How accurate are Funimation's subtitles for DBZ

Adamant · Post by **Adamant** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 4:44 pm

TheGreatness25 wrote:I was very surprised when I realized that the O in Kabit(o) was missing.

Actually, that was a mistake. It's supposed to be Kibito, from "Tsukibito", the Japanese word for servant.

Lobster_Rage155 · Post by **Lobster_Rage155** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 4:51 pm

As accurate as they are, however, I would like to say now that I've gotten to the point where I can't much stand the subtitle font FUNimation uses on their DVDs. Used to be, I didn't have that big of a problem with it, but when I popped in a Dragon Ball Tournament saga disc the other day the subtitles were just an eyesore.

I think Mr. Simmons himself even touched on this somewhere; in a thread about Kodocha, I think, where he brought up a talk in the past he had with some higher-ups about the subs and their presentation: more content and the traditional(for FUNi), little, blocky font or a bigger, better font with less content.

Obviously, he opted for the former, and while I can't argue against an overall better translation it doesn't make me dislike that typeset any less. XS

Vegard Aune · Post by **Vegard Aune** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 4:56 pm

Lobster_Rage155 wrote:As accurate as they are, however, I would like to say now that I've gotten to the point where I can't much stand the subtitle font FUNimation uses on their DVDs. Used to be, I didn't have that big of a problem with it, but when I popped in a Dragon Ball Tournament saga disc the other day the subtitles were just an eyesore.

I think Mr. Simmons himself even touched on this somewhere; in a thread about Kodocha, I think, where he brought up a talk in the past he had with some higher-ups about the subs and their presentation: more content and the traditional(for FUNi), little, blocky font or a bigger, better font with less content.

Obviously, he opted for the former, and while I can't argue against an overall better translation it doesn't make me dislike that typeset any less. XS

Meh, I've seen worse. Look at Madman's release of the Bardock-special. Those subs were hideously ugly, and took up far too much space on the screen. Didn't prevent me from enjoying the special, but still...

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:03 pm

At least they're white and not yellow. I can't stand yellow subtitles really, even though they are yellow on most DVDs...

Ex-Dubbie369 · Post by **Ex-Dubbie369** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:08 pm

TheGreatness25 wrote:At least they're white and not yellow. I can't stand yellow subtitles really, even though they are yellow on most DVDs...

The subs on the Madman DB DVDs are yellow. They suck utterly.

Vegard Aune · Post by **Vegard Aune** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:34 pm

Ex-Dubbie369 wrote:
TheGreatness25 wrote:At least they're white and not yellow. I can't stand yellow subtitles really, even though they are yellow on most DVDs...
The subs on the Madman DB DVDs are yellow. They suck utterly.

Hang on, you mean that they use that font for ALL their releases? That sucks, as I don't have any other way to get the majority of the series...

Captain Awesome · Post by **Captain Awesome** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 7:05 pm

Vegard Aune wrote: Hang on, you mean that they use that font for ALL their releases? That sucks, as I don't have any other way to get the majority of the series...

They don't use the same font they used in the Bardock/Trunks Specials, they use a larger easier to read font in the rest of their releases (one that I prefer over the white in the NTSC releases)

Just so you know, the majority of Z from Madman doesn't have subtitles, just the old 4:3 UUE boxset, and World tournament to the end of the series (and all of the movies).

seed · Post by **seed** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 10:03 pm

i have a question about cell.
in the manga translation it says
"i've gathered enough ki not only to destroy planet but the whole solar system"
but in anime it says.
"anytime from now i will destroy this planet and solar system".
and this anime dub is from toie phils.
so who is correct the manga translation or anime?

Raki · Post by **Raki** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 10:19 pm

seed wrote:i have a question about cell.
in the manga translation it says
"i've gathered enough ki not only to destroy planet but the whole solar system"
but in anime it says.
"anytime from now i will destroy this planet and solar system".
and this anime dub is from toie phils.
so who is correct the manga translation or anime?

Are you speaking of the English dub, or subtitles? In either way, the manga is taken over the anime.

seed · Post by **seed** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 10:30 pm

Raki wrote:
seed wrote:i have a question about cell.
in the manga translation it says
"i've gathered enough ki not only to destroy planet but the whole solar system"
but in anime it says.
"anytime from now i will destroy this planet and solar system".
and this anime dub is from toie phils.
so who is correct the manga translation or anime?
Are you speaking of the English dub, or subtitles? In either way, the manga is taken over the anime.

infact i translated it to english because it was a local dub production of toie in my country.
and i dont know if the manga translation is correct.
and some people says anime is not canon.

