Engrish subtitles on Japanese TV
TV Asahi aired a neat program （世界が選ぶ日本アニメ傑作20） on Sunday night educating Japanese viewers about specific anime movies and series that are very popular outside of Japan. It was particularly cool when it contrasted the titles, script translations, and voice acting casts of Japanese and foreign versions of the anime.
[A Japanese YouTuber has uploaded the show in its entirety. Watch it here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.]
I have only one complaint about the program. During the segments containing English language versions of anime, TV Asahi provided English language subtitles of the lines being spoken by voice actors. Much to my annoyance, almost all of the subtitles were garbled Engrish that made little or no sense and did not match the words being spoken. It was pretty obvious that whoever TV Asahi hired to translate the the clips didn’t have the slightest idea what the English language actors were saying.
Here are two examples:
1. Japanese Fist of the North Star anime vs. Hollywood Fist of the North Star live action movie
It’s hard to imagine “tickle me to death” becoming “take the minute down,” but their translator wrote it that way!
2. American Speed Racer
Speed Racer was never really known for having clear and natural sounding voice work, but that’s no excuse to just make up fake English when you don’t understand what’s being said.
A major Japanese TV network should be able to deliver better than bootleg DVD quality English subtitles. What’s wrong with you, TV Asahi?
| Related Posts: |
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英本語 (Eihongo) and other missuses of the Japanese language DVD rental service for foreigners in Japan |
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I wonder how accurate the transcriptions of the other languages in the show were.
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I caught that on TV the other night as well, and was equally annoyed by the Engrish subtitles. Did they not have the resources to locate proper scripts?
It was a fun show, although 世界のナベアツ was on the show and he annoys me to no end.
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Heck, how about hiring some eikaiwa sensei to watch the clips and write down exactly what was said? That being said watching those clips got me all ‘motioned up’.
I have to agree with your distaste for 世界のナベアツ. His hilarious mustache and Natsumi Soseki look make me pray for 江頭2:50 to dropkick him from off screen.
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take the minute down, man i laughed hard on that one.
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no Dr. Slump or Sailor Moon?
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I watched this with the wife and we enjoyed it thoroughly.
I was cracking up when that awful English rolled up. I’m sure they had some Japanese fellow on staff who was “good at English”, maybe even had Eiken 5kyu go through the text for free and write it down. Not very much editorial pride.
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Take the Engrish down. One of the both jacked up with Engrish in motion!! Dissmiss the words farts!
Gee, you think all they needed was someone that spoke english to type what the characters were saying…lol. It’s not like it required translation. lol.
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“Oh Trixie!”
“Speed got his bolt jacked up!”
Come on now, if I were the translator, I would have some REAL fun with it ^_^
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The Engrish was pretty bad, but that hollywood fist of the north star movie clip made me laugh my a$$ off! he was just poking him
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so?…whats the problem? i that luv goodness japan.
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Hahaha, take the minute down !
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I really get why everyone picks on Japan so much on bad translation, There’s tons of terrible Japanese in American tv/movies and nobody ever points those out.
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That is probably because the majority of people that watch those movies can’t speak Japanese or hasn’t been around it enough to pick up on that bad Japanese. Just a guess though.
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The majority of people watching TV Asahi can’t speak English and haven’t been around it enough to know that the subtitles above were mangled, either. No problem here.
My money’s on “TV production firm lacks money for translation, spends a few thousand yen on a voice recognition package instead.”
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That’s because average English spearkers find mangled English much funnier than mangled Japanese. The opposite is true for average Japanese speakers.
There are many Japanese websites that feature mangled Japanese, such as:
http://www.linkclub.or.jp/~asia-mit/kenkyuu/japanese/japanese.html
http://colorfulland.hp.infoseek.co.jp/nihonkongo.html
Or even in English:
http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20031006.html
Also in the “Related Posts” above, you see the Japan Probe article of “Eihongo” (which itself is Eihongo).
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I don’t really get why everyone picks on Japan so much for bad translation, There’s tons of terrible Japanese in American tv/movies but nobody ever points those out.
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WHY subtitles?
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About the Spanish dub and translation of the subs of Doraemon: The Spanish dub is from the Mexican Spanish dub of the series, NOT from the European Spanish dub as stated in the program, but the Spanish subs are 100% accurate unlike the English ones.
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This was a great watch. Thanks for sharing!
I know many older anime series are pretty famous in other European countries (I’m from Sweden), but I was surprised to see so many shows I had never even heard of. I expected to see more 80s/90s action shows, and less 70s tearjerkers.
A bit annoying how they just lumped together Europe as one on the world map too, I would’ve liked to see in a bit more detail which countries each show was actually aired in.
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Who cares about the translation??
Instead of crediting the show for highlighting world animation, you turn this article into a rant about how bad the English translation was.
Take a look at the translation services offered by television companies in your home country before slating those in Japan. Japan is a country where English is not necessary for daily life.
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Sure “English is not necessary for daily life” but most Japanese (and I would dare say everyone working at a TV station) have had several years of compulsory English education and there is indeed a national obsession/insecurity with eikaiwa. It’s sad because billions of yen (dollars even) get dumped into studying English and this is the best they could do.
Plus where was Sailor Moon and ANY Macross?
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Wow – I actually have watched all the ten 10 minutes parts
The whole world was enjoyed anime in the past, but not we, who lived in former Soviet Union
There was absolutely no anime or satelite TV until 1991 in Estonia … too bad.
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I think the world would be a more harmonious place if we replaced all English with Engrish.
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Asahi – both the television and the newspaper – fail at English, period. You should check out the English edition of their newspaper for some good laughs – like “Scary gangster and wife arrested for whatever”. That was a big headline, and I’m not kidding.
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Where it says “nokogiri-kuruma nante musi da”, the subs should read something like “Don’t worry about the saw cars.” A bit strange that “sword cars” was used therein, since “nokogiri” is a kind of woodworking saw, not a sword.
Also, in the Fist of the North Star clip, where it says “Mate. Mada owatte’nai zo” the subs should read something like “Wait up! It’s not over.” Finally, “Doo suru’n da? Sonna waza de taoseru to omotte’ru no ka?” should be rendered in English as “What’cha gonna do? Do you think you can defeat me with that technique?” or “What’re you gonna do? You think that’s gonna work?”
The English language, despite its grammatical liquidity, has its subtleties. I wonder just who was the doofus (or electronic translation software) that did the wa’ei translation for that program’s subs.
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