Apparently one of the localisers publicly admitted on Twitter that most of them don't even speak Japanese in the first place. If they're already using machine translation as the basis for their lines before cleaning it up during localisation, they are even less important than most people think they are. Complaining about AI taking over your job when you are already using AI (like Google Translate) to do your job.
I mean, if that's the state of things, we might as well hire the old fansub groups to translate, since at least they will be passionate about the subject.
I really hope AM Studios (Anime Matsuri's dubbing studio) gives us an update soon. They were promising accurate translations. Really hope they get fully started up soon. This translation issue stuff has gone on long enough. I'm so tired of it. How these VA's and translators treat the fans of anime and manga is awful.
It’s sad that I have to root for Ai taking somebody’s job, but when you go about doing a bad job for years on end ruining dubs and translations you should lose your job.
It is unfortunate but definitely these translators bought it on themselves. It shouldn't surprise these translators for studios to protect their bottomline and/or take control and preserve the original work.
To me it's not even the huge big things like adding in stupid internet memes or political opinions into work you didn't create. That's a no brainier to me that this kind of stuff shouldn't be allowed. I think the problem could be easily solved even without AI by just hiring people who aren't VA's to do the translations. It should be just like any other translation work, where you need some experience with the medium, but overall your name should stay out of it. Like, no one knows the names of the people that translate books into other languages, nor should they. They are clerks, not artists, their job is to accurately translate the original work and all it's themes and messages, not to make up their own. To me I'm actually more in support of AI because even outside of those big ego-driven "translations" (they are more like adaptations), I take issue with the constantly inaccurate translations in subtitles as well. My Japanese is pretty bad, but it's good enough that I'm constantly frustrated reading subs when i can tell that's absolutely not the real thing the character was actually saying, and they changed it to something else that completely missed important nuances in terms of their tone, attitude, etc. by changing things around. It's those constant small little tweaks that they fail at that are the reason that I'd be all for a well-made AI translation, but the problem is who is going to train that AI, and will it's core translation knowledge be given to it by these same people that constantly make these little errors, because then we're right back where we started. Also, I'm very progressive, and also think people that use terms like SJW etc. are all idiots, but just because I agree with the politics of the people who are injecting these things into their translations doesn't mean I agree with the idea that they should be allowed to do so. Write their own works, they are glorified data entry translation clerks, not writers, not comedians, their job isn't to rewrite products and put their own messages in them, it's to accurately translate them into a different language for a new audience. I'm curious if other language anime translators have to deal with this issue in like, Hindi or Spanish or Portuguese etc. or if it's just English language translators that somehow think they are actual creatives when all they are asked to do is translate something.
Actually, funimation does have some high-quality translations out there. Dubbed my hero academia was ten times better than the subbed one, as well as hunter x hunter
I love to hear comments like this from people who dont watch dubs and havent encountered any issues themselves, but sure continue to fearmongering about nonexistent issue.
well thats what happens when they rely on too much woke and this is very common for hollywood. companies keep losing money based on woke agenda and this is why ai is coming in.
That's why everybody pirate anime in my country - why pay for shitty translations in english when many fansubbing groups do that correctly, in my language and for free?
Exactly. I’m not gonna pay a company that clearly doesn’t care about the original source material my money, when I have other better options that doesn’t do such terrible job at translating.
I pay for Spotify just fine when I could easily just download TH-cam videos as MP3's. I would gladly pay for Crunchyroll if they weren't complete shitheels.
actually no, that's not equally as easy, it's a hassle. Youre using something happening once 7 years ago as an excuse, dumdum. Most translations you are getting are rips from crunchyroll anyway and you dont complain.@@theexistentialnihilist2070
This shows a lot about myself and I hate it. If I had power I’ll definitely go crazy over it. It a flaw that I don’t like but also it feels like it’s what makes me human, a Ying Yang as they say.
its the same for all japanese shows, i know a japanese translator that works for netflix, she translates the piece of media she hands it over, then there is corporate review and changes from hyper ups in the final product. One of the changes they make is, they want the show to appear more sophisticated than it actually is, so a scene that says ''i go crazy sempai'' turns into ''i think im interested in sempai''
Jamie Marchi's true colors were shown since the Vic Migogna situation that happened about 5 years ago and the same time that's when I learned about the patriarchy line in the Dragon Maid anime. She really is a cruel garbage person.
i would think so i don't get how she still gets more work. as a creator i would not hire her no wokeness would be allowed. if you have an agenda you will not be hired that simple
I'm so glad you pointed out the humor thing. I've watched anime scenes in Japanese(subbed) and thought it was hilarious for any viewer, but then I watch the same scene dubbed and the words they chose would only be funny to twitter users or heavy slang users.
I disagree, as AI is right now, you cannot release it without a human translator editing it. Instead what needs to happen is for the translators being help accountable
There would need to be some human intervention Ai isn’t perfect like some think but it’s not as far off as erasing a whole joke and inserting a political gag to replace it either.
For one of my favorite series we had a scan group who did the series for years. And there’s a special name given to a group of people in the series. Recently the official French translation has changed the word to something less intimate, and a rather large group of us is worried that when the English version drops, it will not be what we have known for years at this point. All for something to fit what the translators want.
12:12 It's not even full AI translation. It's An AI doing 90% of the raw work by bulk translating, and then an editor goes over it. They even said in their announcement, "AI-assisted". So It's probably better than the fully AI translated stuff people WOULD and DO take over these lolcowlizers.
One of my big issues with this whole AI Assisted thing is that there's no guarantee that this editor won't just do the same damn thing as the current hacks. Unless there's some kind of cultural oversight, then I don't think this will solve the issue.
@@SuperBrainSandwich if only there were people who were FANS of the series and created SUBS for the series with a focus on faith to the original and provided useful information at the top as needed and then gave away the product of their labour for free because they love the work. even better still if there was a whole bunch of them so you could chose which ones to follow and there wasn't one group that could act as a gatekeeper. shame such a thing doesn't exist.
@@tuseroni6085 Your sarcasm isn't appreciated, I'm fully aware that fan subs exist, but the video isn't really about fan subs, or even subs. I'm not one of those people who subscribes to the stupid subs vs dubs war, I enjoy can either depending on the situation. Sometimes, I don't want or am not able to watch subs for whatever reason. In those situations, I want dubs that are both good quality and as accurate to the source material as possible. Also, blind people exist, and they can't really use subs and must use dubs (I know, not exactly common, but they definitely exist). Do they just get fucked? Do they not deserve accurate dubs? Fully relying on fan subs is only going to allow these insane activists to continue abusing their positions and destroying the source material.
@@SuperBrainSandwich i think you have misinterpreted my intention with my post, it wasn't directed at you personally but simply piggybacking off your post to lament how successful the industry has been at quashing fansubs and how fansubs actually provide a better option than the official subs. i don't care if these insane activists want to make horrible subs, there have always been subbers that make terrible subs (like the infamous "mass n*ked child events" mistranslation...i may be showing my age a bit though...) the key thing is to have choices, if i don't like a certain subber's subs i can just go to another one. what we have a monopoly, and when you get a monopoly you get anti-consumer practices...like this, like we see in hollywood(which is basically a cartel at this point) copyright is a government granted monopoly, and it needs to be reined in.
you have to admit, though, that translators have been literally necessary to anime being made available at all within any language that is not japanese. imagine if the anglosphere didnt have any animation from japan, going all the way back to astro boy 63 if not further, until AI became able to do translation. we straight up probably wouldnt even have dragonball z or pokemon. i agree that translators should translate responsibly. in translations of, say, prose literature, certain publishers allow translator's notes if not entire introductory chapters in which the translator has a fair opportunity to expound upon their translation. but ultimately this discussion feels a little too 'us vs them' imo. it refers to specific instances and people, then generalizes accusations against those individuals or about those instances to all translators and translated works. there is room to critique certain translations, but anyone with a certain amount of knowledge of japanese recognizes how difficult the language is to translate, particularly when jokes depend on wordplay and kanji (which is often) or when context is the only way to understand the sentence in the japanese. for example, a 'literal' translation of characters sharing a meal would turn 'itadakimasu', which is commonly said before every meal in japan, into 'i accept' or 'i respectfully receive'. when translators use the term 'localization', they mean taking that literal translation and changing it to something that english speakers can more easily understand, like 'let's eat!' imho we should all work together to improve the quality of translations, not rely on AI to come up with very poor translations.
