Woke Translators ALREADY Replaced By AI (they're mad)
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- Опубліковано 25 гру 2023
- by @Revsaysdesu • Anime & Manga Localize...
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Localizers: "Why do you like AI? It doesn't even translate correctly!"
Everyone: "Yeah, neither do you."
And AI will improve over time. Localizers won't.
The humans are getting worse with time while the AI is getting better
@@Dragonmaster600 Humans are "getting worse" by choice.
Instead of keep it consistently, those kind of people decided to trash everything for a cause that doesn't even make sense
Translation is an art that benefits greatly from creativity. The absolute best localized lines I've seen have moved away from literally translating what was said to finding an equivalent. It's not about "write down what the words they said mean in another language," it's "Imagine a world where the author was a native speaker of the target language, how might they have written that line instead?" ML is very good at technical copying, but it does not have the capacity for creativity as it's currently being used.
@@spankminister I think I speak for the majority of anime watchers when I say I reject that opinion completely and to quit doing that.
For those curious, The Dragon Maid example provided early in the video is an example of a particularly egregious localization change.
The original script was making a jab at women and gossip culture where gossiping housewives will talk about single women who are sexy and unmarried frequently. The translator decided to change the entire point to be about men, not women. This and a slew of other drastic changes to the original intent reportedly caused the creator to call her out on it. She responded by being extremely rude to the CREATOR of the work she's translating and say it's her vision of the character and they have no say. Funimation lost the license shortly afterward.
Dang, that must have stung. 😂
Wait, Funi actually lost the license to Dragon maid? Are you serious? Please tell me you're not joking. Because that would be perfect karma.
Funimation is trash.
Now if funi/crunchy roll lost the license to EVERY anime ever, that'd be great.
Haven't kept tabs on netflix, how do they fair on this topic? Already don't trust them due to the cuties debacle but perhaps they aren't rotten to the core/all departments (lol doubtful)
lol now im curious of coolkyou calling her out on it. ive read stuff on this and her shitty translation but never came up on when coolkyou called her out on it. and funimation losing the license to dragon maid cause of her.
There’s a difference between “oh this joke relies on cultural Japanese context to get, let’s swap it for an American joke” and “let’s add to this dialogue to push a political agenda.”
Right like jokes in games that are changed in base of the language you are playing on.
Not to mention jokes always require context. Its like being American means you know every American joke. And since EN dub/translations are also international and not just American, a lot of people are definately not going to get the new joke either. The only jokes that should be translated are jokes where the meaning of the Japanese words themselves are the context.
well, I'm not american, so either joke is equally foreign to me. Weren't you supposed to make it understandable for everyone?
You fucked up.
It's possible that the localizer lives in such a bubble that their perception of American culture is "the pAtRiArChY REEEE"
@@TiasungThere are still jokes that even outside of culture does not work in English at all, because they rely on very interesting puns. You have to change that, because otherwise it isn't even a joke.
And there are also other things where there are jokes where it still doesn't work, just because of context. English Speakers have a general "culture" as well, in terms of what they understand... There are also cultural Japanese context jokes that some Japanese people don't get... and when a joke is culturally jabbing at something specific in the culture, you should use an equivalent joke, otherwise you also lose the meaning of the joke.
I like that the lucoa line is SO poorly localized that even most people who have never seen dragon maid, know nothing about the characters, hear that line and say "wtf that's obviously not what she was saying"
I'm one of those people lmao
No translator should ever use someone else's art as a platform for their personal beliefs.
This
Holy shit cory corson!
This is how these woke weirdos operate. They're too creatively bankrupt that they infect other spaces and inject their own bullshit in there because they aren't real fans. Spider-Man 2 is a perfect example of this, Brian Intihar, the lead writer at Insomniac, saw all the criticism for the MJ missions in Spider-Man PS4 and decided not to cut them out or not use them in the sequel but rather double down just to spite people. That's not all either, then they went and changed her face so much that she's almost a completely different character on top of her Mary Sue bullshit.
What's crazy is they knew people would call her a Mary Sue with this change, so they inserted some quick throwaway line to explain why she can all of a sudden insta take down these super athletic hunters with no problem by saying she got trained by Silver Sable during her and Peter's trip to Symkaria... How convenient, huh?
I've noticed something similar recently in GoWR, right before Atreus goes to Asgard a 2nd time he's given a special enchantment to his realm travel key to quickly get out of a situation... And guess what happens during that trip? He gets attacked and has to use it. Well how convenient that he just so happened to be given that special one time use enchantment right before the incident! 🤦♂️
@@terencesterling6839 Hi there, it's nice to see you here too.
@@bandawin18 Not just creatively bankrupt. Disingenuous through and through.
If your concepts and Idea's don't stand to scrutiny and questioning: They are bad. If you can't stand your thoughts being questioned, you need a reality check. This use of AI and turning to an academic linguist to ensure readability is ultimately the reality check.
Any other job would’ve fired them for not doing their job correctly. This is karma.
Facts
"Job"
That's reality, baby!
True.
@@trenaceandblackmetal5621There are many localizers around the world that make it not just job, but art. For now it seems only some English speaking localizers are doing it in this way.
"And so, Gollum was yeeted into the saucy flames of Mordor."
The "AI is mediocre and not as good as using localizers" argument runs flat to me because we know the AI will get better over time, whereas the localizers have proudly stated they mean not to.
AI has fundamental problems with language learning, it won't get better after certain point
Machine learning (such as Google's GNMT) is used in translators for years at this point. It does improve somewhat, but it's still leagues away from curated localizations, and translating complex contextual stuff (in-jokes, puns, cultural references) will likely remain beyond AI's comprehension unless we reach actual sentience with it.
that's the issue. AI improves much faster than humanity. I'm not saying we're gonna have an AI Doomsday but my great grand children will probably be eating at a functional robot mcdonalds.
@JennyTheNerdBat the real power of ai, it can translate to any language and learning them fast at the same time save original voice.
@@Pihtorichit will lol just wait
The difference between AI and Localizers is that AI translates sometimes incorrectly by mistake while localizers translate wrong ON PURPOSE.
Both are by mistake or incompetence, but at least the AI is not smug about it
@@DracoHandsome I would rather deal with AI mistranslations that can be corrected with time, than with a human localizer that willfully and deliberately mistranslates Japanese anime and manga
Localization is an important part of translating works for the public, it is a process older than time and not easily done by IA. For example, translating a Japanese novel you use "she was wondering whether to throw it in the recyclable trash or the normal one" whereas in the Japanese original you have "flammable" or "non flammable" trash because that is just how Japanese households work. Unless you want to do footnotes in every single page and break the flow of the story, localization is necessary. Of course you can do it the right way or the wrong way.
@@SiriProject Having a flawed AI do translations is better than having a malicious ideologue translate it wrong on purpose.
No, localizers don't. *Some* of them do.
Don't make it sound like every person does this and A.I. is better.
What needs to happen, is the people at FUNimation need to pull their head out of their asses.
The solution is NOT to just have A.I. do everything....
Fire these people and hire some of the many, many people who respect the creator and wont change things unless they absolutely have to, like to fit with the lip flaps or something.
The moment they added their own opinion and differed from an authentic translation they should have been fired. I see no issue with them being replaced. If you don't do the job you are hired for you don't expect to keep your job.
I don't understand why people who hate their job are getting hired to do it.
It is such a fun thing. People that absolutely HATE a certain space also insists on getting into that space. They just want to change it. The whole "what does it matter what they do in their own home?" argument is suddenly something a conservative would say. Why are you breaking into a foreign space just to whine about what is going on there? Just don't go in. It is very simple.
the one problem with ai translation is sentence structure, but the creators of these manga/anime’s said that human input still comes there to double check it. so thats the only view of how i can see “ai bad”
so who do you think programs and directs AI? the same people who were writing the commentary before. forest for the trees boobicus americanus
It's sad too because there's plenty of people (myself included) who would love to do the work and do it honestly but these people have their weird cliques and use disturbing methods like doxing and group harass on discord/twitter etc and things like this to keep their circles closed. It's cringe. They've ruined it for everyone now. I'm sure it's easy to find the creepy discord screenshots of some of these translator groups ranting about how they're going to insert all their political ideology into the material and no one can stop them and another is someone laughing about how they changed a character entirely etc. They wonder why no one respects them, lol.
Regarding AI-assisted translation, we've been using that at my workplace for several months now. We also use it to generate closed captions and transcripts for long webinars and other things. Saves SO MUCH time and money. What used to take our team hours upon hours now takes only a few minutes to create, then we simply read through it to make sure it's accurate. Typically it's just names that get messed up. Thankfully in our case, no one lost their job over the incorporation of AI, we can just do what we did before, but faster and more of it. We also now use AI to repair portions of dialogue that has been destroyed by age (film, vhs, etc), bad connections, and people talking over a presenter.
God bless you and your job
Translators and writers for blogs and such lost like 80% of their customers since gpt came out so people are losing a lot of customers. Now they have to get some job to put the bread on the table. Hopefully something handy like electrician or plumber, the things that actually make society run. Most of the work is manual anyway and if they can write they can dig trenches or fix pipes. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤔🤔🤔🤫
@@Andytlpkeep laughing when ai takes your job and nobody cares about you
I'm using it too, Voice Actors have conditions in their resumes, so I use AI Dubbing.
