#i used the sub translation instead of the dub translation

[cyhaino]

[cats-artbag]

SwapOut/Webcomic/Twitch PSA!

Hi everyone 👋🏻 Zk here >< or Cats, for older followers

So I've been getting back into doing SwapOut again, but I would like to appeal to everyone who reads and loves the comic. Much love to all of you who's still sticking around 🙏🏻💙 But something has also always been bothering me throughout this journey.

As many of us know, we artists do these comics for free (especially fan comics), starting them out of love and taking a LOT of time and energy out of our lives to continue making them.

And it's amazing how many of you come from translations or comic dubs on Youtube, which are also very well-done and take a lot of effort to make, much love to them too. There is a difference, however.

Monetization.

And I'm not asking for pity! I'm appealing for understanding.

Because some comic dubbers on Youtube are able to earn ad revenue from the videos they upload. From the beginning, we artists have given them the permission to dub our works. But we don't receive anything from it, nor do we usually charge them for using our art (against our better judgement).

We let them use our comic pages in their monetized videos for free. And occasionally these videos receive thousands and millions of views, which I imagine gives a decent amount of ad revenue, while the artists themselves don't usually earn anything from their own artwork, nor do we ever want to put it behind a paywall of any kind. (we like reading free comics too so don't worry x|)

... But doing full-colored comic pages for free eventually gets hard to sustain without any income from it, even more so when we need to give our time and energy to other jobs to earn money for a living instead. We legitimately keep going on our comics purely out of love. Truly, we would LOVE to do our own art for a living. There's things like Patreon but it's only feasible if we're also able to produce bonus content or show BTS, and only people willing to spend money for them can help us, and not readers who aren't able to.

And we understand that not everyone can afford to support us monetarily. And that's okay!

But if you love these comics and want to really help us to keep going, there ARE ways you can easily support us for free!

For example, affiliates on Twitch (like myself) are able to earn ad revenue very early on (they must have at least 50 followers, quite a requirement, but still easier to obtain than Youtube's 1000 subscribers).

(my Youtube, btw. not much rn but drop a subscribe?)

But simply put, if the vast majority of readers from the yt numbers visit and stay for ads on the artists' Twitch streams (remember to have adblocker disabled for the site, if any), they'll be making an actual, physical contribution to the artist themselves, at no cost whatsoever. We earn up to 55% from any ads that run on our stream, so the more viewers, the better!

(this is my twitch on average 8 viewers, with a 3 hour stream. again, the more the better!)

(ofc you can also buy subs to watch ad-free and supports me directly, but i'm typing all this to share the free ways people can support their fave creators ✨)

And even if that doesn't work out, I'd be happy enough to see most of you there 🙏🏻💙 I've been treating my streams as work, so I'm striving not to break the streak.

So drop a follow on my Twitch, and catch the streams when you can! They're great if you need company or background noise, and also great for co-working~

Currently streaming WEEKLY, Mondays, Wednesdays (SwapOut) and Saturdays, 10.30AM EST

(art by @cupcakepaints)

>> twitch.tv/zkcats <<

Anyway thanks for listening to my Ted talk, please share this around for others as well >< 🙏🏻 Artists, make this a reblog chain or something! Promo your stuff!

And apologies for the essay, I wasn't expecting to type this much sdghsgh this itself is not an ad for Twitch or whatev, I'm just a little frustrated with needing to juggle all this.

I was also considering hosting SwapOut somewhere that could get ad revenue, but I wasn't sure where until I realized I can probably earn that from my Tapas now (i think?? sdfhgh up to 70% ad revenue there but i haven't seen any yet) So maybe I'll post there a day earlier than here or something? We'll see. Go subscribe there! Check it out! Reread it! Help ME help YOU!

... Much appreciated ><

[tobiasdrake]

Whoa ho ho, who wants to watch me eat crow?

That's right, it turns out that I've been wrong about Digimon for years. For fucking years. Holy shit.

So, for years, I've been under the impression that the language used for violence in the dub is toned down. Whenever I've watched the show in subs, they never shied away from using the 'k' word. Kill the children. Kill the small one. Kill them all.

The dub, of course, doesn't talk like this. It dances around that particular word, with terminology like "Destroy the DigiDestined" or "Defeat the children". Even when characters are clearly swinging to kill, it shies away from saying "kill". Because this is being localized as an American cartoon show for children.

But since I started posting the direct side-by-side dialogue comparisons in my episode breakdowns, I've been trying not to go entirely off the subtitles and instead listen to the words being used.

And I just noticed something. Every time they talk about killing the kids, they use the word taosu. That's. Uh. That's. Not. The word.

To my present-day understanding, the Japanese word for killing, korosu, is considered vulgar and inappropriate for children's television. So kids' cartoons will use the more dialed down taosu, which means to defeat or conquer or bring ruin.