Very good points, like itadakimasu I would say baka as well when left as is seems much endearing where when translated you generally get Idiot which generally makes me dislike the character saying it ... not sure why that is
I'm glad it that took the use of AI for these shoddy localizers to seethe. Some translators use the medium to flex their creative writing muscles and change the content instead of giving us a faithful translation.
I don't understand why they don't just make their own original work promoting their social and politcal agenda whereas using someone else's work to do it thereby disrespecting the original artist and work. It's just opportunistic and lazy.
@@Course6Beaver If they had that kind of talent, they would. The skills involved in adequately translating something are very different than actually creating it from scratch.
@@Course6Beaver I have a feeling it's because they're using the medium of already existing anime and manga to springboard their beliefs to a much wider audience while also trying to dismantle said popular mediums due to anime and manga possessing content that does not line up with their worldview and "beliefs".
I think one thing the anime community is going to have to accept is that these original voice actors are not and never were one us. They are 3rd rate actors who failed into a niche they never cared about.
I've had a long think about this. At first I was absolutely outraged by it, but I've realised something. There is a narrow band where you have to change things to accommodate for the cultural norms of the target audience, which means there has to be some leeway & liberty afforded. The actual problem I see is people taking advantage of that liberty to be an activist, which is not ok.
13:00 They did not get rid of the people, they rebranded because CR was a bigger brand than FUNimation, and to this day many people don't know they are the same company, or think as you do, that CR absorbed FUNi. Crunchy didn't do dubs, or barely, they just subtitled. Most of the dubs available in CR before the purchase were made by FUNi. They even had shared license to a lot of shows, here FUNi would make the dub and Crunchy the subs (that were still bad but less political). With the acquisition they claimed 80% of the market, and they stopped trying to put on a façade. Now they've even injected their bs on HIDIVE (Sentai Filmworks), who used to be the "good guy" and the underdog, with the smallest piece of the pie ("mansplaining" in Dangers in my Heart being the best example)
There needs to be a big change in how localization and translation in anime and manga are handled. It's insulting that we as consumers and fans have to put up with bullies when all we ask for is accurate translations.
Terrible translations and dubbing have been around for as long as anime has been released here. I remember the release of the Video Girl AI DVD from Viz. For those not familiar with the story it's a love triangle where boy A loves girl B, girl B loves boy C (friend of Boy A) and is ignorant of the feelings of Boy A. At one point the dub completely broke the love triangle by Girl B confessing love to Boy A when the sub/Japanese version said nothing of the sort.
Except many of the meeting now that don't even speak Japanese so how could they translate a language they don't speak my answer is they're making it up. They are basically doing what Harmony gold did with Robotech
By the way her saying she's a funny woman. She better think that we live in a civilized representative constitutional republic because if she was doing this in front of a king and the King didn't find it funny the j e s t e r does not survive. I wonder if these people are so insulated that they don't realize how awful they sound at times. Like nobody will tell them the truth because nobody tells the truth they continue to be not funny
Well I for one welcome our A.I overlords!😗❤🤖 The transition to A.I translations will come with growing pains. But watching stuck up people from an industry that I love get there just desserts is so good it completely over shadow's any possible draw backs from the replacement of the localizers. So I'm onboard!!!
We now know that they aren't translators at all. They are localizers who don't speak Japanese most of the time. They get their translation of the material and then adapt it.
Not defending people who have agendas, but just want to point out that accurate translation is a very gray idea. I really recommend at least the first 18 minutes of the RadioLab translation episode which I will link below to anyone who is interested in a brief look at the difficulty that translators face. Is an accurate translation a translation that captures the spirit of the original work? Does it need to capture the words and phrasing as accurately as possible? Those two things are not always possible at the same time.
I can't wait for ai too take their damn jobs... Back in the day sub groups had great translations with note, explained why things are translated as such, and what it meant in Japanese culture.
The prime issue with coming together to talk about solutions is that the translators are actively berating those with criticism as being objectively evil, crying about being replaced by AI and crying about having no support. Let them be replaced by AI and if they have anything at all to add to the industry, those translators will find their niche and people like Jamie hopefully go the way of the dodo.
I'm glad you're covering this Andrew as this been popping up a lot on my recommended YT vids. As for your two points, I definitely agree with you. The translators/dubbers involved should not be injecting their own political agenda and beliefs into the original work for others. In regards to translators that don't inject their beliefs but use current trend gamer talk and memes, I don't like it and it irks me but it's not a deal breaker like those injecting their beliefs and agenda. I've never felt more fortunate nowadays being fluent in Mandarin and Korean and took Japanese throughout high school and college to have an elementary understanding of spoken Japanese.
I love you point of view man. I only watch subtitled I tried watching dubs but the voice actors make me cringe LOL I didn't even know this was going on thank you for bringing this out
It’s not even just anime. I’d been noticing it before, but in Shining Nikki, they‘ve started to use an absurd amount of slang for a specific character who would NEVER use it in the recent event (Yexiao). The character is the one of the oldest characters in game, who uses polite and wise language on a usual basis. Everyone who plays the game that I know have complained about it. It’s not even limited to her. The narrator says, “It seems like the wind elf don’t have much of a beef with Nikki’s request.” It doesn’t even make grammatical sense
Admittedly, I think Funimation dubs were much better when certain VAs like Laura Bailey or Cherami Leigh are involved, which may explain why I enjoyed some of Funi’s dubs such as Soul Eater and Fairy Tail.
I want faithful translations. AI can't do it yet, but it is rapidly improving. Part of what makes anime interesting to me is seeing how it reflects the source cultures. If I wanted dumbed-down Western culture I can watch The Simpsons.
5:20 It's not translators, it's localizers. Many of them don't even know the original language, they work on someone else's translation and then credit themselves as writers on IMDb. Translation and localization are two completely different beasts. A good translator would engage in as minimal localization as possible, only when it's paramount (i.e. never in written pieces, that's what Translator's Notes are for, and rarely in oral content, like dubs)
It's amazing that this seems to be the one profession where a lack of profesionalism isn't just tolerated but enabled by their employers. I've been pretty much sub only for years since the performaces are generally better but the way the localizers and dub "talent" have been in public is just such petty primadonna bs that I welcome their new AI overlords.
@@wingracer1614Exactly, the subs are often written by VA's that work on the project, and they use the same script. There is no difference, and they constantly have minor and major translation errors that completely miss nuances in the process. It's really frustrating how they don't just hire actual professional translation services to do the scripts, who would view it as a more clerical job where accuracy is more important than trying to use it as an artistic outlet for their starved ego.
Sometimes just a low level of understanding what you can gain even from playing apps like duolingo/drops/lingodeer can help to understand the language. At least with that you can tell if you play fire emblem engage with sub where the japanese VA is romance and the english text are completely different.
I am happy to be called a Nazi, mysogonist, bad person, racist or any other insult by anyone on the left for having standards and wanting to have accurate translation and no localization by translators in manga, anime, and gaming. I do not want ideology forced into my entertainment.
The bigger issue is that we have an entire generation (or generations, actually) brought up feeling entitled. They no longer understand the difference between a right and a privilege, and think they are entitled to everything.
The issue is that anime localizers aren't taken seriously and haven't been for over a decade. They've been able to slide this crap into their works since the days of Tokyopop for that reason. But time and time again, they've failed. But, since the days of Kadokawa and Kodansha taking over their own stuff, this has become less frequent. Seven Seas and Crunchyroll are now the primary offenders and they've been called out several times for their stuff. But at this point, if they stopped dubbing, most people wouldn't even care because they're not taken seriously.
What makes it even more appalling is that 99% of all english VA's act without ANY LIFE in their voice. as if they know they aren;t getting replaced even if they deliver shitty lines In japan its the following: Do your lines or be ready to replaced there are 10K waiting for a role, so If you can't do it then you're gone. They should push the same kind of mindset to english VA as well. Let them get desperate to keep their jobs, let them ACT PROPERLY. and not have a MONOTONE lineread [which is how all english VA's sound to me]
regardless of what happens fans are always fixing flaws in official products in pirate land both on the localizer side and the original japanese release. so feelings of people at funimation aside not much has changed for us. as far as Ai goes translations are nice but I'm hoping one is created that can remaster colors eliminating banding once and for all. lastly if japan dose the localization themselves uncensored releases will get even harder to find then they already are and that's a trade I'm not willing to make over some flubbed lines.