Jamie Marchi has been going on a nearly two-week social media meltdown and I am loving every minute of it. That Dragon Maid line has lived in infamy for years, but I never knew where it came from or who was responsible. Now I do and I'm glad most of the community does too. Her future in the industry is a dead end.
I wish that was true…… but she’s tight with the heads of funimation. Hell she used false sexual assault claims to get somebody fired. She still has a job.
@@OPGaming-hx4hb its always that way, woke people cant f@cking work but they always use nepotism and personal connections to evade any consequences. infuriating.
You got 3 types of localizers:
- The ideological activists, who feel entitled to change the original work.
- The freemium/barely paid volunteers, who always have a sick grandma that needs donations
- The chad who does a direct translation, even with idioms and sayings that make 0 sense.
And then said chad explains the whole thing to you in a translation, and ends up teaching you more about Japan than most Japanese would know.
One translation of Neko no Otera no Chion-san direct translated a tiny little reference to a plant in one chapter, and then added a whole page with a dissertation about the plant, its cultural significance in the region the story takes place in, and use in cooking, after the end of the chapter.
I appreciate that way more than having something that "reads smoothly" aka can be absorbed while being braindead.
There's so many manga that are serialized entirely around the theme of expanding your knowledge on niche topics, it's a whole subgenre, to assume the average reader has an aversion to learning is beyond insane and probably just projection.
@@_Ikelos The translation of "Hakumei to Mikochi" does that with little notes at the end of the volumes, explaining many of the details in the story. I've picked up a number of cooking tips and construction notes that way. Manga teaches more than public schools these days, lol.
@@Alondro77 I remember Horriblesubs and Dattebayo back in the day of anime fan subbing and they use to do that all the time, really appreciated it.
the 2nd one is so specific, and I'm 100% I've actually seen it lol
One anime that localizers tried to change but was changed back quickly was in "Dangers in my heart"
Where the original line was the male MC stating, "Am I really telling a fashion model how fashion should be?"
To...
"Did I just mansplain to a fashion model about fashion?"
Nothing kills immersion more than dated terms that nobody outside the internet even knows.
Keep in mind that that word doesn't even exist in Japan.
And it didn’t make sense because the fashion model asked for his opinion can’t even use dumb term right
@@theblackoutexplorer2658To be fair, the people using the term in English can't use it "right" either. (Scare quotes because it's inherently illogical so can't be right ever, but the point is, even if we pretended that wasn't the case, they use it wrong all the time, sometimes even in that same way where someone asked.)
Such a dumb word and bigoted concept. It basically means that if you were born in the wrong 50% then you should shut up for life.
4kids is classic for this. Their most infamous one being in pokemon with brock calling onigiri jelly filled donuts
they could of just taught us some Japanese food
As a translator/localizer (not into English) AI is a godsend not only for easing workloads but for weeding out these shitty translators that muddle our pond. It won't be able to replace capable, professional translators, but only pretenders as evidenced by this story.
I wonder if that's actually what's happening, AI not actually replacing out artists and translators or writers, merely weeding out the bottom barrel.
@@fakeorchestra4260 Well AI is not replacing the (actually good) translators anytime soon. I'm not a translator (just bilingual), but you don't have to be one to see that often to translate properly you need to know the context, you have to *understand* what is happening in the story. AI can't do that.
@@petrusion2827 Agree with this. I agreed with Rev in the video that it shouldn't have come to relying on AI, well at least with the current level of AI. Since I think the most difficult part of translating is accurate context which AI isn't capable of doing. Perhaps in the future they could, but for now AI + translator to proof read and fix context is a great way of implementing AI
@@fakeorchestra4260 A big problem with this is that everybody starts out at the bottom barrel at some point. If we purge the bottom barrel, then nobody new will rise to the top of the barrel.
Then we just have the death of creativity when the veterans all get old and retire/die cause we were busy trying to use AI instead of cultivating the next generation.
I think AI can be used correctly and in a good way, but I just see most people outsourcing all skill/thought to it and abusing it as a crutch which isn't giving me much confidence.
@@Wings012 By bottom of the barrel I didn't mean beginner creators, but actual garabage creators that refuse to grow or insert their political takes into translation.
I'm a professional japanese translator/localizer myself and I 100% confirm that this is a widespread thing. It baffles me the sheer disrespect that some "localizers" have for the authors, the series and their customers/audience. I would NEVER EVER jeopardize my work or the series that I love inserting my world view/political agenda on it , even if there's a situation in it that I'm completely against. I'm so sorry for that. Not all of us are like that.
You sound like a good localizer. Problem is, not all are like you and an increasing amount of activists wish to subvert localizing; to culturally appropriate the culture to make Japan not only like them, but to subvert another nerd hobby into a political mouthpiece. Its a losing game where they must be replaced by AI.
Thank you, it sucks that the vocal minority absolutely hates the media they translate which has been festering and only now surfacing again.
It is a shame that their actions may lead to good localizers to loose jobs to ai, i hope you are able to continue in some capacity and arent disrupted too much🤞
I have never seen a sub like that in my life. Whether from the meow site or various streaming sites. Are you sure this ain't a thing only in translations made by americans ?
@@mesterumainly it's been a problem from Funimation dubs. With Crunchyroll and Funimation combining it's probably going to be a problem on even more dubs now.
"Are you some kind of GamerGate freak show?"
Actual Translation: "What are you talking about?"
Lmao
This shit is why you don't become friends with your coworkers. Because whoever submitted this line was buddy-buddy with whoever was in charge, they had a giggle at their inside joke and it went through.
I can't watch any "official subbed" show because I know a little of japanese (by hearing not writing) and most of the time the subs are garbage.
This localizer thing has been going on since forever. One thing that comes to mind is turning a lesbian relationship into implied incest (Sailor Moon, in case anyone wants to look that up.)
The best translations that i used to come across were those that kept the original JP jokes and slangs, but added a note explaining the reasoning behind why they are saying it, it was such a wonderful job, and i could learn more about their culture.
I would take that over "localized" american slangs at every day of the week
"AI won't be able to translate it properly!"
You speak both languages and you're CHOOSING not to translate it properly.
it will still require a human translator to check the work, but its a step in the right direction due to entitled localizes thinking its their job to alter someone else work.
@@michaelvial125 If that AI can do the work better than actual humans who speak the language then that AI deserves the job more than they do.
And people said AI can't make coherent images or sentences just 6 years ago too...
You can give ChatGPT 4 context and tone of the dialogue to translate. Same with Google Bard.
That's literally their job. They're localisers, not translaters. They're literally paid to not translate correctly on purpose, because Japanese businessmen believe that localisation is a better marketing tactic than translating.
The worst is catching the localizers literally bragging on twitter about fucking with the writing
You could avoid that by simply not reading X.
@@lordzaboem True, the translators could also just translate correctly
@@lordzaboem ignoring problems doesnt make them go away. seeing translators ruin works and then brag about it in public is truly insane.
@@lordzaboem Are you the kind of person that goes "Yesss kween/queerfolks" when localiser brags about ruining the source material on twitter?
@@Wrathful86 He is probably one of them. I don't doubt they are watching this video right now and looking at the comments as we speak.
I had a friend who was a bit delusional and completely illogical and we don't talk anymore. I remember were talking about presidential elections and stuff and I told him I didn't really like Hillary and he immediately told me that I was a Trump supporter; then I said I don't like him either, but he kept pushing that I supported Trump because I didn't like Hillary. And after that I just couldn't go on talking to him. There's just no logic in some people.
This is actually the kind of thing that AI would be ideal for. If you try to get an AI to write something original, they'll often get confused and write things that don't make sense with reference to the real world, because they have no experience of the real world. But they're excellent at taking words and stringing them together in a way that makes sense to the intended reader, so having them convert a sentence written in one language, and without creative thought rewriting it in a way that makes sense to the intended reader is perfect for them. There might be some errors when understanding of context over multiple paragraphs is required, but some AI programs are even getting pretty decent at that. I wouldn't just take what the computer spits out and paste it straight into the anime, have someone read it over but yeah, this is an actually good application of AI and look, I completely reject worker infighting but society does not need these people.
I used to do scanlations for ecchi and harem manga's online with a small team. People would come read our translations not because they couldn't afford buying it, but because they were tired of shitty official translations.
On a side note; Not suprised, but I found out this localizer has blocked me.
B-based?
W person....mind sharing your twitter?
you do gods work
Dude just dropping W's left and right.
God's work ❤
Something Lucoa would just NEVER say lol
In fact, she probably enjoys the attention more often than not, so it's just a complete bastardization of the character for the sake of appeasing the deranged localizers' bizarre world view
It's even more jarring if you've read the manga since the entire anime for Maid Dragon is pretty tame compared to the manga. On a side note, if it ever gets more seasons the disparity from how sterile KyoAni keeps things is only going to get worse and more bizarre.
Yeah, Lucoa literally CHOSE to look like that. She's not a human woman cursed with an uncomfortable amount of attention. She's a DRAGON and a SHAPESHIFTER and she chose to look that way to attract attention.
@@jacobwiren8142 Not to mention she is Quetzalcoatl. A literal god who would be used to being stared at and revered
@@WaterLockserNot talking about the anime here. Apparently Quetzalcoatl was one of the few Aztec gods that tried to discourage human sacrifice. I think that is due to her origin. The Aztecs were known for essentially going to war and conquer other lands. Where Quetzalcoatl was part of an influential area that didn't do the whole killing thing as much as their peers and eventually got conquered. The Aztec gods went through cycles replacing each other and is probably due to what was happening around them.
