Quote:
Originally Posted by Midonin
I pledge the opposite. A liberal translation is absoloutely needed to get someone like Kumeta across. Again, I point to the subs of Joshiraku, from the only group that was willing to sub it. It was a translation that wasn't exact, but it hit the timing of the jokes, and the feel of the puns was more or less the same was what they were in Japanese. This was a script that not only needed to be convey the language, but the humor and all the wordplay games that ensued. Literal translations would've rendered Joshiraku stilted and confusing instead of sharp and creative. Literal translations are really only useful from an academic standpoint, not an entertainment one.
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I see where you're coming from, and I enjoyed the translations for Joshiraku as much as anyone else, but at some point, I had to stop and ask myself: Am I watching this for the jokes of the original work's author or for the jokes put in by the translator?
At some point, it starts becoming a different thing altogether. That's what I'm afraid of, kind of like translating a Kansai dialect into Southern speech. Now, I agree that it was the best way to translate the show for a western audience, but that doesn't make it into a good translation. Still, the translation notes that came a few days after were a great touch, and I appreciated it.