDE]defeated a Ryuga in good health even though Ryuga's Final Vent is stronger, but hey, Shinji won![/HIDE]

[HIDE]I always attributed it to the fact he was going down and was able to build up more momentum. While Ryuga was going up.[/HIDE]

 

[Darkster]

[HIDE]I always attributed it to the fact he was going down and was able to build up more momentum. While Ryuga was going up.[/HIDE]

Hm, that's interesting. It also crossed by mind back then.

 

[big_j_ny]

Just watched episode 29, and I have one comment to make about that episode.............

WHAT A WASTED USE OF ODIN'S TIME VENT CARD

It was nothing but a damn clip show episode..........via thru the effects of Time Vent. It was rather pointless considering they could have done an effective clip show without TIME VENT, it just wasted the very use of that card.

 

[Darkster]

There's more meaning to the use of the Time Vent card.

 

[Aoiblue]

I dont think I wouldve liked to see a regular show clip though....Also
[HIDE]Big Text makes me look more disappointed then it should be[/HIDE]

 

[Midori Ken]

There's more meaning to the use of the Time Vent card.

What an idiot. If Kanzaki Shiro really wanted to protect that picture, he should have just got a frame. :laugh:

 

[wyyc]

I think a translator with no grasp of colloquial English usage just picked a potential meaning of "iraira" out of his J -> E dictionary at random!

Vexed has connotations in English that are absolutely inappropriate to Asakura. I feel like his use of "iraira" would be best translated as "pissed off," since Asakura strikes me as the type to use a lot of slang and crude (yet TV-friendly) language. You could also use "annoyed" or "irritated" and they'd be reasonably appropriate.

Good English usage is all about the synonyms, not 1-to-1 correspondence. English is a language that typically has 6 to 10 different words you can use to express any idea, each with very particular connotations that suit different moods and levels of formality. When you translate any language into English, picking out synonyms to properly convey gradations of meaning is crucial.

Here, do something for me. Pause a Ryuki episode sometime and read Asakura's dialog out loud. Go on, do it. Try to say it the way you think Asakura would. Record yourself. Play it back. You'll probably notice that your recording sounds completely stupid.

That's a classic sign of bad dialog translation. A good dialog translation can be read out load and will sound... if not natural, like something a Westerner would write. Western TV shows have characters like Asakura and they sure as hell aren't ever saying that they're "vexed" because nobody talks that way.



Two problems here. One, Asakura IS stating that he's pissed outright. That's what "iraira" means. If his dialog was meant to understate his anger he'd have an entirely different, much more circuitous speech pattern. Especially since Japanese is loaded with ways to say you're murderously angry without using terms as blunt as "iraira."

Two, when Asakura is ready to kill a guy and says he's "vexed," it makes him sound like he's bored and mildly disinterested in the action. "Vexed" is a prissy word, something you say if you're an upper-crust British lawyer who drinks a lot of Earl Grey tea. Asakura is a stone cold killer. Why is he using prissy language?

I often found the dissonance between Asakura's usually-overt tone and the goofy word choice in the translation hilarious, so I had problems taking Asakura seriously. Asakura is clearly intended as a sort of lowbrow Hannibal Lecter, the one guy who's playing the Rider Fight "correctly." He should be bluntly terrifying; no more, no less.

Point taken. I was just defending the subbers' choice of the word vexed, since I can see it being used by the character Asakura.

And also,

Here, do something for me. Pause a Ryuki episode sometime and read Asakura's dialog out loud. Go on, do it. Try to say it the way you think Asakura would. Record yourself. Play it back. You'll probably notice that your recording sounds completely stupid.

That's a classic sign of bad dialog translation. A good dialog translation can be read out load and will sound... if not natural, like something a Westerner would write. Western TV shows have characters like Asakura and they sure as hell aren't ever saying that they're "vexed" because nobody talks that way.

doesn't apply. This is a Japanese TV show. I could pause Double and read out all of Terui or Shotaro's lines, or any other Kamen Rider show ("I am the child of the sun" anyone?) and they'll all sound weird in English. It sounds right in Japanese because firstly there're the cultural differences between Japan and America, and by extension their television programmes, and secondly these characters are larger-than-life. While Asakura is meant to be a murderer, in the end he's another dude who uses a card deck to transform into a costumed mass murderer in a children's show. My personal opinion is that characters like him don't exist on children's shows in America and that while using vexed makes him feel more threatening to me (due to the understatement it makes), it also tones him down for the child viewers who end up thinking the poor dude really is just having a bad hair day.

I hope I explained my opinions on this. To sum it up, frankly I just like how the word vexed makes him seem more threatening than any other word I can think of, even if you feel it might not fit, since I do use understatements whenever I feel particularly pissed with people (esp. my sister), just to make her more afraid. Yeah, I know I'm mean. :laugh: