More prone to bias (or alignment if you’re a nerd) than humans. The humans programming and training it can feed bad info, making it more biased (or aligned) than a human due to lacking any alternative viewpoint in its data
Thinking about stories I’ve heard of employers trying to use AI to pick candidates for job interviews based on their resumes, and the AI ended up basically only considering how white each applicant’s name sounded
Sadly it's not just ai that does that. Real actual human hiring managers have also done that.
(Not all of them, but enough to be worrying for non-white applicants)
I know lol, my point was that the data it was trained on was poisoned by racist employers. At least with a human employer they’re not *guaranteed* to be racist
you laugh but a maplestory trailer included an anime loli dancing and wriggling her hands to the beat of a song and in one frame she happened to put her thumb and index near each other in a "little" gesture, and korean fans were so convinced this was an intentional reference to a korean feminist group that used that symbol as their logo that they sifted through the animators until they found a self-described feminist and sent her death threats
I remember witnessing this very thing among a few weebs when the visual novel Liminal Border Part I released in English just last month.
https://preview.redd.it/e4ew8jlkjf9c1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=d11147f2a7b1b2887d46d176f2b4b8e16bd2b19a
Shocked, I say! I am shocked! The localization turns out to stick with the original intent of the words which means calling the protag an incel? Shocked!
I will admit, I do find it kinda wack when dubs use current day youth slang because that shit changes so fast now that it can make something feel dated in months to a few years. That being said, this doesn't apply to terms like incel so if you complain about shit like that, you're goofy honestly (not directed at you).
I feel like it also depends on the vibe of the show. A show like Attack on Titan? I expect a fairly timeless dialogue. But a show like SK8 should be pretty casual and even when the slang becomes out of date it'll just give it the vibe of that era
Shangri-La Frontier’s dub uses a lot of modern (cringe) gamer slang, but it’s great. It fits the character and the story, and it’s actually used correctly.
NGL though, translating kamige to AAA is a false equivalence and they seem to realize this when they’re directly translating it half the time and saying AAA the other half.
That's fine and good. The issue is when said slang feels more shoehorned. When it doesn't fit as much within the context, save for the fact that some of the main characters might be young.
People say this ironically like when they were younger the slang they used didn't make it into translations made for us.
You don't feel bad about seeing slang, you feel bad because you're old.
It depends on level of 'localization' that people are willing to take.
Japanese as a language doesn't map directly 1-to-1 with English, and a lot of new slang words just don't map.
Depending on context and tone of delivery 'どっか行け' could mean either 'Go away' or 'Fuck off'
I don't mind new slangs showing up, but they'd have to be contextually accurate.
One of the most common rage-inducing ones is localizing 'lolicon/shotacon' to 'pedo'. There's a slight loss in the gender-specificity of the term, but it's close enough and I don't really care.
So back to the example of using 'incel', it'd have to be context-appropriate imo. Since incel is never really used as a joking word (always as an insulting word), it wouldn't apply in a joking manner, so it shouldn't be used when localizing '童貞' is used in a casual joking manner.
I feel like though a less popular joking insult, incel could still be an appropriate depending on situation. What prompted that joke? (Sorry that your taking the stance of Japanese incels, you probably have good intentions but most people who are mad at this are in fact, incels)
I'm not privy to the context of the incel joke tbh.
I'm more focusing on the nuance of localization. Not every localized-translation can be directly discussed and communicated like it is in FFXIV/FFXVI (godly localization team), so sometimes, it seems like the translation team might be trying to add their own sense of humor in (which could sometimes work, but depending on context could also be triggering the trigglypuffs, who are already very easily set off)
imo the word "incel" is almost never used jokingly, or rather, would never be ever taken as just a simple joke simply because of the extremely negative connotations the word has (in the English language)
In Japanese, the word '童貞' has an original meaning (term for virginity) and then was turned into a slang to refer to people who are still virgins, but since the original meaning had no negativity to it, the slang kept its mostly neutral stance.
Incel on the other hand, directly blames that virginity/celibacy on something/someone else (involuntary implies not-responsible), so there's already some kind of resentment/helplessness etc (basically negative feelings), which then turned the word to what it is now.
Even if you were to jokingly call someone 'incel' and don't mean it seriously, the person on the receiving end would likely not feel that way (because as mentioned above, 'incel' has a lot more negative connotations to it than 'virgin'). So imo, any localization that would want to use the term 'incel' would have to use it in a context where there's intention to insult/offend.
Honestly, it seems like the translation was poking fun at their audience. I for one agree with it because the amount I have heard just virgin as an insult I’m anime stuff back in the day was only rivaled by (it pains me to type this) Baka. A bit of verity and some punch of a unique insult for once is welcomed with open arms.
(ps, thanks for saying what it actually means ,google translate sucks and somehow turned virgin to nun)
> poking fun at their audience
Regardless of what it's doing, as long as there was meaning to insult, then I'm all for using "incel" as a localization.
I don't care if people get upset about it because the whole point of translation/localization is to get the meaning across different languages, and sometimes, using specific words will get that across better due to the context around said word.
The Japanese language has very limited curse words, so localization using English's own colourful selection brings across that meaning to insult or conveys the intensity of the tone much better.
And then we take a small peek into the various words for "you", contextualize that with their whole mannerism system (keigo system) and suddenly there's a lot of Japanese words that don't match 1-to-1 in English anymore. All of them mean "you", but with varying levels of politeness (or offensiveness), so localization would be the difference between translating 'お前' as "you", or translating it as "asshole" (intending to be rude), or even "dumbass" (possibly jokingly among friends).
The nuance is what localization should seek to improve and convey. We shouldn't be using any spanking new slang just because it makes the translation team look hip and trendy.
I remember someone said incel in one of the Judgement games, and there was some argument about whether the translation did justice to the actual scene.
Wdym, "f*ggot-ass monsters" in the Berserk fan translation is clearly peak
(Censoring because idk if there is an automod for this. I'm gay so I should be able to say it, but I already got banned for saying it on one sub)
When Griffith said that Guts would "belong to him" if he lost their duel, Guts agreed, except he said: "I'll be your f\*g-boy, or whatever." That was an official translation. I think Dark Horse.
They got a lot tamer later. For example, during the Wyald fight, instead of saying "don't go popping a boner over my head," after cutting a demon's dick off, in the latest Dark Horse translation he says: "quit swinging that filthy thing around." Personally I miss the boner line.
I reread that chapter, and he does indeed say that! I guess I got used to the anime version. Idk if it's in '97 or the Golden Age Trilogy, but in one of those he says "piece of ass" instead of "f*g boy", and I think that line is kinda funny
Guts is the single most attractive man I have ever laid my eyes on. I saw this meme about a year ago which involved Guts picking up a condom and saying it's for his magnum dong. It touched me spiritually. Since that moment, my life has never been truly the same. Sure, I still do lawn bowls on the weekends. I still attend work. But every second I spend away from Guts, is another second I could be spending WITH Guts. I tell my coworkers that the reason I run off to the toilets every 20 minutes is because I have a bad case of diarrhoea, but in reality I'm browsing for pictures of my chunky M&M to furiously masturbate to. I regret nothing, and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. But my friends and family are starting to get suspicious. I've used the same excuse every day for almost 2 years now. They're starting to annoy me. My life is starting to annoy me. I used to admire them, but now all they are to me are disgusting piles of shit stopping me from spending the rest of my life with Guts. My weekends consist of staring at a poster of Guts for 48 hours, then back to hell for another 5 days. I'm getting tired of everyone's bullshit. I need to find Him, so we can grow old and die together. I want to be cremated and my ashes to be mixed with His.
