Air licensed by ADV!

[Kensuke]

Originally Posted by Wuya

will they even keep "gao"?

I'm sure that if they remove the "gao", there will be riots in front of ADV HQ, by several angry AIR fans.

[Skane]

They have to keep it, unless they want to rewrite parts of the story; especially the episode where Haruka explains to Yukito why Misuzu goes "Gao" all the time.

Cheers.

[Wuya]

Originally Posted by Skane

They have to keep it, unless they want to rewrite parts of the story; especially the episode where Haruka explains to Yukito why Misuzu goes "Gao" all the time.

Cheers.

sadly, thats too simple
just replace "gao" in the line with something like "pooie" and DONE... replaced...
so that scene can just explain "pooie" or whatever instead of gao.
just saying wouldnt be surprising if any dubbed version did that.

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Wuya

sadly, thats too simple
just replace "gao" in the line with something like "pooie" and DONE... replaced...
so that scene can just explain "pooie" or whatever instead of gao.
just saying wouldnt be surprising if any dubbed version did that.

What on Earth for? "Gao" is not some obscure Japanese cultural reference, it's simply Misuzu imitating a dinosaur. Unless you intend to tell me that Americans don't know what a dinosaur is...

Good Grief!

[Robotnik]

I don't think they'll just *replace* "gao" in the dub; they might "translate" it to "grr" or something. But ADV has left stuff like that in the dubs before - in Nanaka 6/17 they left in the "hawawa" and "hayaya", and I'd go as far as to say that "gao" is an integral to the character of Misuzu as "hawawa" was to Nanaka.

[Wuya]

Originally Posted by Wuya

will they even keep "gao"?
only considering that mainstream peeps probably have no clue what it is....
i had to read what it was suppose to "mean" before understanding it myself... otherwise it would have been just a "cute bad-habit" phrase which can be replaced by any other of its likes.

@skane
thats what i think they wil replace it for... all im saying is its something possible to consider..

i do see replacing it with grr rather than gao.. other than ourselves, i dont think mainstream peeps know Gao is the japanese Grr...

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Wuya

@skane
thats what i think they wil replace it for... all im saying is its something possible to consider..

i do see replacing it with grr rather than gao.. other than ourselves, i dont think mainstream peeps know Gao is the japanese Grr...

They don't need to worry about that! It's all explained! By Haruko! The only way one would not understand is if they don't watch that episode in the first place!

Natch.

[Jeiku]

For anybody who speculates that "gao" could be changed to something like "grr" or "roar," I've always thought of "gao" as a babyish way of imitating a dinosaur, so even if people get confused like, "If she's trying to sound like a dinosaur, how come she's not really sounding like one?" gao could still work as a rather weak attempt on her part.

... Or something. (Besides, changing "gao" would also eliminate Misuzu's importance in uttering "goal" later on...)

[FatPianoBoy]

Originally Posted by Jeiku

... Or something. (Besides, changing "gao" would also eliminate Misuzu's importance in uttering "goal" later on...)

It would also knock several points off the Stegosaurus shirt

[Rengemaru]

And that's exactly why I hate dubbing. from all the shows running around TV, I never expected nor wished this show would get licensed. Although I do welcome the idea of having a good quality DVD copy of AIR for safe-keeping but of course it will come with the price of stupid translation and horrible dubbing. This will be a damn nightmare.....

[FatPianoBoy]

Originally Posted by Rengemaru

And that's exactly why I hate dubbing. from all the shows running around TV, I never expected nor wished this show would get licensed. Although I do welcome the idea of having a good quality DVD copy of AIR for safe-keeping but of course it will come with the price of stupid translation and horrible dubbing. This will be a damn nightmare.....

It's funny - this kind of 'official translation is teh evulzz!!' comments almost always come from people who have never actually tried to translate anything themselves. If they had, they'd know what a nightmare it can be to get the same feeling across while still being as faithful as possible the original.
Nevermind the fact that ADV is may be betting the farm on this license, which means that appealing to as many people as possible is a serious issue.

[Minoto]

Originally Posted by Rengemaru

And that's exactly why I hate dubbing. from all the shows running around TV, I never expected nor wished this show would get licensed. Although I do welcome the idea of having a good quality DVD copy of AIR for safe-keeping but of course it will come with the price of stupid translation and horrible dubbing. This will be a damn nightmare.....

