Doremi-Fansubs = AnimeJunkies v2.0
Here is a note to all fansub groups: Please make sure that your translator actually speaks Japanese! And please make sure that you have at least one other team member on the project who speaks Japanese so that he/she can make sure that the translator isn’t pretending to know Japanese by making random guesses and checking Babelfish!
NEVER TRUST YOUR TRANSLATORS WITHOUT SEEKING A SECOND OPINION!!! (I was one. I know what we do.)
Now here’s a sad, sad example of a “fansub” gone horribly wrong. The following translations are from Doremi-OTOME’s fansub of Mai-Otome DVD Special 8. The torrent can be found here (way at the bottom).
The translator is very cunning. He sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. But really, I am not certain if he even speaks a single word of Japanese after watching this piece of wombat dung.
Evidence 1
Sounds like reasonable translation? Well here’s what Mai really said in that exact scene:
私、家出同然と学園に来ちゃったんだけど、
I entered the school after running away from home,
運良く援助してくれるお家があって
luckily there was a family who offered to help me
Wow! That sounds like a completely different story now, doesn’t it?!?! How the fuck did the translator miss SO HARD that he nearly landed in a totally whole new continent! Imagine if I didn’t know Japanese and believed in this asshat’s lies. He’s creating a whole new anime with his “translations”.
Evidence 2
Again, this sounds completely reasonable doesn’t it? Well SURPRISE!!!
みんな良い人達だったし、何より条件が破格なくらいよかったのよ。
Everyone was so nice to me and the conditions were just too good.
Wow. Another brilliant translation. I can’t even figure out which word he might have mistaken to produce “trouble”, so I conclude that the translator just made the whole thing up out of thin air. Please also notice that the translator is using present tense. I guess the editor went fishing too, huh?
Evidence 3
最初は逃げようともしたんだけどね、
I tried escaping at first,
その度に捕まっちゃって
but I got caught everytime.
The meaning is changed, but hey, at least he got all the keywords right! CHEERS!!!
Evidence 4
でまぁ、毎日この子とこの谷で過ごしているうちに
So, during the time I spent in this valley together with her, I unknowingly…
うちに？
Unknowingly?
すっかり馴染んでしまいました
I got attached to her completely.
お前という奴は昔から全く変わっていない
You have not changed a bit since then.
I must confess that my translation for the second line isn’t very accurate.
うちに (uchi ni) is used to mean “within a period of time”.
うち (uchi) means “house”.
The translator, in his infinite wisdom, confused the two and just went along with it even though it makes no fucking sense if you stop and think about it for even 1 nanosecond.
The last line is even more hilarious. The translator confused 変わる (kawaru) with かわいい (kawaii) and the meaning of the sentence was TOTALLY RAPED in the most gruesome and inhuman manner possible. For the love of Haruhi and all that is good, what kind of “Japanese translator” confuses “to change” with “cute”!?
Maybe he’s really just a narutard who knows nothing but “NEKO NEKO KAWAII DESU”. Holy shit, I saved the best for the last!
Evidence 5
これは私にの挑戦ですか、氷雪の銀水晶。
Are you challenging me to battle, Silver Crystal of Ice?
あっ、いや・・・あの・・・
Ah, no…I didn’t…
ならばお相手しましょう
Very well, I accept.
Cool. I think this speaks for itself. The translator just had to screw up the funniest part of the video.
EDIT 2
Thanks for informing me that Ladholyman isn’t responsible for the mess up because he only translates from Chinese subs. You can read my follow-up here. But I’ll keep the remarks below for the sake of completeness and preserving history and all that jazz. Just imagine that I’m talking to the Chinese translator instead. :P
END EDIT
Mr. “Translator”: If you can’t figure out what they are saying, please be honest and tell the rest of your team. Your team members do not speak Japanese and trust you enough that they didn’t get a second translator to expose your little lies. You betrayed their trust. If you want to bullshit, at least do it with style like “Mass Naked Child Event” or something. Be creative!
Listen up fansub groups! DON’T let this guy translate anything! Not a single word! Not even if it’s in English!
The rest of those guys are probably cool, but Doremi deserves a good ass-kicking for not having a translation checker. Come on, it’s so fucking basic that it’s not even funny.
This has been a public service announcement brought to you by DarkMirage. I know if you’ve been naughty or good, so don’t even try to %$#%# around with me!
EDIT: I have to add that these are NOT the only mistakes in this 4:32 short video. And also, the first scene is relatively free of mistakes because it was taken from one of the main episodes, meaning the “translator” probably “borrowed” the translation.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Was it parody sub? But this post is very funny.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
It wasn’t. Or they made a huge mistake and forgot to tell us.
The original lines are funnier anyway.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
wow, that was pretty O.O
August 29th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
DM is out to save the world from bad fansubs! *cue for some cheesy hero entrance theme*… scratch the theme, he deserves something better.