I have mixed feelings about adding slang. Cringy zoomer slang is cringy but what if you are translating Japanese cringy zoomer slang? Anyway, one of my favorite English editions is Watamote, some volumes have 3 pages of notes explaining Japanese references, even some internet culture stuff.
We need translator notes back. They got meme'd on (rightly so) back in the fansub "all according to keikaku" days, but on the other end of the spectrum there's Monogatari which requires extensive T/Ns to be appreciated (really it probably requires being a fluent speaker immersed in Japanese culture, but T/Ns are the next best thing).
Also, like, I'm not a fluent speaker, but sometimes a joke is made and I'm just like "yeah there's no way that sub was accurate" (or "that sub didn't really even make sense" if it's a more literal translation) which is *fine*: by all means, localize some wordplay instead of word-for-word translating it (or word-for-word that shit if you want!), but like... just use a T/N to tell me what the actual joke was. Explain the original wordplay! I don't care if it's like dissecting a frog and it'll kill the joke. You know what else kills the joke? Not understanding it at all. At least it becomes educational this way.
Can't say I disagree more with forcing a direct 1 to 1 translation. The quality to me is always if the messaging is the same and do the changes that are made work for the art rather then a political agenda. I'll say my favorite Anime is "My First Girlfriend is a Gal" and specifically with the English title because of what the dub added to the watching experience. The Manga is probably 3/10 and the sub 5/10. In stark contrast to the source the dub specifically used accents and verbiage that were not in the source but instantly upon hearing it brought me in. Its still an artistic choice and if that choice fits the location and medium then I think thats a good thing. AI translations are going to be concern no matter how well directed they are. Undirected are going to be bland while directed, without actual humans pushing back, are likely to have marketing getting a hold of it and brand messaging is going to wind up making it into show in every second sentence. For more reasons then those I can't help thinking that the belief that you are going to get a more true translation from AI is delusional. JM is also on stage here and playing to a particular audience, the words don't really have much weight to me.
Hopefully most Japanese companies will look at this and start translating their own anime's for a better quality product, but I doubt Sony will actually do anything. As they've shown in their other divisions, like PlayStation, they have no problem censoring there products even if their customer base is against it. My hope is anime doesn't get too mainstream where we start receiving the lowest common denominator content at the source.
I do believe this is an exclusive issue on Anime localization to english and US media. Localization of content has been around since forever (e.g the Christian bible wasn't written in English). For the longest time I have had no problem watching movies with latin american dubs with my family. Shrek is one of those examples on which the localization team elevated the experience and people were laughing twice as much.
The Ghost Stories dub should have been called the Abridged version. Similar to Berserk had the Outtakes where the cast had fun being creative but they kept that to one side away from their serious acting in the story. Golden Boy dub while making jokes funnier, it was made in good faith I believe considering it was during the 90s and humor back then was way different compared to recent years that has been infested with Twitter language. (In my view, some of ADV's creativity was done in good faith, but Funimation really was spiteful with their changes.)
About piracy, how Steam defeated piracy in games - made the service better than that of pirates. And now pirated translations of anime are better than the official ones, so the obvious step is to make the official translations better
Here's a hot take about the dub controversy for dragon maid. That line didn't taint anything about the show or the dub. Honestly I think the new controversy as well as every controversy with creators is that were all humans with thoughts, feeling and opinions and we wont always agree on or like each others views on everything and thats alright.
@@emanroxx18That does not justify the script being vandalized by these "localizers" in order to push their beliefs on us. They should stick to the original script for as much as possible, or they should not touch it at all. It's not their work in the first place.
@@emanroxx18 They shouldn't have added any political ideas and should have translated what what was in the original and since they didnt do just that its now tainted, end of discussion.
2:00 YT is an ass and keeps deleting my perfectly fine comment, so I will just say that direct translation is equivalent translation, not literal 1:1 translation. Direct translation works perfectly fine. I was giving examples, but YT decided I'm not allowed
Let it be known that there are MTLs examples where the machine has very adequately translated a sentence to english, so its not in question whether or not Lolcowlizers will keep their jobs, they are out and translations will prolly get better because of it.
Yes but also no. In the simplest sense, that's what is (at least supposed to be) happening, the translation being as direct as possible. But at the same time there needs to be some level of "localisation" for example, how should you translate puns, or references to media, or the order of names. You also need to know who you're translating for. E.g. if it's going to be watched by non-anime watchers, then maybe you should translate onigiri as rice ball instead of keeping it as onigiri.
Because you're removing lots of information on that first translation, trying to polish this with a second pass is not actually fixing anything but polishing a turd. This method is something that inexperienced fan translators sometimes do and it makes things clunky. Especially people with limited comprehension of the language they're translating and using something like AI, Google translate, or their rough translation and then polishing it in English. Proper translation is taking a sentence or even a paragraph in and trying to get the essence of what it's conveying and how. Then you're writing that idea in English. Translation of media like this requires good writing skills on top of language comprehension.
AI Assisted translations is genius. Speed up translation and as the system uses machine learning it will get easier and easier for the translator to get their job done. More subs more anime/manga for us quicker. Soon enough the new class of VAs and translators will take over. It was just 10 years ago we had the same 10 VAs in every show.
The german dub is closer to the sub. Tohru:"What kind of outfit is that?" Lucoa:"Because everyone keeps pointing it out to me, I've covered myself a little more. Do you like it?" Tohru:"Next, you should change your body."😊
I mean, unlike with hollywood, and the writers and actors strike. Where I was 100% on the humans side against AI replacement because of how sketch having an AI create art is. This is a totally different circumstance where there isn't anything really sketchy, aside from people being out of work. AI was sort of built to make things like translating easier and if the localizers are gonna feel entitled then yeah, screw em
The issue is they all live near the studio and extremists often end up hiring their friends who have the same views as them. This is an issue that a lot of media has especially with almost all of it being based in California or the bluest locations in Texas. So it becomes an echo chamber.
@@Untolddead austin, sure. other cities of texas are by no means blue or even "purple" from when i checked. and people keep saying california is a blue state, which it is as of recent if you ignore regan, arnold, etc. but you have more voters here who have voted for trump than any three staunch red states that voted for him in 2016.
Everything has already been said about the unprofessionalism shown by some of these translators / script editors, and I prefer to concentrate on the positive so: "Mother daughter double whopper" as a translation of "Oyakodon" is genius.
Noticed this for at least a decade. So many games in particular where the jp dub says something the english "translation" doesn't. Oooof at the woman thing. Actually sad.
Most of my daily conversations are about the many problems with our broken culture. Most of those conversations lie outside of the realms of Anime, but I can tell you this: It’s the same people wrecking culture and making bad decisions both inside and outside of anime. It’s the same people yelling “nazi misogynist!” in both cases. And what’s true about them outside of anime is true of the ones inside anime: They are marxofascist extremists who intend to replace everything with images of themselves. They do not feel shame, do not care about facts, and they would willingly die before giving even a millimeter of ground. You cannot reason with them, and you can’t expect they will ever wake up. If AI takes over translations and localizations, they’ll just drive their gatekeeping into the filter logic of the AIs - just as google has already done to its search engine, thereby ruining its value. And they don’t care how much money they lose as a result because religious (yes, that’s what it is to them) dominance is more important than money. The only future where they no longer have the power to destroy Japan’s art (or anyone else’s for that matter) is a future in which they have been utterly conquered on the battlefield and removed from polite society. I don’t believe anyone WANTS that future, but that’s the only one that exists with untainted anime and untainted workplaces. It’s due to their religious fervor that it’s going to come down to “them or us” because they will not coexist. I imagine many of you will viscerally dislike this comment; that’s only because your gut knows it’s the truth, even if your won’t consciously admit it.
Bad apples spoil the lot. Sigh. There may be bad translators trying to push their own agenda, but for every one such person, there is probably 10, or even 100, translators working professionally trying to make an honest living. Yet this small group spoils the image of the entire community, industry, and ends up destroying the livelihoods of those trying to make ends meet.
As a white man I've been called everything for my whole life. The power of calling me a evil german or other things has long lost it's power to make me feel anything.
If Japanese VAs could have done the English Dub themselves, we would have avoided this situation from the start. I would rather have Engrish Dubs as long as the dub stuck to the original interpretation of the script.
