/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Why is it without fail commercial Japanese translators who focus on games, anime, manga, and visual novels always end up with terminal narcissism leading to disgusting levels of perceived self-importance and a pseudo god-complex?

These cockroach bottom feeders really think they’re on the same level as the creators themselves and yet they don’t even realize (or just choose to ignore) that they fucking already are making more dough than the Nips they are leeching from. They want to dig into an already meager coin purse as equals. Fucking hell bros, when did it get so bad?

[Anonymous No.]

why do you even care EOP faggot, kys. Just be happy they translate that stuff for your lazy ass in the first place.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025385
>Just be happy
Don't tell people to do the impossible

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
Learn Japanese and stop caring about them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
>they fucking already are making more dough than the Nips they are leeching from.
Doubt.
And the person in your low effort Twitter screencap OP has a point, if you only knew just how difficult it was to properly translate and adapt a work to a different language (which is where you might interject that they rarely properly translate, which is true but only because there's a lack of proper translators willing to work for peanuts and no credit on games or anime) you wouldn't call them bottom-feeders.

[Anonymous No.]

They only care about how they feel. They are not guided by virtue or principle.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
>commercial
The love of money is the root of many evils.

[Anonymous No.]

Because people who translate those things are people who couldn't make it as real translators.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025385
you vill read ze shitzlation and you vill be happy

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025681
so basically he's asking for something that would lead to him not getting to translate anything

[Anonymous No.]

They don't deserve royalties but it's true that they don't get paid shit.

[Anonymous No.]

it goes back to when anime et al was a 'secret'. Carl Macek (the 'creator' of Robotech) said himself that he got so much hate because, to anime fans, he was 'spilling the beans' about anime to normies. That's him characterizing himself though, so obviously we can see he's filled with the same self-importance whether or not it is true that Robotech was the first introduction of anime into the mainstream in the West. Anime and otaku culture in general have always gone hand in hand with elitism, at least in the West. Probably due to its origins as a small and somewhat fractured fandom that grew independently without the internet for so long. Being 'someone' in the anime world would have literally been like being king of the nerds in the early days. Hence the god-complexes now.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40027474
If it's sold using their translation, they deserve royalties.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40027474
>it's true that they don't get paid shit.
Well ask for more or don't translate then?
I'm sympathetic about complaints that wages are too low for full time jobs and careers, especially if said jobs are essential, but here? Exactly what is preventing them from saying "nope, I won't translate for that little?"
Should be having a talk with other translators rather than whining on twitter about how the industry doesn't give them royalties?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40029793
>Exactly what is preventing them from saying "nope, I won't translate for that little?"

Starvation. Some people WILL take jobs that pays little because that's the only way they have to earn a few coins.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40029878
I'm willingly to bet anything the faggot in OP's pic is neither starving nor worried about where his next paycheck is coming from

[Anonymous No.]

i only respect the translators that don't try to shove their personal faggotry into the stories and when they do it for free, all the other should just die imo, bunch of cockroaches.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
The dogshit you wrote sounds more like a god complex than the twitter screencap in your post.
Translators are paid shit regardless of if they're freelance or paid by the company licensing it.
More often than not the localization is worse. Demanding to be paid more is a valid argument.

[Anonymous No.]

Otaku culture?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40029793
>Exactly what is preventing them from saying "nope, I won't translate for that little?"
The fact that few people care if it's google translated gibberish instead. Someone else will come along and provide a completely made up script for pennies and the serious guy who turned down the offer will have to go sell corn dogs or something.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40030322
Discussions on translations of otaku media, despite stemming from a twitter screencap, is actually otaku culture.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025681
What you're describing is the definition of bottom-feeder. These people can't subsist in a healthy translation industry and are just taking advantage of the lack of more competent translators. There are many other jobs that pay better, but they'd likely be incompetent at those too. The difference is they'd be fired from those jobs.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40031184
>These people can't subsist in a healthy translation industry and are just taking advantage of the lack of more competent translators
I feel like this is a contradictory statement. If the Japanese anime/manga translation industry was healthy, there would be more competent translators flocking to it. But the reason there exists a lack of competent translators is because it isn't healthy and pays like shit.

[Anonymous No.]

<span class="sjis">NOW THIS THREAD IS PEAK JAYPEE CULTURE</span>

[Anonymous No.]

>>40032318
It's not a contradictory, just stating the obvious. Bottom-feeders only thrive at the bottom. The otaku culture translation industry is the bottom.

[Anonymous No.]

get this gamergate shit off the board

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
Ah, he is friends with the same guy that think he is in the same level of Sōseki and had public meltdowns when someone said "Kitarō" instead of "Kitaro".
Birds of the same feather.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
Otaku "literature" is filled with brain-dead pretension so it's not really shocking that people who predominantly consume otaku media act that way.
The thing is I agree with the point he's making in your image in theory, 0.1% royalties for the translator would be nice since it's obviously important to the end product, the problem is that of course Ludo once again is implying he translated Steins;Gate when he just did the songs. It's embarrassing how he's been clinging to that for a decade instead of the shit he actually released

[Anonymous No.]

>>40032318
Anyone that actually cares about the story either already knows japanese or at minimum is using OCR and MTL, forget accuracy, it's simply faster because official translators are extremely slow.
At the rate they translate you can learn enough to get to N5 and MTL faster than it gets released in english, if it ever does.
The rest are consumers and/or ironic weebs that frankly don't give a fuck and not only don't care, but wouldn't notice the difference between a good translation, edited MTL or a butchered "localization".
The latter being what the twitterfag complaining on the OP most likely does, because these "I'm important for the writing" people are always the types to think they are "fixing" the original with their butchering.
Translations of otaku media will always be bottom feeders because they aren't needed, it's impossible for the otaku media translation industry to be healthy when nobody cares.

