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 30th, 2006 at 10:10 am
Meh. AnimeJunkies translated from Korean scripts and everyone complained
So now translating from Chinese is perfectly fine.
You can see why I’m not fansubbing anymore.
I do not think that my insults are unfounded. Fansubs do it for the fame. If they were doing it for the “good of it”, they’d have put more effort into quality control. There’s nothing wrong with doing it for fame since everyone is doing it. But if you are going to stick your group name onto something, you better make sure that you don’t mind people like me judging you for it.
So the excuse is that the Chinese translation sucked. Then why didn’t you check the Chinese translation? Translating two times is bad enough already, at least make sure the first translation is fateful enough to the original. Doremi didn’t. An honest mistake? How the fuck? It’s clearly deliberate laziness.
Ok, I apologize. The translator wasn’t lying. The team was just lazy.
But really, I know how translators work and we tend to bluff our way through lines that we don’t know. In fact that’s probably what the original Chinese translator did.
And to the previous comment: Since when did people have to be useful and helpful when they whine on the Internet? Maybe you got this blog mixed up with some NGO? :P
August 30th, 2006 at 10:14 am
wow, that was a useless rant
dont like someones translation?..go watch another.
better yet, translate it yourself.
a bad translator is still hundred times cooler than some lame person picking out errors.
August 30th, 2006 at 10:15 am
i wonder… why he “came” now after 8 or more specials to tell us about this “translator” .. ladholysomething was the translator of specials 4-8 of doremi’s mai otome … if he really does a real bad job… why the other 3 went well? isnt it cheesy to just complain after all specials are out? … wonder if he did a good job with the others and just fucked this one … or the guy who is complaining got something aganist him… who knows i dont care :P i just watch this anime because is ecchi ^^
August 30th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Downloaded. Some of the dialogue’s cleaned up (especially the ‘running away’ bits), so that’s something. And, of course… they credited DM for his work.
August 30th, 2006 at 10:19 am
btw… thinking about v2’s 3’s and stuff… i wonder when they will make a easly patcheable file so we can repair originals without much work ^^ :P is kinda paintfull when ya get 350mbs of a file and just 10/20 minutes after you see a nice v2… and the day after a nice v3 then… u feel like: WTF a 700mbs lost O_o? at least the guys in hong fire uses srt and gives ya the raw but hell sorting files with a srt sometimes get messy
August 30th, 2006 at 10:21 am
The difference between AJ and Doremi is that Doremi has been one of the most responsive and friendly fansubbing groups around. Yes, they have made mistakes, but even when people act like complete assholes to them they acknowledge the mistake and fix it.
I’ve had my own run-ins with Ladholyman and Maceart over My~Otome translations, but all in all I think they do a great job on the shows they work on.
And how does what Doremi and AJ do stop you from fansubbing?
August 30th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Hehe. I started an internet drama. Woohoo.
Augusto: I watched the previous specials raw.
Scope: Of course it’s a huge waste of time and really silly for me to whine about poor fansubs.
But then again, it’s my blog. It’s a huge waste of time and really silly of you to read my blog and take the time to tell me that.
It’s the same thing. I saw something I didn’t like and I ranted. You didn’t like my rant, well that’s too bad. Some people had a good laugh.
Tsubaki: Perhaps I was a bit too harsh, but I think it won’t have reached so many people otherwise. People love internet drama!
LianYL: Of course I’m elitist! I spent the last four years learning Japanese so that I can be elitist! Hell, I have to make my investment worth it.
August 30th, 2006 at 10:35 am
Fence: Because quality isn’t appreciated - speed is. Speedsubs are supposed to be more highly regarded than quality fansubs (although Eclipse did a heck of a job with F/SN), and translators who can understand Japanese feel insulted when people are using someone else’s sub to (example: copying from a Chinese or Korean sub group’s work) do the translation and (implicitly) claiming the credit for the ‘translation from the original’.
But, as others have noted, some things are ‘common knowledge’, such as the use of Chinese subtitles or translations for the English redo for certain shows. One legitimate complaint that can be leveled in such a scenario is that the translation of a translation may miss information or contexts, not translate a cultural reference correctly, or distort the original intent of the writer (like reading a webpage that Babelfish has translated into another language, then translating it back through the same engine into English).
In the case of Keroro, I’m satisfied with what I am getting… even if it’s not the same as a direct translation of the Japanese.
August 30th, 2006 at 10:36 am
This isn’t anywhere near animejunkies level since at least animejunkies’ mistranslations were funny. This is just sad.
If you’re going to use any sort of script that you aren’t translating yourself, you need to check it, especially for scripts that go from Japanese to another Asian language like Chinese or Korean. You can’t simply trust it even if the track record is good. At the very least, have a J to E translator check the C to E translation after it’s done.
Speaking as a translator, if you don’t have someone that can do J to E at the QC stage at least, don’t bother even translating.
August 30th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Everyone knows Doremi doesn’t have Japanese translators. They translate from Chinese subs. Most people don’t give a fuck because Doremi manages to not be assholes and deliver when no one else does.
August 30th, 2006 at 11:16 am
The omake chinese subs usually comes out first but there’s always mistakes. ALWAYS! I nearly flipped when i saw the first doremi sub. I was like “wtf, isn’t this directly translated from that chinese sub?” T.T
August 30th, 2006 at 11:19 am
I didn’t know, not everyone knows :P
August 30th, 2006 at 11:23 am
That’s what I find funny about this argument. One side says that they’re translating from Chinese subs. The other says to check the Chinese subs. If they had the ability to check from Japanese to Chinese or Japanese to English, don’t you think they wouldn’t be using the Chinese go between in the first place? They aren’t hiding that they use Chinese translations first. It’s given knowledge for most people who regularly watch Doremi releases and is even mentioned in the Mai Otome show description on how the schedule released occured when the show was being aired.
I’ve been quite happy with Doremi. Eventually I’ll start watching Keroro Gunsou. They do a good job of releasing series no other fansubbers want to touch. They even admit when they’re not doing a good job with a release while other groups are.
August 30th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Good Job DM. You’re the new king of Internet Drama.
August 30th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Ceres, translator and translation checker have completely different levels of responsibities.
A translator needs to spend hours on one episode to refine the lines and meanings. It’s a lot of dedication that requires both hardwork and skills.
A translation checker only needs to watch it once to tell if the translation is complete junk. It only requires skills. Not much work involved really.
It’s not that hard to find someone willing to do the latter, especially if you credit him for it.