That's right. "Destroy the DigiDestined!" has actually been an accurate translation of "Erabareshi kodomo-tachi taosu!" this whole time. It's the subtltlers, picking up on context, choosing to translate taosu as "kill".

My mind is blown right now.

[tallulah477]

Push Me, Push Back

Kinktober Day 10: Knife Kink

Pairing: Spider x Fem!Na’vi!Reader

Warnings: AgedUp!Spider, Semi-dark!Spider, Fingering, Bullying, Physical fighting/grappling, Knife kink/knife play, Blood play, Dub-con, Dirty talk, Dom Spider, Sub Reader, Size Difference, Mentions of Spider wanting to physically hurt the reader (briefly)

Word Count: 3K

A/N: It's technically not midnight here yet, so I'm still on time!

Summary: He doesn’t know why you target him - why you make fun of him, or push him around, or threaten him. But he’s tired of your shit, and he’s going to prove to you why him being shorter than you doesn’t mean he can’t still take you down. 

Translations:

Tawtute - Human, sky person

Tewgn - Loincloth

Vrrtep - Demon

Kurkung - Asshole

Skxawgn - Moron, idiot

Teylu - Beetle larva

Meyp - Weak

He doesn’t know why you target him.

He’s always been good to The People, always tries to prove his worth and value to the clan despite being born of the sky people. He’s never been anything other than kind, helpful, and respectful. 

The clan has come to accept him over the years. His psycho father is gone, all the other humans sent back once again to their dying planet with the firm expectation that this time they stay there. Even Neytiri who has every reason to hate his guts has mostly come around. He’s proven his loyalty to the Sully family a million times over, proven his bond with her children is true and never wavering - and when the time came to choose between the man who has the memories of his birth father and his found family, he let Quaritch drown and saved Jake instead. 

Neytiri had started to look at him a little differently after that, and he couldn’t be more grateful that he finally has the family that he’s always wanted.

Life is good now. He feels seen, heard, and loved. He finally has a place in the world and a position within the clan that garners respect from all.

All except you.

He doesn’t know what he did to make you hate him. It wasn’t like this before he got caught and the Sully’s fled to Awa’atlu. He remembers you from back then. You were barely on his radar, not direct friends with any of the Sully children so there weren’t lots of opportunities for hang outs or conversations. Plus, at that time, The People were still a bit hesitant to let their children play with a human. Despite them knowing that not all humans were bad, the stigma was still there, made worse by the knowledge of exactly who birthed him. 

But you were still around. He remembers the cute toothy smiles you used to send him from where you stood glued to your mother’s side. The small three fingered waves he would get as your mother dragged you off and out of sight. He remembers when Kiri’s lesson with Mo’at ran later than intended and you popped out of nowhere and offered to help him mix the fruit dye he uses to paint on his stripes. You were sweet, even if a little shy.

But when he and the Sully’s came back to the forest after the end of the war, you were different. Once innocent amber eyes had turned cold and angry. The goofy smiles had turned into scowls and frowns at the mere sight of him. Your words, once friendly and helpful, were now scathing jabs meant to hurt and anger. 

And you were relentless with it. 

“Move, vrrtep,” You snap, bodily throwing your shoulder into Spider’s, cutting in front of him in the line to get food, and nearly tossing him to the ground with the force. 

He stumbles, only saved from face planting by his agile nature. The food he was holding is not as lucky though and lands on the ground a couple of feet away from him. He whirls around, glaring daggers at your smirking face and trying to ignore how your friends laugh behind you. 

“What the fu—”

“The actual Na’vi get food first,” You say, grabbing a fig leaf and filling it with teylu, but your eyes don’t leave his, watching with glee as anger floods the dark orbs. “Then the little pets can have the scraps,”

He scoffs, fists balled up at his sides. “I am one of The People. I have every right to be here,”

You step up to him, towering over him and trying to use your natural height as an intimidation tactic. To his credit, it doesn’t work, and he holds your stare without an ounce of fear. He just barely is able to hold himself back from throwing a punch at your stupidly pretty face when you sneer, voice low and teasing. “You have the right to be locked in a cage. You can stay in my hut. I’ll keep you fed and watered, like my own little personal pet,”

He doesn’t dignify you with an actual response, can’t even think of one through his anger. Instead, he hisses, blunt teeth on full display as his face scrunches up, and the sound that rips out of his throat is as animalistic as it can be for a human. 

He turns, stomping away from you and heading for the safety of the Sully’s, fuming at the blatant disrespect. A pet - what a fucking joke. 

Your eyes follow his retreating form the entire time, glued to the way his tense back and shoulder muscles shift underneath his skin with each step, but you rip them away when you catch yourself staring - annoyed . . . and feeling a little too warm. 

