O_o and an odd translation story
So I was just thinking about odd translations. Such as a manga titled "Utsukushii Otoko" (Beautiful Man), which seems to have been given the title (or sub-title) "Legend of Four Funky Spirits" in the Chinese version... I don't get it, I really don't.
But that got me to thinking about a translation... thing that happened with me when I was a senior in high school (long before I spoke Japanese ^_^;). And that brought me to a realization. In June, it will have been 10 years since I graduated from high school. And since I got into anime shortly before my senior year, I've been into anime for over ten years now. Wow.
So anyway, on to the story about the translation... thing.
Let's start off by saying that it was a combination of my younger brother and the internet that got me into anime. I was almost a senior in high school at the time, so that would have made Evan... an eighth grader. And those first anime that I got into were Dragonball Z, Pokemon, and Sailor Moon. (...And the only one that I will even touch anymore is Sailor Moon, which I still like, dammit!) This was when Cartoon Network started showing anime after school, so that was part of it too. And I was really into it...
So, I went to Spain (through school) for two weeks around spring break during my senior year ('99). And while I was there, I found that I could buy Spanish translated chapters of the Dragonball Z manga, which I did. I brought one back for my brother as a souvenir (I even translated it for him, since he doesn't speak Spanish). I also bought the next chapter (I guess they were coming out a chapter a week) for myself.
Now, that year for Spanish class (it was Spanish V), we had to do a somewhat major "fun" project each quarter. And it just so happens that fourth quarter's project was to translate a comic strip. The teacher provided us with strips, and we got to choose one. Now I, being the obsessive overachiever I was in classes I actually liked, asked if I could make the chapter of DBZ my project. Overkill, I know, since we only had to do a single comic strip, but I thought it was the greatest idea ever at the time. (Especially since my teacher said it was okay.)
And what's more, I decided to make a really big deal out of it. I decided that the coolest thing ever would be to make copies of the pages, physically cut out the Spanish word bubbles, glue/tape the pages to blank paper, and write in my translations. So, essentially I was doing a really, really low tech scanlation (or maybe "copylation"?) from Spanish to English.
It was the biggest hassle ever, especially since the copier that we had at home (it was a scanner too!) was the type that you had to feed the paper through instead of a flat bed one. So I had to take out the staples holding the chapter together to feed them through. But then I found out that since we didn't have any big paper, that our copier really didn't like it. So I ended up having to take it to a store to copy the manga... And that's not even considering how long it took me to use an x-acto knife to cut out the speech bubbles and make it look pretty. (And yeah, I know I could have used white out, but I was feeling perfectionist about this, and white out just didn't seem thorough enough.)
So, I get around to the actual translating of the Spanish into English. Note that it was a very awkward translation. Even now I really don't feel as natural with my Spanish as I do with my Japanese (even when it comes to technical things and grammar, I know Spanish better), and back then... well. It wasn't bad. But, this was before I knew about the games that the companies who licensed and translated anime liked to play back then (particularly Funimation, who did DBZ) to make them "appropriate" for little kids, since cartoons are for kids!
And, well, the dub of DBZ had a bunch of stuff about "sending someone to the other world" instead of just killing them... ^_^; (Don't know if they've updated the dub since then, or if it still has that crap. >_<) So yeah, I'm reading through these chapters of DBZ in Spanish, and they talk about people being "dead" or about "killing" people. And silly person that I was, I thought that there was no possible way!! the English version could be wrong, so I assumed the Spanish one just wasn't being faithful to the original. And I translated those "dead" and "killing" things the same way they were in the dub, telling my teacher that that was how they did it in the English version of the anime, so that had to be right.
I don't like Dragonball Z anymore. (And honestly, I don't really care for Akira Toriyama's art style, even when I'm feeling like something more shounen.) But honestly, I'm very, very glad that I ended up getting rid of that abomination that was my fourth quarter Spanish project sometime not too long after I started college. Even if I did still like DBZ, that would be embarrassing to look back at. ^_^;;
But that got me to thinking about a translation... thing that happened with me when I was a senior in high school (long before I spoke Japanese ^_^;). And that brought me to a realization. In June, it will have been 10 years since I graduated from high school. And since I got into anime shortly before my senior year, I've been into anime for over ten years now. Wow.
So anyway, on to the story about the translation... thing.
Let's start off by saying that it was a combination of my younger brother and the internet that got me into anime. I was almost a senior in high school at the time, so that would have made Evan... an eighth grader. And those first anime that I got into were Dragonball Z, Pokemon, and Sailor Moon. (...And the only one that I will even touch anymore is Sailor Moon, which I still like, dammit!) This was when Cartoon Network started showing anime after school, so that was part of it too. And I was really into it...
So, I went to Spain (through school) for two weeks around spring break during my senior year ('99). And while I was there, I found that I could buy Spanish translated chapters of the Dragonball Z manga, which I did. I brought one back for my brother as a souvenir (I even translated it for him, since he doesn't speak Spanish). I also bought the next chapter (I guess they were coming out a chapter a week) for myself.
Now, that year for Spanish class (it was Spanish V), we had to do a somewhat major "fun" project each quarter. And it just so happens that fourth quarter's project was to translate a comic strip. The teacher provided us with strips, and we got to choose one. Now I, being the obsessive overachiever I was in classes I actually liked, asked if I could make the chapter of DBZ my project. Overkill, I know, since we only had to do a single comic strip, but I thought it was the greatest idea ever at the time. (Especially since my teacher said it was okay.)
And what's more, I decided to make a really big deal out of it. I decided that the coolest thing ever would be to make copies of the pages, physically cut out the Spanish word bubbles, glue/tape the pages to blank paper, and write in my translations. So, essentially I was doing a really, really low tech scanlation (or maybe "copylation"?) from Spanish to English.
It was the biggest hassle ever, especially since the copier that we had at home (it was a scanner too!) was the type that you had to feed the paper through instead of a flat bed one. So I had to take out the staples holding the chapter together to feed them through. But then I found out that since we didn't have any big paper, that our copier really didn't like it. So I ended up having to take it to a store to copy the manga... And that's not even considering how long it took me to use an x-acto knife to cut out the speech bubbles and make it look pretty. (And yeah, I know I could have used white out, but I was feeling perfectionist about this, and white out just didn't seem thorough enough.)
So, I get around to the actual translating of the Spanish into English. Note that it was a very awkward translation. Even now I really don't feel as natural with my Spanish as I do with my Japanese (even when it comes to technical things and grammar, I know Spanish better), and back then... well. It wasn't bad. But, this was before I knew about the games that the companies who licensed and translated anime liked to play back then (particularly Funimation, who did DBZ) to make them "appropriate" for little kids, since cartoons are for kids!
And, well, the dub of DBZ had a bunch of stuff about "sending someone to the other world" instead of just killing them... ^_^; (Don't know if they've updated the dub since then, or if it still has that crap. >_<) So yeah, I'm reading through these chapters of DBZ in Spanish, and they talk about people being "dead" or about "killing" people. And silly person that I was, I thought that there was no possible way!! the English version could be wrong, so I assumed the Spanish one just wasn't being faithful to the original. And I translated those "dead" and "killing" things the same way they were in the dub, telling my teacher that that was how they did it in the English version of the anime, so that had to be right.
I don't like Dragonball Z anymore. (And honestly, I don't really care for Akira Toriyama's art style, even when I'm feeling like something more shounen.) But honestly, I'm very, very glad that I ended up getting rid of that abomination that was my fourth quarter Spanish project sometime not too long after I started college. Even if I did still like DBZ, that would be embarrassing to look back at. ^_^;;