"rubadubdub thanks for the grub" used to be peak ironic pisstaking fansub. It looks professional in comparison to what "official" translators are doing these days.
It says a lot that people would rather use fucking google-translate+ over them. They made their bed, now they get to sleep in it.
Bro, how are the creators not suing translators for damages associated with fucking up their stories THIS badly and intentionally? I really hope they never find work again.
Japan isn't as litigious as America, international lawsuits are dificult and expensive to conduct, the localization isn't exacrly a higjly profitable job so a civil suit wont even win enough to pay lawyers, but due to Japan's perpetual economic depression mangaka aren't really making that much either, so a vanity lawsuit is imposible on finacial grounds. Funimation, crunchyroll, netflix and disney+ are politically alligned with these hacks and there aren't many other distributors to the west so Japanese bussiness is forced to submit to American cultural demands if they want access to western markets.
Because it works. Why sue someone for earning you money? They would be fired immediately if it failed financially.
Ever heard of Bud Spencer? The original Italian version of his movies was pretty boring and no one cared about it, the only reason it got popular was because the German translator replaced a lot of the dialogue with his own ideas. The industry worked like that for decades and I doubt it will change just because a few Americans learn about it in 2023.
gaps in international law and licensing contracts, probably.
@@__goat__ even then there's a difference between making a dialogue funnier vs shoehorning your political beliefs
@@MalIowBruh, either you're 12 or haven't been around Japanese media long enough... Japanese media firms are EXTREMELY litigious. Just look at companies like Nintendo.
How arrogant to think you can bastardise someone's work in a translation, abusing your position of trust to send political messages, and not believe it would catch up to you.
Abusing positions of authority….i wonder where we heard that before?? 🤔
Because they have nothing else good in their life
And accusing Japan of not respecting their own culture LOL.
These people could've been fired aeons ago and replaced by better ones.
That’s basically all they do. Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, LotR, WoT, and on and on forever. These people never create anything, just vandalize the work of their betters.
"Oh, they're just mad that we mentioned gay people!" she says, completely ignoring that one of the biggest mistranslation examples to date specifically erased a gay relationship to make one of them trans instead.
For another example, Jamie Marchi, in her infinite stupidity, changed another line in Dragon Maid from Kobayashi saying "But I'm a woman, though?" to "I'm not into women or dragons." because she believed the former to somehow be erasing lesbians even though it's a time-honoured yuri trope _and_ Kobayashi looks very androgynous and canonically gets mistaken for and/or treated like a man. For context, she's saying this line in response to the titular dragon maid proclaiming she loves her. She's erasing a potential lesbian relationship in the name of not erasing lesbians. People were rightly angered by this change as well, so much so that Marchi tried to save her own ass by vandalizing _another line_ later on, having Kobayashi claim to be bicurious or something when, if I recall correctly, she was originally ranting about being overworked.
😳
@@BloodrealmXthis sounds like you dont speak more than language… or understand cultural differences.
@@BloodrealmX Using her localization job to use another authors story like it's her own personal Twitter account is what is so disgustingly disrespectful here.
@@abaque24 Do you think it is wrong that the character said "I'm a woman" and it needed to be changed to make her more acceptable or do you think a western audience wouldn't understand the intention/meaning behind the line and it needed to be changed to be better understood? If it's the second one then that is OK. If it's the first one, then it's not her job to make the character acceptable to the audience, that is up to the author and nobody gives a shit what the localizer thinks.
That fact that they are turning to AI because they can’t trust a person to simply translate what they wrote is extraordinarily sad and speaks volumes. It just goes to show how selfish we have become as a race that we will alter other people’s work we are trusted with to fit our own narratives. It’s akin to trying to rewrite history
How selfish we have become as a race? Honey people have Always rewritten history. There is literally an old adage about, "History is written by the victors." And generalizing everyone is never right. Not every translator rewrites stuff and changes it. Not every is selfish, some people Do their job properly and are good. This is some selfish individuals, not Everyone. The bad people are always the loudest though.
There are some instances where localisation helps to amplify a translation, and thus making the change necessary. Usually this revolves around passive phrases, or song lyrics being restructured for their rhythm or tone. For example, "Gokurosama desu", Used when your staff or people below you have finished work or a job, does not have a direct, natural translation.
Phrases can all be translated, of course, and there are set-phrases in English to match these, but in most of the situations, we do not say something equivalent in English. Japanese has set phrases to use in most situations and they almost always act as a way to show respect or be polite to others, which can be reworded in English but never quite linguistically similar.
Changing "Gokurosama desu" to ""Nice work! See you tomorrow" is not at all the same, but it does get across the same semantic meaning and purpose in that context. THAT is proper localisation. Same with song lyric restructuring, or phrases which are popular in one's folklore and not the other (With restriction.)
What is poor localisation, is this bullshit. Changing an entire transcript to fill an agenda or to be more/less inclusive of the premise is, regardless of the intent, NOT the intended setting. I am all for scripts having more diversity and inclusion and updated perspectives included, but that is the responsibility of the script WRITER, not the translator. It is their job to make the raw material as digestible as possible to a foreign audience, and if the work is not to their personal liking, corrupting the script for better or worse is a dishonest change to the source material.
Could you imagine if Hitler's Mein Kampf portrayed Nazism in a poor light, rather than his own? Anyone with a stable moral compass KNOWS how bad that his rule and policies were, and how horrific it was, but why would the madman believe that themselves? Even if you correct them, justly, it does not make sense from the initial context. It is a translator's responsibility to be entirely honest, even when translating material they may disagree with to their core.
The look on Asmon's face when he realizes it wasn't cap, they really did inject "pesky patriarchal societal demands" into something as wholesome and mild as Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. Absolutely priceless.
Dude looked like he just saw a car crash. Lol
Absolute gold
it happened almost like 6 years ago, talk about late to the party. The consequences of not speaking out way earlier is being seen now. Its too late to stop fence sitting.
Hell, the Nintendo Treehouse Fire Emblem Fates situation was almost a decade ago and barely anyone important spoke out about it (although online "influencers" were not nearly as much of a thing in 2013). That situation fueled GGate heavily
@@M_CFV Better late than never. I can see why the fact it happened is a hard pill to swallow without seeing it for yourself though, it's an absurd and out of place statement. The kind of thing you expect from an over the top parody, not the official release.
Back in the day when I was still reading manga, the translators almost always used the original Japanese slang. They then explained it in a little box on the page, mentioning the meaning, and sometimes reminding you if it came up again. I don't know if every localizer did this back then, but it was working, so I don't see why they could not do it now; Unless people think it's immersive breaking ofc.
It’s breaks my immersive and I rather u make joke make sense In my language
All according to plan :P
I think I remember the ergo proxy anime had giant walls of text explaining philosophical concepts. I remember having to pause a lot for that one.
Well in spanish translations at least the fan translations still do that. In anime I dont remember huge paragraphs of explanation tho.
Indonesia translator still do this though.
In the original Yu-Yu Hakusho localization on Brazil the team used many regional slang, ant it was an incredible success. They weren’t changing the story, but making it extremely loyal to the text. Strange? Yep, but it worked. There was an immediate reaction with the target audience and those dubbing where so successful that on the Netflix version they went with all the original voice actors that were still alive because of the audience wanting those voices. Some where even retired, but returned for this. There is a culture here of us Gen X showing the new audience the classic episodes and they loved it.
same here in the philippines
Saint seiya tambem, eles sempre reusaram o elenco classico mas ai trocaram no reboot 3d mas vamo concorda, jamais esqueceremos hermes baroli e seus meteoros de pegasus
One small thing that bugs me about this whole subject is the conflation of "localizer" and "translator"
Localizers are, and *always have been,* more than just translators.
While a translator's job is to get as direct and accurate of a transition as possible from one language to another, a *localizer's* job is to translate for language AND culture.
This could be things such as switching pop culture references from the original country, to similar ones for the localizer's country.
Or altering color palettes if certain colors are associated with different things between the two countries, choosing the colors that properly convey the original meaning.
That has *always* been their job, but the problem is that even by THAT definition *these* localizers still aren't doing their job properly; they don't go in and make minors tweaks for translating the intended experience into a different cultural framework, they just outright rewrite things to suit their personal views.
Sorry to break it to you, but both words are still the same despite all the development you brought.
Translation comes from latin word "translatus" which means "carrying over/across". It has never been about language. Any sort of transposition is a translation.
Translators are localizers and vice-versa. That's no big deal though.
Yes and no. Localizer ensures the translated text are worded properly for the intended market, not to "change" it. In Vietnamese, we have a word for White Tiger, which is the literal pronunciation of Bai Hu, so the localizer chose that over White Tiger, despite the fact that the direct translation from Chinese IS White Tiger. What we do not do is change it to something like White Cat because Tigers are vicious or something, we "localize" it to the word Vietnamese people are familiar it.
When it comes to translating manga/anime, you may localize the word itself (like onigiri = rice ball, etc...) and maybe explain to audiences what the food are. You do not change it to Jelly donut or something just because kids know what that thing is, because the food presented in the original media is NOT Jelly donut.
@@Dante02d12 What is it with the phrase "Sorry to break it to you"? Just seeing a response begin that way all but guarantees it breaks nothing true or meaningful to anyone.