The science guys have been working on an alternative for the oxygen masks for years. The original masks are clunky and, even though they get the job done, it’s difficult to use for everyday activities like eating or just general smelling of all the fantastic things Pandora has to offer. And, frankly, sneezing into the mask is gross, so when the science guys finally finished developing the alternative tech to the masks, Spider jumped on that shit fast. 

The new breathing apparatus sits snugly around the back of his skull, curving around his ear and filtering out the bad stuff while allowing oxygen to pump in through the nose tubes. It’s not perfect, and the nose tubes tickle the inside of his nose sometimes when he thinks about it too much, but it’s already so much better than the other mask, and he finally feels a little closer to feeling like an actual Na’vi. 

It feels so freeing, not to have to take off his mask and hurriedly shove food in his mouth every time he wants to eat something. Now, he can savor it, feel the juice of the fruit explode on his tongue and drip down his lips and chin and not have to worry about wiping his face clean to replace his mask. He can return Kiri’s ikran’s affectionate nuzzle, feel the smooth leathery skin against his cheek and its playful puff of breath against his face. He can wear the Omatikaya face paint proudly during celebrations or special hunts, the sacred markings unobstructed on his mask free face.

“Oh, look! Little tawtute got a new toy,” You say loudly when you see it, and Spider’s happy mood quickly turns sour. “Trying to look a little less vrrtep and a little more Na’vi?”

“Leave me alone, y/n,”

He thought he was going to get away with it. By some miracle, he hadn’t run into you or your dumb gaggle of followers all day and when he left the Sully’s hut after the last meal and headed into the forest to start back to the lab, he thought he was home free and free of you. At least for the day. Apparently, the Great Mother is still trying to test his willpower.

“It’s not working,” You continue, drawing closer to him. “You still look like a tawtute. A small, tiny, little meyp tawtute,”

Spider’s eyebrows scrunch in annoyance, a harsh breath punching out of him as he speaks through gritted teeth. “I’m not weak,”

You laugh, a terrible sound that shoots adrenaline through his veins as you begin to circle him. It’s just you right now, your friends are nowhere to be seen. He’s immediately on his guard, hand shifting closer to the knife sitting at his hip. 

In a group, he’d have no chance - the Na’vi height and strength giving them every advantage over his human body. But by yourself, he has some tricks up his sleeve. You’re not a warrior, or even a hunter. You’re a crafter with a specialty for weaving beautiful and sturdy baskets. Spider, on the other hand, he’s a trained warrior. He knows how to fight and how to use his shorter frame to his advantage. 

You’ve gotten physical with him before, pushing and shoving him more times than he can count. But those have all been in public places, with other people’s eyes watching. There’s a dangerous glint in your eyes now, large amber eyes locked onto Spider as you circle behind him. 

“You smell like one too,” You continue, leaning forward to steal a deep breath against his neck. Goosebumps explode along his skin at the touch of your flat nose against his skin. “Smell like a skxawgn who doesn’t know his place. Like a kurkung tawtute who’s trying to forget what a traitor he is - to both the Na’vi and his own kind.”

Frustration builds inside him at your words and he pushes his shoulder back roughly, catching you in the chest and knocking you back from your spot at his neck.

“I have never betrayed the Na’vi,” He growls. 

“Aw, poor baby. You just don’t really fit in anywhere do you?” Your fingers can’t help but reach out and brush against his arm, fingers gliding up and down the smooth, tanned skin. The light touch, so much like how a lover might touch him, a soft and gentle caress of his skin, only pisses him off more. The muscles are taut under your teasing fingertips. “Not with the Na’vi, not with the humans. Not with your father--”

In an instant, he snaps. Without another thought, he’s knocking your hand away from his arm and twisting your wrist so hard it makes you gasp in pain. He throws his body to the side, the sudden and unexpected movement of his weight is enough to catch you off guard, and you stumble into him only for him to kick the back of your knees and send you flying to the ground. 

You land on your stomach, face narrowly avoiding smacking into the ground, and cry out when Spider pins you down, body pressing you harder against the moss as he grips your hair tightly and pulls your head back.

You open your mouth to yell at him, scream all kinds of curses at him, but the knife he places at your neck makes your words catch in your throat.

“Say something else,” He snarls. The blade pressing in tighter against your jugular. One wrong move on your part and you’re done. “Come on! You wanna be a tough girl? Wanna be a bitch? Say something else!”

But you can’t, the words won’t come out. Suddenly, you can’t focus anymore. He’s pressed tightly against you, his legs bracketing your waist, and you can feel the outline of his cock against your lower back. Your hands ball against the ground, curling around the moss and ripping it out of the ground as he pulls your head back further. 

“What happened?” He taunts, scraping the side of the blade up your neck and over your chin, nudging the tip of it against your bottom lip. “Meyp tawtute got your tongue?”