This is a good post though… but doremi was already and is still meh.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
wow, I probably wouldn’t have know if otherwise…maybe the nut transliterated everything and put it through some online translator.
August 29th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
no wonder i thought the grammar was dead funny.
August 29th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
You’re wrong, it is funny :)
They should have just thrown the story out the window and made their own.
Maybe they could have done a story about a female child molester that runs a lesbian whorehouse, and meets an old rival/lover… that wants to expose her.
August 29th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Now imagine, Russian translators rarely care to find anyone who at least claims himself being able to understand Japanese. Those guys just translate english hardsubs (resulting with softsub)…
Second-hand translation.
One can just go crazy after using such. It’s definitely NOT fun. It’s brain killing.
August 29th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
reminds me of the parody sub of FF AC
August 29th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
DarkMirage, instead of complaining about Ladholyman from Doremi Fansubs why don’t you go help him? I should add that he’s doing the translation from Chinese to English, so the one who screwed up is the Japanese to Chinese translator and not Ladholyman. So go complain about Chinese fansubs groups instead.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:01 am
I happen to know that Doremi (at least ladholyman) cross-translates from Chinese. Which means that they usually pick a Chinese fansub and then translate from there.
Therefore, depending on the quality of the “original” translation, the result ranges from excellent to very poor. This was a clear example of a very bad pick. But if you take other shows, for example their “Strawberry Panic”, the translations are really good.
So I’d suggest to relax a bit with the screaming.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:20 am
I’m gonna apologize for ladholyman on this one. We goofed, and I admit it, we goofed up bad. We have a slight problem, Ladholyman used chinese subs to translate from, but he forgot to check the translation. I’m not too crazy about subbing from chinese subs, but Ladholyman seems to get things done that way without to much headache. I’m gonna recommend thta our backup translator (Chinese, Japanese, English) do the translation work this time around and make sure that we get it right.
-Mike
Doremi Fansubs Webmaster/Public Relations Officer
martelle@doremi-fansubs.com
August 30th, 2006 at 12:27 am
hehhehe strangely i though it there was something off with the subtitles eheheh
though i’m not proficient with japanese, after a certain number of animes watched, you get a hang of most of non-technical mumbo-jumbo
its more like fansubs are racing against each other and forget to do the proof-reading(that’s where we get the v2;v3 eps) and when they get an episode too filled up with uncommon words(techinical mumbo-jumbo or complicated thoughs) you notice a delay on release (since u get used to see a certain show on trackers in certain days)… but thats… well the demand =p
but y’know… we also have our share of guilty here. compared to a few years ago, the flow of releases increased, so ppl tend to expect that every single series should be translated, etc etc.
also, instead of joining a certain group that’s already releasing stuff and improve their FANjob. what we get nowadays is ppl making a crappy group starting halfway of some series just cos the former isnt doing the subs fast enough.
well, that’s general speak. on this case… let’s just hope they learned that they’re in need of some good proof-reader and, of course, make this post reach anyone who’s in charge of translating stuff. otherwise its meaningless rant.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:38 am
Doremi seems to be doing a pretty good job on Keroro Gunsou, and I’m pretty sure Ladyholyman is the translator for that series as well. I speak pretty much just a lick of Japanese, so I can’t be sure, but the episodes I’ve seen that contain stuff that’s been portrayed in what I’ve read of the manga (Tokyopop translation) seem to be pretty spot on, and the show’s certainly funny enough with their fansub. Maybe this was a bit of a rush job and they were an editor down or something. I understand how this would upset you, especially since you’re a former fansub translator, but everyone has a bad day.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:42 am
Oi oi… meeega-bashing happening here *dons asbestos* ^_^
I’ll out myself first: While I’m not really a Doremi member (I’m usually working for Eclipse, Lunar or ZX), I’m helping out as encoder for one of their releases (Strawberry Panic), so I’m a little bit biased.
I haven’t been involved in this one particular release, but I can easily imagine what happened: Ladholyman usually cross-translates from Chinese fansubs to English. That’s fairly common knowledge in anime circles, and it usually works out very well (because normally the quality of the used chinese fansubs is high). I’d still contest that for most releases the quality of the Doremi translations are fairly good - this one episode being a notable exception to the rule. Very likely the chinese source was very poor this time.
Now - this is your blog, your rules, your decision to do it. But don’t you think you’re overdoing it a little bit here? This kind of rambling and personal dissing makes for a good and enjoyable reading, but it’s also the kind of stuff which makes people realize that it’s not worth wasting your time on fansubbing if this is the thank you when you happen to slip - which happens to everyone, even the best. Especially when you’re having little time due to switching to college. And while YOU can still enjoy the animes raw, many thousand people downloadingand enjoying Doremi releases (usually without a reason to complain) would certainly be unhappy if ladholyman simply gave you the middle finger and stopped *shrug*
Just a thought. And my 0.015 €