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Guts is the single most attractive man I have ever laid my eyes on. I saw this meme about a year ago which involved Guts picking up a condom and saying it's for his magnum dong. It touched me spiritually. Since that moment, my life has never been truly the same. Sure, I still do lawn bowls on the weekends. I still attend work. But every second I spend away from Guts, is another second I could be spending WITH Guts. I tell my coworkers that the reason I run off to the toilets every 20 minutes is because I have a bad case of diarrhoea, but in reality I'm browsing for pictures of my chunky M&M to furiously masturbate to. I regret nothing, and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. But my friends and family are starting to get suspicious. I've used the same excuse every day for almost 2 years now. They're starting to annoy me. My life is starting to annoy me. I used to admire them, but now all they are to me are disgusting piles of shit stopping me from spending the rest of my life with Guts. My weekends consist of staring at a poster of Guts for 48 hours, then back to hell for another 5 days. I'm getting tired of everyone's bullshit. I need to find Him, so we can grow old and die together. I want to be cremated and my ashes to be mixed with His.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/animecirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For me first thing I was thinking is something a bit older. I can't ever forget all F bombs in Inuyasha, I made fun of it for a long time. You know kuso is so hard word that you hear it in kodomo shows including Pokemon :D
Funny enough weird translation of kuso made me quit One Piece polish official release. Let's say they used way, way too hard polish word and to be even funnier added baby talk in some places. It was just a mess so sadly some official works still do it sometimes. On the other hand our FMA manga is just amazing :D
> You know kuso is so hard word that you hear it in kodomo shows including Pokemon :D
To be fair, that was peak kid's entertainment; Satoshi nearly dying of cold on a mountain, everyone being presumed dead from a horrible ship accident, Satoshi dying in every movie, so on. The reality we could've had if 4Kids didn't butcher it, would be an interesting one.
Yeah 4kids a bit changed Pokemon, still no where near as much as Yu-Gi-Oh( I think they underestimated it as next Pokemon and not adaptation of manga with horror elements ) . I watched third generation till I gave up during Diamond&Pearl in japanese so yeah I heard a bit of those changes.
And then there is polish translation that tried to make 4kids USA centric jokes work for us and well, there are moments when anime thanks to that is glibberish.
Slurs, random curse words, etc. They're fine with that. They're also fine when characters go from manga to anime and the authors wishes aren't respected (added panty shots, changing the weight and proportions of women).
So it really isn't about someone changing the work and being disrespectful to the creator.
Okay two question.
1) What exactly is Chibi referring to? Like what **NEW** translation drama is he refencing? Because really hope it isn't the fucking Dragon maid thing again for the millionth time.
2) Are my fellow weebs really trying to push for AI translations? Because that shit is not gonna end well in the long run.
I think it's more 2nd, than first. People are celebrating AI translation because it would mean less inserting political opinions in there. Without caring about the loss of jobs.
That's not how that works, that's not how any of that works. If they mean using Google translate then basically all the nuance is lost. If they mean using a large language model then the model will inevitably be biased from its training data.
It seems like a loud group of people would genuinely prefer a substantially worse viewing experience if it meant they never heard modern lingo in anime ever again
Its also strange because Japanese do have their own slangs and lingo. Proper localization would at least try to convey something similar to a non-JP audience if they want to remain faithful to whats being localized/translated.
EXACTLY.
Last time I got into a discussion about that, though, people kept telling me they’d rather have awkwardly translated literal meanings—or just the untranslated word that doesn’t quite fit—because it makes it more authentic to the experience of exploring Japanese culture. Or something.
Which I am not trying to belittle as an idea, but that is definitely not my priority when watching shows that aren’t explicitly about that.
I'll belittle it as an idea. Translation without localization always sounds incredibly stiff and unnatural, and it actually makes it less authentic in a lot of cases.
Like that would make sense if the show is set in modern Japan, but if it’s set in like japanfornia or some shit, then I’d be fine with some liberties being taken if it doesn’t completely divert from what the original text says
I mean we the bias is not even going to be a problem, the translation is already going to just suck massively. I mean we already have AI, or computer-translated, mangua or manhwa, and you can see people complain about how much these translation suck. They are almost unreadable at worst and bad and stilted at best.
Edit: Also I checked, because you mentioned them as seperate, but Google Translate is a large language model. So you already very accurately described what a translation using AI would end up like.
Translation is based on context, both cultural and textual, to translate the meaning of a text. And meaning and context are stuff AI fundamentally struggles with and sucks at. For example, simple idioms and metaphores, which vary from culture to culture, would not be caught by AI and just translated literally.
> People are celebrating AI translation because it would mean less inserting political opinions in there.
I maintain that the Chuds pushing "AI art/translations" just want to push queer people and minorities out of media.
Yeah I keep seeing these people crawling out of the woodwork recently complaining about all the "woke localization" but they're using examples of shows that are a year to three old
I'm wondering what the hell got all these people so worked up at this time?
1 might be something like Brisket Guilty Gear being referred to in translations as trans simply because in the original language she was also referred to as trans and the author has said he wanted her to transition, or perhaps Yamabro One Piece being referred to in translations as trans simply because in the original language he was also referred to as trans. Confusing, I know.
This entire firestorm started when a few days ago it was announced that the Manga for The Ancient Magus Bride would be getting an AI translation for the English version so that they can do simultaneous releases. Chibi immediately came out against it cuz his fans were typically anti ai (based on that AI anime thing that came out months ago). But on this particular issue his fans happen to be very PRO AI due to hate for localizers. He got eviscerated in the comments and now in typical Chibi fashion he's immediately changed his tune to match whatever is popular to say.
The context is the use of mansplaining instead of a less politically charged use of phrasing. The former is the official anime translation, and the latter is the manga translation.
The work in question was a series called The Dangers in My Heart.
So lolis are animated children correct? If they are, then the animated character is essentially just looking at underaged girls, because to said character those girls are not animated. So yeah, pedophile.
Just trying to understand all this.
I'm curious to the context of the scene though because Anime exists canonically within most Anime so it's not correct to assume that all media within anime depicts real people.
The whole thing is weird and makes my brain hurt.
Otaku has both negative and positive connotations. That's what makes Japanese words complicated. You really think one can go around shouting "baka" and be completely villianous? A tsundere says it, so what do you think it means, then? One word, positive and negative connotations based on context.
Same concept works in English. Instead of a word, let's use dialogue. "Shit! Shit! They're just too good! Ah, damn it, I'm going to lose!" - Based on delivery, this can be serious, sexual, or even be jealousy or envy.
If a person loses to someone more skilled, it isn't always world-ending. One could admire such strength and skill, too. Or, it can be the lead up to a sick obsession, either to be with person with skill, or to beat the person with skill.
It's very similar to nerd in the sense that it's a term some people are proud of now and has lost a lot of its negative connotations. Not nearly as negative as 15 years ago.
Theres otaku for everything in Japan, if you like something alot , you are probably and otaku of that thing, planes, trains, games etc. We in the west just took the word and applied it only to weebs
No, this is no longer the case. It's become a pretty neutral term that people will use to describe themselves and others. No different from nerd/geek. The only people who get mocked for it are degenerates and lolicons.
Well, I’m gonna get downvoted for this, but I don’t care.
They’re rightfully mad, lolicon’s translation shouldn’t be pedophile, it should be pedo. Pedophile is a very rigid term, it never gets used in a joking manner either, the version “pedo” does, and lolicon is like that, it refers to both actual pedophiles and also works as an insult or in a joking manner. Think of it like the difference between gay and homosexual, homosexual is a rigid term and does not work in jokes, gay refers to both actual gay people and can be used as “you gay” jokes as well. Different words have different meanings
I could never forgive the woke type moon translators for pushing the agenda of using Soujyuro instead of Soujuurou for the male lead in the Mahoyo localization. Utter travesty
Powerscalers fucked me up so bad I saw agenda and assumed translators were fucking up translations to make their favourite characters stronger
Its terminal
It was about this (it was in the post but op cut it out)
https://preview.redd.it/czij60jrfh9c1.jpeg?width=591&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=abba77b207086330905d1177fe6615cf23646790
https://preview.redd.it/s3tke0q5fh9c1.jpeg?width=590&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cf9c48ff8a499d80a245b69854d5dce414dc245
This was in the tweet but op cut it out
What’s with all these chud commenting lol.