It's so damn painful seeing the downright cringeworthy changes. Why the feck do they think it's ok to put the word "thicc" in the translation? Yea. You know the volume I refer to. At this point, MTL is better. And I hate MTL to the core
This whole thing is just weird to me. Like, Anime in English is a big business at this point. It's not the days where translators are amateurs doing meme translations like Ghost Stories. The idea that translators and script writers are anything more than clerks who are doing the same work that thousands of other translators do for businesses around the world is just weird. Their job begins and ends at taking the product they are working on and making it understandable for the audience of the language they are moving it to. The idea that they should have ANY editorial oversight in order to change the product itself is bizarre. But it just goes to show how insular Japanese businesses are and how little they often care about their overseas versions of their product. Like, if you wanna be a writer or comedian or whatever, then write your own work, how hard is that to understand? This whole thing is just weird, and I'm saying that as someone who generally agrees with the politics of the translators mentioned here. They just have no business injecting those politics or jokes into works that don't belong to them.
Forcing a product on the customers that does not fulfil their requirements is never a good idea in the long term. Badmouthing the customers for their negative feedback is even worse. It is extremely unprofessional. BTW, with the current momentum of AI development, we will likely have both translation and localization done by AI as well as localized dubbing with original voice actors’ voices easily before the end of 2024. AI will lead to signifficant cost savings and quality improvements, it doesnt matter how controversial we think it is right now, the money will decide who will eventually take this job.
15:26 " Companies like Sony need to be addressed here, you need to .. People! This is my call to people. Stop with this back and forth maliciousness, that's not going to fix anything. Instead focus your efforts. Sony NEEDS to know about this." This! It always bugs me how there would be so many content creators that would complain about not accurate translations, censorship and various other things inserted into their favorite Japanese media, but instead of these content creators utilizing their influence over so many people who are bothered by this, and encouraging them to ACTUALLY CONTACTING the artists or companies that house the artists trough social media like twitter about these issues. They instead decide to ONLY make a video about it complaining about whats going on and that's it, no follow up with the creator of the work that's being butchered or anything of the sort. At the very least, try an boycott the localized work and NOT buy it to send a message to these scumbags, as they say, vote with your wallet. But nope, most people don't do this. Why is beyond me.. Making me think some of these content creators are more interested in the clicks for themselves and not prioritizing the just cause. Good TH-cam Channels that been helping bring this woke crap to light in Japanese anime and gaming is Censored gaming, Dimitri Monroe, and OtakuDaikun.
As much as I despise AI taking over translation jobs (but my view about Ai isn’t set in stone) I think it is quite expected since these localizers purposefully mistranslate what has been said to fulfill a their political agenda. These people need to understand that animes aren’t localizer’s playground for political messaging.
They are the reason why many have gone to sail the high seas for their anime. Because they're not getting paid if no one is buying or renting anime. Yar mateys.
Haven’t really heard about this till now. Does this extend to sub as well? I’m just confused if she’s a dub va or a sub translator. My main concern is do we know all of the animes that have been affected by dubbed vas/translators? I see dragonmaid being talked about but yeah like is there other animes i need to avoid now?
It is dubbers for anime and translators for manga and games. The woman in the clip is the Dub VA for Mount Lady in MHA. The big one is manga. The west is a growing market for anime and manga, and they have been trying to combat pirating in the industry as a whole. The problem is that people turn to pirating when they get these unfaithful translations, so now studios are taking means to get rid of the problem at the source by using AI to do most of the work.
Not that the localizers just think they're funny, the bigger problem is that they think they're right. Marchi just keeps thiniking that that the altered line is the same as the original, and there's nothing to it.
I mean sure we've had decent dub changes like yu yu hakusho and High school dxd series but at this point we should just leave the comedic changes to the people who do Abridges
I'm fully on the side of assisted AI. ... Let the AI create a proper translation and humans check and fix the translation. Pure Ai won't work ... and pure human translation just gives translators too much freedom.
I haven’t read up on this latest controversy, figured it was overblown. I think localization is a complex thing because as much as we want literal translations of the source material some things don’t translate without sounding forced and awkward so things need to be changed as long as the overall meaning is kept. However if they are completely changing the meaning of the text for political reasons then that’s rather concerning.
We had this BS with Disney and their many branches, and it didn’t work out of them. We don’t need “self righteous” idiots changing what we love because they think they’re in the right. They’re already using the overused buzz words “misogyny, racist, sexist, bigot, ect”. They need to stop, shut up, and do their job properly. I’m tired of these people worming into existing communities, and trying to change it for their own benefit, how entitled do they have to be?
15:05 It's not a company-wide thing, it's an industry-wide thing. The whole industry is corrupted, and while there surely are amazing translators doing their job properly working under them, sadly they have to reap what their colleagues sowed... Yes, localizers changing Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus into cousins instead of keeping them as a lesbian couple (Sailor Moon) was absolutely wrong, but turning a femboy into a trans woman (I think I turned my Childhood Friend into a Girl) is equally wrong. Changing Takeshi's onigiri into Brock's jelly-filled donuts was stupid and insulting, and having Lucoa complain about the pesky patriarchy was as stupid and insulting. What should the do, then, if both extremes are wrong? THEIR JOB! Translating the piece as is, and localizing solely cultural references that would get lost in translation. That is, of course, when talking about oral pieces, like anime and games. When talking about written pieces like manga and novels, their job is solely to translate, there's no localizing needed, as part of the translation process is adding translator's notes to explain the context of a cultural reference, so it doesn't get lost in translation.
Shape up anybody can do these jobs is correct. It is a translator’s job to translate the original work so people who do not understand Japanese can understand it. If these translators want to bring politics into this than it is very simple, they would be fired if they did what they did here has a government translator. If they were working for lawyers and did not correctly translate they would be fired.
I'll keep saying this as long as it's happening. Localizers are glorified "art fixers" who even have the privilege of being *paid* to be art fixers. To be clear that's NOT what they're paid to do. Just what they perceive to be their jobs... More like an "unwritten" paragraph they INSERTED into their job description, irrespective of the employer. What people are criticized for doing on social media, localizers defend as their "mandated purpose" (again, self asserted) as way to deflect criticism. To be clear, while I think these current localizers *should* be replaced, that should be with PEOPLE, not AI. People who'll do the job with integrity, RESPECTING and honoring the source material.
Apparently one of the localisers publicly admitted on Twitter that most of them don't even speak Japanese in the first place. If they're already using machine translation as the basis for their lines before cleaning it up during localisation, they are even less important than most people think they are.
Complaining about AI taking over your job when you are already using AI (like Google Translate) to do your job.
Yea Jamie Marchi herself said so, further digging that hole of hers.
I mean, if that's the state of things, we might as well hire the old fansub groups to translate, since at least they will be passionate about the subject.
I really hope AM Studios (Anime Matsuri's dubbing studio) gives us an update soon. They were promising accurate translations. Really hope they get fully started up soon.
This translation issue stuff has gone on long enough. I'm so tired of it. How these VA's and translators treat the fans of anime and manga is awful.
Womp womp
Well they have a very privileged and conceited attitude 🙄 😒
It’s sad that I have to root for Ai taking somebody’s job, but when you go about doing a bad job for years on end ruining dubs and translations you should lose your job.
It is unfortunate but definitely these translators bought it on themselves. It shouldn't surprise these translators for studios to protect their bottomline and/or take control and preserve the original work.
To me it's not even the huge big things like adding in stupid internet memes or political opinions into work you didn't create. That's a no brainier to me that this kind of stuff shouldn't be allowed. I think the problem could be easily solved even without AI by just hiring people who aren't VA's to do the translations. It should be just like any other translation work, where you need some experience with the medium, but overall your name should stay out of it. Like, no one knows the names of the people that translate books into other languages, nor should they. They are clerks, not artists, their job is to accurately translate the original work and all it's themes and messages, not to make up their own.
To me I'm actually more in support of AI because even outside of those big ego-driven "translations" (they are more like adaptations), I take issue with the constantly inaccurate translations in subtitles as well. My Japanese is pretty bad, but it's good enough that I'm constantly frustrated reading subs when i can tell that's absolutely not the real thing the character was actually saying, and they changed it to something else that completely missed important nuances in terms of their tone, attitude, etc. by changing things around. It's those constant small little tweaks that they fail at that are the reason that I'd be all for a well-made AI translation, but the problem is who is going to train that AI, and will it's core translation knowledge be given to it by these same people that constantly make these little errors, because then we're right back where we started.