“Get off me,” You say. You aim for a firm voice, something serious and intimidating, but it comes out breathy, voice shaking as the tip of his knife digs into your lip. Blood wells up from the small puncture, pooling into a dot and cascading down your chin.

The knife moves from your lip back to your throat. 

“You’re going to leave me alone,” Spider tells you, and his hand feels huge where it’s tangled in your hair. “Understand? I don’t want to ever hear any bullshit come out of your mouth again.”

The twinge of pain at your scalp sends electricity down to your core, and you whimper at the flood that’s suddenly filling your tewgn. The hard muscled body on top of yours is driving you crazy. The deep growl of his voice caresses your eardrums and sends shivers down your spine as the words wrap around your brain like a thick, warm blanket. 

The knife at your neck takes away all your power, any control you might have had over the (frustratingly gorgeous) human is gone in a second. It makes him powerful, gives him power over you, over your body, and you want to cry at the unfairness of it all. Cry about the fact that you even let him pin you in the first place. Cry about how you like it, how a human can even make you feel this way. Cry about how wet you are because of him, soaking through your tewgn already.

If Spider were a Na’vi, he would be able to smell you. His human senses aren’t that enhanced, but his eyes can still see, and his body can still feel, and he recognizes Na’vi nonverbal actions just like a normal Na’vi would - so it’s hard to ignore the way your tail slides along his spine and curves around his waist. 

The possessive move has Spider’s eyebrows raising to his hairline. He rises off you, grabbing your shoulder and rolls you over, eyes wide when they land on the large wet spot on the front of your tewgn. 

“Woah,” He whispers. “Interesting.”

You’re shaking, eyes struggling to stay on him as your thighs rub together, needing friction, needing something. You gasp when he lands on you again, legs bracketing your hips and the flat of the knife pressing against your cheek.

“What’s all this, hm?” Spider breathes, running the cool blade across your cheek. His eyes have gone dark, the brown of his irises almost completely swallowed up by the blacks of his pupils. “Is someone getting a little too excited?”

You whimper and you want nothing more than to scream at him, to push him off and make him stop his teasing, it’s what you’ve always told yourself you wanted. But your hands come up to rest on the tops of his thighs and your heart pounds at his satisfied grin.

“It all makes sense now,” He muses. He slides the knife down your throat again, over your collarbone and in between your breasts. “Why you target me. Someone has a crush on the tawtute.”

“No,” You try to protest, but a shallow slice on your chest makes you gasp. 

“Shut up,” He grunts. “Don’t lie,”

You both watch as the blood wells up from the slice, and, with a quick wicked glance up at you, Spider’s head lowers to your chest. His tongue is like fire as he drags it between the valley of your breasts, warm and wet as he licks up the blood from your skin.

“Huh, f-fuck,” You whine, and feel a new surge of arousal at the slight red stains left on his perfect white teeth.

“You think about me, don’t you?” He says, sliding the flat of the knife across the swell of your breast. He pushes your chest covering up and teases the tip against your nipple, the azure bud immediately hardening at the feeling. “You do. The thought of getting turned on by a tawtute makes you so angry, doesn’t it? But I bet when you go home at night, and you’re all alone on your mat, your fingers find their way to your cute little clit...”

He trails off, knife slowly making its way down your belly until it reaches the top of your tewgn. The ripping sound as the knife cuts through the thin material shoots through your ears, a damning echo as Spider’s eyes feast on the evidence of your embarrassment. 

You’re drenched, tewgn sticking to your pussy as he pulls it away from your body. His eyes fall to your swollen clit, thumb reaching down to brush over the reddened nub and smirking at the sound of your desperate cry. 

“Yeah,” He mutters, the blade pressing against your hip bone as his fingers play with your pussy. Two fingers slide into your leaking cunt while his thumb continues to circle your aching clit. “You definitely think about my fingers. Am I right? Do they feel as good inside you as you imagined?”

The moans and whines that fall from your lips are so pathetic sounding, desperate whines and whimpers as you try to move your hips harder into his thrusting fingers, but having to stop every time you feel the bite of the knife against your hip. The sounds coming from your pussy are so embarrassing, and you want so badly to cover your face in shame as Spider smiles at the wet sounds, but your hands have taken up a death grip on the moss below you and you can’t seem to remember how to unclench your fists.

“Feels so good, doesn’t it, baby?” He asks, fingers thrusting faster, his thumb pressing harder against your clit. “I make you so uncomfortable, don’t I? So needy for me. Make your pussy feel all wet and gooey just from the thought of me.”

You can feel your orgasm approaching, the tightness in your belly undeniable and, fuck, he won’t fucking stop talking.