@@cameleopard42 The presence of those words have *absolutely no impact* on the relevance and truth of the comment. You just decided to apply this rule by yourself.
Sorry to break it to you, pal.
@@Dante02d12 Way off the mark. I have a subject at uni that's literally Translation and Editing of Texts, which clearly states that while translations and localizations share similarities and are related, they are NOT interchangeable terms.
You localize after you translate, so your target language (which is most likely unfamiliar with the source language and culture) gets an idea similar to the source rather than receive a word-for-word translation or (god-forbid) the source text itself with a header and a footnote (if there are no context clues).
Why am I not surprised that most of these people making these terrible translations all work or worked for Funimation in the past? They even inserted a GamerGate line into the dub of Prison School.
The backlash they got for that was so massive I thought they’d never try and pull this again. If only…
@@ZeroResurrected they followed up by inserting a random line about patriarchy into dragon maid... Crunchyroll and funimation are cancer....
Does Funimation still have the license to Prison School, or did they lose it? I hope it's the latter.
They re-did that line for Prison School on Blu-ray & I assume streaming as well. Thankfully that writer for Prison School & Dragon Maid doesn't write dubs anymore, she's now writing on the next Borderlands game...
It's all the same people.
And to be honest, if you watch enough Crunchyroll/funimation/hulu/whatever subs, it all feels like one big blur of 'oyslop.
Eventually, anime in general turns you off since every show has a line about "incels" now.
27:00 this is why old anime fan translations had "Translation Notes" where they would directly translate the slang verbatim and then explain it in the notes on the other half of the screen. This is the preferred method as it teaches not only the slang, but also a bit about the culture of Japan at the time it was written. A localized translation that replaces a slang/idiom with one that we use instead doesn't allow the viewer to appreciate the culture or the intent of the author, it simply deletes them in favor of lazy media consumption and honestly a bit of racial/cultural division.
This, it was my first exposure to a foreign culture as a young lad, and incited my curiosity. Actual anime fans would also find these types of things interesting as they give more context into the story that u are enjoying, so localization is trying to appeal to casuals instead of actual fans.
I used to read a lot of webtoons and it was always nice to read a TL Note explaining the context of a joke that isn't obvious.
@@CryptidFlame The crazy thing is seeing localization in Visual Novels, something that is already niche and basically no one without some manga/anime experience would ever dive into, removing honorofics and changing name order, it makes you wonder what audience they are trying to appeal to.
This was probably the thing that most got me interested in anime as a teenager. Translation notes were critical, and even phrases that didn't totally translate into English but would appear repeatedly across different stories would start to make sense as their own thing, distinct from the English translation.
@@Kerostasis Same here but more for Webtoons/Manhwas
One of the best examples of proper localization that I know of was decades ago from Ranma 1/2. Kuno was originally written to speak like and constantly quote Confucius but something like that would never translate well to western audiences. So they swapped it to Shakespeare. In terms of the actual translation they essentially just threw out 90% of it and rewrote it, but in terms of keeping the spirit and theme of the character they did a fantastic job.
It's possible to do well but it takes serious thought, specific circumstances, and translators that give a shit about the source material
I would have rather heard the Confucius quotes as im not allergic to learning about other cultures lol
@@herentiIf that was the original intent, he would reference Shakespeare in the Japanese dub.
Welp, so much for anime and manga....we just can't have nice things
The localization change that I find baffling is from Breath of the WIld. I was watching a youtube video about this after just completing the game the day before, and the guy said that in the original Japanese, Link's journal (where the mission descriptions are), everything was written in 1st person. As in, all the mission entries were written by Link. And it had his thoughts and his perspective on the story as the game progressed.
Now, in the English release, Link's journal just reads as a standard mission screen. Cutting away any personality or uniqueness from it, and essentially made me feel as though they just dropped the ball by changing it.
And the Zelda-Link stuffs too, their relationship felt closer because of it, unlike in the English version.
I guess some genius didn't want Link to "speak" in text, even though Zelda's journal still refers to things Link said to Zelda.
@@mechadekaHonestly, thinking about it now, I feel like they cut it down because they were intentionally lazy. They probably thought along the lines of "It's the first original main Zelda game on Nintendo's all-time highest sold console. We can do a mid job and people will still buy and play it."
@@offcue4102 if they did mid job they would just translate it bluntly, it's 100% intentional decision that was very bad
Nintendo decided it's better this way for western audiences
Back in the day, the dubbing crew that worked on Fooly Cooly did interviews talking about how important it was to preserve the original intent through dialogue and the difficulties this can cause when trying to translate jokes into a foreign language. Now instead of incredibly talented crews doing their best to capture the magic of the original we get twitter activists preaching at us in the guise of localization. The only time localization is actually needed is in the context of puns and jokes that simply don't translate between languages, something very common with Japanese as a lot of the humor is language based puns that make no sense in English.
Honestly, I would rather just have a disclaimer/explanation in the margins that explain why the pun makes 0 sense when translated. You always learn some cool cultural stuff that's more amusing than the pun itself.
@@jesustyronechrist2330 Uhg but then i'd have to learn something unique instead of being spoon fed useless drivel.
Unless they're comedy writers their replacement jokes are unlikely to land anyway, so might as well just flash a short explanation on the screen. I'm all for replacement jokes that are funny and keep the original spirit, but that's unlikely to happen by intentionally inserting Reddit moments.
@@jesustyronechrist2330 No, as someone who learned Chinese, the puns really are not funny unless youre a native speaker. My English puns are also not very funny to Chinese speakers as well. It literally just does not translate.
"The only time localization is actually needed is in the context of puns and jokes that simply don't translate between languages" - no way! Anime like Space Dandy, Steins;Gate, and Love Is War are WAY better because the localisers didn't just translate directly. Localisers shouldn't be inserting their politics, but they should definitely be trying to adapt works so they're entertaining and not just a literal translation.
I miss Fansubs that adds context text at the top of the screen when the characters say something that you aren't familiar with like
Person 1: It's going to be a lazy day today, want to just eat some mandarins and relax under the kotatsu?
Translator Context: A kotatsu is a small table with a blanket for 4 people and a heater underneath to keep everyone warm, this is usually set up in japanese households during the winter season.
(This is just a sudden example from the top of my head)
I learnt a lot of things thanks to fansubs from culture, items, way of living, mannerisms etc and it breaks my heart that this isn't a thing anymore, I haven't seen any fansub anime that does translator context that much anymore
For anyone who wonders why we need localizers, it's because translating something sometimes isn't enough. Some phrases just don't carry the same message, and the intention is lost. It's where the idiom _"lost in translation"_ comes from. The words themselves usually don't matter - what matters is the message or meaning.
That said, these are examples of people taking advantage of their position to insert their own message, which shouldn't be the case, and unfortunately gives the actual localizers we need a bad reputation.
There was a case in which a manga licensed and translated by Seven Seas was about a crossdressing gay boy but the localizers turned the plot into him being trans. People were outraged so they changed it back and apologized but that they even attempted that is insane. Being gay and being trans is extremely different and it's such a fundamental change to the plot instead of just a few lines
And naturally the "localizer" that was responsible for it was lamenting about machine translations not "preserving the original work".
Why tf are they pushing trans on gay dudes?
@@drake47367 Because they view being trans as the "solution" to being gay.
Katrina defended the person who did that, saying that they spoke to trans people in order to "properly portray trans people in manga." Thing is, that person rewrote a canonically gay man into a trans person. That's not properly portraying, that's erasure.
@@zuttoaragi8349 Ironically, that's the same view the Iranian govt takes.
Seven Seas Entertainment had some localizers/translators who outright removed a storyline that involved an assault of a woman. It impacted multiple volumes. They also frequently censor their manga, despite proclaiming that they do not. There was another series that was impacted as well, and due to this they became a company I could no longer trust for translations. These people get paid low, so they just trip on the power of re-authoring.
They fixed Jobless though on the second print right? I thought I heard that
They don't get paid low, it's actually more than livable for a wage, they just don't work much. Like sub 20 hours per week while still getting around median wage yearly. Now, animators on the other hand don't get paid that much while actually working full time, but their work is far more respectable and valuable than these glorified fanfiction rewriters.
I don't think they do it because of the pay. They likely genuinely believe in their own hype.
@@ROFLKNIEFGOESSLIEC 20 hours a week and earning enough to get by? Sounds pretty comfy. And if they need more, well they get A LOT of free time to earn more by other means
"These people get paid low, so they just trip on the power of re-authoring." That just sounds like disgruntled employee that hates the job and company enough to just outright sabotage the product... and the company is dumb enough to keep these disgruntled people employed. Truly a clown world we live in.
The only narrative you should be pushing is the original author's
AI is poised to replace, or at least significantly diminish, many jobs-a societal shift reminiscent of the 1970s when computers gained widespread popularity. During that era, people feared job loss and the need to adapt to a new reality, resulting in the displacement of numerous individuals from their traditional roles. However, the emergence of the computer industry brought forth a plethora of new jobs, albeit unfamiliar and somewhat unsettling. The unique aspect was the diversity these roles offered.
The unsettling aspect of AI lies in the uncertainty of whether a similar transition, accompanied by the creation of new job opportunities, will occur this time. There is a genuine concern that individuals might become obsolete in a broad sense, and this uncertainty is the most disconcerting aspect for many. As a graphics designer for a news outlet, I have legitimate reasons to be apprehensive about the future. This year, we laid off numerous layouters due to the implementation of an AI program that completes their tasks in a fraction of the time it took them. This rapid transformation is remarkable, albeit worrisome.