[Anonymous No.]

complaining about not having received enough money is really bad.
He accepted the job, so why is he complaining?
He either will ask for more money the next job or find another job.
It would be one thing if he said "I should have asked for more", but he is just acting entitled.
So this has nothing to do with the skills or the importance of translation, and he should just shut up.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40033363
>he just did the songs
If that's the case, then this guy is embarrassing himself.

>>40033384
I've been reading Chaos;Head recently, and if it is on the same level as Steins;Gate, I don't think N5 is quite enough.
It's still an extremely good idea to learn jap and never have to rely on translations and loc*lizations ever again.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40033777
>It's still an extremely good idea to learn jap and never have to rely on translations and loc*lizations ever again.
This, even just getting to N5 will let you realize how terrible almost all translations are.
By N4 you will be better than almost all translators, by N3 you can read anything unless it's schizo-core stuff like C;H, and even then you can understand most of it.
The difficulty of learning japanese is grossly exaggerated.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40035639
>By N4 you will be better than almost all translators
it's depressing how accurate this is. Reading translations of non-mainstream manga vs the raws, it is jarring how much of it is inaccurate or straight up wrong at times, and I only just barely passed N4

[Anonymous No.]

>>40030544
Isn't this exactly why we're in this predicament? Serious translated refuse to work for cheap, and publishers refuse to pay because they know someone retarded and cheap will take the job?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40037824
>Serious translated refuse to work for cheap
Not just that, someone actually autistic for weeb stuff that wants accurate translations will always step up to the job eventually even if the pay is awful.
The real problem is that translating is a thankless miserable job that burns out that passion fairly quickly.
At the end of the day EOPs don't give a single fuck about translation quality or accuracy and anyone that does care is already reading the raws, by either MTL or simply knowing japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40037824
>Isn't this exactly why we're in this predicament?
Yes. >>40033384 gets it. There's no way out because no one cares.
It's one of those situations like how society wants people to take away their trash, kill their meat, and clean public restrooms, but they don't want to do it themselves nor do they respect people who opt to do it. Unlike the other things, however, you can just go read something else so translators have no leverage to demand more money. Not even in the non-otaku market either. No one cares about foreign books, you can make local version of movies and TV shows, and you can just not buy a product if they don't provide their own technical manual in your language. I imagine working as a real time spoken translator in official situations would be the only thing that would get you money.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40038641
>like how society wants people to take away their trash, kill their meat, and clean public restrooms, but they don't want to do it themselves nor do they respect people who opt to do it
The difference is that those are largely necessary.
Translations aren't necessary, they are like a reselling middle man giving you a worse version of it on top of making you wait longer than necessary.
Said middle man can always be easily cut away from the equation by learning japanese, it wouldn't be so bad if they translated faster (and with their awful translation quality, they should) but that's never the case.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025681

[Anonymous No.]

One problem is that native English speakers in big monolingual cultures who learn a second language are so rare that they feel like their god complex is completely justified.
Another problem is that elevens suck at learning languages too, the few people who actually learn English are too valuable to be wasted on 2D related translations.
Also, ESL translators are either so shameless that they'll shit out MT garbage as long as it gives them e-peen or such perfectionists that they don't bother to spend as much effort as their own standards would require.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40053932
>ESL translators are either so shameless that they'll shit out MT garbage as long as it gives them e-peen or such perfectionists that they don't bother to spend as much effort as their own standards would require.
The irony is that I see this from EOPs larping as knowing the language, not from ESLs.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40029793
The implication here is that "services will pay for a higher quality translation" but the reality is that's not true at all, on any level, no matter how much you want to convince yourself otherwise. Grammar and a vague understanding of the actual words and vague story beats are all that matters. If you're not a fuck-huge company making money hand over fist, AKA practically nobody who makes VN's in the first place, the difference between a mediocre and great translator is sheerly in the metaphorical price tag, meaning that the bar is lower and the job is more easily replaced. This is common knowledge for basically anyone whose first language isn't English.

MTL's with a targeted language have already replaced actual translators in all but the largest of projects for years, only hiring someone fluent to give a rough-pass over the scripts.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
>Why is it without fail commercial Japanese translators who focus on games, anime, manga, and visual novels always end up with terminal narcissism leading to disgusting levels of perceived self-importance and a pseudo god-complex?
That's not exclusive to translators or VN's, the voice actors of every GTA protagonist also got angry when they realized they got paid peanuts for games that ended selling billions of profit.

[Anonymous No.]

Honestly I don't even see the problem with wanting royalties for voice work or translations or even fuckin QA testing, if only because it means a little bit less money is going to a bank account that'll rarely if ever be withdrawn from. But I also know that opens up a whole new can of worms because there's plenty of people who do shit jobs or are only vaguely related to the work at hand like a secretary or whatever who'll want to get a cut of that pie too.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
Yea theres some pretty bad ones out there who start adding their "creativity" into the script and think they're improving the experience by changing the characters into their quirky randumb mouthpieces.
>Everyone is so serious. Better add some randumb where there isn't any because Americans can't stomach serious!
>You know this guy would be cooler if I made him talk like a western trope!
Steins;gate guys were cool though last I checked(unless I'm thinking of 0 or the anime). I can understand translating memes into other localized memes. At least they aren't making the characters passive aggressive catty faggots and adding jokes where there aren't any.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40056888
>What you get when you buy my game is my take on that material, but not THE take
It always surprises me when I see opinions that are this idiotic and ignorant. If he was making a fan translation he'd have a point, but this is meant to be the OFFICIAL translation of the game. The developers aren't going to have multiple translations available in the game, and the only time a game tends to get a different official translation is when the original translation is really fucking bad. Fan translators will almost never bother with translating something that's already been officially translated unless the official translation is bad or it's a hobby project. What a translator makes will likely be the only translation a game ever gets and to treat it like it's something where the customer has options with the translations they can get so it's fine if you take artistic liberties with the script, that the developers' original intent doesn't matter at all and you can remove or add things as you please, is absolutely infuriating.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40056888
>my game
Holy shit.
Stuff like this make me glad that I decided to learn Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40056974
>but this is meant to be the OFFICIAL translation of the game.
Ironically, that's what makes it their game; they're literally part of the team officially selling it.
It's still a retarded line of logic though.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40056888
>Americans can't stomach serious!
It's true though

[Anonymous No.]