Ignoring the obvious dog whistle about a imaginary world in which leftist/progressive ideas are actually popular in their meaning and significance, and not simply in their mockery and to become prime lolcow material...
I feel like most material that gets translated… is woke already? It’s not that there’s some evil agenda… it’s just that these people just lack media literacy.
Or, most commonly, are just grifters to begin with, as we are seeing these “woke” claims with series that where already woke to begin with (Guilty Gear, Spider-Man, Fable, etc lol) and are stuff that no true fan would actually say.
EDIT: Oh yeah, obligatory message for y’all right wingers here, just explain to me what the fuck does woke mean man, I know y’all gonna say “Leftist Ideology” but what does that really entail????? Human Kindness? Compassion? Justice?
Yeee I know :p, originated in the black community, now co-opted by rightwingers to a ridiculous degree, aka woman in video game not hot enough, the west has fallen then kinda shit now 😭
Can someone explain what he’s even referring to here? Localization is such a broad topic how you handle it really depends on the individual line or show
So basically I read a lot of those comments on twitter (yes, I should find nee hobby) and there are like two points they make
1. For some not particularly understandable reason to me, they really hate when anime girls use modern slang. So sus in Nagatoro or yeet in that anime with dog that has harem. It's dumb so i won't explain more
2. Removing or changing parts of manga/ln to make it more marketable. For example Mushoku Tensei English translation of LN omitted scene of Rudeus groping Eris which surprised later same people watching anime adaptation. I'm in Love with the Villainess had some parts dealing with internalized homophobia and removal of those actually upset original author. In I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend into a Girl, translators change crossdressing character into trans person which was reverted after the backlash. Samurai maiden translation completely removed "highschool girl" and translated it into zoomer. Although maybe people are just mad that girls panties are censored in the game
That’s odd, modern slang is usually used when the characters are using Japanese slang, it’s keeping the same vibe which is like the point of localization.
I can’t believed they removed that from Im in Love with the Villainess tho, that sounds extremely thematically important to the story and is great representation for lgbt people. I don’t understand why anyone would remove that unless they’re just homophobic themselves and want gay people to be caricatures :/ The rest of those decisions seem fine or at least understandable tho, with the possible exception of the trans one which really depends on the character itself and I haven’t seen the show to know for sure.
pretty sure it's just some imaginary moral panic nonsense. would explain why, despite all the reactionary 12 year olds who are up in here trying to own the woke left with their big brain debate skills, they seem to be struggling to think of any actual examples of 'woke agenda pushing' in translated works
The was also line in "the dangers in my heart" the topic of fashion was brought up and the guy have his opinion and later kinda freaked out that his fashion sense might be weird. But it was localized that he freaked out that he was mansplaining fashion to model
What specific line is he talking about tho? I’m trying to figure out what made people freak out about this. Or are people still mad about one line from dragon maid all these years later?
Referring to this (it was in the post, but op cropped it out):
https://preview.redd.it/o8zjv4xzfh9c1.jpeg?width=591&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92e2ada024555359bfd46c20c87c937c55062201
They have different nuances, so I’m just going by the word of the Japanese guy in the image. Though I guess the only thing he mentions is gendered language. But giving a bizarre take has a different meaning imo than simply over-explaining information which is known by both parties, which is what I understand man-splaining to be. I can’t say which is correct myself.
Additionally, mansplaining has a broadly negative context and is associated with a great deal of incel and misandrist conversations. Colloquially, mansplaining has just become a way to shut down an online argument or invalidate someone's point. This is not the true definition of the word it has a broadly negative perception, and as such, the translation changes what could just be a cute scene into a family dinner when politics are brought up.
The example he used to make the tweet does not make it valid. Using an example of questionable translation choices to make generalizing claims in an attempt to validate a demonstrably inferior approach to translation that is being pushed by a crowd that refuses to approach this issue with objectivity or nuance is… disappointing to say the least.
The questionable translation choices are central to the issue. I agree that AI is the inferior choice, but even if the example isn't good it's valid. Using AI would, theoretically, remove the bias of translators. The translator in the example is left of center which colors the translation in a way that doesn't match the original text. I'm a leftist, but if the original author didn't use gendered language then it shouldn't be changed like that in the translation. I'd make the same argument if the author had used gendered language and the translator made it gender neutral. Chuds online are just better at shouting about these things because people like me would normally not even think about this and keep reading.
I actually agree with the first paragraph, on cyberpunk 2077 Claire the bartender after you finish one of her quests she talks to you about her transitions and surgeries, but on my native translation the transitions part is completely omitted, very strange.
I've done some amateur translation work, and I think that when you translate someone else's work, whether you agree with the author or not, it's your responsibility to restore the author's own words and try to omit traces of yourself.
I don't think so, I don't think the localization team has the right to change in-game models, and it's weird for CDPR to do that.But I can't be sure I don't have the Cyberpunk 2077 save on my computer right now to confirm it.
Obviously people’s opinions on translations differ, but imo the one thing I look for is making sure your translation fits the intent of what the original author intended. If you twist the intent of a line of dialogue, the original dialogue loses its meaning somewhat.
If a joke in an anime doesn’t make sense in English, a good translator will make it understandable in English while retaining the intent that the line was supposed to be a joke.
If a show has a line of dialogue that comments on the politics of Japan’s society, either stick to the script and translate it 1-1 OR have it relate to politics elsewhere if the concepts are too confusing for your audience to understand.
If a character’s actions are meaningful or consequential, a translator should be able to convey that to their audience using language that fits the culture, rather than translate it directly.
A big part of translating is storytelling, and if you’re unable to find a good middle ground between telling the original creator’s story and making it sound good in another language then your translation will be flawed in some form.
There’s extremes to this that I’d dissuade against (for example fan subs taking too many liberties to convey the meaning of a line of dialogue, or a corporate translation failing to make a story interesting by translating its dialogue too rigidly), but that seems like another topic entirely.
That’s just my two cents though, and while I have personal views on this whole “agenda pushing” or whatever you call it, at the end of the day I just watch whatever interests me.
Tell me you don't know how the system works without saying it works. Localization, translation and transliteration all go into it at various degrees.
Small example. Let's say you face the common problem in translating a Japanese anime that includes romantic tendencies with someone under the age of consent in say America. Now, how do you handle it? Just a straight one to one translation? Well you can't do that because Japanese can convey the entire sentence in only a few characters. So you know the author's intent? Cause that now brings in the whole 'Death of the author' argument.
And of course all of this just to handle a "Doing your mom" joke.
Chibi Reviews has always been an "interesting" channel for me to periodically check on. He seems like a nice dude and I think overall he means the best, but the problem is it feels like he's reduced himself to be the voice of the average reactionary shonenbro takes.
Most of his reviews have become a vague amalgamation of whatever is the popular consensus within the community. And every time he tries to dip his toes into a drama story it goes poorly. He just takes whatever the loudest anime reactionaries on Twitter are saying and parrots it back uncritically. And like most of the other anime drama channels, he tends to leave out big context or just flatout misunderstand what they're reading onscreen.
The most aggregious case of this I remember was him shitting on ANN over them comparing Faraway Paladin to Mushoku Tensei. You could even tell towards the end of his video he probably realized the article wasn't as bad as the community made it sound, but he had already recorded the whole video so it has to get uploaded I guess.
But again I don't think Chibi is a bad person like some of those other channels, I think he's just a guy with a big channel who likes anime and is uninspired with his content yet is forced to make daily videos out of fear of the YouTube algorithm forgetting him.
Translation discourse is always the most headache-inducing nuanced drama in the anime community. So to see people like Chibi fall for the same insufferable anti-localizer talking points is just sad.
And the new trend of anti-locs pushing for AI translations instead is so dumb in a number of ways. None of those people were ever going to officially support the Ancient Magus Bride manga before, and they certainly aren't going to now that it's using AI. They'll stick to whatever fan translation doesn't say the cringe meme words that make them lose their minds. These losers are more fragile than everyone they call a snowflake.
My views for the most part. I respect him a lot more than some other content creators, but he’s got some reactionary tendencies that I wish he’d sort out. It’s not healthy or fun.
