#detco adaptation talk

[marshmallowgoop]

Excuse me, I want to ask a question. Is it ethical to like the Kill la Kill dub? I noticed some of the changes in dialogue between it and the sub. I ask bc the kill la kill dub is my favorite dub of all time.

Hi there!

This has obviously been sitting in my inbox for a while. I haven't been quite sure how to respond.

Maybe I can start by posing another question: is it ethical to like a movie adaptation of a book that makes changes?

A translation—be it of a book to a movie, or of one language to another—is always going to be different from the original. There's no getting around that. But I in no way believe that this means we shouldn't try to translate books to screen, or that works in one language should only ever remain in that one language. Translation increases accessibility so that more people can enjoy and engage with a text.

Of course, however, I do recognize that accessibility is also a concern for particularly loose translations. For those unable to read, a movie or an English dub of an anime may be the only way they can enjoy a story—and if there are drastic changes, is that really fair?

It's not a question I can definitively answer. But personally: though it's not Kill la Kill related, I eventually want to finish writing my report about Anime NYC's English dub premiere for the 24th Detective Conan film, The Scarlet Bullet, which released last month. And the tl;dr of my thoughts really boils down to how disheartened I was by the movie's script. Unlike the series's English dub from FUNimation, which changed characters' names (and occasionally dramatically altered plots and dialogue), Bang Zoom! Entertainment's dub is very accurate—to the point that I felt it was to its detriment. It sounded like the actors were simply reading subtitles, not speaking like actual humans; I scribbled down several lines during the showing with the thought, "No one would ever talk like that." While I certainly have my concerns with how many creative liberties FUNimation took, I desperately missed it watching the new dub. The script felt so stiff and lifeless.

So, another question: is it unethical to make changes to the source material to better fit the translated medium?

It's again a question I can't definitively answer. But as I've said about Kill la Kill...

. . . the dub script and actors are taking some liberties with the material—while still keeping it in-character, in my opinion—and coming up with stuff that maintains the energy and feel of the original lines but is still new and different. That’s what I like in a dub; it’s faithful, but it isn’t afraid to mix it up a bit.

And Detective Conan:

Loosey-goosey dubs that take lots of creative liberties with the material are my favorites. I think they’re so much fun and add so much flavor. Not to get too "subs versus dubs" here, but as I see it, a dub is an adaptation, much like how an anime can be an adaptation of a manga, and I like it when adaptations put their own spin on the work and breathe a new life into it.

I'd personally much rather a translation be lively and creative and different than try so hard to be as accurate as possible that it loses so much soul.

But that's just my take!

[detshin]

Hai! Hope you're doing great!! 🌹

Since you're ranking stuff, how about ranking Shinchi's appearances in Detco? Which will be...

...Great Detective of the West, The Desperate Revival, The Murderer is Shinchi Kudo, Holmes' Revelation and the Kyoto School Trip case!!

Hope you reply!! X3

Hiii! 🌸🌸🌸 I hope you're doing good! Thank you so much for your ask! I'm always happy to receive shinichi asks as you know hahaha

This one is difficult because I do appreciate each and every single one of them. But here:

1. Desperate revival (NO QUESTION. HANDS DOWN THE BEST ARC IN THE WHOLE MANGA. NOTHING COMES EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE)

2. Murderer: Shinichi kudo (I'm talking manga. The anime adaptation was a lil lacking BUT GOSH. I remember being SHOCKED when I first read this. It was intense. I loved every second of it. And Shinichi's appearance was stellar. He was very chaotic and feral acting as the shiragami. And when he took off the wig and kicked the gun out of fake shinichi's hands I was on the floor)

3. The Great detective of the West (a classic! We need this one up there! It's the first time we get to see him after tropical land and he also meets the one to later become his best buddy forever)

4. Kyoto Arc (Love it! Don't get me wrong! But I was mostly just invested in his dynamic with everyone rather than the whole picture, you know? I was watching for Shinichi reasons only, the case was a little eeehhh.... 🤷)

5. Holmes' Revelation (Again! Love it. Buuuut. I mostly only cared about his confession and nothing else tbh hahahaha)

Loved this one! Keep' em coming!

[yumedoca]

If there is something that UY's Remake is doing alright is making people interested in UY again so they may end eventually checking the manga or, even better, Pierrot/Deen's adaption. The og anime truly was a miracle that probably will never happen again.

Also, what fo you think of the next Detective Conan movie so far? I was hoping we would get something like Lupin III's last movie.