“You’re gonna stop the bullshit games, okay?” He says, curling his fingers against your walls, fingertips rubbing relentlessly against that special spot inside you that makes you see stars. Your breath catches in your throat at the onslaught of pleasure and when you don’t respond, Spider is over you again, blade back at your throat as he hisses, “Okay?”

“Okay,” You whimper. You’re a second away from cumming, running along the edge towards an oblivion that you just know is going to destroy you, and his dark eyes are gleaming as they stare directly into yours.

“Good girl,” He grunts. “Just because you’re pretty, doesn’t mean you have to be a bitch,”

His words trigger your orgasm, and you cum, crying out as wave after wave of pleasure washes over you. You arch against him as he rips his fingers out of you, fingers working roughly against your clit, and the movement just barely causes you to knick against the knife. The slight jolt of pain only enhances your pleasure and tears prick at the edges of your eyes as the waves finally crest. 

Spider is looking down on you, knife removed from your throat and placed safely beside him on the ground as he holds himself over you, but his eyes hold an untamed heat inside them that makes your stomach flip in excitement. 

“You think I’m pretty?”

**Special thanks to @pandoraslxna for the prompt!

Taglist: @eywaite (saw your comment, but still can't respond - thanks for the tip tho! Idk what's going on)

[winxwiki]

Aisha vows for revenge in Italian, english subs

Ever wanted to know what the hell was actually going on with Nabu's death? There! Here's the original! Now stop making stuff up based on whatever dub you got!

Translations notes below

You may have noticed I used "Sorcerers" instead of "Wizards". That's because the original name for the Wizards of the Black Circle... was Sorcerers of the Black Circle. And Morgana uses the word "wizard" to refer to Nabu, as "sorcerer" in this case has a derogatory context. "Stregone" is also a stronger sounding word in italian than "mago". Try to say it outloud! Nabu is also described as a "wizard" in english, so it's implied he's a different type from the Black Circle ones.

I think...?

[jimmy-dipthong]

Why are anime translations so bad?

Disclaimer: I have never done any professional translation, and I don’t watch dubbed/subbed anime very often. But recently I watched a few episodes of subbed Demon Slayer at a friend’s place, and I noticed how bad some of the translations were. It reminded me of my childhood, watching subbed Ghibli movies and thinking “that english sounds weird”. As a kid I thought it was an unavoidable part of translation, but now that I can speak Japanese, I realise that we can do so much better with translations!

This post is my attempt to identify what a “bad” translation is, and hazard some guesses at what mistakes translators make that lead to these bad translations.

Examples are from Ranking of Kings, episodes 10 and 11. Screenshots taken from Crunchyroll.

What do I mean by bad?

Reason 1: They don’t sound like natural English.

If a character in an english cartoon said some of the stuff that characters in anime say in translations, it would sound very unnatural. Anime-translation english is unnatural and awkward sounding.

ダイダ様、久しぶりに街に出てみますか？ Price Daida, it’s been a while, so why don’t we go down into town?

This example sounds awkward. What’s with the random “so” in the middle of the sentence? No one in English media talks like that. If you just remove the “so” and replace it with a full stop, we get a much more natural sounding sentence.

Price Daida, it’s been a while. Why don’t we go down into town?

Or even something like this:

Price Daida, why don’t we go into town? It’s been a while since you’ve been down there.

Reason 2: They don’t fit the character.

This screenshot shows the character Kage speaking (the black blob). He has a character trait of being kind of immature and almost never using polite Japanese, even to royalty, which is very disrespectful. The original translation makes him sound so formal! Kage is supposed to sound like a 15 year old who tries way too hard to be rough and intimidating. Can you imagine someone like that saying “You may say those things”?

いやいやいや、なんかいい感じなこと言ってるけど、違うからね！ No, no, no! You may say those feel-good things, but reality is different!

It doesn’t preserve his characterisation at all. Way too formal and not juvenile enough! A better translation would be:

No, no, no! Nice motivational speech, but they’re just words!

The devil’s advocate & descriptivism

Now, I’ll preface this by saying I am a hardcore descriptivist. I’m not saying that these translations are wrong, or that the resulting English is incorrect English. What I’m saying is that they do not achieve the goals of a good translation, those goals being preserving what is being said and how it’s being said.

It could be argued that by now, anime translations have become a new dialect of English. Anime fans have come to expect the awkward-sounding phrasing, and instead might see natural English as unexpected. This is a fine rebuttal of my first point (it sounds awkward) but not of my second point (speech-pattern-based characterisation is often lost). Even then, anime translations are not exclusively for established anime fans. First time viewers may be put off by the unnatural language choices and strange turns of phrase. “Anime is cringe” they might say, and they wouldn’t be wrong. A good translation should be understandable to the entire target audience, and first time or casual viewers certainly make up a large portion of that target audience.

