Many people over the years in the Toku fandom have argued about translational choices and the various styles that groups use for their subs. In my opinion, it’s all a matter of what you choose to translate or not translate, not that you do one or the other.

The most accepted “non-translations” are proper nouns when it comes to names of people, groups, and mechs that don’t have a Romanized name (Alata is a Goseiger that pilots Gosei Great), loan words we use in English (the Samurai eats Ramen before going to do some Karaoke), and to some degree attack names (I suppose that depends whether you think attack names translated work or sound somewhat stupid in a given series…I stick with translated attack names for Toriko, but prefer Japanese names for Dragon Ball…stuff like Saint Seiya has attack names in so many different languages that you could go either way with the Japanese Attack names). That doesn’t mean you can’t translate them (you can), but few people complain if they aren’t translated.

There are more divisive choices though, like what to do with honorifics (does one keep them in Japanese? Translate them to English equivalents? Or just drop them?), what to do about unique speaking styles (I mean, really, all characters should have their own voice, but some people speak way out of the norm in some series…how does one reflect that in translation?), and how to handle things that just…don’t really exist in English at all (usually coming to stuff like unique foods, Japan-specific events, etc).

Honestly, in those cases, you’ve got to take it on a case by case basis. Honorifics, it depends on how important they are. If relationships between characters are unusually important in a series, you can’t drop them. For me, unless the series is some kind of important cultural piece on Japan, rather than just set in Japan due to Japanese writers, then I go with translating them if need be (factoring in how a character behaves/speaks to choose the correct translation, it doesn’t need to be the same for every character as every character is different).

For unique speaking styles, I personally prefer to find a way to make it reflect in the dialogue when possible rather than just be a sentence add-on (though some scenarios are tricky, so you have to ask yourself what’s the best way to handle it).

Foods…that can be extremely tricky (I read and love Toriko, which creates universe original foods, so I pity Viz). If it’s close to something we know, perhaps be a bit wordy to say *bla bla bla* with *bla bla bla*. But, some food doesn’t work that way. Of course, a food-focused series is even harder to work with, and you may just need to leave things as is, especially if cultural varied foods are used.

All of these things can affect how the general audience views a particular series or release. What fans do in their particular subs can differ quite dramatically from what a professional company would do. A company is going to try and put out a release that won’t alienate the general audience at the vary least, while hopefully also conveying the series to fan standards. of course, not everyone is going to be pleased by the end result, as people have different tastes in these various areas.

It’s all a matter of what the situation calls for. Translation is not a science, it’s an art. One to one translation seldom works in a way that sounds believable. You have to ask what’s an important detail, and what is alright to alter to a connected word in order to create something that conveys the meaning of the sentence, but sounds like it was spoken by someone who was a native speaker (after all, in many cases, the speakers *are supposed to* sound natural to the Japanese audience). At least, that’s my opinion on the matter.

Do you have a different one? Feel free to leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

Adapted from this post.