Hai there, hope you're doing great!!

UY and Detco in one ask? That's new.

I think that the remake does a great job at introducing people to the series, heck that might be the best thing about it. I remember previously reading on reddit somewhere that the number of people who watched the og anime went waaaay up on MAL after the remake was announced, so even if you didn't like the remake, you have to admit that it was a significant boost to the fandom. Heck, the first PV is the whole reason I'm even here today.

If this video hadn't been recommended to me on YouTube, I would have probably never even got into what is now my most favorite series ever. I still sometimes watch this PV simply for the nostalgia, haha.. 😅

Regarding the old adaptation, I am someone who prefers the manga over anything else, but I still have to admit that there are some stuff the original anime did fantastic job with and it's style is very unique, something the remake has only been to replicate a few times.

About the Detco movie, I'm not sure whether you are talking about the one that's about to come out or the one after that but if its for the former, I'm pretty curious to what they would do. I don't think I would care as much if it uses the typical detco tropes and cliches but with the shots of Kaito losing his poker face, Nakamori getting shot and the new bit of canon reveal (80% sure that it's about Toichi being alive) and Aoko, it's safe to say that I'm looking forward to it! And if it's for the latter, then I'm not really sure, as long as it is interesting and enough to get me hooked, that will do!

[rumasaca]

monquixote replied to your post: monquixote replied to your post: monquixote...

okay i didn’t know it was cut short, because i’m watching it like a plebian, unaware of everything. so, your last words are actually motivating me, albeit putting a little to-be-fangirl-angst because of the cuts. XD

monquixote replied to your post: monquixote replied to your post: monquixote...

oh also don’t get me started on the debate of canonicity. almost any detco post debating whether something is canon or not, gets a subtle rise out of me. as if it ever mattered to the writers or creators.

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR GUNDAM ADVENTURES /o/

and i think i might have talked about this before on this blog, but canonicity is a concept that was mostly created by fandom anyways—in the case of the zeta movies, tomino declared them noncanonical because they write zz out of existence, but sunrise also declares all animated works to be part of the canon and everything else not, which creates problems with adaptations or stuff like that (like what sayla pilots in the one year war, etc).

writers just write what they want, y’know?  i understand why people make up their own timelines of canon, but i don’t really see the point of arguing “aoyama said _____!” when the words of creators aren’t set in stone, and i especially don’t see the point of arguing it with other people.  aoyama does what he wants.  you should too.

[marshmallowgoop]

NO ONE WAS GONNA TELL ME RAN WAS CALLED RACHEL IN THE ENGLISH DUB?? WHO DOES THAT?? WHO CAME UP WITH THIS NAME-

Sorry ^^;

Mike Toole’s “The One Truth, And Nothing But the One Truth: An Oral History of Case Closed” goes into it more in depth, but the short of it is that no one wants to take responsibility for the name changes. I don't like them either (and I initially refused to watch the FUNimation dub purely because of them), but I can live with them. It still bothers the heck out of me to read the dub names (and even worse than the dub names, "Anita Hailey" for Ai Haibara—the dub's "Vi Graythorn" is far more tolerable to me) in Viz's official English translation of the manga. Since the FUNimation dub is long dead, I really wish they'd let consistency slide and just revert back to the original names.

I do think the Ran -> Rachel change is pretty tame, though, in comparison to some other alterations. I mean, "Shinichi" became "Jimmy." And minor and incidental characters can have some truly... wild choices.

"Samuel Sebastian" is Shiro Suzuki, "Selma Sebastian" is Tomoko Suzuki, "Inspector Fuller" is Ginzo Nakamori, "Captain Biggers" is Shintaro Chaki, "Quentin Mifune" is Takuya Mifune, and "Angie Sebastian" is Ayako Suzuki. FUNimation also mixed up a couple of these names—"Walton" is actually supposed to be "Tod Appenheimer," who is Yuzo Tomizawa, and "Dirk Copeland" is supposed to be "Isaac Hannigan," who is Joji Hatamoto.

Oh, old English anime dubs....

[marshmallowgoop]

duuuude finding a fellow conan dub appreciator in the year 2022 🙏 the english dub is criminally underrated imo-- it was clearly localized with love and the VAs gave a lot of unique personality to their roles. (Viktorin + Jewell do a killer job as Conan and the use of the Shinichi voice for the internal monologues is so. good.) (also I finally have the info I need to determine if my SAVE copies are bootlegs like i've always suspected so thanks!)