Why do the translations end up so bad?

They err on the side of direct translation over meaning-based translation

Often, it seems like the main nouns and verbs in the sentence get translated verbatim, and the rest of the translation is forced to bend around those. In addition, they do not consider how a similar sentiment might be phrased in english. Even if it’s a japanese way of saying something, they preserve the individual words instead of changing the whole sentence. Let’s look at the Kage example from before:

いやいやいや、なんかいい感じなこと言ってるけど、違うからね！ No, no, no! You may say those feel-good things, but reality is different!

I’ve coloured the text so you can see which pieces got translated separately. In this example, basically every word is being translated separately. Now let’s look at my example:

いやいやいや、なんかいい感じなこと言ってるけど、違うからね！ No, no, no! Nice motivational speech, but they’re just words!

I’m translating the entire middle verb phrase as one atomic piece of meaning. It’s not individually important that, for example, the specific word 言ってる was used, so it’s not important that I translate it directly to the word “say”. What is important is that Kage is saying that Despa is saying some nice stuff, but it doesn’t change the facts. I have a feeling that the more you can group words together and translate them as a whole phrase, the more natural the translation ends up sounding (and the more characterisation you can preserve).

They use weird words, due to dictionary translation

Let’s look at another example:

兄上は弱者だと、どこか甘えていないか？ Aren’t they sort of spoiling Brother, just because he’s a weakling?

In this example, the word 弱者 is translated as “weakling”. “Weakling” is a pretty rare word to hear outside of anime. That’s probably the best direct translation if we’re looking at the word 弱者 out of context. However, words always appear in context. Both times the word 弱者 is used to refer to a person in this episode, it’s used to refer to disabled people (Bojji, who is deaf, and a citizen, who is both blind and deaf). The citizen is actually not physically weak, in fact he looks pretty chunky and strong, so 弱者 is not being used to refer to his physical strength, only his disability. The English word “weakling” strongly suggests physical weakness, so I don’t feel like it’s appropriate here. Instead, I feel like a more appropriate translation would be:

Do you think Brother gets special treatment, just because he’s so pathetic?

Daida is immature and heartless at this point in his character. He has contempt for both Bojji and the citizen, and sees them as weak, but he also feels pity for them. I think the word “pathetic” sums up his emotions for them much better than the word “weakling”, as well as not coming loaded with the incorrect “physical weakness” connotation.

As a side note, you may have noticed I translated the first part of the sentence differently too. That’s another example of how (in my opinion) grouping words together to translate a phrase as a whole results in a much more natural phrasing.

They try to preserve the original grammar

An important skill to have when translating is knowing which aspects of the phrase are important to preserve in translation, and which parts are not important. Word order and grammar are almost never important enough to preserve.

ダイダ様こそ、選ばれた人間。 Prince Daida, you are one who is chosen.

In this example, the past tense verb 「選ばれた/chosen」modifying the noun 「人間/person」 seems to have been determined to be important to preserve by the translator, which leads to the awkward phrasing “one who is chosen”. In reality, the minutia of the original grammar is not important to preserve - we can translate 選ばれた人間 as a set phrase rather than translating the words individually:

Prince Daida, you are one of the chosen few.

Again, we can see that the translation is improved by grouping words together and translating the phrase as a piece of atomic meaning!

Anime translation is a naturally restrictive medium

For dubs, the characters’ mouth movements need to match up. This really narrows down the possibilities of translation options. It means that sub-optimal word choices may be used, and the rhythm of speech may be forced into an odd speed in places.

For subs, although the syllables and mouth movements don’t need to match up as perfectly as they do in dubs, the subtitles still end up needing to be applied over the same moments of speech. However, often, if the given situation in the anime was to be completely reframed in English, maybe no one would have said anything at that moment. There are times when someone would say something in Japanese that you would expect someone to not say anything in english.

デスパー：弟子の悪口は許しますけど、私の悪口は許しませんよ！！ カゲ：逆でしょ！！！！ Despa: You can insult my apprentice, but I won’t let you insult me! Kage: You’ve got it backwards!

In Japanese comedy, the role of ツッコミ (best translation is “the straight man”) is ubiquitous and plays the part of a laugh track - telling audiences when to laugh. In this case, Kage is playing the part of ツッコミ by pointing out that what Despa has said is the opposite of what you’d expect him to say. In this example, I feel like if this was an English cartoon, Kage wouldn’t have said anything. English speaking comedies generally expect/trust audiences to get the jokes without them being explicitly pointed out. I feel like this shows how attempting to fit subtitles to every spoken phrase can lead to slightly unnatural turns of phrase, since the translator is attempting to fit some speech into a place where there wouldn’t have been any in the first place. In my opinion, the best “translation” for the above would have been to cut the 1 second clip where Kage butts in with his line altogether.