The challenge we face is acknowledging and embracing this change during a transitional period. Eventually, society needs to accept AI as a tool that saves time, enabling humans to engage in more meaningful activities. The potential consequence of a world where jobs are scarce and self-sufficiency is prevalent remains uncertain, and it prompts contemplation about the impact on our ingrained human nature and values, possibly even redefining the power dynamics of money.
And regarding the topic itself? Well, they had it coming. It would happen sooner or later anyway. However, this has just expedited the shift. And if the fans support it, don't be upset. If I want to read fanfiction, I will read fanfiction. You had one responsibility, and you failed - now, blaming everyone else? Let's observe how well a dose of reality suits them. I empathize with the proficient translators who genuinely cared about their work and tried to bring out the nuances. But, if this change means we no longer have to contend with the issues displayed by Funimation at the beginning, then yes, sign me up.
"Whoever controls the information controls the narrative" Now think about how tiny and insignificant this is, they gave one guy the absolute tiniest amount of trust and power "here translate this anime?" Now think about how things like this happen on a global news, govermental and social media scale. You cant even trust a simple weeb to translate an anime without getting drunk on their mircoscopic amount of power, how can you possiblyt turst news outlets, politicains, corporations etc. Truly an eye opener
The problem is that they aren't a weeb, but a tourist. A weeb would actually want the accurate translation.
That is exactly what the point of a constitution is. It's basically a list of things the government is not allowed to do.
Unfortunately, sometimes there are ways for the government to abuse power that the people who wrote the constitution hadn't thought of. Also, governments sometimes will just decide to ignore the constitution and do the things the constitution says they can't do anyway.
@@Knowbody42 Exactly, and we all see them doing that shady shit but the right is so lazy and scared that nothing is ever done even after these weirdos are called out.
Like come on already, are we just gonna allow politicians to do whatever they want? Is Trump really this big of a problem that we have to focus all of our efforts on ruining his life and sabotaging his campaigns before they can even get up and running rather than actually get rid of the people that are really causing problems?
Not really an eyeopener. More like the expected norm.
You are right to distrust them though.
The answer is you can't. Look at the reality on the ground in Palestine, Russia, China, Ukraine, hell, even Iran for all its issues- and you'll realize just how badly you've been hoodwinked. Western society is the most propagandized civilization in history, one which routinely pulls things out of its ass no less absurd than "the sky is green" or "the earth is flat," save that so many people actually fall for it. At least most people in non-western countries have a healthy dose of skepticism in how they go about the world...
The saddest part is that I truly love the original line, 'everyone was always saying something to me,' leaving us without knowing whether those comments were positive or if the character simply preferred not to receive any, even compliments
I’ve had a rather unusual moustache for many years, but because I’m introverted, spend a lot of time at home and only have internet friends who have never seen my appearance, no one outside my family has ever talked to me about it.
However, when I was at a vocational preparation course just before Covid-19, someone complimented me on it, which I wasn’t prepared for at all, because no one had ever done that before. I’ve always tried to look somewhat well-groomed, but never particularly stylish, because I don’t care how strangers perceive me. So I was caught off guard, flattered and kind of uncomfortable, definitely a confused feeling all round.
Yeah, I read the original during the video, to me it seems she was tired of people saying anything about her appearance, without telling wether or not it was compliments or insults. Since, she wasn't used to such things being said, she decided to lower her skin exposure, then the friend suggested that the comments might be about her assets as well. A simple exchange between a couple of female friends. Then the localizer stepped in and completely changed the original context to bash men who would give innocent stares or glances. So, I agree, I'm not sympathetic to people who purposely didn't properly translate Japanese, to apply their own agenda and disregard the intent of the creator.
The best lines are always subtle. And typically SJW or woke translated english lines, are anything except subtle...
The original response in Japanese isn’t even much better tho, because she said “you need to change your body next.” Like I honestly feel like that’s just as bad as pushing the anti-patriarchy crap!
5:43 subs are just as capable of being deliberately being mistranslated as duds are, it's not a failing of dubs as a whole, just these specific dubs
A great example of a localizer would be pokemon, when they said rice balls are donuts.
I used to translate anime for fan sub and seeing this localizaters doing this kind of stuff really saddens me. Our website used to do a fan translate to a language that not many anime would get translated to and bring many new fans to new series. But, we had to shut our website down because the owner of the website got threatened to get sued by companies like funimation, even tho they didn't even translated to our language.
I believe this 100% because Funimation fucking sucks as a Corp and all the fucking voice actors too. Gen Fukunaga created a monstrosity.
Damn... That really does suck. Funimation was just mad that you guys were able to provide much more faithful translations than *_they_* ever could.
Sorry to hear that. They realized they couldn't control fans like you guys. I guess🤷♂
Yeah, they have no respect for the art, for the culture nor the work of other people, all they do is take other people work, put their own watermark on it and make it their own, if not for CR laws, they would market it as their own work...
People watch anime because it's anime, political and social views have no business here.
There's something similar in my country, but here we had the government shutting down most of the sites with translated anime. There were couple studios that made translations and vocalizing of anime with free access (you could donate them if you'd like on patreon and similar resources) and there was one similar site with paid access. So owners of this paid site decided to get rid of their rivals so to say. They bought the license to one or couple anime titles and just sued free sites. Now free sites have gone to pirate tactics, when their sites are blocked by government they just create new sites and continue to work.
P.s. sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language)))
Funniest part is, some mangaka have found out about this situation in the west, saw how their properties were being translated and publicly stated to pirate their manga or anime.
Yep
Absolutely understandable. You can make an argument that the "translators" are already stealing their work in the first place
Pride in the work rather than working for the money
I'd go as far as to say that there's a good chunk of the Pirates who are Pirates, simply because they refuse to give money to the hack translators. As usual with Piracy, this is a Service problem.
@@harryb12993 Nah most creators never se any of the money from outside japan many wont even see any of the money their japanese publishers get from the us company buying the rights for.
I remember the older translations of the first batch of Detective Conan (or Case Closed) episodes literally had notes with asterisks if anything needed to be explained for context and/or if it was hard to translate (like slang and such) WHILE the sub itself was actually sticking as much as it could to the original meaning.
That's what I call quality translations.
Sadly the type of people that were doing those types of translations seem to have become fewer and fewer in numbers as they were also doing that work for literally pennies if not for free.
(sidenote: It was also the time where watching anime was not as mainstream in the West as it is right now, so finding stuff to watch without the "means" to find them was pretty hard to do, all the more reason they were probably doing it for free and/or because they like it)
Huge win to fan translation for old media, cuz some games or series always had a language barrier with no official translations. But now anyone with a little knowledge can fully translate a game with lesser effort.
The issue that lead to the shift to AI is that these localizers that intentionally mistranslate aren't immediately blacklisted when called out and removed from the industry. There certainly are localizers that are willing to do things the correct way, but when the bad apples aren't removed in time the whole basket rots, and people move on to other options.
It's because the companies hiring localisers don't give a fuck if they don't translate it directly. They don't *want* them to translate correctly. They want them to produce a version of the content that will sell for big bank in foreign countries. And they are! Think of 4Kids and their horrificly mistranslated Yugioh & Pokemon series and tell me that wasn't a massive success. Anyone informed enough to give a fuck they're being sold lies was probably never going to watch the dub in the first place because the subs come out a week earlier - why would their complaints ever matter?
@@ddshocktrooper56044kids and their jelly filled donuts in pokemon
@@ddshocktrooper5604Viz media and cupcake(it's actually a riceballs) in Megaman NT warrior 😂
The "woke" ideology that mistranslators believe in is also believed by a large number of software engineers, plus BlackRock is forcing companies to go woke. Therefore, I predict that AI from companies with money will eventually train their AI systems to refuse to translate things correctly, inserting The Message™ into absolutely everything. ChatGPT already does it in subtle ways.
The few good ones can still work by proofreading and correcting the mistakes the AI makes
Whats worse is that alot of translations are done from english to other languages since it's easier to find an english speaker rather than a japanese one.
So other countries translations get fucked up even more.
This. It's not even like the damage is exclusive to English-speaking countries. 🤦♂️
This is true. The damage spreads because many work off of the english version into other languages, carrying on the cancer without realizing it. It sucks. 😔
As someone who speaks both i have been back seat watching something my friends had on while cooking and noticed the English sub wasn’t even what they said lol. Small things like changing the context or the way someone reacted to something, like small scale “social training / brainwashing “
I don’t watch anime but i feel like iv been seeing small things mote often
Im sure its in games also
That’s exactly what it is. You’ve experienced this in more ways than you can imagine. For example, we are all taught a certain narrative about WW2, but these “lessons” begin when some children are still at an age that they believe in Santa Clause. Think for a moment about the implications of this and the cognitive dissonance/inability to question this will create, most can never escape it.
That’s just one example.
The conditioning is absolutely everywhere, big and small, and recognizing it all is hard but it is absolutely necessary.
The fact that this is getting *_so much_* traction that even Japanese people are upset about it is great. Hopefully, this will be the end shoddy localizations.
This can be summed up by "Main Character Syndrome" where the localizer wants to insert themselves into the story. Ever present in many disastrous culture war productions.
