Gods with "sama"-honorific treated as full names in Viz?

[desirecampbell]

I think a great analogy for this, that native English speakers can easily understand, is Shakespeare.

I think it's much more important to preserve the authors intent and language choice then to (and I don't want to sound like a dick here, but) dumb down already fairly simple scripts for the lazy and stupid.

I can understand wanting the new audience to be able to get the same feeling from the work as the original audience, but I can't support the decision to dumb it down and change it instead of explaining it and teaching the audience something. I mean, if they're reading this thing already why should we assume that they don't want to know more about it?

But I understand that a lot of people don't want to learn or grow intellectually.

[TonyTheTiger]

I'm not sure it's quite the same thing, though. Shakespeare wrote in what is essentially modern English just with some archaic terminology. "Wherefore," for example, doesn't mean "where." It means "why." Maybe a better example would be Middle English which while still English has wildly different pronunciation.

The thing is, the reason we don't "update" Shakespeare is because experiencing his use of the language is one of the draws. The man pretty much invented words we use today and even fudged a number of words to fit them into his iambic pentameter. That's a bit different than Japanese to English translation. We don't really care about Toriyama's use of Japanese. We just care what his characters are saying. Because if we really are concerned with how Toriyama wrote Dragon Ball at a linguistic or poetic level then we better fire up Rosetta Stone.

[desirecampbell]

I'm not sure it's quite the same thing, though. Shakespeare wrote in what is essentially modern English just with some archaic terminology. "Wherefore," for example, doesn't mean "where." It means "why." Maybe a better example would be Middle English which while still English has wildly different pronunciation.

Modern North-American English is considerably different from Shakespeare's English.

Shakespeare is notoriously difficult for the average American teenager to follow despite being written for borderline illiterate borderline peasants. Shakespeare was not written in an elaborate manner, it was written in the way his audience normally communicated.

My point connecting Hamlet to Dragon Ball is that when you slap English in the place of Japanese in the word balloons, you're probably going to end up with something that sounds unnatural to a modern American English ear. And I believe it better to explain that to the audience than to simply change what's been written.

The thing is, the reason we don't "update" Shakespeare is because experiencing his use of the language is one of the draws. The man pretty much invented words we use today and even fudged a number of words to fit them into his iambic pentameter. That's a bit different than Japanese to English translation. We don't really care about Toriyama's use of Japanese. We just care what his characters are saying. Because if we really are concerned with how Toriyama wrote Dragon Ball at a linguistic or poetic level then we better fire up Rosetta Stone.

Actually, Toriyama (specifically) uses a lot of wordplay. And we do update Shakespeare all the damn time. And sometimes it's great and sometimes it can be terrible (well, usually terrible).

[TonyTheTiger]

Define "considerably." It's certainly not a completely different language.

And sorry, let me clarify. I don't mean "update" like modern adaptations ala The Lion King which are of course common as all hell. I mean "update" like "translate" the original text. Sure, there are "translations" but rarely do people pay any attention to them. Since the text is already in English you don't have to change it for an English speaking audience.

We're not talking about understanding archaic sentence structure or unfamiliar vocabulary within a single language. We're talking about translating from one language to another. American high school students read unaltered Shakespeare because it's already in English. With a little bit of effort it is readily understandable. They don't, however, read unaltered Homer because outside of learning Greek it's going to be incomprehensible. That's why you can't equate Shakespeare with anime translations. An anime translation is a necessity. The issue isn't whether to translate or not but more what to do within a translation once you've put your mind to do one.

There's no difficulty in understanding honorifics even for people who never watch anything specifically Japanese and I think arguments leading in that direction are weak as hell. We've all seen the Karate Kid, right? How about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? They're common to the point where their presence isn't going to be confusing in the least. But their presence in a translation can (not necessarily will) affect how the audience experiences the dialogue. And those effects might not be consistent with how the native-speaking audience experienced it. That's really the gist of what I'm saying.

[Innagadadavida]

There's no difficulty in understanding honorifics even for people who never watch anything specifically Japanese and I think arguments leading in that direction are weak as hell. We've all seen the Karate Kid, right? How about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? They're common to the point where their presence isn't going to be confusing in the least. But their presence in a translation can (not necessarily will) affect how the audience experiences the dialogue. And those effects might not be consistent with how the native-speaking audience experienced it. That's really the gist of what I'm saying.