Post by **desirecampbell** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:58 pm

They both refer to the exact same thing: Cell's saying that he has enough power to destroy the entire solar system. Whether he actually can is another debate, but let's leave that.

Also, watch your grammar. Capitalization to punctuation, and everything in between.

Vekurotto · Post by **Vekurotto** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:00 pm

I've got a question, can somebody confirm for me if the subtitles on season 2 are corrected on the "Ginyu" episodes to have original names and less censored swearing?

I have the original releases and was disappointed with the sub job. Not because of the original names not being used but because it was plainly obvious things were being censored.

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:29 pm

They didn't censor things before. You sure your copy isn't one of those copies where they're really saying, "Damn you, I'm going to defeat you" and on yours it says "Fuck you! I'm going to fucking murder you!!!"?

Vegard Aune · Post by **Vegard Aune** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:57 pm

Vekurotto wrote:I've got a question, can somebody confirm for me if the subtitles on season 2 are corrected on the "Ginyu" episodes to have original names and less censored swearing?

Yes, the subtitles were fixed. No more "Krillin" or "Darn you!" on the Ginyu-episodes or anywhere else.

And TheGreatness25: Actually, the subtitles were toned down quite a bit on the two "Captain Ginyu"-DVDs FUNi released, so "Kuso" was translated to "Darn" and stuff like that. It's not wrong, technically, but I'm sure everyone would agree that seeing Namek explode with Goku screaming "Darn it to heck!!!" would just have been stupid.

TheGreatness25 · Post by **TheGreatness25** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:31 pm

But he's talking about the Season 2 of the Seaon Sets I'm assuming. And that's without the edited subtitles, isn't it?

Vegard Aune · Post by **Vegard Aune** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:14 pm

TheGreatness25 wrote:But he's talking about the Season 2 of the Seaon Sets I'm assuming. And that's without the edited subtitles, isn't it?

Yes, but he hadn't seen the subs on Season 2, so he wanted to know if FUNi had fixed those errors on the old release.

bkev · Post by **bkev** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:32 pm

Lobster_Rage155 wrote:
Gyt Kaliba wrote:Quick question - Does Simmons do the subtitles for everything FUNi does, or just the DB franchise?
Steve Simmons

Clyde Mandelin

Mr. Mandelin (some call him "Mato", like Tomato) is also a very excellent translator. I enjoyed his work on both Tenchi and the original DragonBall series.

Vegard Aune · Post by **Vegard Aune** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:42 pm

Because I didn't notice this post before now:

Lobster_Rage155 wrote:
Gyt Kaliba wrote:Quick question - Does Simmons do the subtitles for everything FUNi does, or just the DB franchise?
Steve Simmons

Clyde Mandelin

Does anyone know which one of them translated the opening and ending in Dragonball? I know Mandelin did most of that series, but Daimao did the Tournament-saga (and Saga of Goku? I'm not sure...) so I'm not quite sure which one did the songs, being that the subtitles for those are the same on all the DVDs.

Vekurotto · Post by **Vekurotto** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:58 pm

TheGreatness25 wrote:They didn't censor things before. You sure your copy isn't one of those copies where they're really saying, "Damn you, I'm going to defeat you" and on yours it says "Fuck you! I'm going to fucking murder you!!!"?

http://www.daizex.com/guides/dvd_guide/ ... s_03.shtml

Thanks Vegard Aune. At least if the subs are better, that can give me a reason to rip them and put them on the Dragonbox singles of those episodes whenever I get them.

Big Momma · Post by **Big Momma** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:58 pm

What I read earlier about bad subtitle quality, etc. I heard the subs on the Bobobo-bobo-bobo dub DVD's are pretty bad.

I popped in Volume 1 of the "Ultimate Uncuts" last night(Yeah, I only bought one, for $5, luckily) and I was watching a trailer for the UU version of DBZ and I noticed something.

In the trailer, (You can view it, here) they show a little bit of Japanese, then switch over to English. Now, I'm only a 3rd year Japanese student, and my 2nd year doesn't really count because I had a reeallly bad teacher, but I was reading the Japanese they showed, and it didn't look familiar.
At first I thought they might be showing the Japanese version of the English words, but then the ones for Goku and Vegeta definitely don't match up.

So, were they just putting in random Japanese to look "more uncut" or do those bits of text actually mean something in good ol' Nihongo(Japanese)?[/url]

EDIT: Concerning subtitle swearing. IMO, it just really bugs me when people think that subs need swearing to make it more edgy. Now, I do agree that it is appropriate sometimes("Darn it to heck" with Namek exploding would be funny, but real swearing would indeed be better there.

) but it just irks me when people think cursing is needed.