I've found that there are actually quite a few FUNimation dub appreciators still around!

But yes!!! Totally agree. FuNi's English dub is genuinely my favorite way to watch DetCo, and it's so nice to see it get recognition for what it did well. I mean no disrespect to the new Bang Zoom! dub; my most popular post on this site is celebrating a Bang Zoom! dub, after all (unfortunately not captioned, though I did put together a sub/dub breakdown here). It's exciting that Conan is getting official English-dubbed releases after years of nothing, and there are some real skilled, experienced folks in the cast and staff.

And admittedly, I've only seen Bang Zoom!'s rendition of Episode One: The Great Detective Turned Small despite having every DetCo Blu-ray that Discotek's released sitting on the shelf in front of me right now, but I can't help but feel that in trying to correct the inaccuracies of the FuNi dub, they've lost a lot of the charm. Conan thinking in Shinichi's voice isn't faithful to the original Japanese performances, true, but it's a perfectly fair way of adapting the manga and a choice that resonates so much more with me. Why would you think in a voice that you don't consider your own? Conan thinking in Conan's voice strikes me as contradictory to the character, in all honesty. It was such a disappointment to me that the Bang Zoom! dub didn't continue this practice.

The Bang Zoom! script itself often comes off to me as stilted, too; one of the biggest strengths of FUNimation's dub, in my opinion, is how natural it could sound. But part of that is due to the loosey-goosiness of its translation. It takes a lot of creative liberties—definitely too many at times!—but for the most part, I think it's absolutely excellent at making the dialogue really work in English. The Bang Zoom! production sells itself as a more accurate Detective Conan, and I sincerely do respect that, and I love that it uses the original names, but I also feel that in striving so much for accuracy, it loses the naturalness that FuNi's dub absolutely shone in.

Of course, a quick glance tells me that other Bang Zoom! Conan projects have different ADR directors and script writers, so maybe the films still wrapped in plastic on my shelf have a different feel to them than Episode One. But gosh, while I initially watched Detective Conan in Japanese with subtitles because I was turned off by the name changes of the FuNi dub, actually experiencing it all these years later told me that you can still have a fantastic dub, even if it's not 100% faithful.

Sorry to ramble! I'm super passionate about dubs and subtitles and that sort of thing. Happy that my S.A.V.E. bootleg post was helpful! Still can't believe that Case Closed of all things got so bootlegged, though I must say: for anyone interested in collecting the old FuNi dub on disc, I can't recommend the original art box releases enough. Sure, they're not as nice and compact as the seasonal sets, but you get more extras (dub bloopers!) and the occasional English dub subtitles and video options. I really regret not getting them initially!

[marshmallowgoop]

All Detective Conan Episodes on Bilibili with English Subtitles

As announced by Raylight11 on this Reddit thread (many thanks!), Bilibili has now uploaded all episodes of Detective Conan/Case Closed for streaming, which can be viewed at this link. English subtitles are currently available for every episode, and while there are no Bahasa Indonesia subtitles for Episodes 131-293 (or 141-315 with the international numbering) at this moment, they are in the works, and each episode should soon have both English and Bahasa Indonesia subtitle options.

The streams are region locked; I'm aware of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore having access. But especially for English-speaking Detective Conan fans, I find this news extremely exciting. To my knowledge, this is the very first time that hundreds of episodes have been officially released with English translations.

FUNimation dubbed and subtitled the series up until Episode 123, and while Southern California's United Television Broadcasting (UTB) aired episodes well beyond that point with English subtitles only (allegedly releasing up to Episode 421, according to Wikipedia), Crunchyroll's later simulcast of the anime started with Episode 754, and Netflix only briefly hosted 748-799 with English subtitles. So, until now, there was literally no official way to watch Episodes 422 to 747 in English.

Bilibili's uploads do, however, come with a few caveats. For one, the remastered, high-definition versions of Episodes 1-123, available on Crunchyroll in many countries, are not included. Further, the English subtitles for those episodes match FUNimation's (which are also used on Crunchyroll), but this means that segments that FUNimation did not translate, such as the after-credits stingers, are often (maybe always, up to 123?) not subtitled in English on Bilibili (bottom) (though they are on Crunchyroll (top)):

Conan: Next episode Conan's rival appears.

The entire epilogue sequence for Episode 118, omitted from FUNimation's release, is also subtitleless on Bilibili.