I think honorifics are easily explained (in cliff-notes) in the way of comparison to titles or equivalents in English. But to new readers, or folks new to manga, they may not remember all of them and might have to refer back a few times to understand the meaning of the sentence. Honestly though, I'd prefer straight up changes. Mr. Piccolo or Lord God, rather than the retention of Japanese honorifics. Its not because I don't want to learn or grow (I actually know most of their honorifics at this point). Its because it's not natural to me; it doesn't flow like day-to-day speech so it takes me out on that level. When Japanese children read the manga in their native language, they're not learning anything about a different language. They're just reading a story and having fun. Therefore changes like Mr. Piccolo or Lord God bring an experience that's closer to what the author intended, consciously or not. The experience is what's important to me, I guess. Not that I'm against media from other cultures being used as a learning tool.

[Gaffer Tape]

*yadda yadda yadda Shakespeare yadda yadda teaching people yadda yadda*

Holy fucking shit! The whole time I was at work tonight, I was planning to come home and write pretty much this exact same post, but you beat me to it, you sly bastard, you!

[linkdude20002001]

I think honorifics are easily explained (in cliff-notes) in the way of comparison to titles or equivalents in English. But to new readers, or folks new to manga, they may not remember all of them and might have to refer back a few times to understand the meaning of the sentence. Honestly though, I'd prefer straight up changes. Mr. Piccolo or Lord God, rather than the retention of Japanese honorifics. Its not because I don't want to learn or grow (I actually know most of their honorifics at this point). Its because it's not natural to me; it doesn't flow like day-to-day speech so it takes me out on that level. When Japanese children read the manga in their native language, they're not learning anything about a different language. They're just reading a story and having fun. Therefore changes like Mr. Piccolo or Lord God bring an experience that's closer to what the author intended, consciously or not. The experience is what's important to me, I guess. Not that I'm against media from other cultures being used as a learning tool.

I can agree with this to an extent. You see, for shows like Dragon Ball, of course it's silly to keep in honorifics (not as silly as it would be in Fullmetal Alchemist, but very close); Toriyama said the language of the Dragon Ball world is English, so why would they be using Japanese honorifics in a non-Japanese translation? For shows like Naruto and Bleach, where either the setting is in Japan, or the story is very, very Japanese, it's perfectly acceptable to keep Japanese name suffixes in the translation. But of course, Viz is an annoying company, so they'll randomly use only certain name suffixes for certain shows in their usual inconsistent fashion.

For Dragon Ball, I think Japanese titles should be translated (i.e. Kami God, Muten Rōshi Immortal Master), and name suffixes should be dealt with appropriately (i.e. Piccolo-san Mr Piccolo, Son-kun Son, Gokuh-sa Gokuh or Darlin'). Any quirks that would otherwise be lost by not using name suffixes can be kept by simply substituting. So if you've got an endearing/hickish Gokuh-sa, then you can have Chichi call him darlin' or something.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

I do pretty heavily lean on the side of, "If you don't want any traits from the original version of an internationally-produced entertainment product shining through, watch something from your own, highly-localized area." I, too, get a little stuck on that whole argument of trying to translate/adapt/hide away that stuff -- it seems really silly, and bordering on xenophobic -- and almost counterproductive, since you border on writing a new show (see: Robotech).

What? Are you seriously comparing translating honourfics (you know, Japanese) to the bastardization of two great mecha Anime?

[VegettoEX]

What? Are you seriously comparing translating honourfics (you know, Japanese) to the bastardization of two great mecha Anime?

I've sat back and thought for several minutes about a way to phrase things that isn't snarky and a repeat of your own snarky, "Did you actually read my post?"

I couldn't. So I give up. Consider me snarky. Whatever. Sue me.

As I detailed pretty explicitly, there is a slippery-slope with these adaptations. Sure, changing/removing honorifics is one thing, but what about:

I mean, if your biggest concern is that Little Jimmy won't understand something Japanese, why are you A- showing him something Japanese, and B- not showing him the dub? If avoiding culture-shock is priority #1, then why not show him something from his own culture?

We've seen that slippery-slope at work in FUNimation's treatment of the show. Signs on bathrooms get painted over. Names get changes. Names get left alone. Names get half-translated, half-un-untranslated. Now-a-days we have the two censored versions of Kai with laughably diverse censorings, such as removing halos.

I'm not advocating literal translations for everything. I'm not advocating complete reversionings. I'm advocating paying attention to what the Hell you're doing, being mindful of the original intent, and being mindful of your audience.

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

Yeah... is there a reason that so many people have a natural response to reply in such a snide and supercilious manner? There'd be a lot less tension around here if people just cut the sarcasm. (People view sarcasm as a personal attack.)