Also, I'm very progressive, and also think people that use terms like SJW etc. are all idiots, but just because I agree with the politics of the people who are injecting these things into their translations doesn't mean I agree with the idea that they should be allowed to do so. Write their own works, they are glorified data entry translation clerks, not writers, not comedians, their job isn't to rewrite products and put their own messages in them, it's to accurately translate them into a different language for a new audience.
I'm curious if other language anime translators have to deal with this issue in like, Hindi or Spanish or Portuguese etc. or if it's just English language translators that somehow think they are actual creatives when all they are asked to do is translate something.
Actually, funimation does have some high-quality translations out there. Dubbed my hero academia was ten times better than the subbed one, as well as hunter x hunter
I love to hear comments like this from people who dont watch dubs and havent encountered any issues themselves, but sure continue to fearmongering about nonexistent issue.
well thats what happens when they rely on too much woke and this is very common for hollywood. companies keep losing money based on woke agenda and this is why ai is coming in.
That's why everybody pirate anime in my country - why pay for shitty translations in english when many fansubbing groups do that correctly, in my language and for free?
Exactly. I’m not gonna pay a company that clearly doesn’t care about the original source material my money, when I have other better options that doesn’t do such terrible job at translating.
You werent gonna pay for no matter what they did. Dont pretend otherwise.
I pay for Spotify just fine when I could easily just download TH-cam videos as MP3's.
I would gladly pay for Crunchyroll if they weren't complete shitheels.
actually no, that's not equally as easy, it's a hassle. Youre using something happening once 7 years ago as an excuse, dumdum. Most translations you are getting are rips from crunchyroll anyway and you dont complain.@@theexistentialnihilist2070
" If you want to know someone true character, give them power. "
Don't actually make the mistake of giving a woman power. You already know she's going to abuse it.
This shows a lot about myself and I hate it. If I had power I’ll definitely go crazy over it.
It a flaw that I don’t like but also it feels like it’s what makes me human, a Ying Yang as they say.
its the same for all japanese shows, i know a japanese translator that works for netflix, she translates the piece of media she hands it over, then there is corporate review and changes from hyper ups in the final product. One of the changes they make is, they want the show to appear more sophisticated than it actually is, so a scene that says ''i go crazy sempai'' turns into ''i think im interested in sempai''
Thanks for the extra motivation to keep studying Japanese! Lol
Are you 上手 enough already?
Jamie Marchi's true colors were shown since the Vic Migogna situation that happened about 5 years ago and the same time that's when I learned about the patriarchy line in the Dragon Maid anime. She really is a cruel garbage person.
i would think so i don't get how she still gets more work. as a creator i would not hire her no wokeness would be allowed. if you have an agenda you will not be hired that simple
I'm so glad you pointed out the humor thing. I've watched anime scenes in Japanese(subbed) and thought it was hilarious for any viewer, but then I watch the same scene dubbed and the words they chose would only be funny to twitter users or heavy slang users.
And that is why these subpar "professionals" deserve to be substituted by AI translators.
I disagree, as AI is right now, you cannot release it without a human translator editing it.
Instead what needs to happen is for the translators being help accountable
"held"? @lso if that doesn't work yeah to the Ai with them
There would need to be some human intervention Ai isn’t perfect like some think but it’s not as far off as erasing a whole joke and inserting a political gag to replace it either.
They have humans in Japan working with the AI translations@@skyefarnan2311
You're brainless
For one of my favorite series we had a scan group who did the series for years. And there’s a special name given to a group of people in the series. Recently the official French translation has changed the word to something less intimate, and a rather large group of us is worried that when the English version drops, it will not be what we have known for years at this point. All for something to fit what the translators want.
12:12
It's not even full AI translation.
It's An AI doing 90% of the raw work by bulk translating, and then an editor goes over it.
They even said in their announcement, "AI-assisted".
So It's probably better than the fully AI translated stuff people WOULD and DO take over these lolcowlizers.
"lolcowlizers" made me chuckle
One of my big issues with this whole AI Assisted thing is that there's no guarantee that this editor won't just do the same damn thing as the current hacks. Unless there's some kind of cultural oversight, then I don't think this will solve the issue.
@@SuperBrainSandwich if only there were people who were FANS of the series and created SUBS for the series with a focus on faith to the original and provided useful information at the top as needed and then gave away the product of their labour for free because they love the work.
even better still if there was a whole bunch of them so you could chose which ones to follow and there wasn't one group that could act as a gatekeeper.
shame such a thing doesn't exist.
@@tuseroni6085 Your sarcasm isn't appreciated, I'm fully aware that fan subs exist, but the video isn't really about fan subs, or even subs. I'm not one of those people who subscribes to the stupid subs vs dubs war, I enjoy can either depending on the situation. Sometimes, I don't want or am not able to watch subs for whatever reason. In those situations, I want dubs that are both good quality and as accurate to the source material as possible. Also, blind people exist, and they can't really use subs and must use dubs (I know, not exactly common, but they definitely exist). Do they just get fucked? Do they not deserve accurate dubs? Fully relying on fan subs is only going to allow these insane activists to continue abusing their positions and destroying the source material.
@@SuperBrainSandwich i think you have misinterpreted my intention with my post, it wasn't directed at you personally but simply piggybacking off your post to lament how successful the industry has been at quashing fansubs and how fansubs actually provide a better option than the official subs. i don't care if these insane activists want to make horrible subs, there have always been subbers that make terrible subs (like the infamous "mass n*ked child events" mistranslation...i may be showing my age a bit though...) the key thing is to have choices, if i don't like a certain subber's subs i can just go to another one.
what we have a monopoly, and when you get a monopoly you get anti-consumer practices...like this, like we see in hollywood(which is basically a cartel at this point)
copyright is a government granted monopoly, and it needs to be reined in.
you have to admit, though, that translators have been literally necessary to anime being made available at all within any language that is not japanese. imagine if the anglosphere didnt have any animation from japan, going all the way back to astro boy 63 if not further, until AI became able to do translation. we straight up probably wouldnt even have dragonball z or pokemon.
i agree that translators should translate responsibly. in translations of, say, prose literature, certain publishers allow translator's notes if not entire introductory chapters in which the translator has a fair opportunity to expound upon their translation. but ultimately this discussion feels a little too 'us vs them' imo. it refers to specific instances and people, then generalizes accusations against those individuals or about those instances to all translators and translated works. there is room to critique certain translations, but anyone with a certain amount of knowledge of japanese recognizes how difficult the language is to translate, particularly when jokes depend on wordplay and kanji (which is often) or when context is the only way to understand the sentence in the japanese.
for example, a 'literal' translation of characters sharing a meal would turn 'itadakimasu', which is commonly said before every meal in japan, into 'i accept' or 'i respectfully receive'. when translators use the term 'localization', they mean taking that literal translation and changing it to something that english speakers can more easily understand, like 'let's eat!'
imho we should all work together to improve the quality of translations, not rely on AI to come up with very poor translations.
Very good points, like itadakimasu I would say baka as well when left as is seems much endearing where when translated you generally get Idiot which generally makes me dislike the character saying it ... not sure why that is
I'm glad it that took the use of AI for these shoddy localizers to seethe. Some translators use the medium to flex their creative writing muscles and change the content instead of giving us a faithful translation.
I don't understand why they don't just make their own original work promoting their social and politcal agenda whereas using someone else's work to do it thereby disrespecting the original artist and work. It's just opportunistic and lazy.
@@Course6Beaver If they had that kind of talent, they would. The skills involved in adequately translating something are very different than actually creating it from scratch.
@@Course6Beaver I have a feeling it's because they're using the medium of already existing anime and manga to springboard their beliefs to a much wider audience while also trying to dismantle said popular mediums due to anime and manga possessing content that does not line up with their worldview and "beliefs".
Hate to break it to you, Sony is also ran by these people.
Sony America perhaps, But SONY Japan is a bit different.
I think one thing the anime community is going to have to accept is that these original voice actors are not and never were one us. They are 3rd rate actors who failed into a niche they never cared about.
If she was a fan, she wouldn't have changed what was in the show
shes not. shes just a hack like the rest of them its sad
I've had a long think about this. At first I was absolutely outraged by it, but I've realised something. There is a narrow band where you have to change things to accommodate for the cultural norms of the target audience, which means there has to be some leeway & liberty afforded. The actual problem I see is people taking advantage of that liberty to be an activist, which is not ok.