After Episode 123, and presumably until Episode 421, the English translations on Bilibili match those of UTB, which make different localization choices than FUNimation and Crunchyroll's simulcast. For example, the Detective Boys are called the "Youth Detective Squad," and characters who exclusively refer to each other by surnames are instead often referring to each other by given names in the English subtitles:

Ai: You're really something, Shinichi.

This decision actually creates an unfortunate plot problem in Episodes 329-330, where one of the conflicts is Ayumi's struggle to call Ai Haibara by her given name rather than her surname, as Ayumi realizes that everyone seems to call her "Haibara." Yet, UTB's translation had Ayumi (and others) saying "Ai" even in their very first interactions:

Ayumi: Come with us too, Ai, quick!

Genta: You're fantastic, Ai.

But interestingly, there might actually be some effort to change these usages on Bilibili. The OCR'd UTB script I have for Episode 313 is slightly different at the end, for instance; while the rest of the dialogue remains unchanged, subtitles for Mitsuhiko read "Ai" on my older UTB script (top) and "Haibara" on Bilibili (bottom):

Mitsuhiko: Ai, let's go up the steps!

Mitsuhiko: Haibara, let's go up the steps! Ai: Huh?

Which, it's probably also worth noting at this point: I normally clean up errors in the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) process before posting screenshots here, but for this, I wanted to properly illustrate what I was working with prior to Bilibili's uploads. The English softsub files I used with my Japanese Conan DVDs could be utterly incomprehensible at times, and it's amazing that I can now find clear English translations for moments—and even entire episodes!—that used to be a total mess:

Ayaka: LO LL Le aru, vin, ov dainiuiiiila 5 tiauguniet. Ayaka: To tell the truth, I'm...

Dr. Agasa: of weste :n novels: you see I Mm hooked eon this internet series. Dr. Agasa: I'm hooked on this internet series of western novels, you see.

But I won't lie. The translations used by UTB and Bilibili can certainly be wonky. Phrasing can be awkward, the attempts to localize wordplay can fall flat, and there's even a line from the end of Episode 311 that I'm not comfortable repeating here. One of my previously posted "messy subs" moments is also, admittedly, still weird even on Bilibili:

Shinichi: See, it’s caught on the railing O 10Sses airs a wie ng. Shinichi: See, it's caught on the railing of those stairs that white thing.

Plus, Bilibili can lack English subtitles for on-screen text, and while their translations for episodes that Crunchyroll simulcast seem to match CR's, the detailed formatting is gone:

And, disregarding translations, Bilibili uses the international episode numbering, but sometimes, their thumbnails match the corresponding Japanese episode instead, which can be confusing.

All of these concerns are just quibbles to me, though. I am so over the moon by this development because, again, this is the very first time that hundreds of episodes are available to watch, officially, in English. The 124-753 Crunchyroll gap is filled here.

It's beyond exciting to me, and I really hope that other sites and countries can soon have access to these English translations, too. They're finally out there.

[CORRECTION: The streaming service Viu added Detective Conan episodes with these same English subtitles last year. I'm aware of Indonesia having access to Episodes 476-958 (or 516-1015 with the international numbering). Thus, Bilibili's upload is not actually the first time that Episodes 422-747 have been officially available with English translations, but it might be the first time that Episodes 422-475 have been, and Bilibili does seem to be the only official stream hosting every episode with English subtitles at the moment. So, while the Bilibili update is perhaps not quite as exciting as I initially thought, it's still quite exciting, and both of these developments (as well as the addition of remastered episodes to Crunchyroll and Netflix in many countries) are recent, happening within the past couple of years. This gives me hope that Detective Conan will continue to become more widely available—or, at least, it certainly doesn't seem as impossible as it used to!]

[marshmallowgoop]

Thinking about English translations of Detective Conan/Case Closed because of Bilibili's recent upload of every episode with English subtitles.

I contemplate the nature of translating a lot. It's part of my job, in a way—while I don't translate between different languages per se, as a non-verbatim transcriptionist, I do (or am supposed to, in any case) translate messy spoken English into clear, concise written English. But yes, if my rambling posts (like this!) are any indication, I struggle greatly with brevity and tend to lean on a more verbatim style because my typing speed is fast enough to let me get away with it.

So, I want to be clear that I understand that translating is hard. It's subjective and an ethical quandary I face every day at work. If I chunk out a speaker's words too much, am I significantly changing the message? That's one question that lingers in the back of my mind when I've got a Bluetooth keyboard on my lap. I can only imagine that translating between two languages as different as Japanese and English comes with even more complications—even more questions than I would even know to ask.