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Uh, I wasn't arguing about translating honourifics in subtitled Anime. I don't have a problem with that, since I'm mainly a dub-watcher. What I am arguing is, translating honourifics in English Manga. Which I do have a problem with because, well......... it's English Manga. Everything's going to be in English, as opposed to hearing Japanese in Anime.

[JulieYBM]

Uh, I wasn't arguing about translating honourifics in subtitled Anime. I don't have a problem with that, since I'm mainly a dub-watcher. What I am arguing is, translating honourifics in English Manga. Which I do have a problem with because, well......... it's English Manga. Everything's going to be in English, as opposed to hearing Japanese in Anime.

A glossery at the front or back of the book could easily explain these terms, though.

If we want to gloss over an already overtly "this book is Japanese!!" message, why not flip the art to read western-style? Why not remove Japanese names and art?

People will buy "They call each other by last name, because it's traditionally done over in Japan" so won't they buy "This is an honorific added to the end of a character's name. In this case '-san' is showing a sign of respect."

It's more content, more adventure. For the ten bucks these things cost I would like to get as much out of it as I can.

[TonyTheTiger]

In this case '-san' is showing a sign of respect."

But not always. That's pretty much what I'm getting at. If you see "-san" in an otherwise completely English sentence it's going to draw attention to itself. Probably more than it was supposed to. It's not going to be as "ordinary" as it would appear in a completely Japanese sentence. That's because "-san" isn't always all that special. It's a sign of respect but only so much as it's just common usage in many cases. Lots of times it's not there to emphasize that the characters are respecting each other. It's there because that's how Japanese people talk. So if you leave the honorifics in it will in that sense alter the intent of the sentence. Now instead of it just being "how people talk" it becomes "they're being respectful." So if we're going to leave in an honorific we should make sure it's not just ordinary conversation.

[desirecampbell]

In this case '-san' is showing a sign of respect."

But not always. That's pretty much what I'm getting at. If you see "-san" in an otherwise completely English sentence it's going to draw attention to itself. Probably more than it was supposed to. It's not going to be as "ordinary" as it would appear in a completely Japanese sentence. That's because "-san" isn't always all that special. It's a sign of respect but only so much as it's just common usage in many cases. Lots of times it's not there to emphasize that the characters are respecting each other. It's there because that's how Japanese people talk. So if you leave the honorifics in it will in that sense alter the intent of the sentence. Now instead of it just being "how people talk" it becomes "they're being respectful." So if we're going to leave in an honorific we should make sure it's not just ordinary conversation.

But again, there's problems with trying to translate the word, ie: 10-year-olds calling each other Mister sounds weird, and problems with trying to localize the meaning, ie: if none's saying 'mister' why is it rude when this other guy also doesn't say 'mister'?

Honourifics, specifically, are a subtle and simple Japanese mannerism that should never be hidden or translated away. Every language has titles, even English, and none bats an eye at using other language titles in English language works: Senior, Madame, Comrade, Don. You wouldn't expect these to be translated, but for some reason


Back to those examples I gave, imagine a school-life manga, the main characters are 10-12 years old. The class mates refer to each other as FamilyName-san, they refer to their teacher as FamilyName-sensei. Then there's a troublesome child who calls the class simply FamilyName and the teacher FamilName-kun.

How would you best translate that? 1- FamilyName-san, 2- FamilyName-sensei, 3- FamilyName, 4- FamilyName-kun.

If you want to localize it for the average American child you'd probably want: 1-FirstName, 2- Mr. FamilyName, and 4- just FamilyName, but what about 3? They're already being called by their first name, how would you show a presumptuous/rude familiarity there?

How about just literally translating the words? 1- Mr/Miss FamilyName is akward but makes 3 easier (just use FamilyName), 2 sounds strange when it isn't 'Mister' for Americans and sensei should be closer to Professor or Doctor. And still, what about 4? Again, it's a slight change in speech that's rude because it's presumptuous about their relationship - there's no easy translation there.

Or you could just through translation out the window and change names completely: 1- FirstName, 2- Mr. FamilyName, 3- rhyming slightly personal nickname, 4- I don't know, have the kid call him 'buddy' maybe?


My point is threefold:
1- it's not that confusing.
2- it can be really difficult to translate
3- it can be really important to the story, so you can't just take it out.