They just want to feel like their some sort of social heroes because why fix actual problems in the world when you can just fix the ones you just made up
The woke religion suffers no heresy.
Professional Translators are most of the time failed authors, so they use translation as a chance to insert themselves to "better the story" the only good translators are FAN translators because they do it for love for the ORIGINAL SERIES. "professionals" are losers, failed authors incapable of doing anything.
Im working on a novel series that I hope to god will undo some of the main character syndrome effecting so many of us in the world today.
We aint shit without each other. I sure as fuck aint making my own clothes any point in my life. Beyond my abilities.
I hate that mindset so much. Nothing could ever be done without peepos.
Remember, it's not just the localizers. Scripts like these need to be approved, so the management agreed with these changes as well.
Fucking thank you. One person who understands that localisers are literally hired with the express purpose to translate wrong to make more money.
This guy gets it. Companies don't just let their translators go wild with no oversight. The higher ups would have to be off their meds to do so. These changes are intentional business decisions. You can argue over whether or not they're dumb decisions, but it's naive to view this as individual localisers pushing their own personal agendas. Stupid business decisions aren't exactly rare, anyway
It should also come as no surprise that human translators are being slowly replaced by AI. People have been predicting this to happen for decades. With few exceptions, if companies find a way to increase profit, they take it. Doesn't matter how their employees feel about it
You know what is extremely wild? I grew up watching the Funimation dub of Shin-Chan. These same voice actors were saying stuff that would be 5000% cancled today. Insane how it took them about a decade to flip sides like that.
If they are going to abuse the work from the original, there's no hope for them. I would rather have AI do all the correct work for me then to hire someone to do all the wrong work for me.
I had a course on translation in university. Everything we were taught not to do when doing a professional translation is exactly what these people are doing. How do they even have a job as a translator?
localization is not the same as translation.
@@Hikariinu124localisation is part of translation, yes you are correct it is not the same as translating but you never translate literally, you will always localise whatever it is your translating for it to make sense linguistically and culturally. Something that needs this especially are comedy, since jokes usually don't translate well between languages therefore you add localisation into your translation so it hits better in the target language and culture, now the tricky bit is making it as close to the original meaning/feeling, that's how you can tell a good translator from a bad translator. Source: I also study translation(at university) and we do alot on localisation, so yes, that guys comment definitely checks out 👍
Nepotism and gaslighting.
Nepotism tbh. The companies are filled with these people at this point, especially the hiring departments, if you don't have neon hair and complain about evil patriarchal spirits good luck getting a job.
@@Hikariinu124 A rectangle is not a square but a square is a rectangle.
The prison school funimation changing a girl's line to "Are you one of those dumbass gamergate creeps" was what made me hate localizers.
Sean Schemmel arguing on reddit that he had creative rights and that's why he was allowed to make Goku Black have a British accent but only in his rose form on reddit and getting destroyed is what made me realize EVERYONE hates localizers on all sides of the political spectrum.
Edit: I just realized while watching the video that the same thing GamerGate was over is happening again. People got mad a game creator slept with people for scores and then other people came in and "OH YEAH WELL YOU JUST HATE WOMEN IN GAMING" and completely shifted the subject. It's the same thing these people are doing with the "they just don't want to see gays or women for some reason in shows" to divert the subject of "there's a lack of integrity" to "attack us and you're racist or sexist"
You'd be pressed to find someone who likes cultural vandalism. Petty little people with their bloated egos desecrating artist's work, because they're themselves worthless.
@@Psycorde They do exist but they're the vocal very small minority. The media will still try to make an issue out of it, mark my words. They had an uninformed population believing Gamer Gate was because "gamers are sexist and hate women" and not because "sleeping with game reviewers for positive reviews on your game is messed up and lacks integrity"
@@PsycordeThere's no such thing
considering the GamerGate controversy has ties to DARPA, it's not crazy to assume there's a widespread, _organized_ agenda at work here
I find Schemmel to be a bad example. Voice actors have tons of ideas on how to differentiate characters from oneanother. Accents, tonal shifts, pronounciations... It's their job. That is what they do for a living. It's on the studio and the director to agree or disagree and make a choice that works for the series as a whole.
That aside, Schemmel is famous for his ability to dig in his heels and argue a point to death and beyond. He often doesn't know when to quit and conceed. But neither does he write the localized dialogue, nor does he make the descision on what a character sounds like. All he can do is offer the director choices.
I am a part-time translator covering some languages other than Japanese, that one I don't know at all, but nothing in this topic grinds my gears more than a nonsensical mistranslation, especially done on purpose. In some cases, like cultural differences or wordplay, you may want to alter the exact phrasing if you can't just keep it as is and add an asterisk with a thorough explanation why it's funny or weird. But I feel like in any other case, your priority as a translator should be to make the resulting text as close to the original in terms of meaning, feel, and sometimes even cadence, as possible. If someone does this thing where they insert random stuff in a translated media (I don't care what it is, books, movies, games, comics, manga, this is irrelevant), they shouldn't be a translator. It's already really tough to understand some things when reading a translation, basically the mediator between the writer and the reader has to be an expert at literature, culture, and a whole bunch of stuff, so it's a difficult job, but if they're specifically adding sh!t in there it may straight up ruin the immersion and therefore the experience. It's already really annoying to see or hear a stupid translation in my native language because our companies tend to hire very cheap and lazy people who translate the text half-assedly (is that even a proper adverb?), btw now they're really starting to push some racist and homophobic agendas in their adaptation due to the political state of the country, it's plain awful. One of my friends is a translator who knows Japanese and he shared some examples of straight up stupid things that ruined a manga. For example, a phrase like "Currently, I call myself [NAME]" from a serious collected person somehow transformed into "Dudes nicknamed me [NAME]", which is completely inappropriate for the overall tone and meaning. Another example would be a character who speaks a bit too familiarly to everyone (apparently, they have a whole range and system of polite prefixes and suffixes they use to enhance speech, basically a sentence spoken to a friend would be like half as long as the same one spoken to a respected older person, and that character _never_ used any, so his speech was kinda rude while not using any swearwords or anything like that) turning into a sailormouth in translation. These are just examples of translators adding random stuff due to incompetence, I can't imagine what it feels like to see their agenda pushed onto the readers while destroying the original material for the entire country.
I'm pretty sure I've seen fan made subtitles where they've translated and made the translation better. They've explained some of the culture. They've chosen words that make more sense in english and add impact to the scene.
I think AI can do some pretty impressive things, but it won't have the passion of talented fans of anime.
I also think writing in some anime can be quite lazy, so I'm not opposed to someone making improvements if they have the talent to do a good job.
But the fans will still be doing their thing. The fan side of things won't change, but with AI they'll have accurate dubs to start with for their material.
For those wondering what this marvelous "translator" wants to ban from the japanese consciousness, here it is :
お嫁さんに行けない => She's not fit to be a bride / She's not wife material.
I salute you good sir! [youtube doesn't have a salute emoji...]
They probably just feel personally attacked when reading the sentence lol
TRANSlator
@@mrmors1344
[Technically - I found this within my virtual keyboard emojis]
🫡
Lmao
As a Japanese individual who has just learned about the localization issues in some anime, I AM SO DISAPPOINTED.
I watch anime with both subs and dubs, specifically to observe how the lines are translated. I notice mistranslations or changes in the lines quite often, but these are usually not that significant. So, I wasn't already that impressed. However, occasionally, I come across genius translations, and that's what I enjoy discovering.
Considering the care and time the creators and editors invest in their work, it's disheartening to realize that just one translator can alter the meaning and impressions of the characters to such an extent; it's insane to me. I want my favorite anime to be accurately delivered to the outside of Japan. This is just sad for everyone.
Edit: spelling
Unfortunately, that's why there are so many people just using pirate websites with independent translators to just watch stuff. I myself just watch subs since a lot of dubs do not portray the feelings very well, but I have seen different translation in a lot of Subs as well.
Yeah thats the real issue, is that some localizations are really good. And specifically with comedy, it doesn't directly translate, so it does help to have someone with a real sense of humor translating it.
This has been going on for years. The English speaking western audiences have been receiving completely bastardized versions of several iconic anime. This is why most of the time we listen to the Japanese version with subtitles because even though its a worse viewing experience we can at least hear voice acting that is not stiff and tonally wrong and read accurately translated words.
mate you should be more worried by the subtle imaging inserted into anime these day for US politics aka blue and yellow accessories everywhere 2 years ago,the constant insertion of trans culture not in a japanese way,your people used to fight back to these thingss but now if it's a big company they have small but noticeable things like this.
@@tatfly5779 Do you have an example of something being inserted into anime for US politics?
i'm not a huge anime fan, but there are a few i get really into. jojo being one of them. in the dub, they had jotaro being voiced by matt mercer and hamfisted him saying "It's high noon" into the show during the end of the final arc for literally no reason. it made me cringe so hard. "this voice actor is known for being mccree from overwatch so we're just going to change this line completely." fuck off
from what i remember as a kid, shonen jump magazines would have asterisk in the manga translations in like naruto for when slang was happening or when backstory was needed to understand a culturally recognized event/reference
They should have been fired. There is no use for a job like that in a free society.
wrong, the way they do the job is whats of no use
@@M_CFV They're not competent enough to do the job in the correct way.
Never going to happen, these woke activists are everywhere now.