There's no such thing as a perfect translation. With that said, if you consider the amount of money ADV must have had to pay for this license, the fact that they'll benefit from a working relationship with Key and be able to work from the original scripts rather than transcribing by ear, and the quality of work they've been able to produce in the past (Azumanga Daioh, anyone?), I don't have any reason to believe they won't produce at least a good translation. I'm less optimistic about the dub, because to me, American VAs never sound right for Japanese characters, but that's just a matter of personal taste. So long as they also provide the original audio track and decent subtitles, I'll be happy.

[Rengemaru]

Originally Posted by FatPianoBoy

It's funny - this kind of 'official translation is teh evulzz!!' comments almost always come from people who have never actually tried to translate anything themselves. If they had, they'd know what a nightmare it can be to get the same feeling across while still being as faithful as possible the original.

I might not be able to translat from Japanese to English, but I'm a full-fledged expert in translating from my mother language (which is not Latin-derived and ranked as one of the hardest 5 languages in the world) into English and vice versa. So don't worry, I know what I'm saying (hopefully). I really don't want to make a big fuzz over this so the buttom line is "licensed anime translators never try to translate the actual words or sentenced used, but try to use close meanings that would make it sound more English" This might deliver the same idea of the dialogue but it will not deliver the same flavor of the Japanese dialogue. I know you might be confused by now but this is what I think about this matter, case closed.

I might get the DVD if it comes out, not for the dub nor the translation but for the (hopefully) high quality JP voiced anime since I'm learning JP so it's a matter of time before I can watch it without subs.

Originally Posted by Minoto

There's no such thing as a perfect translation.

Trust me, it does exist, rarely but it exists. But still, I'm not wishing for a perfect translation, I'm wishing for a very good translation. Nothing more, nothing less.

[FatPianoBoy]

Originally Posted by Rengemaru

I might not be able to translat from Japanese to English, but I'm a full-fledged expert in translating from my mother language (which is not Latin-derived and ranked as one of the hardest 5 languages in the world) into English and vice versa. So don't worry, I know what I'm saying (hopefully). I really don't want to make a big fuzz over this so the buttom line is "licensed anime translators never try to translate the actual words or sentenced used, but try to use close meanings that would make it sound more English" This might deliver the same idea of the dialogue but it will not deliver the same flavor of the Japanese dialogue. I know you might be confused by now but this is what I think about this matter, case closed.

I've known exactly what you're talking about all along, but what I'm saying is that it's impossible to have a completely lossless translation sound anywhere near normal in English. In some cases, it's just not possible (how do we render a girl who uses 'boku' to reflect that?) and in others it just doesn't sound right or is misleading.

Aside: What's your native language?

[Minoto]

Originally Posted by Rengemaru

Trust me, it does exist, rarely but it exists. But still, I'm not wishing for a perfect translation, I'm wishing for a very good translation. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'll agree that simple statements of fact (I am a cat, this is a pen, etc) can be translated well enough, but figurative language? Is it really possible to choose expressions in language B that carry the same associations and create the same result in the mind of readers/viewers as the original expressions in language A? Quite a few linguistic theorists would argue that even simple, factual communication between speakers of the same language is never perfect...when I use the word "tree" in a sentence, I may be thinking of an apple tree, but unless I've stated that earlier, or the context somehow makes it clear, the person I'm speaking to may picture a peach tree, or a pine tree, or a plam tree, or who knows what else.

Generally, that's not a problem; the other person still pictures something close enough to what I meant that I'm still understood, but I still wouldn't say that we're communicating perfectly. Add the difficulty of crossing languages and cultures, and I just don't think that any work complex enough to be interesting can be "perfectly" translated.

Still, like you, I'm hoping for a great translation; my original point was just that ADV should be sufficiently well-motivated to produce a good translation at the very least.

[Sorrow-K]

This happened two days ago and I only just heard about it? Geez, I'm falling behind.

But, oh wow. I never would have predicted this getting licensed, even with the massive number of visual novel conversions like Shuffle, Uta and Type Moon works getting localized recently. Nonetheless, this is brilliant news, and I couldn't be more happy (hell, I'm struggling to type properly right now). Hopefully it gets an Australian release as well, since I'll certainly buy it.

But, I'm a little apprehensive that ADV got it, since I haven't been totally impressed with their work of late. I think I'd have slept a little sounder if Funi or Geneon got this. Nonetheless, it'll be an interesting localization to see.

Edit: The great thing about this license is that Kanon 2006 becomes a distinct possibility now.