13:00 They did not get rid of the people, they rebranded because CR was a bigger brand than FUNimation, and to this day many people don't know they are the same company, or think as you do, that CR absorbed FUNi. Crunchy didn't do dubs, or barely, they just subtitled. Most of the dubs available in CR before the purchase were made by FUNi. They even had shared license to a lot of shows, here FUNi would make the dub and Crunchy the subs (that were still bad but less political). With the acquisition they claimed 80% of the market, and they stopped trying to put on a façade. Now they've even injected their bs on HIDIVE (Sentai Filmworks), who used to be the "good guy" and the underdog, with the smallest piece of the pie ("mansplaining" in Dangers in my Heart being the best example)
Sony is not Japanese since 2017. They are a California company now.
The “Ai will eventually voice it” stinger at the end said so cavalierly made my heart sink. Damn
I'm very impressed with your opinions and views. Very intelligent. You earned my sub. Keep it up
He's a child
Is this the reason behind so many dubbed anime is stopping with one or more episodes remaining?
There needs to be a big change in how localization and translation in anime and manga are handled. It's insulting that we as consumers and fans have to put up with bullies when all we ask for is accurate translations.
There's no Sony of Japan dude. It relocated to California in 2017.
Thank you for giving your perspective, we are on the same boat.
Terrible translations and dubbing have been around for as long as anime has been released here.
I remember the release of the Video Girl AI DVD from Viz. For those not familiar with the story it's a love triangle where boy A loves girl B, girl B loves boy C (friend of Boy A) and is ignorant of the feelings of Boy A. At one point the dub completely broke the love triangle by Girl B confessing love to Boy A when the sub/Japanese version said nothing of the sort.
Except many of the meeting now that don't even speak Japanese so how could they translate a language they don't speak my answer is they're making it up. They are basically doing what Harmony gold did with Robotech
By the way her saying she's a funny woman. She better think that we live in a civilized representative constitutional republic because if she was doing this in front of a king and the King didn't find it funny the j e s t e r does not survive. I wonder if these people are so insulated that they don't realize how awful they sound at times. Like nobody will tell them the truth because nobody tells the truth they continue to be not funny
Well I for one welcome our A.I overlords!😗❤🤖
The transition to A.I translations will come with growing pains. But watching stuck up people from an industry that I love get there just desserts is so good it completely over shadow's any possible draw backs from the replacement of the localizers.
So I'm onboard!!!
Translating isn't editorializing. What's so difficult about that concept for these translators to understand?
We now know that they aren't translators at all. They are localizers who don't speak Japanese most of the time. They get their translation of the material and then adapt it.
Not defending people who have agendas, but just want to point out that accurate translation is a very gray idea. I really recommend at least the first 18 minutes of the RadioLab translation episode which I will link below to anyone who is interested in a brief look at the difficulty that translators face.
Is an accurate translation a translation that captures the spirit of the original work? Does it need to capture the words and phrasing as accurately as possible? Those two things are not always possible at the same time.
I can't wait for ai too take their damn jobs... Back in the day sub groups had great translations with note, explained why things are translated as such, and what it meant in Japanese culture.
The prime issue with coming together to talk about solutions is that the translators are actively berating those with criticism as being objectively evil, crying about being replaced by AI and crying about having no support.
Let them be replaced by AI and if they have anything at all to add to the industry, those translators will find their niche
and people like Jamie hopefully go the way of the dodo.
I'm glad you're covering this Andrew as this been popping up a lot on my recommended YT vids. As for your two points, I definitely agree with you. The translators/dubbers involved should not be injecting their own political agenda and beliefs into the original work for others. In regards to translators that don't inject their beliefs but use current trend gamer talk and memes, I don't like it and it irks me but it's not a deal breaker like those injecting their beliefs and agenda. I've never felt more fortunate nowadays being fluent in Mandarin and Korean and took Japanese throughout high school and college to have an elementary understanding of spoken Japanese.
I love you point of view man. I only watch subtitled I tried watching dubs but the voice actors make me cringe LOL
I didn't even know this was going on thank you for bringing this out
It’s not even just anime. I’d been noticing it before, but in Shining Nikki, they‘ve started to use an absurd amount of slang for a specific character who would NEVER use it in the recent event (Yexiao). The character is the one of the oldest characters in game, who uses polite and wise language on a usual basis. Everyone who plays the game that I know have complained about it. It’s not even limited to her. The narrator says, “It seems like the wind elf don’t have much of a beef with Nikki’s request.” It doesn’t even make grammatical sense
"is´t not about you" oh the irony...
Solid take dude. Rock solid. Props.
Admittedly, I think Funimation dubs were much better when certain VAs like Laura Bailey or Cherami Leigh are involved, which may explain why I enjoyed some of Funi’s dubs such as Soul Eater and Fairy Tail.
Make faithful translations great again!
the real question should be, with AI translation will fansubs make a return like they did back from around the 90s-early 2000s?
I want faithful translations. AI can't do it yet, but it is rapidly improving. Part of what makes anime interesting to me is seeing how it reflects the source cultures. If I wanted dumbed-down Western culture I can watch The Simpsons.
It can, Sora the Troll (a professional translator) showed it a few days ago.
5:20 It's not translators, it's localizers. Many of them don't even know the original language, they work on someone else's translation and then credit themselves as writers on IMDb. Translation and localization are two completely different beasts. A good translator would engage in as minimal localization as possible, only when it's paramount (i.e. never in written pieces, that's what Translator's Notes are for, and rarely in oral content, like dubs)
It's amazing that this seems to be the one profession where a lack of profesionalism isn't just tolerated but enabled by their employers. I've been pretty much sub only for years since the performaces are generally better but the way the localizers and dub "talent" have been in public is just such petty primadonna bs that I welcome their new AI overlords.
Subs you are still reading someone's translation. It has the same problem.
@@wingracer1614Exactly, the subs are often written by VA's that work on the project, and they use the same script. There is no difference, and they constantly have minor and major translation errors that completely miss nuances in the process. It's really frustrating how they don't just hire actual professional translation services to do the scripts, who would view it as a more clerical job where accuracy is more important than trying to use it as an artistic outlet for their starved ego.
Sometimes just a low level of understanding what you can gain even from playing apps like duolingo/drops/lingodeer can help to understand the language.
At least with that you can tell if you play fire emblem engage with sub where the japanese VA is romance and the english text are completely different.
its crazy that if they just did there jobs faithfully this just wouldn't have happened :(
I am happy to be called a Nazi, mysogonist, bad person, racist or any other insult by anyone on the left for having standards and wanting to have accurate translation and no localization by translators in manga, anime, and gaming. I do not want ideology forced into my entertainment.
There were a number of jokes in 100gf this season that I wasn't sure if they were localizer rewrites or not...
The bigger issue is that we have an entire generation (or generations, actually) brought up feeling entitled. They no longer understand the difference between a right and a privilege, and think they are entitled to everything.
But who’s really at fault? The previous generation who raise them!
The issue is that anime localizers aren't taken seriously and haven't been for over a decade. They've been able to slide this crap into their works since the days of Tokyopop for that reason. But time and time again, they've failed. But, since the days of Kadokawa and Kodansha taking over their own stuff, this has become less frequent. Seven Seas and Crunchyroll are now the primary offenders and they've been called out several times for their stuff. But at this point, if they stopped dubbing, most people wouldn't even care because they're not taken seriously.
What makes it even more appalling is that 99% of all english VA's act without ANY LIFE in their voice. as if they know they aren;t getting replaced even if they deliver shitty lines
In japan its the following: Do your lines or be ready to replaced there are 10K waiting for a role, so If you can't do it then you're gone.
They should push the same kind of mindset to english VA as well.
Let them get desperate to keep their jobs, let them ACT PROPERLY. and not have a MONOTONE lineread [which is how all english VA's sound to me]
regardless of what happens fans are always fixing flaws in official products in pirate land both on the localizer side and the original japanese release. so feelings of people at funimation aside not much has changed for us. as far as Ai goes translations are nice but I'm hoping one is created that can remaster colors eliminating banding once and for all. lastly if japan dose the localization themselves uncensored releases will get even harder to find then they already are and that's a trade I'm not willing to make over some flubbed lines.
I have mixed feelings about adding slang. Cringy zoomer slang is cringy but what if you are translating Japanese cringy zoomer slang?