@@mitrooper oh I know
@@M_CFV bro there's no place for a ministry of truth style "translation" teams. In a free society. To think otherwise is being brainwashed. I'll pray for you.
What's funny is that the Dragon maid English VA who voiced for the character who says patriarchal is "Jamie Marchi" one of the women accused Vic Mignogna of Harrasment and to this day there's no proof but man lost his job.
Women will become technologically obsolete very soon. Good times are ahead of is.
Vic was a great singer too.
Did one of the versions of the DBZ Kai opening song, did the english version of the DBGT opening (tht wasnt the garbage Grand Tour song) and such.
Voiced Edward Elric fantastically and his final voice as Broly in the DBSuper film was phenomenal.
@@Daigon95I love Vic's version of Dragon Soul.
and because they let him go he got to go off and be homelander and now hes got a skin in call of duty immortalized forever
@@thekyleprojekt7996 ah Homelander is Antony Starr. wtf are you babbling about?
Thanks for bringing more attention to this.
They rehire these people becuase these people make it their quest to remove the localizers who don't agree with them acting as gatekeepers just like the comic writers doing the same.
There's a youtuber called Dimitri Monroe who made a 40 minute video documenting some of these localization "errors". It's a few years old now, but the amount of examples is staggering. It's called "the crimes of modern localization" if you want to check it out.
I still get an eye twitch when I think back on the 'jelly donuts' of old, so I for one am glad for this turn of events
Eyyy that's my mutual
Thanks!
@@sebastianbronowicki7073 Modern localizers would keep the onigiri but make Brock say "look at this stupid shit I just made"
Fyi, "Marzgurl" (27:08) is one of the assholes who helped get Vic Mignogna, voice of Broly from DBZ/DBS, and Eric from Full Metal Alchemist, fired from Funimation over false accusations regarding sexual assault. It isn't surprising to see how absolutely stupid her hot take is.
Armzgurl
@@Psycorde
Ah that brings back memories lol
Don’t remind me.
Still have never forgotten.
Also isnt she the one who caused a lot of trouble in "That guy with the glasses" formation?
The sad part Steam forums would have banned Harada for confronting the troll.
For now i'm afraid if translation will not lose a bit of a soul because sometimes re writing meaning of scene is necessary because it uses feature of language that cannot be translated.
For example in Asterix and Obelix Mission Cleopatra there's scene when main character architect is throw in front of Cleopatra and in French makes pun with world dance and dances a little of course in Polish ther's no pun to make ( you know different words ansd such) but translator changed it to reference to text of a song that became saying "To tango you need two" and Architect says "To Tango you need two... unless you're gonna dance like that" said silly little dance " but that's not dance". At least for now i don't thing AI can handle that in such gracefull way.
Or even if you can make it work and will if you're not gonna add anything back.... yea you gonna have translation with same/similar meaning but blant and castrated.
But that's case on case basis concern how companies and translators will handle integrating AI to pipeline.
From what I know, the reason people like these localizer get away with any of it is because the whole western industry has been captured by people who actively hate the fandom/genre of media that they inhabit, it's almost completely gutted of people who enjoy their job. these are joyless people who hate seeing others happy. I think it's time for the fandom to take the spotlight again and show people that there are better alternatives than these corpo's
It's just pure nepotism someone like that got into a high position and proceeded to hire friends and like-minded individuals while ignoring anyone who thinks differently that same thing happened in the VA industry and even in the animation industry since the creator of Adventure Time got his show, all the slop and calarts stuff you've been seeing has come from him recommending his friends for shows just like Rebecca sugar who I think was the first one he got hired
A huge part of the problem is most in the industry are english majors, which makes it impossible for them not being introduced to this kind of activism. So it's a cultural rot that is hard to uproot. I think the only option is to start localising companies who specifically have a policy against this stuff.
@@pite9 This is absolute nonsense, both in terms of assuming industry folks' academic backgrounds, and the cause of individuals A) making translation choices you don't agree with or B) Simply not being good at their jobs. It's not a conspiracy.
Makes me happy knowing i never payed a cent to watch anime in my life lol
@@spankminister As I'm scrolling down I'm learning if I see spankministers name it's going to be an awful biased take. You're holding water for the political messaging in every comment dude. It can't be more obvious.
I am a game translator and worked on games such as Skul, Lies of P, Dungreed, and more. When I feel like something can be taken inappropriately, I take it to the dev team or writers rather than change it or insert my thoughts into it. If a translator wants to insert their ideology into someone else's work, they should have been a writer instead. Also yes, my job has taken a huge toll from AI, but I myself would rather see flawed translation work rather than some woke ideology inserted by translators.
Amen brother
Thanks for helping bring some of the best games to come from Korea recently to us silly Yanks.
I'm not sure if I saw your comment elsewhere but I do admire you brought up that the term "P-Organ" might be mocked by English speakers but the Korean developers insisted that it stays. You seemingly work for NEOWIZ, I loved 8doors if you were involved with that!
Amen, i need this kind of mindset for Game translation
Enjoy scooping up fries at McD's
The real kicker? Lots of these localizers don't even know much Japanese if any. They just use clunky machine translation, edit it to fix the syntax errors without knowing how accurate it is, and add their "personal touch" as the dingleberry on top of their turd cake.
Dude I read stuff translated by independent translation groups (they don't call themselves localizers in the first place). The Quality heavily varies depending on the group. For a bunch of them I would love for them to use AI in this case because AI won't replace any work places but rather help them improve quality and make them increase their output without any detriment. Like those people work with passion on these projects and the assistance would help them not replace them.
There is so much media coming out (not talking about japanese origins specifically here, a lot of what I read comes from different countries) that is not in english to where they can't keep up anyways when it comes to smaller projects. Groups actually wanting to share the media for a broader audience will often leave in original idioms and slang and then put in notes as to what those mean in context.
The people called out in this video seem to be doing the opposite. They want to use that people want to experience foreign media as a means to push their agenda. They don't seem to actually care about sharing this media but use the people wanting to consume it.
Imagine playing Bloodborne and after you defeat Cleric Beast the words "YOU HAVE YEETED THE PREY, POGCHAMP🎉" appear on the screen 😂
I will never forget Brock's "jelly donuts" in Pokemon. As a kid I was super confused because they weren't jelly donuts and when I learned what they actually were I was angry because it would have been cool to learn about foods and stuff from other cultures instead of just being confused.
Doing this kind of thing is just super disrespectful and confusing.
"Americans can't comprehend different things" is something imposed on people, and not a truth.
"They're eating all the donuts and eclaires!!" and Ash rolling down a hill with a hogie instead of a riceball...
@Pangora2 which is really weird since we're suppose to be the "melting pot" of cultures
That shit is why I hate localizations like this.
@@Pangora2 it’s from the boomers
To give some context into a few of examples shown at 14:05.
The phrase the localizer wants banned is "I can't become a bride anymore" which is a common phrase said by women as a joke.
The "I know the translator did their homework" one is just complete bullshit as the translator essentially erased representation for representation that they preferred. Yes, the hypocrisy of being "inclusive". The story is about a guy who cross dresses and his romantic relationship with his male friend. It's a gay love story or "boys love" as is commonly called in Japan. The translator changed the cross dressing gay character to trans without the author's knowledge. Needless to say, when the company that hired the translator found out, they demanded that it be fixed.
There is nothing wrong with "nii-nii". Its a shortening of "onii-chan" that some girls use to address their older brother or older guy they're close with. It is basically like calling your big brother "bro" or "bruh" of however else you wanna address. The localizer just believes for whatever reason that people won't like "nii-nii".
femboy erasure is so incredibly common with the woke and its bizzare because you'd think they would fight against femboy erasure, not be the ones erasing femboys
@@bobowon5450 It's because they believe certain peoples' representation matters more than others. To them, gay rep matters less than trans rep because they believe trans people are more oppressed. They've never believed in equality and never will.
35:00 Yeahhh I mean AI as a tool is an awesome thing.
And I also agree that people have an inherent value, wether they make that in their job or not.
That whole argument is just a big leap in logic and whoever called it kinda got you there.
You even resorted to Ad Hominem argumentation and gaslighting because what you said didn't affect him as much as the other way around.
Using AI as a tool means you make the company more money, not you earn more UNLESS you are a freelancer/self employed.
If you are employed (like what? 99% of the population?) you will work the same hours for the same pay with or without AI, only difference is you churn out 20 Translations in the time you did 1 without AI.
That's why I feel the argument is very misaligned, you talk about valuing your time which is completely out of context for 99% of the people when the argument should be that as long as it doesn't put them out of their jobs it simply doesn't affect them at all.
There is no net benefit, for the worker, only for the profiteers, it's like you said, a tool.
Woodworking shops get newer and better tools all the time.
That doesn't come with a payraise or less hours worked.
And ofc. you could say why do I care about this, why am I crying in a comment section where it will get buried, etc.
I care for the truth, at least in such sensible subjects that have widespread implications.
We as a humanity may be on a tipping point when it comes to AI and if that is the case it will be a disservice to humanity present and future to not think every argument through, to an extend.
It's simple if you look at it this way. Would you prefer to have your dinner prepared by an angry employee that will spit in it or by a robot with no feelings?
And the robot occasionally gives you the wrong sauce/gives you the wrong drink/cooks your hamburger medium-rare instead of medium-well. I'd still take the robot.