[andiyar]

Originally Posted by Rengemaru

And that's exactly why I hate dubbing. from all the shows running around TV, I never expected nor wished this show would get licensed. Although I do welcome the idea of having a good quality DVD copy of AIR for safe-keeping but of course it will come with the price of stupid translation and horrible dubbing. This will be a damn nightmare.....

I think you'll find that this view won't be too correct, when the DVDs do come out.

Consider - the majority of people who do buy anime DVDs in general tend to be dub watchers. Honestly, it's true. Subtitle watchers, who watch the show in its original language, are in the minority - hence, dub watchers are important to the company's bottom line; they tend to provide the majority of sales.

Subtitle watchers are different. They've often seen an episode or two (or all!) of the show online, they prefer to watch in the original Japanese for their own reasons (whether purity of character, appropriateness to the media or simply because "it feels right"). Quite often you'll find a lot of sub-watchers pick up bits and pieces of the language here and there - almost never anything that allows a conversation to be held, for instance, but often a 'feel' for the flow of the language.

Dub watchers, therefore, are those to whom the exact and accurate translation is not incredibly necessary. They want to see the show, they want to enjoy it in their native language - English. As such, concepts and ideas in the show need to be translated and interpreted to fit into their personal context, and must be made to flow in a natural manner. Substituting words for those with similar meaning is commonplace here - exact transliteration of language to language is, as has been mentioned, nigh-impossible, as structure and context, as well as tonality influence so many languages in different ways.

An interesting example is the word 'love' in English. How synonyms for 'love' are there? Are there any true synonyms in English? In Ancient Greek, for instance there are three - one for passionate love, one for platonic love, one for attraction. And yet, how many concepts use the word 'love' in English? For instance:

"I will always love you."
"I'd love to see her in trouble."
"I love the roller coaster."
"They made love in the evening."

See what I mean? Four different meanings, one word. And not all of them are positive - and that's not even taking into account inflections such as irony or sarcasm.

How would you go about translating a phrase that was heavily ironic, using positive words to cast negative connotations, from one language to another? Would you merely transliterate, and hope that the meaning of the words is clear enough across cultural boundaries? Would you attempt to re-interpret the words to gain the closest possible approximation of the intent of the speaker, in order to retain as much of the meaning as possible? Or would you try to attain some sort of hypothetical middle ground, where you retain as much of the source as is possible, but still cast it into a context that is familiar with the new audience?

The last two methods I gave there are those (that I have personally observed) that are most prominently used in the translation of anime for the English consumer. For the dub watcher, the most important thing is that the script and the story make sense in English - hence metaphors can be somewhat modified, substitutions are made in language - basically, a closest approximation of the intent, rather than a literal transliteration. In subs, the middle ground approach seems to be followed - the translation is more literal, but it is edited in situ so that it is framed in an English context, and not in a Japanese structural framework.

What about those people who demand a 'perfect' translation, who want it presented as it was originally, with zero interpretation, as pure as possible? To be frank, if that's what you want - switch off the subtitles.

Harsh? Yes, perhaps it is somewhat harsh. But I feel, and I am fairly certain my feeling is accurate, that it would be impossible to transliterate an anime from Japanese to English, keeping the framework intact and keeping it true to the source, without resulting in a translation so horribly incomprehensible that it is effectively unwatchable. And here's where the Big Secret™ comes in - these companies exist to sell consumers a product. They can't sell us a product that we don't understand - and nor should they. Due to the almost impossible difficulty of creating a transliterated language track that is in no sense interpreted or contextualised, they can be forgiven for not attempting to do so - especially since the people who are likely to notice the slightly interpreted and (although correct in English) different translation of a single word, for instance, are those who are the most likely to understand the original Japanese anyway.

This is the point where, often, the "but fansubbers do a better job!" argument is raised. And here I must raise a singular question back - how do you know? If your Japanese knowledge is at the level where you can argue that a fansub translator's version of a word (which he/she has deduced from listening several times over to an encoded audio track) is more correct than the official DVD translator's version of a word (which he/she has translated from a hard copy of the original script), then realistically, the sub track should again be primarily irrelevant to you - your Japanese should be at the level where you don't need to watch the subtitles to comprehend the show. And if it isn't, realistically, you aren't in a strong position from which to judge. Yes, many of us prefer certain word choices used by fansubbers compared to the official licensed versions. But preference doesn't indicate correctness - it merely indicates opinion. Perhaps a somewhat educated opinion, for the language dilettantes, but still an opinion.