>>40057044
how quickly is it possible to learn it, anyon?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025662
Anyon, I need to know how...

[Anonymous No.]

>>40044437
>The difference is that those are largely necessary. Translations aren't necessary
That's what the rest of the post said.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40061918
>>40061936
You can learn passable japanese in like, two years even if you're retarded. Source; am retarded and only really flowery stuff gives me consistent problems.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40056974
It is pretty infuriating. And then he has the nerve to cry about actual translations being released. Can't let people choose something other than his rewrite.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40063868
"Translation" and "creativity" are two words that don't go well together.
This guy is a fucking moron.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40063868
It's funny because competing WOULD show whether it's worth paying for or not. They just know they will lose the moment an accurate translation comes out.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40027104
but I can read japanese?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025385
>>40025662
Only shills advocate apathy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40065454
>shills
I'm telling you to learn Japanese and stop supporting them.
Being angry and complaining while giving those idiots money is going to change nothing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40065506
It will. The woke crowd don't even buy the games they cry about tand they still managed to change them(They also still don't buy them).
People need to be loud about it, ideas are contagious, to be silent just lets the rewrites propagate and it will affect the entire community and discussion. (Like imagine wanting to discuss those VNs where all the rape got turned into consensual sex by the canadian publisher. All the girls are now sluts.) JAST held out against the term "tomgirl" for so long thanks to support(though they did cave a year ago) and Koei tecmo responded to complaints about NISA translations and censorship..
I don't see myself becoming fluent in reading kanji any time soon, though voice lines are manageable, but even if I hit N1 I wouldn't just ignore it. Give up and they'll take over the hobby, and they currently have us on the ropes.
Advocating apathy is not taking a neutral stance, it is choosing a side. Staying silent is being neutral.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
Bitching about money is baby shit and Steiner is a retard, but he's right about one thing: that disgusting parody you're consuming? That's an interpretation done by the translation team. It IS their writing and their adaptation of the original work, no two ways about it. If this idea sounds icky to you then you'd better fuck off and learn Japanese instead of complaining about retards shittily writing content for other retards.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40064035
Interpretation often requires creativity. You're interpreting tone, not word for word. People who actually believe you can approach translation for poorly written otaku works without taking at least the slightest of liberties to end with a better product always make me believe a good amount of the fanbase for this medium are actual, unironic imbeciles. It's doubly hilarious when you see what they come up with ater trying fan translation for the first time.
Get a grip. Or at least know what it is you're talking about.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
This "translator" pretended to know Japanese and then held up a Rance fantranslation. Afterwards, he blamed his actions on mental illness.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066073
>NOOO YOU CAN'T TRANSLATE "お休み" AS "GOOD NIGHT"! HE'S LIKES STARS SO CLEARLY HE MEANT "MAY THE STARS WATCH OVER YOU" YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND THE NUANCE HIDDEN IN HIS TONE!
>"倒れろ"?! "YOUR ASS IS GRASS"!
>" はい"? "NEP SMASH NEP STRONGEST THERE IS!"
>DEVILS MUST MAKE HELL/DEMON PUNS!

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066073
>You're interpreting tone, not word for word.
This. Reading is one thing, translating is another. You don't just have to be able to "understand" it, you have to be able to make it make sense to others, transmit all the ideas contained, and not sound retarded. If you're just reading, having a synopsis of what's happening in your head is fine. You also might have unnatural constraints if your language happens to take up more space than Japanese (e.g. placing text in word bubbles). Then there's dealing with slang and anime style character personalities that depend entirely on what meaningless sounds are tacked on to the end of the sentences.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40065942
How much do I have to bitch to get the loli scenes in Maitetsu?
>Give up and they'll take over the hobby
They have already taken over the hobby. The majority of people don't even know the stuff they read is full of made-up nonsense.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066191
>HE'S
Thanks for proving my point. If the setting is medieval then, yes, fitting the tone is part of the job.
>DEVILS MUST MAKE HELL/DEMON PUNS!
They do that even in Japanese for Disgaea. And Trillion. And many other games, including even SMT. What, a kanji pun isn't as "cringy"? I thought the translators were supposed to translate, not "fix the script"?
lmao

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066073
>poorly written otaku works
I'd take edited machine over the translation of someone who approached the translation with this in mind and turns the work into his deviant art fanfiction

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
Same reason 4chan jannies and mods abuse their power: mistreated nerds get a taste of power and have to weaponize it to make up for how people wronged them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066229
>Embellishing good night
Thats just failed writers trying to needlessly flex on the script tol ive out thier dream.

>They do that even in Japanese for Disgaea. And Trillion. And many other games, including even SMT. What, a kanji pun isn't as "cringy"? I thought the translators were supposed to translate, not "fix the script"?
Well I figured you were going to take it out of context. Like all localizers do as they are unable to argue in good faith. I'm referring to translators adding puns where there aren't any.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066219
>and not sound retarded

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066229
Yes, because when the character says "いただきます" before eating, they clearly mean "Through the dark lord, amen".