Anyway, one of my favorite English editions is Watamote, some volumes have 3 pages of notes explaining Japanese references, even some internet culture stuff.
We need translator notes back. They got meme'd on (rightly so) back in the fansub "all according to keikaku" days, but on the other end of the spectrum there's Monogatari which requires extensive T/Ns to be appreciated (really it probably requires being a fluent speaker immersed in Japanese culture, but T/Ns are the next best thing).
Also, like, I'm not a fluent speaker, but sometimes a joke is made and I'm just like "yeah there's no way that sub was accurate" (or "that sub didn't really even make sense" if it's a more literal translation) which is *fine*: by all means, localize some wordplay instead of word-for-word translating it (or word-for-word that shit if you want!), but like... just use a T/N to tell me what the actual joke was. Explain the original wordplay! I don't care if it's like dissecting a frog and it'll kill the joke. You know what else kills the joke? Not understanding it at all. At least it becomes educational this way.
SJW, woke people and lib tXrds should just stay away from Anime and Manga in general, it would make everyone happy
There used to be this thing people did to witches. I hear it worked pretty well.
Can't say I disagree more with forcing a direct 1 to 1 translation. The quality to me is always if the messaging is the same and do the changes that are made work for the art rather then a political agenda. I'll say my favorite Anime is "My First Girlfriend is a Gal" and specifically with the English title because of what the dub added to the watching experience. The Manga is probably 3/10 and the sub 5/10. In stark contrast to the source the dub specifically used accents and verbiage that were not in the source but instantly upon hearing it brought me in. Its still an artistic choice and if that choice fits the location and medium then I think thats a good thing.
AI translations are going to be concern no matter how well directed they are. Undirected are going to be bland while directed, without actual humans pushing back, are likely to have marketing getting a hold of it and brand messaging is going to wind up making it into show in every second sentence. For more reasons then those I can't help thinking that the belief that you are going to get a more true translation from AI is delusional.
JM is also on stage here and playing to a particular audience, the words don't really have much weight to me.
Hopefully most Japanese companies will look at this and start translating their own anime's for a better quality product, but I doubt Sony will actually do anything. As they've shown in their other divisions, like PlayStation, they have no problem censoring there products even if their customer base is against it. My hope is anime doesn't get too mainstream where we start receiving the lowest common denominator content at the source.
I do believe this is an exclusive issue on Anime localization to english and US media. Localization of content has been around since forever (e.g the Christian bible wasn't written in English). For the longest time I have had no problem watching movies with latin american dubs with my family. Shrek is one of those examples on which the localization team elevated the experience and people were laughing twice as much.
The Ghost Stories dub should have been called the Abridged version. Similar to Berserk had the Outtakes where the cast had fun being creative but they kept that to one side away from their serious acting in the story.
Golden Boy dub while making jokes funnier, it was made in good faith I believe considering it was during the 90s and humor back then was way different compared to recent years that has been infested with Twitter language.
(In my view, some of ADV's creativity was done in good faith, but Funimation really was spiteful with their changes.)
I’m completely behind on this development. I don’t watch a ton of anime nowadays, is there a sample of an inaccurate subtitle last season?
This is tough. I don’t like what these localizers are doing, but I also don’t want AI to take over. 😵💫
About piracy, how Steam defeated piracy in games - made the service better than that of pirates. And now pirated translations of anime are better than the official ones, so the obvious step is to make the official translations better
Freaking hate the Dragon Maid contraversy that's one of my favorite shows it's amazing and it sucks people won't touch the dub because of that mess
What wierdo watches a dub
I won't touch the sub either the whole show has been tainted. Sucks cause I hear its good
Here's a hot take about the dub controversy for dragon maid. That line didn't taint anything about the show or the dub. Honestly I think the new controversy as well as every controversy with creators is that were all humans with thoughts, feeling and opinions and we wont always agree on or like each others views on everything and thats alright.
@@emanroxx18That does not justify the script being vandalized by these "localizers" in order to push their beliefs on us. They should stick to the original script for as much as possible, or they should not touch it at all. It's not their work in the first place.
@@emanroxx18 They shouldn't have added any political ideas and should have translated what what was in the original and since they didnt do just that its now tainted, end of discussion.
2:00 YT is an ass and keeps deleting my perfectly fine comment, so I will just say that direct translation is equivalent translation, not literal 1:1 translation. Direct translation works perfectly fine. I was giving examples, but YT decided I'm not allowed
At least they don't call you hate speech and censored you yet
@@TempoLOOKING What do you think making my comments is, if not censoring?
@AnyMEmdq at least it could be worse. I just got unbanned for 7 days. Just ass can get you labeled as hate speech now...I get banned...ALOT.
Let it be known that there are MTLs examples where the machine has very adequately translated a sentence to english, so its not in question whether or not Lolcowlizers will keep their jobs, they are out and translations will prolly get better because of it.
1:53 totally agree with you but why can't they translate then retranslate to polish the translation.
Yes but also no. In the simplest sense, that's what is (at least supposed to be) happening, the translation being as direct as possible. But at the same time there needs to be some level of "localisation" for example, how should you translate puns, or references to media, or the order of names. You also need to know who you're translating for. E.g. if it's going to be watched by non-anime watchers, then maybe you should translate onigiri as rice ball instead of keeping it as onigiri.
Because you're removing lots of information on that first translation, trying to polish this with a second pass is not actually fixing anything but polishing a turd. This method is something that inexperienced fan translators sometimes do and it makes things clunky. Especially people with limited comprehension of the language they're translating and using something like AI, Google translate, or their rough translation and then polishing it in English.
Proper translation is taking a sentence or even a paragraph in and trying to get the essence of what it's conveying and how. Then you're writing that idea in English. Translation of media like this requires good writing skills on top of language comprehension.
I still haven't figure out what pog is
AI Assisted translations is genius. Speed up translation and as the system uses machine learning it will get easier and easier for the translator to get their job done. More subs more anime/manga for us quicker.
Soon enough the new class of VAs and translators will take over. It was just 10 years ago we had the same 10 VAs in every show.
There is not much to talk about these people if you understand narcissism enough. It's explains everything about what you mentioned in this video.
The german dub is closer to the sub.
Tohru:"What kind of outfit is that?"
Lucoa:"Because everyone keeps pointing it out to me, I've covered myself a little more. Do you like it?"
Tohru:"Next, you should change your body."😊
I mean, unlike with hollywood, and the writers and actors strike. Where I was 100% on the humans side against AI replacement because of how sketch having an AI create art is.
This is a totally different circumstance where there isn't anything really sketchy, aside from people being out of work. AI was sort of built to make things like translating easier and if the localizers are gonna feel entitled then yeah, screw em
The issue is they all live near the studio and extremists often end up hiring their friends who have the same views as them. This is an issue that a lot of media has especially with almost all of it being based in California or the bluest locations in Texas. So it becomes an echo chamber.
Houston? Blue? lmao
@@matty6878 I mean they've voted democrat for quite some time.
@@Untolddead austin, sure. other cities of texas are by no means blue or even "purple" from when i checked.
and people keep saying california is a blue state, which it is as of recent if you ignore regan, arnold, etc. but you have more voters here who have voted for trump than any three staunch red states that voted for him in 2016.
Everything has already been said about the unprofessionalism shown by some of these translators / script editors, and I prefer to concentrate on the positive so: "Mother daughter double whopper" as a translation of "Oyakodon" is genius.
So they use the Urban dictionary in their translation. Wow😂
5:55 countless anime scenes were diminished by dubbers, however one or two has added to the characters.
We aren't talking about Ghost Stories
I wouldn't hold out hope for Sony. They're responsible for pushing the same sort of messaging in games.
I remember the prison school dub being the first (oldest) wierd dub i ever saw, with the gamergate comment
Noticed this for at least a decade. So many games in particular where the jp dub says something the english "translation" doesn't.
Oooof at the woman thing. Actually sad.
The fix would require Japan Studios to have better contracts with US Studios.