As an addendum, although I am a big fan of many fansub groups, and appreciate the fantastic work they do for us, it must be admitted that their grasp on pure English is, at times, somewhat ephemeral. Arguments on sites such as Anime Planet's fansub comparison forum eloquently display the battlefield - the language purists who want a literal translation regardless of the butchery done to the English tongue, and the interpretive speakers who want their version to make sense to their target audience, albeit at the cost of perhaps some degradation in pure meaning from the original. Many fansubbers fall into both groups, more still into a 'middle ground' of sorts, where good, readable English is occasionally interspersed with odd 'Engrish' expression, strange punctuation, and lines that just don't read correctly.

Official releases are never, ever on the literalist side of the fansub fence, in terms of translation. They also tend more to the interpretive than the middle ground, it must be admitted. Why is this? Well, let's take this statement here:


"licensed anime translators never try to translate the actual words or sentenced used, but try to use close meanings that would make it sound more English" This might deliver the same idea of the dialogue but it will not deliver the same flavor of the Japanese dialogue


You have just given the reason why it is done. Because it will sound 'more English'. And there's quite an obvious reason for it - their audience speak English (well, 'American' English, but that's a different issue ^^;; ). Their audience read English. Their audience understand English. Their audience, to a vast majority, are not bi-tri-quad or otherwise multilingual. They understand English words, in an English context. What you refer to as the 'flavour' of Japanese dialogue is not necessarily compatible with an English context, as I've touched on previously. Word use is different. Sentence structure is different. Use of idiom is different. And different often means incompatible, or at least more difficult to understand. The American distributors don't want more difficult to understand - without understandability, people are warned off the show by those who do buy it. And that means loss of revenue, in very real terms.

At any rate, that's probably enough of that. You did also mention a hatred of dubs, which you aren't alone in... I must confess I'm still blank as to why people hate dubs so much. All DVD players, software or otherwise, do have language selection options, as well as subtitle options - I've never so much as blinked an eye, I've always just made sure I had my preferred settings active before watching the disk. It isn't like the dub script is used for the subtitle stream anymore, so the existence of a dub should, in reality, be a non-issue to those who are less than fans. Unless there's a real and realistic reason why people hate dubs?

Oh, and in a slightly less serious note - I'd be willing to bet a great deal that ADV are unlikely to 'butcher' Air simply because it is... Air. Their press release itself states they recognise Air as a 'fan favourite', and you can bet any amount of money that you like that ADV corporate reps have regularly read this forum, and probably indeed this thread, in the wake of their licensing announcement. And they have to be very well aware that Air is a series in which a 'poor' translation would make-or-break the show for them. Key will have, from what I understand, charged an incredible amount for the license, which they can ill afford to lose. Much of Air's appeal comes from the intricate theme and story, and losing too much detail would result in a terrible bomb for ADV, regardless of how much fans might want this show. True, there are people who will buy it regardless - some because they believe they're doing the right thing, others because regardless of a substandard translation, it's still Air (I myself am guilty of these and other reasons ^^) - but in the majority of cases, revenue loss, again, should ensure that ADV remain as faithful to the source material as they can.

Well, within the limits of reason, naturally. The show hasn't been licensed so people can watch a literal Japanese-->English translation of a densely-scripted anime. It's been licensed so that fans of Air will have an accessible, understandable and hopefully high-quality English release of a much loved show. I'm sure I'm not alone in being incredibly grateful to ADV for the fact that it is happening at all... and, if my prior predictions come true, and Air is 'ruined' by a 'terrible translation', I'll be more than willing to join the Fan Protest/Riots that will ensue

Best wishes,


-Andiyar

[zrdb]

Oh boy-another ADV hatchet job, I can hardly wait!! I already have Air on dvd and am going to pass on this one-and I don't see either Kanon 2002 or 2006 being licensed. I used to like ADV-especially for a lot of their older stuff-but the joy is gone.

[darkchibi07]

Originally Posted by zrdb

Oh boy-another ADV hatchet job, I can hardly wait!! I already have Air on dvd and am going to pass on this one-and I don't see either Kanon 2002 or 2006 being licensed. I used to like ADV-especially for a lot of their older stuff-but the joy is gone.

ADV got worse? What kind of standards do you have?

[zrdb]

High ones, I liked what ADV did with 2 of my all time favorite girls-Kei and Yuri-also known as the Dirty Pair, they did an excellent dub on Chrono Crusade and a lot of other stuff-but lately it seems like they went straight down the crapper-and I prefer dubs to subs.