@@redridingcape Especially this. Worst part is that it would have probably done it correctly if the engineer hadn't altered with it's programming to intentionally make mistakes to make it seem more human. Or wasn't set up by the human installer properly.
I guess there's two people that will eat the spit.
The robot is relaying the original feelings and intent of the artist. So no in-between man.
Plus, there can be teamwork between AI and humans if there was some integrity involved.
This is a terrible analogy. *People are missing the point.
I would prefer a dinner made by a professional who knows what and what not to do
What I love about appropriate translations is that you start to understand the culture better. There are subtle things you start to realize and it is amazing. I seen that with really good / proper translations.
like how puns and word play only works within the language the joke was in. Then you might need to put in a new gag or do what old anime used to do and explain the joke with a little extra subtext on the screen. I always did love the tiny bits of cultural education that would be added in to explain what could be quite a alien and foreign concept.
Rather then turning rice balls into jelly doughnuts.
It's one of those things where I see why everyone thought the early internet fan translations were cringe for having colossal editor's notes, but those made you understand the author's culture and viewpoint better. It's why I'm glad some fan teams out there still add extra pages to the end of their translations for further context.
Not saying the early internet fan translations weren't bloated, bad, and nonsensical at times but they were at least made with the intent to actually TRANSLATE the author's views not only over language but also cultural differences... They showed us the potential light, but we shoved them away.
@@thing4826 THere weren't even that many translators note, it's just dub fanboys trying to justify their garbage taste.
To be fair, anyone who watches official dubs over fan subs get what they deserve.
@@denkerbosu3551 yea honestly, I was more referring to manga as having translators notes in video format is quite difficult and to be readable can only be a sentence usually.
Luckily the only memes about fan translations for anime are where they don't translate a word and then directly under/above it has a translator's note translating it.
EDIT: All according to keikaku
Translator's note: Keikaku means plan.
the word yeeted is still funny to me, so that is like only one I would like to see in a anime, but that is still no excuse to allow them to mess with anime
Imagine Spongebob having his burger shack turned into a sushi restaurant in Japan, and the only time burgers are mention they get discredited at every turn?
Something like this was happening for a long time(10+ years ago) in the Web Novel scene. Since many novels are long (2k-3k chapters) many got run through MLT or machine translation, sure the quality was horrendous but some human proofreading fixed most of it. I imagine that AI translation will only improve and expand on that.
Well yes but the readers know it is mtl, and nobody expect quality translation from some volunteers who just copy paste things to google translate.
Ai is much better than MLT, so these translations will only get better.
Same with webcomics as well. I've come across some that are literally illegible. Not to mention the numbers are always off by multitudes of 10, 100, or 1000. It's completely random as well. I once had a single chapter that went from 10000 to 100k to 1m all referring to the same thing.
bro i watched an anime with ai subs and didn't even notice until someone mentioned it in the comment section 6 episodes in
As a person who reads more Manga than watch Anime I love how in many manga the translators will translate directly with fixes syntax even leaving the Japanese slang as is however for things like Japanese slang or puns they leave a note in the margins explaining the sentence marked with a * means X. For example *Character X is called a Rabbit/Bunny because in Japanese the words for Rabbit and Lie are almost identical. That teaches me the play on words and avoids conflicts in the future.
Beautiful innit
So being called a rabbit in Japanese might be like us calling someone a snake or something? Only, with the snake example, that's due to a visual fear of snakes society often has, but with the rabbit it's a play on words?
@@hmmm348short answer to the first question, absolutely not. it gets more complicated, a lot of japanese works are huge on wordplay, sometimes its just a naming convention by the author.
@@vyyr Ah ok, wasn't sure. Sounds about 10x more complicated than I thought.
@@hmmm348Yup. Wordplay is often cited as a sign of Mastery in many languages, but asian languages in particular because unlike English and other languages that use an alphabet similar to ours, they use symbols.
This opens up to a new dimension of wordplay. Two words like Dog and Log could sound similar, but have completely different symbols. Thus one form could be swapping the two for a joke. Another could be that the symbols for ugly and pretty could look very similar, so using the opposite symbol could designate sarcasm or insult. Combine that with entire sentences of wordplay and you get some really complex series of words for non native language speakers. If you can get fluent enough to parse an entire sentence of puns and wordplay in under a minute, you are pretty much fluent.
In the military, we had interpreters and translators. The 2 may serve similar functions to cross language barriers. The interpreter, will interpret what you’re trying to say, and get the point across accounting for cultural differences, etc. sometimes you would get great interpreters, sometimes you get the worse. Translators will as translate the sentence as accurately as possible word for word.
I don't mind using AI as a tool to help with tedious work, but I do believe that when it comes to localizing and translating, it's crucial to have a person who understands both worlds. Many subtitles and dubs have been compromised because lines are provided to other countries without context or are simply translated verbatim. For instance, someone might be told to 'just read or translate this line without watching the movie,' and it's hard to predict how well it will fit into a dramatic scene.
An example from the past is when the movie '8 Mile' was released in Finland. Finnish hip-hop artist who lived in the US was chosen to do the subtitles because he understood both languages, cultures, and slangs.
On the other hand, I watched the Finnish-Russian movie 'Compartment No. 6' with fluency in both languages and experience in both countries. As I listened to the Russian language used, I realized that even if the Finnish subtitles were technically 'correct,' they missed the heart and meaning of the words. After the theatre, I was confident that I gained much more from the movie than the Finnish audience simply because many of the subtitles didn't capture the essence of the dialogue.
PS: I ran my comment through the AI before posting, to proofread, just in case :D and I think it's quite obvious.
Isn’t that part of the issue though? These localizers aren’t involved in both worlds they are just using the Japanese medium to spread their own ideology. I’m assuming that the western branches of these Japanese anime studios are willing to add these woke sjw interpretations which is why they don’t fire the localizers.
@@XXnoblev2XX Indeed
So apparently this happened in FFXVI as well (spoilers following) - in the Japanese dialogue, Jill's revenge against the Iron Throne was fueled because she and the kids were abused in much worse ways than the English translation notes. I guess they were worried about triggering victims, and the implication was definitely still there in the English translation, but many people felt upset because they felt it watered down Jill's arc.
I knew something felt off in the story but I couldn't put my finger on it.
Thanks for the info Grand Chadius Thrawn.
That's a much different issue than this. Toning things down in translation is what we call censorship. It's pretty commonly believed that native English speakers are rather sensitive compared to most other countries, and at least in regards to humor and censorship, they very much are.
@@LilyMaeBlossomthe thing is outside of the country most translatioin are made FROM english so they are just butchering the entire thing for everyone else too
FFXVI's localization lead is Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, known for rewriting and obfuscating certain parts of FFXIV's story, as well as adding memes and pop culture references in quest names, item descriptions and so on. And there was even one time when his meddling spoiled a death of a major character to the players. So it's really not surprising that FFXVI's English version of the story has noticeable differences. What IS surprising, though, is that unlike the translators in the video above, Koji Fox is beloved by the community. Even though some of the stuff he's put into FFXIV is REALLY cringe.
tbh I'm not especially a fan or hater of Asmongold. I'm just here to give my thanks to someone with a sizeable audience finally shedding a light on the state of Japanese-English media translations.
wokealizers gon wokealize
these anime fans and creators who make crap for teenagers about 3exual attraction to dogs are messed up. Like messed up that they should be locked in jail.
@@BNezzy What are you talking about you projecting schizo?
I don't watch dubs generally(too lazy to wait for them) so I haven't run into this lmao. The only dub I know is ghost stories because of how outrageous it is.
At the end of Asmon's excellent points about technology in 35:33 , he says that the **only** reason people oppose AI is because they'll lose their jobs, but I don't think that's the only reason. One of the bigger reasons beyond just "Muh job" that artists in particular oppose AI is because they can be simply replaced, rendering moot and trivializing the novelty of any unique style a human artist would develop. Even for an artist who does art out of passion and not necessarily for money, being replaced by a model that can just "create X as so-and-so would do it" displaces the human creator from their own impact on the artistic world, and recasts _all_ creative activity under the umbrella of "training your own replacement", and it's disturbing at an existential level, not just a financial one. AI's presence pits one's desire to bare their soul artistically to the world against one's own sense of self-preservation: human artistic output used to be one's claim to relevance in a world that cared about what they produced, but now it feeds the machine that says "thanks, now you're irrelevant". Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and by "damned" I don't just mean out of work but also out of _relevance_, by contributing to the undermining of one's own artistic purpose. So this isn't a conflict that can be resolved in economic terms because it's not simply an economic issue.
That's part of the reason I oppose AI as an aspiring artist. Artists already have to deal with thieves who repost their stuff and claim it as theirs. It's one of the things that blights Deviantart. Yet all these AI-Bros want to paint us artists as elitist shits when that's a SMALL overrepresented minority (something the far left and far right love doing with multiple people groups). Art is a passion of mine, and to see that passion strangled out because maggots want their AI generated pedo-bait is revolting. I've played around with AI before, but I'll never use it professionally.
Nothing stops you from producing art. You just become like these plates. "I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of... wherever."
If you're great at art, you'll always be relevant. If you're mediocre at it, you never were.
I like to think of it this way: if you make your own original art, you now get extra bragging rights for NOT using AI like all those talentless peasants, the most elite of art elitists will pay good money for your work, and best of all you get to have an exclusive elitist club (or cult) around your work and build a terrible empire of artistic tyranny!