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066262
>I'm referring to translators adding puns where there aren't any.
Again, you're assuming translation is a linear work. It's not. It's about maintaining the original tone and intent. How many times do I need to repeat this? Do you understand how writing standards work across different languages?
If you want to complain about something, complain about standards being so bad most translators in the industry are tone-deaf imbeciles.
I'm not even touching the first point. Learn proper English, or just learn Japanese, but if you want to enjoy otaku shit then you've got to learn at least one of the two properly.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066278
Are they chuuni? If so, yes. Clearly they do.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
Most people are too lazy or stupid to learn Japanese so this gives L2 Japanese speakers a sense of superiority

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066279
Ahh so you're one of those retards.
You are not the writer, director, or part of the original creative team. You are not maintaining the original tone or intent by adding jokes where there aren't any. Your quibbling and mental acrobatics don't change that fact

>I'm not even touching the first point. Learn proper English, or just learn Japanese, but if you want to enjoy otaku shit then you've got to learn at least one of the two properly.
You don't have to I already know what you are.

[Anonymous No.]

Crunchyroll got big thanks to translators who were tired of liberal subs. Shame they couldn't be cloned as CR has some meme cartel on staff now.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066278
That anime was a good example. They ruined all comedic spacing by adding jokes and puns where there weren't any. Their "wit" was pretty bad too, "Hells Bells"

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066331
>You are not maintaining the original tone or intent by adding jokes where there aren't any
Is a character a prankster? Are they a pun-master? Did the original script forget to add a joke for no foreseeable reason or didn't have to in keeping with the spirit of briefness that's sadly not transferable in very niche cases to an English output?
Then I'm sorry, I hated having to come up with something as much. But it is maintaining the tone and intent. Writing standards differ between languages, that's just a fact of life.
>mental acrobatics
It's just basic interpretation. I don't consider myself a creative, but there are professional standards that need to be upheld for very good reasons (number one being: most people consuming this shit, unlike you, are just EOPs).
Ultimately what matters are two things: to translate tone and meaning properly regardless of the semantic minutia (in fact, trimming down the fat is often preferable to have a lighter script) and to comply with writing standards. I'm sure the original writers wouldn't want their audience to make do with a terribly translated and stilted product, either (of which there are still many, but I digress...).
Boy am I glad I stopped translating for a living years ago and can just enjoy my moe shit in peace.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066412
>Did the original script forget to add a joke for no foreseeable reason
Stopped reading here. Considering gargling tide pods.

[Anonymous No.]

he's not wrong when he says that you're reading his words and not the authors but that's a given in translation

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066412
>Boy am I glad I stopped translating
I'm glad you stopped translating too.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066419
>Considering gargling tide pods.
I too wonder what being a dekinai retard must be like, sometimes.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066412
>Did the original script forget to add a joke
Jesus Christ.
>Boy am I glad I stopped translating
Same here.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066439
ditto

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066238
I hate to tell you this, but all of your favorite series you played were a product of this. Kojima didn't even write half of the shit that made its way into the MGS translations for example.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066228
Well all the progress we made got undone by the sjw mental illness. We went from being able to have lewd lolis and high impact sexual violence to being unable to say "highschool girl" in video games.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40063781
I'm really lazy and just do anki every day for months now
how to stop being lazy and read more

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066354
crunchyroll got big thanks to uploading pirated anime with subs other people had made, which they then used to negotiate a contract with gonzo
they were always trash

[Anonymous No.]

>>40035703
That's because you're N4. You think the derivative shit you read has some sacred meaning & "nuance" that must be preserved, instead of being basic ass writing that sounds like an amateur made it. N5s, N4s, and N3s have less worthwhile input on a translation than somebody who knows no Japanese at all. At least someone who knows only English can recognize if it sounds retarded in English. Japanese "learners" will purposefully try to make it sound retarded in English to capture their imaginary fantasy of what Japanese is.
Most translations are bad but for different reasons than an N4 would ever identify.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066229
>They do that even in Japanese for Disgaea.
They don't, that's only a thing for prinnies.
You don't even play the games.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066279
>It's about maintaining the original tone and intent
It would be easier to take this argument seriously if translators actually did this, they never do.
They always change the original tone and intent.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066285
an actual chuuni would say something different anon, stop justifying literal fanfiction

[Anonymous No.]

>>40066877
Anki is a trap for noobs to make them feel like they are making progress when they actually aren't.
Drop anki and just read with a dictionary and a grammar guide on hand.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067148
Have you EVEN played Disgaea 3? They absolutely do in that game. Every school term is wrapped in an evil kanji pun.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067209
What kanji pun was this?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067033
>You think the derivative shit you read has some sacred meaning & "nuance" that must be preserved,
>I hate Japanese writing so much if it were me I'd write the story like this!
Why don't you just write your own story then? Western writing is too packed with sarcasm, one liners, and people being needlessly rude to eveyone around them so I like the comfy flavoring of Japanese writing.
I wonder though, if I were to translate a game and have everyone speak like hoodrat niggas. Would the rewrite crowd defend my work and be against anyone making a "bland/basic" translation? That would be funny.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
he said it himself: paid pennies

If you want quality work, you are going to either get it for free (derived from passion, also dicey since free translators are not at ALL immune to ego trips) or at a high cost from true professionals with standards and integrity.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067236
They must have misread it as 妊活中.

