I want to first start off by saying that this is not a formal piece, and as such, I will be switching between the first and third person a plenty.
In the paradoxically welcoming, insular community of people who watch Japanese anime, there exists a debate of fluctuating seriousness, of subtitles vs dubbing, which varies in intensity based on how new releases are handled. This debate tends to bleed into debates around translations as well, with “subbers” claiming a certain integrity behind using subtitles instead of foreign (non-Japanese) voices.
I first want to cover the sub vs dub debate before moving onto issues regarding localization.
As I see it, subbed anime and dubbed anime, hell, even subbed television and movie compared to their dubbed counterpoints, are different forms of media. Not completely so, of course, since they still utilise the same fundamental components and techniques. However, when it comes to how the viewer’s role in each, how they actively participate in their “watching,” the two formats’ differences become plainly obvious.
In a subbed show, there exists two major spaces that the eye looks at: the image space and the word space (the subs). In order for someone to “fully experience the show,” their eyes are given the duty to travel between these two spaces, taking time between each flick of the eye to absorb as many images or text as possible before moving onto the next section. This type of movement is one of the many reasons why some shows, like the Monogatari series or the Tatami Galaxy, are seen as “the upper echelon” of anime; as it takes some time before enough dexterity is built up for a viewer to be able to quickly absorb either images or text and switching to the other before the scene itself switches.
It’s also because of this movement of the eye that subbed anime can be better compared to manga and comics (most manga tends to have simpler images than their American counter parts in exchange for a faster pace) rather than a dubbed show. Since, in graphic media (manga, comics, graphic novels) the word space exists in the same frames as the picture space, but there, often times the positioning of the word space in the picture space is layed out in such a way to make the flow of reading easier on the eyes. This flow does not exist much in subbed anime, where the word space is often permanently affixed to the botttom of the frame.
Dubbed anime, in contrast, is more akin to your tradition television show; it consists of two major parts: the sound and the picture space (I will not call it the “sound space,” as sound itself implies a space). Here, less pressure is put on the eyes as they are not required to zip and zoom between two spaces. Instead, the viewer engages with the auditory sense and the visual sense, creating a comfortable balance that requires less active participation. A “viewing experience” rather than a “viewer experiencing” if you will.
This contrast changes slightly if you can understand Japanese, of course; since an anime in its most rawest form uses a Japanese dubbing. But, for the increasingly-growing Western audiences, that sort of luxury (of learning a whole new language, extremely different from the already existing English lingua franca) does not exist.
[A side note in regards to sound: I understand that the tones and enunciations of Japanese voices can be rudimentarily understood given enough exposure, and that understanding may lead to a deeper understanding through sound that encroaches on the territory of dubbed anime, but that can be, in my opinion, lumped in with the sound design, as it sort of exists to elicit “base, instictual reactions.”]
Moving onto localization, the behemoth that it is, I want to first showcase the complexity of the whole problem with a metaphor. Take the colour red, which may look different for whoever reads this, but nevertheless, take your colour red, and imagine a painting of a bird with feathers of your red. Imagine yourself as the painter of this painting, of a small bird pearched gently on a thin branch, it’s [your] red feathers contrasting with the leaves around it, making it almost seem like one of the many fruits attached to the other branches. Imagine that you were amused by this likeness one day earlier, and that your now finished painting is of that scene, meant to elicit the same kind of small amusement that you head yesterday.
(Pardon for the language, but) How the fuck do you convey this to a colourblind person? Even more so, how can you even be sure that people who presumably see the same red as you actually perceive the same red and thus are able to understand the implications behind the scene?
And here we arrive at the major issue around translations: around direct translations vs localizations.
If we focus on the amusement itself, the message that the show or art is supposed to illicit, then it can be said that a localization would be more effective in illiciting that emotion. A treasure trove of regional phrases and ideas could be drawn from, easily understood by the audience, in order to give off the same themes and concepts that one would get in the original language. However, especially in the case of anime, in which a logographic, triple-alphabetic language is being converted into a letter-compositional, single-alphabetic language, many nuances can be lost using localization. A clear example that comes to mind is in Akira, where Tetsuo and Kaneda shout the other’s name at each other in menacing fashion. In Japanese, where the implied has a heavy emphasis, this shouting can be seen as natural, as the tone of voice is enough to convey the sort of “conversation” the two are having. However, in English, for example, no sane soul would ever talk like this, basing their communication on a mutual understanding of implications. Instead, since most common phrases are spoken quickly, the shouting may be localized from 「カネダ！」、「テツオ！」。。。into “Kaneda, you bastard,” “Tetsuo, you sly son of a bitch.” [Of course, other insults can be used instead of the swears, but the swears give off a general idea of the tone of their voices]. This type of dialogue alteration may upset some people who crave for consistency, but in order for a quick understanding to be met, some things have to be sacrificed.
Of course, an alternative is just to learn Japanese, or whatever the language the show is in, but that takes time and life is short.
In that case you might ask, then why don’t things like translator’s notes come back so that the differing cultures and languages can be bridged together? Well, this goes back to the argumentation behind subs and dubs, since that would be a different type of experience. It’s one thing to do this in a book, where it can be likened to having short glossaries at the bottom of each page, but in a moving visual medium, which uses still images in time, it would be even more frantic in the moment, or detract completely from the flow of the experience by encouraging frequent pausing to read the text. In an extreme sense, it would be like if after each episode in your Netflix midnight binge, you were placed in one of the Saw movies or something. Of course, this is an extreme example, but the disorientation, the seperation of time and space, of word and picture, almost like water and oil, is still there.
There are no easy answers to this problem. As the reach of each individual grows farther and farther with both globalization and the worldwide web, incongruities between cultures will have to be addressed. It’s too easy and lazy to write it off with [lol just learn (insert language)], since the day only consists of 24 hours, two thirds of which the average person has their own duties and responsibilities. The remaining eight needs to not only be allotted to winding back down and up again, but also to personal responsabilities as well. As I said earlier, there is simply too little time in our 6-8 cycles of life (referring to about 6-8 economic cycles, or around 60-80 years). We’re not machines after all, able to take in stimuli and output results. Each fibre in our bodies have to be honed, through intentional breaking and repairing over days, years, even decades (cycles).
…
So yeah, that’s all about it as far as I want to write about for now regarding this topic. Bit of an anticlimactic return from tangency, but whatever, I suppose.
oo, an extra bit, I might add, somewhat related to this topic, is my own opinions behind Trigun (not Badlands) and My Hero Academia. Personally, I stopped watching the latter specifically because of the sakuga (or the great and dynamic animation). For the most part, I watch anime in subs, frantic eye movements and everything, so when sakuga comes on, and dialogue exists behind it, I more or less miss out on the fluidity and motion, since each continuous stream becomes a jagged mess of inbetweens and maybe some keyframes. In contrast, Trigun, known for having a piss-poor budget, especially visible in the second have, enraptured me more than MHA, since the still frames allowed for the eye to travel nicely (it gave it more time). Of course, “from an objective standpoint,” I still have to give the torch to MHA, but personally, I enjoyed Trigun better. Same kind of goes with Mob Psycho II and its American-portions of sakuga that often just took me out of it. It’s just too much for me personally to digest.
Unedited Ramblings 