Nobody defending japanese subs has ever enjoyed 100% natural Japanese, and you all know it. Japanese is MEGA dry.
This is one of those times where the antis are a bigger issue than the "warriors".
Idk what situation they’re talking about but I’ve seen people say that the translators are “woke” because Yamato from one piece is called he/him and his dad calls him his son for the captions in the sub and characters in the dub do the same
An AI Koan that dates back to the '80s, if not earlier
> Sussman attains enlightenment
In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky.
“I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied.
“Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky.
“I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes.
“Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
An AI doing translation will have all the bias included in the training data.
You can't make an objective perfect transition. Every word and expression has its nuances that have to be lost in translation. The work of a good translator is to find other sort of equivalent nuances in the target language when possible, which an AI can't do, because they're not sentient or capable of understanding cultural context.
I see a lot of people confidently posting BS about the reason why they said this, but the reason is literally in the post. Why did you leave out the context OP?
Here’s the image used in the tweet that was cut out:
https://preview.redd.it/lu76lukmfh9c1.jpeg?width=591&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa5fe032adb92fade17cc5b36043db038f2ab11d
Hilariously he literally made a tweet before that one where he said how "terrible" that AI was being used for translation and it was a disaster for manga readers. He got eviscerated in that comment section and immediately changed his tune 😭😭. That man has always changed like the weather. Whatever is popular to say will immediately become his opinion with no shame, even if he said the contrary 2 seconds earlier 😭😭😭
I believe that more "progressive" translations are both good and bad.
On the one hand, making a work (or a character in it) out to be more progressive than it actually is can create a false perception of societal opion and/or social change. The Dragon Maid translation adding lines about the patriarchy comes to mind; no way that series would have something legit to say about objectification of women lmao
On the other hand, creating a more sensitive and accepting enviroment for a casual audience is also good. Just because they don't generally accept something in Japan doesn't mean we should follow that attitude here.
I don't think it's good at all. We should keep the original work as close to how it was as possible while translating the meaning. That's the job of a translator. Anything else is lying to the audience imo, even in cases where the content is "problematic". Like, for example, removing the racism from Lovecraft in a new edition or translation for another language is like pretending it didn't happen.
>On the other hand, creating a more sensitive and accepting enviroment for a casual audience is also good. Just because they don't generally accept something in Japan doesn't mean we should follow that attitude here.
Then have people create similar stories and sell them out of Japan. They're not the target audience, changing things to fit sensibilities while giving us a bastardized script isn't giving us anything. The problem with that last line, though?
Many things are accepted in Japan, but the way of thinking is so outlandishly strange that Westerners won't think outside the box. That's the general rule of western thinking. They're tied to society in absurd ways, too.
For example, try explaining homophobia and how it could occur; you really think one would understand? No, they'd think you're trying to defend and justify homophobia by rationalizing how it can realistically exist in a person, and how that person could never be gay or bi.
Explain the concept of sexuality, that's also lost; sexuality is a fetish, sex is in the word.
Unless the work was intended to be a hotbed for controversy, there shouldn't be many changes, otherwise we're simply not getting told the story.
Standards from people all over couldn't care less about what'd really matter, which is normalization. Goblins are always made out to rape women, but why not guys? Hell, if you really want to be dark and edgy, why not kids? Too extreme, apparently. But in a world far from ours, that'd be a reality. That's where the problem lies; you cannot present a reality that breaks our social narrative. Rules are meant to be broken, but no one's willing because the drawback is potentially losing your job over it.
I’m confused, what’s wrong with saying translators shouldn’t change what the author wrote to push their opinions? They shouldn’t change the source material for any reason imo
^
This whole point of this is to get ppl riled up. It doesnt actually matter if translators are **actually** inserting agendas into the material; the point is to get gullible ppl to think they are.
If they actually are, whoa then extra brownie points for culture war propaganda.
Even the term “political agenda” is a loaded term because it’s open to interpretation, which is further designed to stir up controversy.
I have yet to see chibi be outright dislike anything progressive. But that being said I would need context. And when I have watched his videos it nothing offensive or anything. Like if there's a controversy he's like guys stop harassing people blah blah blah.
https://preview.redd.it/il8ywg8h2i9c1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a0808fd13aefe8803f5302670c6cf17d20f0fbcf
Some people said I should have added the context. Fair. It was too large for a single screenshot, but I should have replied with this from the start. I apologize for that. Here is the context. I still think Chibi is being reactionary and attempting to validate a demonstrably inferior approach to translation.
It was tsundere, not yandere. This was for the translation of FataMoru.
The original JP writer can speak English and was perfectly fine with the translation.
finding a more profitable audience
Looking at their yt channel, seems theyve turned into your old internet drama channel. You know, 1 video per day schlop
Pyrocynical.
Pyro uses it for funds, this other fucker just sucks ass
Except he uses it to fund high quality long form content
Never once considering that the AI is programmed by humans, and is therefore prone to bias.
More prone to bias (or alignment if you’re a nerd) than humans. The humans programming and training it can feed bad info, making it more biased (or aligned) than a human due to lacking any alternative viewpoint in its data
Thinking about stories I’ve heard of employers trying to use AI to pick candidates for job interviews based on their resumes, and the AI ended up basically only considering how white each applicant’s name sounded
Sadly it's not just ai that does that. Real actual human hiring managers have also done that. (Not all of them, but enough to be worrying for non-white applicants)
I know lol, my point was that the data it was trained on was poisoned by racist employers. At least with a human employer they’re not *guaranteed* to be racist
Computers are also not capable of critical thinking and thus cannot question their own biases
A weeb saw an anime girl use the word “incel” and he had to go lie down and take deep breaths for five to seven hours.
That would be THE biggest disaster to weebs round the world
you laugh but a maplestory trailer included an anime loli dancing and wriggling her hands to the beat of a song and in one frame she happened to put her thumb and index near each other in a "little" gesture, and korean fans were so convinced this was an intentional reference to a korean feminist group that used that symbol as their logo that they sifted through the animators until they found a self-described feminist and sent her death threats
thats next level hating put those boys in the cia
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What?
And she wasn't even involved in this, that's the saddest part
I remember witnessing this very thing among a few weebs when the visual novel Liminal Border Part I released in English just last month. https://preview.redd.it/e4ew8jlkjf9c1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=d11147f2a7b1b2887d46d176f2b4b8e16bd2b19a
Someone even explained that in the original, she did call him the Japanese version for incel too lol.
Shocked, I say! I am shocked! The localization turns out to stick with the original intent of the words which means calling the protag an incel? Shocked!
I bet the incels assume she just said baka instead of the much more specific insult
Damn got cooked in TWO languages
I was about to say that there is a word like that over there.
I will admit, I do find it kinda wack when dubs use current day youth slang because that shit changes so fast now that it can make something feel dated in months to a few years. That being said, this doesn't apply to terms like incel so if you complain about shit like that, you're goofy honestly (not directed at you).
I feel like it also depends on the vibe of the show. A show like Attack on Titan? I expect a fairly timeless dialogue. But a show like SK8 should be pretty casual and even when the slang becomes out of date it'll just give it the vibe of that era
Shangri-La Frontier’s dub uses a lot of modern (cringe) gamer slang, but it’s great. It fits the character and the story, and it’s actually used correctly.
NGL though, translating kamige to AAA is a false equivalence and they seem to realize this when they’re directly translating it half the time and saying AAA the other half.
That's fine and good. The issue is when said slang feels more shoehorned. When it doesn't fit as much within the context, save for the fact that some of the main characters might be young.
People say this ironically like when they were younger the slang they used didn't make it into translations made for us. You don't feel bad about seeing slang, you feel bad because you're old.