[Anonymous No.]

please don't talk about disgaea
I get sad everytime I remember the localization of that game

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067292
Same but with the disaster that is 6.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067236
Damn I didn't even have to bust out the dictionary for that one. How did they get pregnant?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067291
Yeah, it seems the average translator should really work on their basic Japanese comprehension.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067292
>not perflat
treachery

[Anonymous No.]

Why do these types of people translate works to cater to a group of people who not only don't spend money on these products but absolutely hate it anyway

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067366
Bottom feeders that have no respect for "weeb stuff" but still want easy money by shitting out fanfiction for EOPs that also don't respect said "weeb stuff" either.

[Anonymous No.]

if the DJT threads were good this won't be happening

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067378
>translation is low effort garbage that loses 95% of the meaning
>point this out
>"it was all badly written weebshit anyway!"
i don't understand these people

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067490
Yea I don't get what motivated them to learn japanese. I just learned enough to get through my loli rpgs and can barely motivate myself to learn more despite playing hgames every day.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067519
Learning Japanese has always been a popular thing to do for "hipster" types years before. I don't know what you would call them really, pseudo intellectual? If you remember this phenomena then you know.
Anyway, I imagine that hasn't changed much only now you can get real jobs with that skill instead of just using it to flex while ordering takeout at some restaurant you've never heard of before.
At least hgame dialog doesn't change much between works. Learn what you're comfortable with.

[Anonymous No.]

Not all jokes are translatable. If you want to convey tone and meaning you have to add new jokes to compensate for lost ones. Otherwise you end up with the dry and soulless writing that pervades amateur translation.
>BUT WHAT ABOUT *THIS* TRANSLATION IN *THIS* MEDIA THAT I DON'T LIKE
Bad localizations exist. This does not mean the fundamentals of translation no longer apply.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067519
That's the thing, they don't know japanese.
Instead, they use MTL and edit whatever it outputs to be more easily digestible to burgers and other EOPs.
This is so common that dry MTL or MTL-like translations from people that are barely N5 or N4 are the cause of the stereotype that japanese is somehow dry or monotone when in reality it's far from it, I can't tell you about any other language but from the three I know, japanese is the most expressive one.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067567
>Not all jokes are translatable.
TL notes exist for a reason, use them :).

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067567
I think the spanishsubs handled the kaguya jokes right with the translator note. English viewers were confused as to why Fujiwara was talking about her dog's wiener.
Same with Gabriel Dropout with the ah kuma joke which the english translation turned into a monstrosity.

[Anonymous No.]

Has anyone brought up the fact that Marvel pays jack shit in royalties to the people that create the characters? Imagine seeing your character at the movies and you got a couple hundred bucks in royalties if that lmao

[Anonymous No.]

>Western capeshit.

[Anonymous No.]

learn japanese and watch amachan

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067605
Now your translation is dry, soulless, AND annoying to read!
I don't hate TL notes they have their place but if there's an offhand reference to some JP fast food commercial from the 80s and your choices are between "delete it", "add a TL note", and "reference mac tonight", the third option wins 99% of the time.
>>40067635
It's a case by case thing because there's always more to writing than the existence or nonexistence of a joke, if the translated joke is out of character, confusing, or just not very funny there are other ways to handle it.
However, there's this huge idea in the English speaking anime community that "localization" is evil and translators should favor literal translation whenever possible, and it's constantly being pushed by clueless EOPs who don't understand that their idea of "literal" tends to make the translation *less* accurate.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067033
Would that be an explanation for why I hear wildly different takes on how manga translations compare to the raws? I once saw someone on /a/ make a similar statement to yours, where the more fluent he became the more he realized how dumb it was to complain about translations being "inaccurate" and that the complaints are mostly from people who only have a fragmented understanding of the language.
I also saw another anon take the opposite extreme, where he claimed that if you don't understand japanese then you're not allowed to complain about bad writing, because you're not actually reading it or some shit like that.
It's like...which is it? I know for dubs and especially video games there's a lot of well-documented embellishments (mgs2's translation is apparently infamous), but for manga I haven't heard of anything egregiously bad except for shitty, unedited mtl translations or that one baki translator who would make up entire pages of dialogue, or stuff like dialogue being stilted or flattened out tonally. Most of the complaints I see are about macro-level decisions, like whether or not to include honorifics or mishandling puns/refusing to use translation notes.

[Anonymous No.]

Just learn Jap. Realize you've wasted decades of your life to do it and now you've become too old for weebshit. Kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067741
"Leave it" never entered your mind as a possibility.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067782
>decades
sorry to hear about your learning disability

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067812
how to learn jap from 0? i speak 3 european languages.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067741
>However, there's this huge idea in the English speaking anime community that "localization" is evil and translators should favor literal translation whenever possible, and it's constantly being pushed by clueless EOPs who don't understand that their idea of "literal" tends to make the translation *less* accurate.
Thats the direct result of Americanizers arguing that literal translation is impossible and the only way to translate simple sentences said normally is by liberally meme'ing them up.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067741
Unfortunately the audience are more used to thinking about computers than language. They don't understand there is no pure translation of languages rich in allusion and idiom and that choices inevitably must be made.

e.g., consider how one would translate "we don't see eye to eye" into another language while preserving the meaning, the implied intimacy of said disagreement and that it is a reference to the King James Bible. I mean, you could write a TL but nobody would. You probably have to pick one of the above to go with or else pick a different idiom that feels similar in the other language.