But, gosh. Some DetCo English translations can really vary, and I wonder how much that impacts my understanding of the characters and story just as much as I wonder which translations I should put the most stock in.

For example—and this has been bothering me for a while now, actually—there's kind of a meme from Episode 162, which details Shinichi's first real murder case on an airplane. About midway through the episode, one of the culprits starts smack-talking Shinichi, something that irritates Ran. In the memetic screenshot, using subtitles from what I assume is a fansub production, Ran says to her inexperienced detective friend, "Shinichi, should I beat him up for you?"

Yet, the official English subtitles, now available on Bilibili, say, "Shinichi, why don't you say something?" Similarly, the fansubs I used when I watched the episode read, "Aren't you gonna stand up to him?"

Not nearly so memetic.

But it's not that I think the meme'd-up line is bad. I think it fits Ran's character. If FUNimation dubbed this episode (as I so wish they did), I would have adored if this was the dubbed line. Loosey-goosey dubs that take lots of creative liberties with the material are my favorites. I think they're so much fun and add so much flavor. Not to get too "subs versus dubs" here, but as I see it, a dub is an adaptation, much like how an anime can be an adaptation of a manga, and I like it when adaptations put their own spin on the work and breathe a new life into it.

But subtitles... I guess I see them differently. Maybe unfairly so! I'm willing to admit that I'm being hypocritical here. But while subtitles are also an adaptation of sorts, I still expect them to be more literal than a dub. There are no new vocal performances with subtitles, and for a scripted television show, it's not like my job, where the expectation is that things are getting chunked out, shortened, and made as clear as possible. With subtitles translating another language, I expect to get dialogue presented in a way that mimics the original as closely as it can, in whatever form that means. (Not necessarily exact word choice!)

And judging from the other translations of this 162 bit, I don't think the memetic version does so. You could infer that Ran's so miffed at Shinichi not standing up for himself that she wants to do it her dang self, but I'm not sure if that's what's really relayed by the actual Japanese dialogue.

But—and, spoilers, as this is perhaps the ultimate point of this whole thing—I hardly understand Japanese. The only way for me to not be receiving someone else's adaptation of this moment is for me to be fluent in the language.

As a person very much not fluent in the language, however, who now has official English subtitles for every last DetCo episode available to her, I'm struggling with how best to continue along my watchthrough. At the point I'm at in the series, I've put the messiest OCR'd (Optical Character Recognition) subtitle files behind me, and the translations that are now on Bilibili have not been my favorites to use with my Japanese Conan DVDs.

To look at an example that I was talking about... uh, the other week? I have no sense of time anymore. There were three different translations that I had for "Conan and Heiji's Deduction Magic," Episodes 406-408, and I kind of hopped between them when I originally watched. When posting about the case, I utilized screenshots from my favorite version—and that wasn't the official version that I did have a subtitle file for and that's now on Bilibili. It was one of two fansub versions, featured in the middle below (with the official subs on top):

Conan (official subs): Look, I don't think it's about her just being frivolous or lighthearted. It's more than her just being frivolous and lighthearted with another guy, don't you think? Conan (fansub): Does it make more sense if you add "with other guys" to "her being so friendly and smiling" perhaps? Conan (fansub): Aren't you just feeling jealous and afraid as A man, that the start dating?

I do like elements of the official version, but it's phrased a little oddly. While I can parse out what I think it might have been going for—"Look, I don't think it's about her just being frivolous or lighthearted. It's more that she's being frivolous and lighthearted with another guy, don't you think?"—with the second example, I get the idea immediately. In that way, it's more successful to me as an English translation.

The third example seems to be entirely unreliable. From what the other subtitles are offering me, the whole point is that Conan deliberately does not spell out to Heiji that he's jealous; he wants Heiji to figure it out on his own. To go against that is not faithful to the character and also impacts the plot. If Heiji had been directly accused of jealousy, I'm sure he would have vehemently denied it. Yet, it never once crosses his mind that he's jealous, leading him to an entirely incorrect conclusion that comprises the epilogue of Episode 408.

So, as much as I appreciate the hard work that fans do—and they have truly done some amazing subtitling that's impressed me time and time again—I also wonder how accurate some of the translations can be. That's of course always a concern with any translation, done by anyone, and I've been flipping through different English translations of DetCo practically since I started my whole endeavor to watch every episode. But now it's easier to check the official translations with Bilibili's mass upload, and as I'm continuing along with the series, I keep going back and forth between using my DVDs and just streaming.