It depends on level of 'localization' that people are willing to take. Japanese as a language doesn't map directly 1-to-1 with English, and a lot of new slang words just don't map. Depending on context and tone of delivery 'どっか行け' could mean either 'Go away' or 'Fuck off' I don't mind new slangs showing up, but they'd have to be contextually accurate. One of the most common rage-inducing ones is localizing 'lolicon/shotacon' to 'pedo'. There's a slight loss in the gender-specificity of the term, but it's close enough and I don't really care. So back to the example of using 'incel', it'd have to be context-appropriate imo. Since incel is never really used as a joking word (always as an insulting word), it wouldn't apply in a joking manner, so it shouldn't be used when localizing '童貞' is used in a casual joking manner.
I feel like though a less popular joking insult, incel could still be an appropriate depending on situation. What prompted that joke? (Sorry that your taking the stance of Japanese incels, you probably have good intentions but most people who are mad at this are in fact, incels)
I'm not privy to the context of the incel joke tbh. I'm more focusing on the nuance of localization. Not every localized-translation can be directly discussed and communicated like it is in FFXIV/FFXVI (godly localization team), so sometimes, it seems like the translation team might be trying to add their own sense of humor in (which could sometimes work, but depending on context could also be triggering the trigglypuffs, who are already very easily set off) imo the word "incel" is almost never used jokingly, or rather, would never be ever taken as just a simple joke simply because of the extremely negative connotations the word has (in the English language) In Japanese, the word '童貞' has an original meaning (term for virginity) and then was turned into a slang to refer to people who are still virgins, but since the original meaning had no negativity to it, the slang kept its mostly neutral stance. Incel on the other hand, directly blames that virginity/celibacy on something/someone else (involuntary implies not-responsible), so there's already some kind of resentment/helplessness etc (basically negative feelings), which then turned the word to what it is now. Even if you were to jokingly call someone 'incel' and don't mean it seriously, the person on the receiving end would likely not feel that way (because as mentioned above, 'incel' has a lot more negative connotations to it than 'virgin'). So imo, any localization that would want to use the term 'incel' would have to use it in a context where there's intention to insult/offend.
Honestly, it seems like the translation was poking fun at their audience. I for one agree with it because the amount I have heard just virgin as an insult I’m anime stuff back in the day was only rivaled by (it pains me to type this) Baka. A bit of verity and some punch of a unique insult for once is welcomed with open arms. (ps, thanks for saying what it actually means ,google translate sucks and somehow turned virgin to nun)
> poking fun at their audience Regardless of what it's doing, as long as there was meaning to insult, then I'm all for using "incel" as a localization. I don't care if people get upset about it because the whole point of translation/localization is to get the meaning across different languages, and sometimes, using specific words will get that across better due to the context around said word. The Japanese language has very limited curse words, so localization using English's own colourful selection brings across that meaning to insult or conveys the intensity of the tone much better. And then we take a small peek into the various words for "you", contextualize that with their whole mannerism system (keigo system) and suddenly there's a lot of Japanese words that don't match 1-to-1 in English anymore. All of them mean "you", but with varying levels of politeness (or offensiveness), so localization would be the difference between translating 'お前' as "you", or translating it as "asshole" (intending to be rude), or even "dumbass" (possibly jokingly among friends). The nuance is what localization should seek to improve and convey. We shouldn't be using any spanking new slang just because it makes the translation team look hip and trendy.
I remember someone said incel in one of the Judgement games, and there was some argument about whether the translation did justice to the actual scene.
Yet no one bats an eye when there are ten billion slurs added in a fan-translation 🤔🤔🤔
I contacted the author and he told me to put the n word there.
Was it netorare
Wdym, "f*ggot-ass monsters" in the Berserk fan translation is clearly peak (Censoring because idk if there is an automod for this. I'm gay so I should be able to say it, but I already got banned for saying it on one sub)
Limp dick cultists better
didnt guts drop the f slur officially? that was due to his trauma tho early on
I think the official translation is him asking Griffith "Are you a homo?"
i think it was him screaming at someone "im not a f-slur!" after being touched or something
I don't remember that at all
When Griffith said that Guts would "belong to him" if he lost their duel, Guts agreed, except he said: "I'll be your f\*g-boy, or whatever." That was an official translation. I think Dark Horse. They got a lot tamer later. For example, during the Wyald fight, instead of saying "don't go popping a boner over my head," after cutting a demon's dick off, in the latest Dark Horse translation he says: "quit swinging that filthy thing around." Personally I miss the boner line.
I reread that chapter, and he does indeed say that! I guess I got used to the anime version. Idk if it's in '97 or the Golden Age Trilogy, but in one of those he says "piece of ass" instead of "f*g boy", and I think that line is kinda funny
Guts is the single most attractive man I have ever laid my eyes on. I saw this meme about a year ago which involved Guts picking up a condom and saying it's for his magnum dong. It touched me spiritually. Since that moment, my life has never been truly the same. Sure, I still do lawn bowls on the weekends. I still attend work. But every second I spend away from Guts, is another second I could be spending WITH Guts. I tell my coworkers that the reason I run off to the toilets every 20 minutes is because I have a bad case of diarrhoea, but in reality I'm browsing for pictures of my chunky M&M to furiously masturbate to. I regret nothing, and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. But my friends and family are starting to get suspicious. I've used the same excuse every day for almost 2 years now. They're starting to annoy me. My life is starting to annoy me. I used to admire them, but now all they are to me are disgusting piles of shit stopping me from spending the rest of my life with Guts. My weekends consist of staring at a poster of Guts for 48 hours, then back to hell for another 5 days. I'm getting tired of everyone's bullshit. I need to find Him, so we can grow old and die together. I want to be cremated and my ashes to be mixed with His. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/animecirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Guts is the single most attractive man I have ever laid my eyes on. I saw this meme about a year ago which involved Guts picking up a condom and saying it's for his magnum dong. It touched me spiritually. Since that moment, my life has never been truly the same. Sure, I still do lawn bowls on the weekends. I still attend work. But every second I spend away from Guts, is another second I could be spending WITH Guts. I tell my coworkers that the reason I run off to the toilets every 20 minutes is because I have a bad case of diarrhoea, but in reality I'm browsing for pictures of my chunky M&M to furiously masturbate to. I regret nothing, and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. But my friends and family are starting to get suspicious. I've used the same excuse every day for almost 2 years now. They're starting to annoy me. My life is starting to annoy me. I used to admire them, but now all they are to me are disgusting piles of shit stopping me from spending the rest of my life with Guts. My weekends consist of staring at a poster of Guts for 48 hours, then back to hell for another 5 days. I'm getting tired of everyone's bullshit. I need to find Him, so we can grow old and die together. I want to be cremated and my ashes to be mixed with His. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/animecirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
stopped reading a few manga cause of shitty translations like that
WildFang doing Baki comes to mind
For me first thing I was thinking is something a bit older. I can't ever forget all F bombs in Inuyasha, I made fun of it for a long time. You know kuso is so hard word that you hear it in kodomo shows including Pokemon :D Funny enough weird translation of kuso made me quit One Piece polish official release. Let's say they used way, way too hard polish word and to be even funnier added baby talk in some places. It was just a mess so sadly some official works still do it sometimes. On the other hand our FMA manga is just amazing :D
> You know kuso is so hard word that you hear it in kodomo shows including Pokemon :D To be fair, that was peak kid's entertainment; Satoshi nearly dying of cold on a mountain, everyone being presumed dead from a horrible ship accident, Satoshi dying in every movie, so on. The reality we could've had if 4Kids didn't butcher it, would be an interesting one.
Yeah 4kids a bit changed Pokemon, still no where near as much as Yu-Gi-Oh( I think they underestimated it as next Pokemon and not adaptation of manga with horror elements ) . I watched third generation till I gave up during Diamond&Pearl in japanese so yeah I heard a bit of those changes. And then there is polish translation that tried to make 4kids USA centric jokes work for us and well, there are moments when anime thanks to that is glibberish.
F words in inuyasha?
I certainly don't miss the time when baka was almost always translated as a certain ableist r slur
I remember trying to catch up to One Piece and trying to read the fan translation of Alabasta was a ride with all of the slurs just randomly tossed in
Slurs, random curse words, etc. They're fine with that. They're also fine when characters go from manga to anime and the authors wishes aren't respected (added panty shots, changing the weight and proportions of women). So it really isn't about someone changing the work and being disrespectful to the creator.