———

Again, I should reiterate that I’m not a translator. I’m very keen to hear counter-arguments if you disagree with what I’ve said! Translations have got me really interested recently and I’m hungry for more opinions.

[ultraviolet-cello]

Gooooood morning Trigun fandom, I'm up bright and early, ready to sink my teeth into today's analysis/detailed watchthrough episode - 11. To A New World.

I can't believe we're almost done with @tristampparty. These 12 days have been a blast and I'm very glad that I got to chat abt them!! I've been in a bout of artblock recently too, so I'm glad that I can just ramble instead!

Spoilers for Trigun Stampede and Trigun Maximum, and CWs for. okay this one is a Lot, but discussion of violation of bodily autonomy, sexual assault and trauma, pregnancy, transphobia, harm coming to children, Millions Knives in general, Vash's passive suicidal tendencies. If I think of any more I'll pop them up here but this episode is a heavy one!

If you wanna skip those first few CWs (Totally understandable <3), you can skip the paragraphs labelled with a [CW] at the front.

[CW] Okay so we're gonna tail off the end of Episode 10 for a second, but uh. Knives in this scene is using extremely Loaded Language to outright tell Vash that there is something wrong with him that needs to be fixed.

Just to be clear I do think Vash is very trans-coded (intentionally or not), and that very strongly influences how I interpret this scene - I myself am a trans man as well.

Cool, moving on! That's all really for the end of ep 10, I just needed to point out that Knives is using language that is commonly used to justify corrective sexual assault; which is pretty much what my reading of this scene is analogous to.

what in the fresh hell i got jumpscared by dub again. returning to subs hold on a moment. Like i've been checking dub occasionally to match up some dialogue and make sure I'm not being misled by Subtitle Jank but I'm one of those guys who can't listen to anything without subtitles lmao

But i also think i do get the funniest possible translation of this line - actually wait no i hate the double meaning (with Vash's body being used to kickstart the pregnancy imagery). was that intentional. who did this.

Anyway Meryl kicking Wolfwood is really funny but also like. Yeah. justified. She's having a no good awful time but like. She's so willing to believe in Vash, to chase after him even into Extremely Dangerous conditions (There's those hints of Trimax Meryl again....) and Wolfwood is being an ass here. (An understandable ass. But an ass nonetheless). Which is to say YEAHHH MERYL GET HIS ASS!!!

Knives' gay little like. bodysuit here. He and Vash have the same build but their respective clothes make them stand out very differently. Also that Knives' stuff seems to have more muscle definition (HYDRATE. You shouldn't have that Knives you need water :pensive:) which could be building towards his more intimidating appearance.

Also I'd be a fool to not show everyone my initial reaction to this

I've talked a little bit about how Vash uses his gun as a tonfa (thwacky baton) most of the time in melee combat, and I think that's a great way to show him utilizing something Knives gave him to Kill as a nonlethal weapon - in this, however, he doesn't have it and his normally very fluid very good form martial arts is flailing and panicked. Vash is pretty good at keeping his cool in most combat situations, and is a very skilled fighter. Seeing him lose that cool and just start struggling when Knives tries to grab him is :(

Once again the metal/organic dichotomy is coming into play - the creation of inorganic but the destruction that comes from the organic. Typically plant (as in flora) powers in media lend themselves to being creation powers, life, and healing. But Vash here has that plant (flora) theme but those are very much a force for destruction.

Also Knives with the angelic white, and Vash with the black.

I hate Conrad So Much (he's such a good character). Like we Know to some extent that dependent plants are self-aware enough to feel pain, to hold onto memories, to hatred, to love. They don't have consciousness the same way humans or Independents do, but they feel, they live, they understand what Vash tells them. Maybe it is a shallow form of themselves. But I think something a lot of people fail to realize is that (some, not all, because they are individuals even throughout a hivemind) plants appear to enjoy their purpose.

Once again the memory that is shared with Knives in Trimax of a woman and her child thanking the plant for her service and she smiles? After being fused, that plant held onto that memory. I've been given no reason to believe that plants in Tristamp are different, so Conrad is just,,, ignoring the subtleties of plants and taking away their agency to choose for themselves. Doubly so for Knives, who can communicate efficiently with them.

A very quick blink and you'll miss it detail is that Vash says "It was our fault humans crashed here!". The shifting blame and guilt between the two is something that is fighting the narrative allll the time, but Vash attributing to both of them as an appeal to Knives is interesting to relay how he feels.