Until there is some sort of brain interface "pure" translation isn't happening (and even that is highly debated). In many ways this is almost as asinine point, people have been translating the Bible or the Iliad forever and all this was accepted before widespread literacy even made it an issue for most. Its just anime fans that think they know better.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067875
For me, it's DUWANG.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067875
i love the middle one. feels more natural.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067875
>>40067253

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067884
>I mean, you could write a TL but nobody would.
I miss the 2000s
Ironic weebs were a fucking mistake

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067875
I hate the third example is extremely clearly an exaggeration to make a point, yet I have seen "localizations" on par with it in recent years in pretty much everything from anime subs to games to LNs and VNs, in both fan and official translations.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067961
yeah it's infuriating.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067926

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067875
that localization fucking kek

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067875
The first set of panels don't show a "literal translation", they show what you've accepted is a literal translation as a convention. This will do but obfuscates the problem honestly.

You've also probably not noticed the 'literal translation' turns them into literal Americans.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
Translation is badly paid everywhere and it is also one of those tasks where people are always asking you to do it for free or as a favour because you can "just do it". This tends to occur in situations where people don't know the difference between good and bad (and consequently don't understand where effort and judgement might come in) and don't care to. e.g., Graphic design.

I don't think its entitled and I don't think its self-important, I do think its hard to make a living out of it and it is unlikely that will change.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068044
anon here really planning on busting out the nonsensical = literal strawman defense that meme subbers have tried a million times as if it has ever worked.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067875
>Thats the direct result of Americanizers arguing that literal translation is impossible and the only way to translate simple sentences said normally is by liberally meme'ing them up.
Literal translation is impossible if what your translating is more than a single word, and even that's iffy because basic words have complex nuances which won't have perfect equivalents.
The whole liberal translation is bad shit is based around the terrifying idea of translators "rewriting" the script. Of course they're rewriting the script! It's not in fucking English! There is no such thing as a literal translation because there's no "literal" equivalent to begin with!
In reality, both meme-tier localization and straight J2E dictionary translation should piss people off because neither of them accomplish the goal of conveying the meaning well. It's a messy web of bad faith arguments and extreme ignorance which led us to the point where these two sides are fighting against each other.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068142
This is whats known as quibbling anon. You know very well what people mean by literal and rewrites.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067387
Sorry but that's just their backup discord.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067387

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068124
I haven't heard Cicero referred to as a "meme subber" before.

I'm pointing out the first one feels more clean to you through convention. "Thank you for the food!" is no more literal than anything else, its just how its always rendered.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40063868
>umehara of dating sims
>demonstrate my insight and creative autonomy
These people...

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068160
I'm only saying it because people twist the definitions of these words so far in order to say the dumbest of shit. Calling a translation "Accurate" would be a far better (more accurate!) signifier of quality.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068230
>went straight for the itadakimasu
Like a fucking book
We've really had these arguments for decades and you guys always follow the same pattern. Please explain to me how the first panel is not literal.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067253
>were me I'd write the story like this!
Wasn't referring to the plot. The actual quality of writing in each sentence for most otaku media is dogshit and derivative; yet N4s can't grasp this, thinking there's instead some deep nuances to the words and grammar carelessly splattered on a piece of paper. No, it's just randoms artifcact of how Japanese works as a language that they mistake as deep when it's shallow and not the actual content of the sentence. An N4 can't even read good writing, so they'll forever bicker about shit middle schoolers would write. N4s can't distinguish between what is and isn't good, what is or isn't important. They can't distinguish or preserve tone, because they haven't read enough and have only read shit for the most part. They mistake equivalents between two languages because they treat a Japanese to English dictionary as the definition and meaning instead of its definition in Japanese.
The actual nuance of how to translate is lost on a Japanese beginner because they, quite simply, have a mistaken understanding of Japanese and what's important. Moreover they lack a grasp of English as well to even attempt to preserve tone.
The original flavor of the Japanese text is lost because these types prefer the "flavor of Japanese language" as opposed to the actual inherent flavor of the text as a work of art. What's important is mistaken.
Most translations are shit, but not for reasons N4s would likely point out. The child-like demeanor of a loli's speech pattern gets turned into bland English since an N4 can't pick up on how to render it in English unless its blatant verbal tic, while the rest of the bland worthless medicore writing spit on the page is worshipped on a godly pedestal by N4s as being important to translate "literally".

>>40067781
Yep, those who complain about inaccuracies often don't understand the text themselves. There are of course bad TLs that are straight up incorrect or localizations that completely change the tone for no reason, which that crowd use to justify attacking perfectly reasonable translations with their N4 misunderstandings.
As for the second anons point, the bad writing of the English can be judged but it says nothing of the JP or whether it was a poor translation. A translator can be faithful to how shitty the writing was, or make the writing shittier by lack of skill. The only way to judge the quality of JP writing is to know Japanese and be well read in a variety of actual literature.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068291
I'll agree "accurate" sounds better than "literal". But the arguments would be exactly the same.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067378
>weeb stuff
They probably got into the ironic weeaboo fad but realized years later that it really wasn't meant for them. Such many cases but at least others don't try to bastardize the work of artists, authors and other type of creators regardless of lowbrow it is. The way weeb is used in modern internet vernacular and how some people attach to it is annoying to say the least.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068323
7 instances of "N4" in this post.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068303
There is no such thing as "literal translation" in the sense you mean it. What it does is mechanically follow how manga and anime translation normally looks which makes you think it is more faithful or cleaner. Baka does not mean idiot (or at least not idiot alone), but it is always rendered as idiot as we again both know. If she'd said "you jackanape" that is no less literal but you'd feel it was.

I think this is a good idea to use conventions and prefer it myself but its a different thing going on than some sort of non-existent linguistic purity.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067781
>>40067741
The more you know Japanese, the less inaccuracies matter because you know what is actually said or meant, which is less knowing Japanese and more knowing anime tropes.
>the complaints are mostly from people who only have a fragmented understanding of the language.
This is due to them putting undue value on meaningless phrases. If I were to like, write like this, and have lots of, you know, extra words and stuff, I mean the extra words would have meaning, but you could like, ignore a large part of it. Sure, it'd lose some tone or whatever, but you would still get the same info across though, know what I mean? Jap is full of empty, meaningless things like that.