[TonyTheTiger]

In many of your examples I don't see why you can't just take it out. If a bunch of school kids are calling each other Tanaka-san and Miyagi-san you just "translate" it as Tanaka and Miyagi since they're really just talking like normal people. So you obviously want to get across to the audience that they're talking like normal people. So when you translate into English you make them talk like normal English speakers to deliver the same concept. They're not outright trying to be respectful by calling each other "-san." They're just talking and it just so happens that's ordinary conversation. The "-san" is not significant.

Now if there's a character who's really quirky and likes to throw "-kun" at the end of his or her schoolmates' names you can then perhaps justify leaving the -kun as is or translate it with a snideness or something. And obviously "-sensei" becomes "Mr." since the ordinary way to refer to a teacher is easily adaptable between the two languages. In fact, it's straight up identical, socially speaking. The literal translations of the honorifics aren't what's important. What's important is the idea.

You take into consideration the speaker, the purpose of the dialogue, and the situation. You can't babelfish this. A translator has to make choices, sometimes hard ones.

If the honorifics become relevant there can sometimes be options. It depends on the context. We do this all the time in English and we don't use honorifics. Steve Urkel used to call his teachers by their first name. You could always adapt it that way. If you have to leave in an honorific, fine. But that's not always the best option and I think it's pretty rare for it to be.

1- it's not that confusing.

I really don't like this argument on either side. "It's confusing" is a weak argument for people to use against honorifics. But on the other hand, I never said it was confusing. There are a lot of ways something can be less than ideal without being confusing. I feel like "It's not confusing" is the go-to counterargument even when it's never been brought up as an issue. Not trying to call you out specifically, just making sure everybody understands I don't think honorifics are confusing in the least.

[VegettoEX]

Just tossing this out there... it's not DBZ, but it's from Viz, so... that's a connection...?

http://www.VegettoEX.com/blog/2010/03/1 ... vd-review/

The Honey & Clover R1 DVDs adapt names by simply having everyone call everyone by their first name in the subtitles, even when they don't actually speak that way in what you're listening to in the Japanese track. Except, later on, one character may call someone by their first name, and someone else by their last name. Oh, and then two characters have the same name, so they break their consistency. Oh, and then they just randomly change how they're adapting an honorific/pet-name. Oh, and then then just start using names that don't actually exist in the series.

They wrote themselves into a corner that made absolutely no sense (in addition to plain ol' sloppy work), when it could have been avoided by just sticking closer to the original Japanese... which included honorifics and maybe even the "I refer to this person by their last name."

[TonyTheTiger]

The Honey & Clover R1 DVDs adapt names by simply having everyone call everyone by their first name in the subtitles, even when they don't actually speak that way in what you're listening to in the Japanese track.

I'm completely against that. Subtitles are in a world of their own, I think, mostly because...well...you're hearing the Japanese. I remember the subtitles in the awful Street Fighter Alpha anime. The subtitles kept reading "Akuma" when it was obvious the actors were saying "Gouki." It's really jarring.

Plus, since reading subtitles is a rather active experience, a quick note at the top of the screen isn't going to be all that distracting. But only if necessary. I tend to get annoyed when subtitling groups go out of their way to "inform" me about every damn thing about the Japanese language.

[Herms]

Toriyama said the language of the Dragon Ball world is English

Source?

[desirecampbell]

@Tony: you seem to have misunderstood my example, and possibly Japanese culture. The children are being respectful of each other. They are doing it on purpose. When they call each other Jones-san they're taking a specific action to show restraint and formality in their speech. The whole point of my example was based on the premise of a child who refuses to do that. My point was that there are easy examples of honorifics being troublesome to lose.

[Adamant]

My point is threefold:
1- it's not that confusing.
2- it can be really difficult to translate
3- it can be really important to the story, so you can't just take it out.

Then again, what about all the other language quirks you come across that can be equally difficult to translate? Why keep honorifics, but translate all personal second-person pronouns as "you", even though they're equally as much an important part of how a character talks? Is Trunks calling Goku "Goku-san" important enough to keep, while Piccolo calling him "kisama" is just something that can be brushed over?

As noted before, though, honorifics are in somewhat of a special position in that they're often kept in foreign translations, and it's definitely not limited to Japanese. Get ahold of some foreign subtitled release of an English movie, and see if they keep "Mr." instead of localizing it. Find an English subtitled release of a Spanish-language movie, and see if they keep "Señor" or translate it to "Mr.".
And hell, just like fictional stereotypical Japanese with fake accents will often say "Jones-san", fictional stereotypical Germans with fake accents will call them "Herr Jones". Japanese honorifics are definitely not unique in this matter.