And my indecisive, conflicted self seriously doesn't know how to best watch the show now. I generally prefer the formatting of my softsub files over what's on Bililbili, and I also like how they'll translate openings and endings (sometimes with really rad, fantastic karaoke!), which Bilibili doesn't do. Not to mention, I have all these DVDs, and I may as well use them for more than just GIFing, right?

But Bilibili has these cute little segments that I don't know a name for? Sponsor screens without the sponsors? Like, after the credits and epilogue but before the "Next Conan's Hint." Those parts where a bit from the ending song will play over a small animation. My DVDs don't have this footage, but I think they're quite charming and like seeing them:

And for OP 19, "Kumo ni Notte," specifically, Conan would also always say something different in the beginning that related to the episode in question, but practically none of my softsub files translate this. Bilibili always seems to; more than that, with where I'm at now, Bilibili always translates next-episode previews and post-credit jokey-jokes, too, while my softsubs might not, and because Bilibili isn't using the Japanese DVD footage like I have been, next-episode previews are for the actual next episode all the time!

(Or at least most of the time. When looking over Episode 128 on Bilibili, I found that the next-episode preview was for Episode 130? Which I thought must have been because they used Japanese DVD footage, since the Japanese DVDs place episodes out of order occasionally so as to not split up multi-part cases. But that's not actually how the DVD with Episode 128 was organized; the next-episode preview would have been for Episode 132 if Bilibili was in fact using Japanese DVD footage there. So, I don't know what happened with that. But otherwise, from what I've looked at, it always seems to be the actual next episode with the preview on Bilibili.)

Of course, what's probably most important is the actual content of the series. And with just a few episodes, I'm puzzling over what's most faithful to the original Japanese script.

Consider the absolutely ludicrous (but not to say not entertaining) filler that is Episode 471. Despite the absurdity of the scenario, Kogoro has some surprising moments of emotional maturity here (that, yes, are basically undone in the end. It is filler, after all). Using fansubs, I found myself particularly attached to a line where Kogoro admits to Ran that he's been a bad father:

Kogoro: It's my fault. I'm sorry I was a bad father.

Yet, in the official translation on Bilibili, there is no such admission. Kogoro instead only takes direct responsibility for the current situation:

Kogoro: I'm sorry. I got you messed up in this because of me.

Which is more accurate? I don't know enough to say with any certainty. But perhaps like the 162 example, the fansubs here are making an inference. Only a bad father would unwittingly bring his daughter on a death trap.

I think that's pretty... unfair, though. Kogoro wanted to spend a day relaxing with his family. It's not his fault that his rental car just so happened to have a bomb strapped to it. My original interpretation of the fansubs was that, right before Kogoro genuinely believes he's going to die, he wants to apologize for a lifetime of mistreating Ran. It felt powerful to me—a surprisingly sincere, poignant moment from an over-the-top filler.

And I... don't really get that from the official translation. At all. Probably because I'm not supposed to, no matter how much I prefer it.

But, okay. This is a silly filler. What about something actually more plot related? In Episode 472 (which is adorable, by the way, and really brightened my mood), Conan recounts a childhood adventure he embarked on as Shinichi to the Detective Boys and Ms. Kobayashi. At one point in the telling, everyone laughs at baby Shinichi's misreading of some kanji, and fansubs gave me this for Conan's internal dialogue about the mockery:

Conan (internally): I was really young then. It's not like you could have then. Hey...

Because I have little idea about what kanji first graders should know (or what the Detective Boys would know), I thought there was a joke here, like a, "Hey, wait," maybe reminiscent of how Conan bitterly thinks to himself that he's not a kid when Ran bars him from drinking the baigar/paikal/baijiu at the end of Episode 49, only for him to quickly realize that, even in his own body, he's still not of legal drinking age.

Similarly, here, Conan realizes that the actual children in his detective group are the exact same age that he was in the story he's recounting, and they're laughing because they can actually read that kanji when baby Shinichi couldn't. At least, that was what I thought.

And maybe it's on me for misinterpreting! I can't fault the fansubbers for my reading more into the text than is actually there. But the official subtitles are a lot clearer about what I presume is the actual meaning—that is, the Detective Boys are being hypocritical and wouldn't be able to read the kanji, either:

Conan (internally): Give me a break. You can't read it either, can you? You don't have to laugh that hard. Hey!

