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Crow beat me to it... "nakama" translates literally as "companion" but has dozens of slightly different shades of meaning. Its even the name of a Japanese-English translation guide. Often there's an implied connection or "pun" between multiple meanings.
@skane: I'm flipping back and forth between liking a.f.k. and SS-Eclipse from moment to moment because of the translation issues you describe.
For me, I prefer having to think in japanese because it helps me "grok" the language (subtitles being a crutch more than a replacement). On the other hand, "spiritual equivalents" like Happy Meal for "Kid's Meal" don't bother me. "Yoshi!" (even if, a-ok, all right, lets do it, yes!). But westernizing names (last/first, etc) and dropping honorifics bother me, especially the latter when the change of honorific or change of which name is allowed to be used signifies a change of relationship. (-san --> -kun or -chan)
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