(no subject)

[batyatoon]

So hey friends, especially certain friends from Milliways: If I were to (at long last) try watching Revolutionary Girl Utena, would you recommend dubbed or subtitled? My understanding is that subtitled is generally to be preferred, but I'd be interested in hearing about it if any of you have watched both.

Also: has anyone here watched Stranger Things? BOY DO I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT IT.

Comments

[mneme]

One thing about subbed over dubbed is that if you're dubious about the translations and know a -little- Japanese (and for me, seriously a little is piddly; a bunch of name-titles, some of the ways to say "do your best", "Thank you", and "I am called"; maybe a dozen other random words in all like "nakama" and "usagi"), you can sometimes find your way to correcting or at least identifying the places where translation loses sometihng.

[batyatoon]

Well, most of the time it's something minor like "okay, that exact same monosyllable was translated as 'yes sir' in the last scene and here it's translated as 'sure', is this a tone-of-voice thing?" or "okay I distinctly heard character A say character B's name but it didn't show up in the translation."

But then there are the background songs during and preceding the duels, where I honestly have no idea if it's a translation problem or if what's being sung is really that bizarre.

[mneme]

nodnod Even in the trivial case, it's still sometimes useful, but the translation's at least comprehensible, and in the second case it's usually that Japanese use names very differently than we do (although in the Sailor Moon Crystal (the redone 2014- version), one of the ending songs has a the character's names in the song, but not in the translation--because the songwriter used a sequence of words that caused the character names to show up even though they're not actually in the dialogue, as a rather delightful bit of wordplay that is completely untranslatable!).

Regarding the song, I think it's probably mostly that bizarre. If you really want bizarre, wait until you get to one of the most bizarre Nanami episodes (you'll know it when you see it).

[scifantasy]

I've told her about it, because I've played The Song.

[mneme]

From the Nanami episode?

[scifantasy]

Yup.

[scifantasy]

I lean toward the latter, but it doesn't really matter as such anyway.

(To the primary point, I'd call it less tone-of-voice-thing and more high-context-language thing, inasmuch as Japanese has all sorts of things from inflections to words to implied meanings due to social standing that just Do Not Translate Well, and also are so ingrained in Japanese culture that even identifying it can be a trick and a half.)