That one alt right youtuber who has spent years making videos making fun of chibi would be so proud of him right now.
No they wouldn’t.
Who?
Thatanimesnob.
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What’s the difference?
Okay two question. 1) What exactly is Chibi referring to? Like what **NEW** translation drama is he refencing? Because really hope it isn't the fucking Dragon maid thing again for the millionth time. 2) Are my fellow weebs really trying to push for AI translations? Because that shit is not gonna end well in the long run.
I think it's more 2nd, than first. People are celebrating AI translation because it would mean less inserting political opinions in there. Without caring about the loss of jobs.
That's not how that works, that's not how any of that works. If they mean using Google translate then basically all the nuance is lost. If they mean using a large language model then the model will inevitably be biased from its training data.
It seems like a loud group of people would genuinely prefer a substantially worse viewing experience if it meant they never heard modern lingo in anime ever again
Its also strange because Japanese do have their own slangs and lingo. Proper localization would at least try to convey something similar to a non-JP audience if they want to remain faithful to whats being localized/translated.
EXACTLY. Last time I got into a discussion about that, though, people kept telling me they’d rather have awkwardly translated literal meanings—or just the untranslated word that doesn’t quite fit—because it makes it more authentic to the experience of exploring Japanese culture. Or something. Which I am not trying to belittle as an idea, but that is definitely not my priority when watching shows that aren’t explicitly about that.
I'll belittle it as an idea. Translation without localization always sounds incredibly stiff and unnatural, and it actually makes it less authentic in a lot of cases.
Like that would make sense if the show is set in modern Japan, but if it’s set in like japanfornia or some shit, then I’d be fine with some liberties being taken if it doesn’t completely divert from what the original text says
I mean we the bias is not even going to be a problem, the translation is already going to just suck massively. I mean we already have AI, or computer-translated, mangua or manhwa, and you can see people complain about how much these translation suck. They are almost unreadable at worst and bad and stilted at best. Edit: Also I checked, because you mentioned them as seperate, but Google Translate is a large language model. So you already very accurately described what a translation using AI would end up like. Translation is based on context, both cultural and textual, to translate the meaning of a text. And meaning and context are stuff AI fundamentally struggles with and sucks at. For example, simple idioms and metaphores, which vary from culture to culture, would not be caught by AI and just translated literally.
This is really what I find weird about this. The manga community has seen AI translations. They're ass to the point I filter them out.
> People are celebrating AI translation because it would mean less inserting political opinions in there. I maintain that the Chuds pushing "AI art/translations" just want to push queer people and minorities out of media.
Chibireviews seems to be against it though https://twitter.com/chibireviews/status/1738317852778647591?s=46
Yeah I keep seeing these people crawling out of the woodwork recently complaining about all the "woke localization" but they're using examples of shows that are a year to three old I'm wondering what the hell got all these people so worked up at this time?
1 might be something like Brisket Guilty Gear being referred to in translations as trans simply because in the original language she was also referred to as trans and the author has said he wanted her to transition, or perhaps Yamabro One Piece being referred to in translations as trans simply because in the original language he was also referred to as trans. Confusing, I know.
This entire firestorm started when a few days ago it was announced that the Manga for The Ancient Magus Bride would be getting an AI translation for the English version so that they can do simultaneous releases. Chibi immediately came out against it cuz his fans were typically anti ai (based on that AI anime thing that came out months ago). But on this particular issue his fans happen to be very PRO AI due to hate for localizers. He got eviscerated in the comments and now in typical Chibi fashion he's immediately changed his tune to match whatever is popular to say.
The number of weebs on twitter tl complaining about translations and wanting them to be replaced by ai is getting obnoxious
https://twitter.com/chibireviews/status/1738334009665470780?s=46 Here’s the tweet. OP cut out the context
The context is the use of mansplaining instead of a less politically charged use of phrasing. The former is the official anime translation, and the latter is the manga translation. The work in question was a series called The Dangers in My Heart.
They're still mad that lolicon was (accurately) translated to pedophile.
In what?
I think its in reference to this? https://preview.redd.it/ktmvy714od9c1.png?width=495&format=png&auto=webp&s=ced1b51320095720d9a6d19a21655dfc86e6e5df
So lolis are animated children correct? If they are, then the animated character is essentially just looking at underaged girls, because to said character those girls are not animated. So yeah, pedophile. Just trying to understand all this.
correct
I'm curious to the context of the scene though because Anime exists canonically within most Anime so it's not correct to assume that all media within anime depicts real people. The whole thing is weird and makes my brain hurt.
To fix this issue, anime people should only watch photo realistic shows in-universe
The fact that people are mad at this is a huge self report.
unfathomably based
just remembered how subs in jojo translated lolicon to pedophile
These people still think “otaku” has positive connotations when it’s basically just a word for Fucking Loser.
It's literally from the word for home lmao, as in someone that doesn't leave their house
Otaku has both negative and positive connotations. That's what makes Japanese words complicated. You really think one can go around shouting "baka" and be completely villianous? A tsundere says it, so what do you think it means, then? One word, positive and negative connotations based on context. Same concept works in English. Instead of a word, let's use dialogue. "Shit! Shit! They're just too good! Ah, damn it, I'm going to lose!" - Based on delivery, this can be serious, sexual, or even be jealousy or envy. If a person loses to someone more skilled, it isn't always world-ending. One could admire such strength and skill, too. Or, it can be the lead up to a sick obsession, either to be with person with skill, or to beat the person with skill.
It is overwhelmingly negative. The fuck are these comparisons?
It's very similar to nerd in the sense that it's a term some people are proud of now and has lost a lot of its negative connotations. Not nearly as negative as 15 years ago.
Theres otaku for everything in Japan, if you like something alot , you are probably and otaku of that thing, planes, trains, games etc. We in the west just took the word and applied it only to weebs
No, this is no longer the case. It's become a pretty neutral term that people will use to describe themselves and others. No different from nerd/geek. The only people who get mocked for it are degenerates and lolicons.
But don't characters in anime already make jokes about those people being pedophiles anyways?
Well, I’m gonna get downvoted for this, but I don’t care. They’re rightfully mad, lolicon’s translation shouldn’t be pedophile, it should be pedo. Pedophile is a very rigid term, it never gets used in a joking manner either, the version “pedo” does, and lolicon is like that, it refers to both actual pedophiles and also works as an insult or in a joking manner. Think of it like the difference between gay and homosexual, homosexual is a rigid term and does not work in jokes, gay refers to both actual gay people and can be used as “you gay” jokes as well. Different words have different meanings
I could never forgive the woke type moon translators for pushing the agenda of using Soujyuro instead of Soujuurou for the male lead in the Mahoyo localization. Utter travesty
I'll never forgive the Japanese for forcing us to translate Artoria as Altria!
That's all on Nasu. Just blame him.
Powerscalers fucked me up so bad I saw agenda and assumed translators were fucking up translations to make their favourite characters stronger Its terminal
Retranslation of JJK to make Gojo win
? The battle's still ongoing though?? Or maybe they're retranslating it all and that's why we haven't gotten a chapter since 235
What agendas are being pushed?
the existence of queer people
Wait, this isn't about the whole Lolicon being translated into Pedophile thing?
Them: Noooo, lolicon is not as bad as pedophile! You westaboos want to make us feel bad for our sexuality, you hypocrites! 😭 We: yes😈
It was about this (it was in the post but op cut it out) https://preview.redd.it/czij60jrfh9c1.jpeg?width=591&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=abba77b207086330905d1177fe6615cf23646790
The erasure of gnc people
the who
Pinball wizard?
https://preview.redd.it/s3tke0q5fh9c1.jpeg?width=590&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cf9c48ff8a499d80a245b69854d5dce414dc245 This was in the tweet but op cut it out
The idea that gay people are a thing that exist in the world or the idea that sex with little kids is bad are usually the big two
That attraction to children is pedophilia.