They are owned by Sony
Most of my daily conversations are about the many problems with our broken culture. Most of those conversations lie outside of the realms of Anime, but I can tell you this: It’s the same people wrecking culture and making bad decisions both inside and outside of anime. It’s the same people yelling “nazi misogynist!” in both cases. And what’s true about them outside of anime is true of the ones inside anime: They are marxofascist extremists who intend to replace everything with images of themselves. They do not feel shame, do not care about facts, and they would willingly die before giving even a millimeter of ground. You cannot reason with them, and you can’t expect they will ever wake up. If AI takes over translations and localizations, they’ll just drive their gatekeeping into the filter logic of the AIs - just as google has already done to its search engine, thereby ruining its value. And they don’t care how much money they lose as a result because religious (yes, that’s what it is to them) dominance is more important than money. The only future where they no longer have the power to destroy Japan’s art (or anyone else’s for that matter) is a future in which they have been utterly conquered on the battlefield and removed from polite society. I don’t believe anyone WANTS that future, but that’s the only one that exists with untainted anime and untainted workplaces. It’s due to their religious fervor that it’s going to come down to “them or us” because they will not coexist. I imagine many of you will viscerally dislike this comment; that’s only because your gut knows it’s the truth, even if your won’t consciously admit it.
They're like Beate Sirota Gordon. Was supposed to just be a translator but screwed up the county forever.
Bad apples spoil the lot. Sigh. There may be bad translators trying to push their own agenda, but for every one such person, there is probably 10, or even 100, translators working professionally trying to make an honest living. Yet this small group spoils the image of the entire community, industry, and ends up destroying the livelihoods of those trying to make ends meet.
As a white man I've been called everything for my whole life. The power of calling me a evil german or other things has long lost it's power to make me feel anything.
If Japanese VAs could have done the English Dub themselves, we would have avoided this situation from the start.
I would rather have Engrish Dubs as long as the dub stuck to the original interpretation of the script.
Honestly I’m on board with ai also man you feel the pain while reading MT light novel
It's so damn painful seeing the downright cringeworthy changes. Why the feck do they think it's ok to put the word "thicc" in the translation? Yea. You know the volume I refer to. At this point, MTL is better. And I hate MTL to the core
I still don’t think it EVERY translator.
The Vic Mignogna Trial shows the true face of funimation
This whole thing is just weird to me. Like, Anime in English is a big business at this point. It's not the days where translators are amateurs doing meme translations like Ghost Stories.
The idea that translators and script writers are anything more than clerks who are doing the same work that thousands of other translators do for businesses around the world is just weird. Their job begins and ends at taking the product they are working on and making it understandable for the audience of the language they are moving it to. The idea that they should have ANY editorial oversight in order to change the product itself is bizarre. But it just goes to show how insular Japanese businesses are and how little they often care about their overseas versions of their product.
Like, if you wanna be a writer or comedian or whatever, then write your own work, how hard is that to understand? This whole thing is just weird, and I'm saying that as someone who generally agrees with the politics of the translators mentioned here. They just have no business injecting those politics or jokes into works that don't belong to them.
I can't imagine someone like this person translating Dostoevsky and making jokes or censoring his wording.
Forcing a product on the customers that does not fulfil their requirements is never a good idea in the long term. Badmouthing the customers for their negative feedback is even worse. It is extremely unprofessional.
BTW, with the current momentum of AI development, we will likely have both translation and localization done by AI as well as localized dubbing with original voice actors’ voices easily before the end of 2024. AI will lead to signifficant cost savings and quality improvements, it doesnt matter how controversial we think it is right now, the money will decide who will eventually take this job.
15:26 " Companies like Sony need to be addressed here, you need to .. People! This is my call to people. Stop with this back and forth maliciousness, that's not going to fix anything. Instead focus your efforts. Sony NEEDS to know about this."
This! It always bugs me how there would be so many content creators that would complain about not accurate translations, censorship and various other things inserted into their favorite Japanese media, but instead of these content creators utilizing their influence over so many people who are bothered by this, and encouraging them to ACTUALLY CONTACTING the artists or companies that house the artists trough social media like twitter about these issues. They instead decide to ONLY make a video about it complaining about whats going on and that's it, no follow up with the creator of the work that's being butchered or anything of the sort. At the very least, try an boycott the localized work and NOT buy it to send a message to these scumbags, as they say, vote with your wallet. But nope, most people don't do this. Why is beyond me.. Making me think some of these content creators are more interested in the clicks for themselves and not prioritizing the just cause. Good TH-cam Channels that been helping bring this woke crap to light in Japanese anime and gaming is Censored gaming, Dimitri Monroe, and OtakuDaikun.
As much as I despise AI taking over translation jobs (but my view about Ai isn’t set in stone) I think it is quite expected since these localizers purposefully mistranslate what has been said to fulfill a their political agenda. These people need to understand that animes aren’t localizer’s playground for political messaging.
They are the reason why many have gone to sail the high seas for their anime. Because they're not getting paid if no one is buying or renting anime. Yar mateys.
Haven’t really heard about this till now. Does this extend to sub as well? I’m just confused if she’s a dub va or a sub translator. My main concern is do we know all of the animes that have been affected by dubbed vas/translators? I see dragonmaid being talked about but yeah like is there other animes i need to avoid now?
It is dubbers for anime and translators for manga and games. The woman in the clip is the Dub VA for Mount Lady in MHA. The big one is manga. The west is a growing market for anime and manga, and they have been trying to combat pirating in the industry as a whole. The problem is that people turn to pirating when they get these unfaithful translations, so now studios are taking means to get rid of the problem at the source by using AI to do most of the work.
@@HaruhiDream5339 ty for the explanation
agree with you whole heartedly.
Not that the localizers just think they're funny, the bigger problem is that they think they're right. Marchi just keeps thiniking that that the altered line is the same as the original, and there's nothing to it.
I mean sure we've had decent dub changes like yu yu hakusho and High school dxd series but at this point we should just leave the comedic changes to the people who do Abridges
I'm fully on the side of assisted AI. ... Let the AI create a proper translation and humans check and fix the translation.
Pure Ai won't work ... and pure human translation just gives translators too much freedom.
Any one else learn Japanese just so you don’t have to have your content censored?
I haven’t read up on this latest controversy, figured it was overblown. I think localization is a complex thing because as much as we want literal translations of the source material some things don’t translate without sounding forced and awkward so things need to be changed as long as the overall meaning is kept.
However if they are completely changing the meaning of the text for political reasons then that’s rather concerning.
We had this BS with Disney and their many branches, and it didn’t work out of them. We don’t need “self righteous” idiots changing what we love because they think they’re in the right. They’re already using the overused buzz words “misogyny, racist, sexist, bigot, ect”. They need to stop, shut up, and do their job properly.
I’m tired of these people worming into existing communities, and trying to change it for their own benefit, how entitled do they have to be?
15:05 It's not a company-wide thing, it's an industry-wide thing. The whole industry is corrupted, and while there surely are amazing translators doing their job properly working under them, sadly they have to reap what their colleagues sowed... Yes, localizers changing Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus into cousins instead of keeping them as a lesbian couple (Sailor Moon) was absolutely wrong, but turning a femboy into a trans woman (I think I turned my Childhood Friend into a Girl) is equally wrong. Changing Takeshi's onigiri into Brock's jelly-filled donuts was stupid and insulting, and having Lucoa complain about the pesky patriarchy was as stupid and insulting. What should the do, then, if both extremes are wrong? THEIR JOB! Translating the piece as is, and localizing solely cultural references that would get lost in translation. That is, of course, when talking about oral pieces, like anime and games. When talking about written pieces like manga and novels, their job is solely to translate, there's no localizing needed, as part of the translation process is adding translator's notes to explain the context of a cultural reference, so it doesn't get lost in translation.
Sony has no Japan decision since 2017. It is a California company through and through now.
@@TempoLOOKING Fun fact, but fully unrelated to what I said
@@AnyMEmdq California is woke
Shape up anybody can do these jobs is correct. It is a translator’s job to translate the original work so people who do not understand Japanese can understand it. If these translators want to bring politics into this than it is very simple, they would be fired if they did what they did here has a government translator. If they were working for lawyers and did not correctly translate they would be fired.
I'll keep saying this as long as it's happening. Localizers are glorified "art fixers" who even have the privilege of being *paid* to be art fixers. To be clear that's NOT what they're paid to do. Just what they perceive to be their jobs... More like an "unwritten" paragraph they INSERTED into their job description, irrespective of the employer.
What people are criticized for doing on social media, localizers defend as their "mandated purpose" (again, self asserted) as way to deflect criticism.
To be clear, while I think these current localizers *should* be replaced, that should be with PEOPLE, not AI. People who'll do the job with integrity, RESPECTING and honoring the source material.