>Most of the complaints I see are about macro-level decisions, like whether or not to include honorifics or mishandling puns/refusing to use translation notes.
That is where most of the information about characters come from in anime and otaku works. Honorifics not only show their relation but whether they're polite or rude or servile or overly friendly based on what they use and how quickly they begin using it. Likewise, endings like desu, da wa, no ja, nano kashira and stuff show if they're "girly" or "rough" or "boyish" or "really old". Between honorifics, endings, and personal pronouns, that's 60% of a typical otaku culture character's personality right there. The other 40% is 20% hair color/clothing/body features and 20% actual actions and dialogue of the character.

Honestly TL notes should be used more, especially in games where you could just have a quick to access glossary or text document. Stuff should only be removed in dubs for the sake of flow. Food, jokes, and the like should be left as close to Japanese as possible and if people don't know the meme, they just don't know the meme. There are Japs that don't know the meme as well. Puns should be handled either by making another pun if it doesn't really matter what they said contextually, by explaining the Japanese if it does matter what it said contextually while translating it literally, and just explaining the pun if it's a visual joke like with Kanji or creatures.

[Anonymous No.]

You guys sound like you're on top of your game, can you recommend a source to learn nip grammar, sentence structure and stuff like that?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068449
Great things can be done. Admittedly not really worthwhile outside properly literary contexts and even there one might question it. Still.

[Anonymous No.]

Railgun anime translation had middleschool friends calling each other Miss Saten and Miss Uiharu.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025340
Wasn't there a game that offered two types of translation and localizers got really mad about it?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068637
Yea. They offered an accurate translation and the olddog tier rewrite first localization. Localizers were seething about it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068665
Never heard of that, what's the game?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068705
https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/02/17/western-localizers-upset-river-city-girls-zero-offers-option-for-more-literal-translation-claim-their-work-is-being-disrespected/

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068142
>>40068323
>>40068303

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068665
>accurate translation
kek

[Anonymous No.]

Localization is the best

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067490
>>"it was all badly written weebshit anyway!"
Neptunia translators on why they add memes every other line.
The games were comfy in nip, like cute girls doing cute things anime. The English translations were unbearably bad.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068323
Very interesting to read thanks. As for the bad writing, I interpreted it more as not being able to criticize any aspect of a manga, such as the plot and the characters as a whole. So say, if you have a manga where the character's motivations and the overarching themes of a work are completely ham-fisted or just very poorly executed in general, then you're not allowed to complain because you don't understand Japanese. This interpretation is probably a huge stretch on my part though, as manga is mostly a visual medium, which means that a lot of its meaning can be derived from the art itself. And it doesn't seem like the there's some tremendous, across-the-board loss in meaning that I wasn't aware of, outside of specific examples which can easily be picked up on by reading discussions around whatever you're reading, or honorifics.
>>40068449
>Honorifics not only show their relation but whether they're polite or rude or servile or overly friendly based on what they use and how quickly they begin using it.
I thought it was mainly the former, so it's interesting to see that honorifics convey more than I realized. A lot of what I've read leaves out honorifics so I haven't had much of a chance to engage with them, which means I have to rely on the "other 40%" you mentioned to infer a character's personality.
Also how many games use TL notes?

And a question to both of you. How much has learning Japanese enhanced your enjoyment of Otaku culture, and are there any aspects of otaku culture (say video games vs VNs) that are more enhanced by it than others? I'm an EOP lurker who's interested in diving deeper into otaku culture and manga, but I'm having a hard time deciding if learning Japanese for the sake of a hobby is worth it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40069091
>How much has learning Japanese enhanced your enjoyment of Otaku culture, and are there any aspects of otaku culture (say video games vs VNs) that are more enhanced by it than others?
The best becomes godlike, while mediocre content becomes less enjoyable and sometimes unpalatable.
In general bad performances, bad writing, and generic anime tropes become less enjoyable. For some reason it's easier to just ignore it when you don't know any better.
For anime, with the rare good anime you can notice stellar performances from voice actors much better and it increases the enjoyment a lot. Along with focusing on the screen instead of eyes glued to subs. However, bad or generic performances feel a lot worse to listen to compared to when it all sounded like a foreign language. Basically you have higher standards but things that meet those standards are much better.
Manga is a fair bit more enjoyable to read in Japanese than English scanlations. However I never really read manga in English, only ever in Japanese. Most manga doesn't really have good writing though but it is an improvement to read the Japanese and feels like the correct experience. I feel bad for scanlators.
For games in general, most modern releases either the English or Japanese are equally enjoyable, sometimes the English being better in some departments. For example the Splatoon English localization is better or Shulk's English VA has a more memorable performance. Older games were butchered in English and should always be played in Japanese. With Otaku focused games, while the Japanese is better I somehow used to enjoy the content more back when I was using shitty English translations.
For Visual Novels, reading type-moon works in Japanese is such a bliss. The good VNs you get so much more enjoyment out of reading it in Japanese. No fault of the translators, its understandable why extremely long VNs can't live up to the original Japanese. Mediocre VNs are just as annoying as before, just annoying in Japanese now.

Mediocre stuff becomes unpalatable but the best of the best gets enhanced. In general my thoughts on otaku culture became jaded and the content in general became less enjoyable, but the occasional peaks of each medium are bliss and better than the English.