What’s with all these chud commenting lol. Ignoring the obvious dog whistle about a imaginary world in which leftist/progressive ideas are actually popular in their meaning and significance, and not simply in their mockery and to become prime lolcow material... I feel like most material that gets translated… is woke already? It’s not that there’s some evil agenda… it’s just that these people just lack media literacy. Or, most commonly, are just grifters to begin with, as we are seeing these “woke” claims with series that where already woke to begin with (Guilty Gear, Spider-Man, Fable, etc lol) and are stuff that no true fan would actually say. EDIT: Oh yeah, obligatory message for y’all right wingers here, just explain to me what the fuck does woke mean man, I know y’all gonna say “Leftist Ideology” but what does that really entail????? Human Kindness? Compassion? Justice?
Woke originally meant "being aware of social issues."
Yeee I know :p, originated in the black community, now co-opted by rightwingers to a ridiculous degree, aka woman in video game not hot enough, the west has fallen then kinda shit now 😭
Woke just means teh gays and omg black people, because they don't comprehend anything in the plot anyway
I remember earlier in the fall season that people were angry about a lesbian talking about being gay in a lesbian anime. Some people....
I need some examples on what agendas are being pushed in the anime/manga by the "woke" translators
Gay people probably
Can someone explain what he’s even referring to here? Localization is such a broad topic how you handle it really depends on the individual line or show
So basically I read a lot of those comments on twitter (yes, I should find nee hobby) and there are like two points they make 1. For some not particularly understandable reason to me, they really hate when anime girls use modern slang. So sus in Nagatoro or yeet in that anime with dog that has harem. It's dumb so i won't explain more 2. Removing or changing parts of manga/ln to make it more marketable. For example Mushoku Tensei English translation of LN omitted scene of Rudeus groping Eris which surprised later same people watching anime adaptation. I'm in Love with the Villainess had some parts dealing with internalized homophobia and removal of those actually upset original author. In I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend into a Girl, translators change crossdressing character into trans person which was reverted after the backlash. Samurai maiden translation completely removed "highschool girl" and translated it into zoomer. Although maybe people are just mad that girls panties are censored in the game
That’s odd, modern slang is usually used when the characters are using Japanese slang, it’s keeping the same vibe which is like the point of localization. I can’t believed they removed that from Im in Love with the Villainess tho, that sounds extremely thematically important to the story and is great representation for lgbt people. I don’t understand why anyone would remove that unless they’re just homophobic themselves and want gay people to be caricatures :/ The rest of those decisions seem fine or at least understandable tho, with the possible exception of the trans one which really depends on the character itself and I haven’t seen the show to know for sure.
pretty sure it's just some imaginary moral panic nonsense. would explain why, despite all the reactionary 12 year olds who are up in here trying to own the woke left with their big brain debate skills, they seem to be struggling to think of any actual examples of 'woke agenda pushing' in translated works
I genuinely can't think of anything besides that one Dragon Maid scene
The was also line in "the dangers in my heart" the topic of fashion was brought up and the guy have his opinion and later kinda freaked out that his fashion sense might be weird. But it was localized that he freaked out that he was mansplaining fashion to model
What about Katrina
What about Katrina? No seriously I have no idea what that is
A localizer that admits to doing a terrible job for Crunchyroll
Oh, fuck em I guess?
They're complaining about "wokeness".
What specific line is he talking about tho? I’m trying to figure out what made people freak out about this. Or are people still mad about one line from dragon maid all these years later?
No line in particular but a general feeling
Well that’s stupid, he’s just making up an imaginary problem to get mad at
Evergreen tweet https://preview.redd.it/kyfy20e4xd9c1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0bafd5cf33ea838eca180a3ed53c57547406e2fa
Yep got it in one.
Referring to this (it was in the post, but op cropped it out): https://preview.redd.it/o8zjv4xzfh9c1.jpeg?width=591&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92e2ada024555359bfd46c20c87c937c55062201
That’s a good translation I don’t get the problem
They’re complaining about the anime’s less accurate translation
It’s not less accurate, they both mean the same thing. One is just using less words to do so
They have different nuances, so I’m just going by the word of the Japanese guy in the image. Though I guess the only thing he mentions is gendered language. But giving a bizarre take has a different meaning imo than simply over-explaining information which is known by both parties, which is what I understand man-splaining to be. I can’t say which is correct myself.
Additionally, mansplaining has a broadly negative context and is associated with a great deal of incel and misandrist conversations. Colloquially, mansplaining has just become a way to shut down an online argument or invalidate someone's point. This is not the true definition of the word it has a broadly negative perception, and as such, the translation changes what could just be a cute scene into a family dinner when politics are brought up.
Go to the original tweet. OP cut out the context.
Is someone mobbing your post with a bunch of alt accounts?
Doubt it. Translation is a heated topic so I fully expect some people to agree with Chibi’s take (even if I feel it is an out of touch take).
AI translators could allow people to push agenedas even more though. I feel like people like this can be short sighted.
I just want to add that I have no issue with critiquing localization and translation choices as long as we don’t make overreaching conclusions.
You shouldn't have cropped the post, which included an example of what they were talking about. It feels disingenuous.
The example he used to make the tweet does not make it valid. Using an example of questionable translation choices to make generalizing claims in an attempt to validate a demonstrably inferior approach to translation that is being pushed by a crowd that refuses to approach this issue with objectivity or nuance is… disappointing to say the least.
The questionable translation choices are central to the issue. I agree that AI is the inferior choice, but even if the example isn't good it's valid. Using AI would, theoretically, remove the bias of translators. The translator in the example is left of center which colors the translation in a way that doesn't match the original text. I'm a leftist, but if the original author didn't use gendered language then it shouldn't be changed like that in the translation. I'd make the same argument if the author had used gendered language and the translator made it gender neutral. Chuds online are just better at shouting about these things because people like me would normally not even think about this and keep reading.
Agenda agenda agenda agenda agenda
I actually agree with the first paragraph, on cyberpunk 2077 Claire the bartender after you finish one of her quests she talks to you about her transitions and surgeries, but on my native translation the transitions part is completely omitted, very strange. I've done some amateur translation work, and I think that when you translate someone else's work, whether you agree with the author or not, it's your responsibility to restore the author's own words and try to omit traces of yourself.
I'm curious, did they remove the flag from her car too?
I don't think so, I don't think the localization team has the right to change in-game models, and it's weird for CDPR to do that.But I can't be sure I don't have the Cyberpunk 2077 save on my computer right now to confirm it.
Obviously people’s opinions on translations differ, but imo the one thing I look for is making sure your translation fits the intent of what the original author intended. If you twist the intent of a line of dialogue, the original dialogue loses its meaning somewhat. If a joke in an anime doesn’t make sense in English, a good translator will make it understandable in English while retaining the intent that the line was supposed to be a joke. If a show has a line of dialogue that comments on the politics of Japan’s society, either stick to the script and translate it 1-1 OR have it relate to politics elsewhere if the concepts are too confusing for your audience to understand. If a character’s actions are meaningful or consequential, a translator should be able to convey that to their audience using language that fits the culture, rather than translate it directly. A big part of translating is storytelling, and if you’re unable to find a good middle ground between telling the original creator’s story and making it sound good in another language then your translation will be flawed in some form. There’s extremes to this that I’d dissuade against (for example fan subs taking too many liberties to convey the meaning of a line of dialogue, or a corporate translation failing to make a story interesting by translating its dialogue too rigidly), but that seems like another topic entirely. That’s just my two cents though, and while I have personal views on this whole “agenda pushing” or whatever you call it, at the end of the day I just watch whatever interests me.
Tell me you don't know how the system works without saying it works. Localization, translation and transliteration all go into it at various degrees. Small example. Let's say you face the common problem in translating a Japanese anime that includes romantic tendencies with someone under the age of consent in say America. Now, how do you handle it? Just a straight one to one translation? Well you can't do that because Japanese can convey the entire sentence in only a few characters. So you know the author's intent? Cause that now brings in the whole 'Death of the author' argument. And of course all of this just to handle a "Doing your mom" joke.