So, my understanding of the characters is impacted by the subtitles in this case. Which is the more "accurate" translation? I wouldn't know!

tl;dr, I'm really at a loss. I see pros and cons to both viewing methods, and I'm conflicted about how I'm gonna keep watching. Translating is hard! I have no idea which DetCo English translations to focus on, and I hope I haven't been dismissive of anyone's efforts here. Fansubbing especially strikes me as something that really isn't given the appreciation it deserves, so I do want to stress that I can't emphasize enough how grateful I am to have had so many fansubs that've allowed me to enjoy my Conan DVDs much more than if I'd just watched them raw. It'd feel bad to reject them now, to brush past them and all their work for Bilibili's uploads when I had originally fully intended on using them. I often prefer their phrasing, and, I mean, I also do some verbatim video captioning as part of my work, and I wish I had the skills to make subtitled videos look as slick and detailed as some of these fansubbers have done. They're really incredible.

I'll probably just keep flipping through translations because this is what I do, I guess, but I do have a question for someone who understands Japanese better than me. There's this moment in Episode 189, part of "The Desperate Revival," where Heiji visits Conan in the hospital after he'd been shot. It doesn't take long for Conan to question Heiji's real reason for being there, and I swear I remember once reading a fansub that had Conan saying something along the lines of, "Why did you come all the way here, purposely with the wrong kind of flowers [so as to give us time to talk in private]?" But the official subtitles don't spell that out:

Conan: What is so important that you had to come all the way here and brought flowers?

And I feel like a lot of this post is just me reading way more into things than there really is and giving myself problems for it, but in this case, I'll be honest: I wouldn't pick up on Conan's understanding that Heiji brought the wrong flowers on purpose if it wasn't spelled out to me.

So, I'm curious: is the spelling out actually there in Japanese? Or were the fansubbers just helping me along? I'd check Viz's translation of the manga for another take, but I don't have Volume 26 right now....

[marshmallowgoop]

But speaking of Magnum (Yamamura), in his first appearance (Episode 96), Yukiko had introduced Conan as her second son:

Yukiko: Yep! My second son, Conan! I had him in Los Angeles!

And while we don't see Magnum himself directly told as much, he does seem to believe that Conan is Yukiko's child; in his second appearance (Episodes 199-200), he mentions that first case and seems to want to refer to Conan as Yukiko's son, 息子 (musuko)...

Eri: Oh, you've met Yukiko and this child already? Magnum: Yes, it looks like her husband came after, too. But they pulled me all around the case, and it was quite exhausting. Especially this Musu...

But Conan quickly interrupts Magnum before he can say anything more on the matter:

Conan: Mu... Mu... That tubby Ojii-san was the culprit right?

It really doesn't translate well; in the subtitles used for the UTB (United Television Broadcasting) airing of the show in Southern California, Magnum's presumed reference to Conan's parentage is omitted entirely. He says, "Especially this kid," and Conan bursts in with, "Oh... th-that grouchy man was guilty, wasn't he!!" You still get the sense that Conan doesn't want Magnum to say too much in front of Eri, but I feel like some significant meaning is lost. I wonder how Viz's English translation of the manga handles this scene.

But... does this even ever come up again? Magnum straight-up thinks that Conan is Shinichi's little brother, and as far as I know, that's never mentioned after this point?

I'm waiting for Magnum's knowledge to wind up being super critically important.

[marshmallowgoop]

Detective Conan Japanese Video and Script for Episodes 77-78 (Left) versus Case Closed English Video and Script for Episodes 77-78 (Right)

[Image descriptions: Two scenes are compared. In the first, in Japanese, Heiji says, “I said ‘Kuro’! As in, ‘thanks for your hard work!’” As he says this, the words “kuro” and “gokurou,” written in Japanese (くろう and ご苦労), appear beside him. In English, this is localized as, “Oh, ho! No! I didn’t say ‘Kudo!’ I said, ‘Judo!’ Because I started taking lessons!” As he says this, the words “Kudo” and “Judo” appear beside him. In the second scene, in Japanese, Heiji says, “No, I said ‘Kudoi (annoying)!’” As he says this, the word “kudoi,” written in Japanese (くどい), appears beside him. This is localized in English as, “What? I didn’t call Conan ‘Kudo’! I said ‘Kiddo’! Kid-do!” As he says this, the word “kiddo” appears beside him. End image descriptions.]