[Anonymous No.]

maybe ill start listening to eops when they realize that they're missing out on a whole dimension of the language in personal pronouns, instead they always just demand honorifics and stupid words like itadakimasu not be translated
boring eop cope thread as anything translation related always is, but this time on /jp/ for some reason

[Anonymous No.]

>>40069398
I'm sure everyone will be very upset you aren't listening to their concerns.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40069413
doesn't matter to me really but ill encourage the so called trannylators because they're funny and cause more eop seethe

[Anonymous No.]

>>40069421
Sounds like a great way to waste your time. I wish you the best luck.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40067782
>too old for weebshit
Hmph!

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068449

>Likewise, endings like desu, da wa, no ja, nano kashira and stuff show if they're "girly" or "rough" or "boyish" or "really old". Between honorifics, endings, and personal pronouns, that's 60% of a typical otaku culture character's personality right there.

There is a term for this, it's called yakuwarigo - 役割語. Translates into role language.

[Anonymous No.]

learn to read

[Anonymous No.]

what is an EOP?

[Anonymous No.]

>>40070674
Ethiopian Opera Patron.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40061936
https://itazuraneko.neocities.org/learn/guide.html#Learning%20Japanese
the best and updated guide!

[Anonymous No.]

>>40069091
>I thought it was mainly the former, so it's interesting to see that honorifics convey more than I realized. A lot of what I've read leaves out honorifics so I haven't had much of a chance to engage with them, which means I have to rely on the "other 40%" you mentioned to infer a character's personality.
It's not really that it conveys stuff, but that a change in honorifics indicates a change in relation, like you know the typical "drop the honorifics when the character feels close" or "stop calling me 'san' already" type things, but imagine your name is Charles and when you introduce yourself to someone, he's like "sup Chuck?" every time he sees you from then on even though you barely speak to him, or that you're a teacher and everyone else says "Yes, Sir" or "Yes, Mr. Maloney" while one student says "OK, Charlie" instead. You can see how a character would come off as buddy-buddy or kind of disrespectful. It's sort of funny that it's the same sort of situation that makes it sound strange whenever a translator decides to translate "san" as "mister" or "miss" among peers like >>40068551 since it makes them sound either formal or distant (or perhaps sassy), but a character who keeps calling someone "san" even after sharing experiences with them would eventually come off that way in Japanese anyway.

>>40070504
Huh, that's neat.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40069091
>>40070813
>How much has learning Japanese enhanced your enjoyment of Otaku culture, and are there any aspects of otaku culture (say video games vs VNs) that are more enhanced by it than others?
I didn't answer this in my previous post, but it makes it harder to like some things. Character name puns get on my nerves. Generally the more I understand a song, the less I like it, but it's probably because of the types of songs I listen to. I have to pretty much try not to read the text in eromanga to enjoy it sometimes. I really dislike when characters are translated as having some strange accent but I also hate it in Japanese because when they have a way of talking it's usually more at the level of French characters saying "zee" all the time. Like if they don't make a foreigner speak in horrible katakana, they'll have Japanese on par with anyone else but say "desu" with emphasis or some other minor thing to indicate they "barely" know Japanese. If I think about it, the foreign characters others can understand without issue usually use more gratuitous English/French/Russian/German in their dialogue, though I can't say it's a general thing because I don't indulge in media with those kinds of characters that much. But this is true of, e.g. old timey characters in a modern world as well, speaking normal modern Japanese but adding the designated ye olde nihongo pronouns and sentence endings.

I'd pretty much say the same thing as >>40069346
>In general my thoughts on otaku culture became jaded and the content in general became less enjoyable
But similarly it's only in response to being able to read lots of trash, including trash that isn't good enough to be considered worth translating. I have gotten great enjoyment out of being able to play whatever doujin game I wanted and understand what is going on. As for enhanced experiences, pretty much all I can say is not having to worry about western censorship and being able to enjoy visual jokes (like text on building signs and similar things that usually don't get translated.) Also being able to understand description and captions on images like on pixiv. Sometimes it's dumb shit, but other times it might make an image better to actually have some context for it. It also feels good to go back to shit I saved like in 2007, 2004 and be able to read the bits of Japanese on it.

I don't have an opinion on voice acting because I don't like it in games and I don't really watch much anime (I don't think I've finished a series since 2015ish) other than that otaku media has made me hate the US English female tone of voice. Not really the accent but there's something about the tone of voice even when Japanese women speak in good English that grates on my nerves. It doesn't bother me anywhere near as much outside of otaku contexts(I'm a US "native" by the way) and I don't know what it is. It bothers me even when they speak normally and not like an anime loli or something. This has nothing to do with Japanese however.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40071532
i find it hard to take seriously anyone that defaults to the "it's all trash" mentality

[Anonymous No.]

Because the pay is only enough to attract the most low IQ of angloids.
If you care about the money/career aspects then technical/political documents is a) less stressful, b) way more rigorous, c) looks better on a CV and to normalfags and d) pays way more.
As far as the hobby aspect goes you're better off helping along a fan project of a project you actually care about instead of taking below minimum wage so disgusting faggots can force a dickless MTL-tier re-write on the latest Idea Factory shovelware and claim authorial ownership.

[Anonymous No.]

I'm continously amazed by how offended americans are by the idea of a technical business like translation having actual standards to live up to.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40077049
that's what happens when you put any sort of actual standards in front of a bottom feeder or even bring up the idea at all

[Anonymous No.]

>>40025385
fpbp

[Anonymous No.]

>>40032855
>buzzwords
kill yourself

[Anonymous No.]

>>40068170
>>40067387
Not their fault there's no singular definitive way to learn the language. Especially when listening is concerned. So many sub never evers lost to time.

[Anonymous No.]

>>40026353
This.