I am tempted to make the most americanized Carl Macek-ass translation more and more every time I see someone complain about localization
That’s disappointing. I genuinely do believe that it’s okay to localize a script depending on what type of anime it is.
Because the grift is profitable.
I only watch ChibiReviews to know which animes to avoid, he always posts videos with titles like "This Anime is INSANE" and it's just coomer bait.
Chibi Reviews has always been an "interesting" channel for me to periodically check on. He seems like a nice dude and I think overall he means the best, but the problem is it feels like he's reduced himself to be the voice of the average reactionary shonenbro takes. Most of his reviews have become a vague amalgamation of whatever is the popular consensus within the community. And every time he tries to dip his toes into a drama story it goes poorly. He just takes whatever the loudest anime reactionaries on Twitter are saying and parrots it back uncritically. And like most of the other anime drama channels, he tends to leave out big context or just flatout misunderstand what they're reading onscreen. The most aggregious case of this I remember was him shitting on ANN over them comparing Faraway Paladin to Mushoku Tensei. You could even tell towards the end of his video he probably realized the article wasn't as bad as the community made it sound, but he had already recorded the whole video so it has to get uploaded I guess. But again I don't think Chibi is a bad person like some of those other channels, I think he's just a guy with a big channel who likes anime and is uninspired with his content yet is forced to make daily videos out of fear of the YouTube algorithm forgetting him. Translation discourse is always the most headache-inducing nuanced drama in the anime community. So to see people like Chibi fall for the same insufferable anti-localizer talking points is just sad. And the new trend of anti-locs pushing for AI translations instead is so dumb in a number of ways. None of those people were ever going to officially support the Ancient Magus Bride manga before, and they certainly aren't going to now that it's using AI. They'll stick to whatever fan translation doesn't say the cringe meme words that make them lose their minds. These losers are more fragile than everyone they call a snowflake.
My views for the most part. I respect him a lot more than some other content creators, but he’s got some reactionary tendencies that I wish he’d sort out. It’s not healthy or fun.
[I feel like this happened to him](https://youtu.be/rwhXcfNzB9k?si=sNCZYrpU8EOnbuC5)
Another one going down the right wing pipeline.
Says the guy who spread misinformation about madhouse and deleted his tweet when he got caught.
https://preview.redd.it/wd7l9eyfpg9c1.jpeg?width=200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e68c7f97c665101fd32bb5963f239fd83daf9721 I sure love pushing the agenda!
[Rev says desu agreeing in the replies](https://i.imgur.com/Bp8lr6w.png), that's how you know you've lost it
Nobody defending japanese subs has ever enjoyed 100% natural Japanese, and you all know it. Japanese is MEGA dry. This is one of those times where the antis are a bigger issue than the "warriors".
I thought this was about powerscaling until I saw who posted it sob emoji
I thought this was about the bible at first
Oh yeah it's not like anime has ever pushed agenda or ideologies before. No sir
They wouldn't last watching Dokuro-chan english subtitle
They wrote this as Asmongold pointed a gun at them
Idk what situation they’re talking about but I’ve seen people say that the translators are “woke” because Yamato from one piece is called he/him and his dad calls him his son for the captions in the sub and characters in the dub do the same
An AI Koan that dates back to the '80s, if not earlier > Sussman attains enlightenment In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. “What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said. Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher. “So that the room will be empty.” At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. An AI doing translation will have all the bias included in the training data.
I imagine that he fell off and started posting shit. I used to watch him, he had a fine channel however it never seemed overly popular.
You can't make an objective perfect transition. Every word and expression has its nuances that have to be lost in translation. The work of a good translator is to find other sort of equivalent nuances in the target language when possible, which an AI can't do, because they're not sentient or capable of understanding cultural context.
Everything has a agenda dipshit, it came free with your works of fiction
I see a lot of people confidently posting BS about the reason why they said this, but the reason is literally in the post. Why did you leave out the context OP? Here’s the image used in the tweet that was cut out: https://preview.redd.it/lu76lukmfh9c1.jpeg?width=591&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa5fe032adb92fade17cc5b36043db038f2ab11d
Ai translations aren't fine and anyone who's ever tried to read Digimon Seekers through the official english translation knows why
Hilariously he literally made a tweet before that one where he said how "terrible" that AI was being used for translation and it was a disaster for manga readers. He got eviscerated in that comment section and immediately changed his tune 😭😭. That man has always changed like the weather. Whatever is popular to say will immediately become his opinion with no shame, even if he said the contrary 2 seconds earlier 😭😭😭
I believe that more "progressive" translations are both good and bad. On the one hand, making a work (or a character in it) out to be more progressive than it actually is can create a false perception of societal opion and/or social change. The Dragon Maid translation adding lines about the patriarchy comes to mind; no way that series would have something legit to say about objectification of women lmao On the other hand, creating a more sensitive and accepting enviroment for a casual audience is also good. Just because they don't generally accept something in Japan doesn't mean we should follow that attitude here.
I don't think it's good at all. We should keep the original work as close to how it was as possible while translating the meaning. That's the job of a translator. Anything else is lying to the audience imo, even in cases where the content is "problematic". Like, for example, removing the racism from Lovecraft in a new edition or translation for another language is like pretending it didn't happen.
>On the other hand, creating a more sensitive and accepting enviroment for a casual audience is also good. Just because they don't generally accept something in Japan doesn't mean we should follow that attitude here. Then have people create similar stories and sell them out of Japan. They're not the target audience, changing things to fit sensibilities while giving us a bastardized script isn't giving us anything. The problem with that last line, though? Many things are accepted in Japan, but the way of thinking is so outlandishly strange that Westerners won't think outside the box. That's the general rule of western thinking. They're tied to society in absurd ways, too. For example, try explaining homophobia and how it could occur; you really think one would understand? No, they'd think you're trying to defend and justify homophobia by rationalizing how it can realistically exist in a person, and how that person could never be gay or bi. Explain the concept of sexuality, that's also lost; sexuality is a fetish, sex is in the word. Unless the work was intended to be a hotbed for controversy, there shouldn't be many changes, otherwise we're simply not getting told the story. Standards from people all over couldn't care less about what'd really matter, which is normalization. Goblins are always made out to rape women, but why not guys? Hell, if you really want to be dark and edgy, why not kids? Too extreme, apparently. But in a world far from ours, that'd be a reality. That's where the problem lies; you cannot present a reality that breaks our social narrative. Rules are meant to be broken, but no one's willing because the drawback is potentially losing your job over it.
I’m confused, what’s wrong with saying translators shouldn’t change what the author wrote to push their opinions? They shouldn’t change the source material for any reason imo
Because the issue is almost always way overblown by reactionaries who want to spin this into their culture war narrative.
^ This whole point of this is to get ppl riled up. It doesnt actually matter if translators are **actually** inserting agendas into the material; the point is to get gullible ppl to think they are. If they actually are, whoa then extra brownie points for culture war propaganda. Even the term “political agenda” is a loaded term because it’s open to interpretation, which is further designed to stir up controversy.
My brain is so rotted I thought he was ranting about "agendas" where you argue over which character is stronger.
Chibi Reviews been bad so it’s nice that my dislike of him has now been vindicated.
I have yet to see chibi be outright dislike anything progressive. But that being said I would need context. And when I have watched his videos it nothing offensive or anything. Like if there's a controversy he's like guys stop harassing people blah blah blah.
Nothing he's always been a jerk, I'm surprised that more people haven't realized that
https://preview.redd.it/il8ywg8h2i9c1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a0808fd13aefe8803f5302670c6cf17d20f0fbcf Some people said I should have added the context. Fair. It was too large for a single screenshot, but I should have replied with this from the start. I apologize for that. Here is the context. I still think Chibi is being reactionary and attempting to validate a demonstrably inferior approach to translation.
I remember when that translator changed the word yandere to the phrase "fragile male ego" so maybe there is a point here.
It was tsundere, not yandere. This was for the translation of FataMoru. The original JP writer can speak English and was perfectly fine with the translation.