I mentioned a bit ago that I inadvertently purchased bootleg copies of FUNimation’s S.A.V.E. Case Closed DVDs and have been working on replacing the fakes with genuine releases.

And here’s something interesting: several of FUNimation’s original art box sets for the series include both Japanese and English video options for the actual episodes, not just the title cards, logos, and ending credits. This means that, for select episodes, you can watch with name boxes and other Japanese text translated/localized into English:

[Image descriptions: A comparison between the Japanese video for Episode 1 of Detective Conan and the English video for Episode 1 of Case Closed. In the Japanese version, Ran’s introduction is accompanied with a blue box that includes her name in Japanese, as well as the fact that she’s a second-year student at Teitan High. In English, the box is a darker color and only includes her localized name, Rachel. End image descriptions.]

No alternate video options are carried over into the full-season sets released later, which I think is a huge shame. If you’re watching the English dub, which heavily localizes various instances of wordplay across the show, there are many times when the Japanese video makes absolutely no sense with the English script. Episodes 14, 21, 116-117, and 123 especially come to mind, which is also a huge shame because none of these cases were among those select few that did have an alternate video option in the earlier releases.

Also, as a subtitler who is passionate about subtitles, I love that the discs with alternate video options come with separate subtitles for the English dub script, too. This is much better accessibility for any translated show, but it’s particularly great in Case Closed, which can differ significantly from Detective Conan.

Plus, this makes it so much easier to share some of my favorite dub lines. Sad that I’ll never have a genuine screenshot of the “pizza bagel” bit, though.

In any case, I learned all this information from MagicBox, at Magic’s Detective Agency, which is an absolutely fantastic resource for all things Case Closed. There are script comparisons, detailed DVD descriptions, and a wonderfully hilarious account of Case Closed 101, along with other valuable commentary about Conan’s English-language scene. You can read more about the original FUNimation volumes here, and the seasonal sets are described here.

I really wish I had known about the site sooner! Though my seasonal set was a phony, it is a close copy of the real things, and just as the real things, with those, I only had access to the (mostly) Japanese video, without any other options. I wrongly assumed that all the DVDs were like this and made my own edit of the scenes at the top of this post—I desperately wanted to see how it would have looked with properly matching visuals. I’m thrilled to know that pros did a fabulous job, but I’m also sad that I was so unaware. If only I did my research before, I could have been saved a painstaking edit that doesn’t even hold a candle to the real deal!

However, one thing I will say about the particular volume that includes these episodes—Case 5, Volume 4: “The Phantom Thief Kid”—is that, unlike other volumes with alternate video options, there are two entirely different video tracks here as opposed to two separate angles. This means that if you select the English dub, you can only watch with the edited English video, and in the same way, if you select the Japanese audio, you can only watch with the Japanese video. And maybe that’s reasonable; after all, I have been talking about how nonsensical the English dub can be when paired with the original Japanese footage.

But it’s a bit of a bummer for me because my preferred, most favorite way to watch this show is with the English dub and English subtitles translating the original Japanese script. This way, I get to enjoy the charming dub without missing anything adapted out of it. With the two separate video tracks, I can’t mix and match like I can in other volumes. You only get English dub subtitles for the English dub and English video, and you only get the Japanese script subtitles for the Japanese audio and Japanese video.

I’m sure I have some .srt or .ass files I could use somewhere in my 5GB-and-7,000-files “DC Subs” folder, but I’m still disappointed that it isn’t all integrated like previous volumes. I realize that’s a really personal complaint, though.

Anyway, tl;dr, the original volumes were pretty great, and I wish that the seasonal releases included more of their content. It was wonderful to see such a nice edit of the wordplay here.

[marshmallowgoop]

Detective Conan Episode 59: Original Japanese Script (Top) versus English Dub Script (Bottom)

[Image descriptions: A comparison of two lines. In the original Japanese script, Genta says, “Got a problem with that, Conan?!” Conan thinks to himself, “Never heard of such a detective group....” In the English dub, Genta asks, “You got any better ideas, Conan?” Conan thinks to himself, “Yeah, actually I do, but they wouldn’t be appropriate.” End image descriptions.]

I really do love that some of the older FUNimation releases of Case Closed include separate subtitle tracks for the English dub, for a lot of reasons. It’s way better accessibility, I’m thrilled to have the ability to screenshot it, and I wish all of their releases continued this practice.

And also, it makes it much easier for me to ask about this baffling dub-only line. What the heck does this mean Jimmy.