I also don't think Vash is right, though, when he says the only reason humans abuse plants is because they crashed. Tesla was before, Chronica in Trimax has apparently seen independent fusions before (For what reason?). Like yeah to this extent it's a result of the big fall, but there'd still be problems without it. Nobody is right in this argument lmao

(except me. I'm always correct about everything ever)

[CW] Once again - violating Vash's consent and autonomy because he does not agree with or differs from Knives. Corrective violation, in this case. It's also important that it's Meryl who calls this out - she has to really really struggle for her autonomy to be important. She's small, carry-able, inexperienced, doesn't have any special powers or genetic modification. She's carrying a tiny gun from a man who can never back her up anymore. In fact, nobody is backing her up! She's out here alone! But she's sticking up for Vash. She cares about him,,,, so much

SURPRISE ROBERTO ATTACK [sobs]

Meryl pulled the nail out of him and placed his hands gently over the wound, as one might do in a casket. A memorial of cigarettes and his flask. All this will be destroyed soon, but Meryl did give him a funeral to the best of her ability.

Knives using Roberto's image is cruel as hell. Not to Vash but to ME. He's already dead you can't do this to meeee. "How do you think they'll react when they learn you caused the big fall" He will never learn it!! he never got the chance!!!

So fun fact you can actually eat geraniums. It's just that if Rem had said yes Vash probably would have eaten it right there and then. I've made that mistake before (told one of my class that nasturtiums were edible and he just ate one. right from the plant)

So; the Tesla scene. Something I do want to point out is that Rem finds them almost immediately, and Knives doesn't immediately pass out - Is he still catatonic enough to miss Rem's speech, or did he hear it? Because the reason that Vash turned out like he did is because he was awake to go through that with Rem - Knives was unconscious the entire time and didn't get to start that trauma recovery.

It's also important to recognize that these memories could be unreliable, especially as Knives tampers with them later.

I do want to know which version of the Bible Knives was reading. Because depending on translation/version, you can get Very different ideas out of that.

Anyway Knives is kind of beginning his spiral in that memory - "Humanity never learns" kinda shit, which seems to take place after Tesla. Who knows how long. But baby Vash calls that out and goes "yeah lets have faith"! Baby Knives looks a tad shocked and then Present Knives just. Cuts off the memory. What was the ensuing conversation!!! Hello???

Like he's clearly Having Thoughts (The Horror), we just don't get to know what those were.

So remember when I said it was interesting that Vash said it was "our" fault that the ships crashed, sharing the blame?

Yeah that gave Knives some ammo that just. Broke him. Shifts it allllll to Vash. Update Vash's description to running on 18 guilt complexes, CPTSD, and bisexuality.

[CW] There's so many different forms of assault, metaphorical and. Not. That is happening in this scene from mind violation to Knives literally using Vash's (specifically Vash's) body as a vessel to impregnate other plants which. Hey did you know that pregnancy is a massive fear of a lot of trans men. So many transphobes reduce trans men to their capability to have children, as if that's all they're good for (even if it would kill them.), and that often leads to corrective rape in order to "remind them of biological reality". In this case, Vash is a plant, he's meant to create, and yet he doesn't. But he's still being used to create anyway.

Again, Meryl also directly calls out Vash's lack of consent and gets shot down by Conrad. The whole scene is just. Hgnrhgnhrhnrnrn. It's So,,, everything to me, because it's a really good scene and shows you how far gone Knives is in Tristamp.

There are panels in Trimax that are,,, the imagery is there, but it's very overt in Tristamp.

Also hey yeah. Why is Conrad still alive?? Did he have access to cold sleep? or it's probably the robotics but did he not think of enhancing humans that way? It might just be a temporary solution, I guess, given that he is. Actively coughing up blood.

Alright! I have finished this part of the analysis that I always Feel Strongly about lmao - I have fun doing it but that's such an emotionally heavy episode.

[originalaccountname]

Fun BSD French translation details and choices - DEAD APPLE (by someone who does not understand Japanese but thinks the differences with the English translation/subtitles are fun)

The Dead Apple movie hasn't received the French dub treatment, so this time I'm going with subtitles only. The differences should be less jarring, since they don't need to worry about lip flaps this time. Also it's longer for obvious reasons.

General notes:

Starting strong with calling the Dragon's Head Conflict "la lutte pour la tête" (the struggle for the head) and that it "decimated every [criminal] organization [in Yokohama]".

Chuuya calls Oda "le lampiste" (the lamplighter), which is also an expression to refer to someone as the lowest-ranking member of something.

Dazai called Corruption "la Corruption noire" (the black/dark Corruption).

"Was this someone that had captured your heart?" / "If she had been my beloved, I would have perished with her."

"Odasaku... you were right. Helping others is much more wonderful... but only as long as we're alive.

Shibusawa's tower's name was translated, it's called "la Forteresse des cadavres" (The Cadavers' Fortress).

Chuuya's nickname for Ango is "prof bigleux". "Bigleux" is a super informal way of referring to someone who can't see anything without their glasses. It also sounds super funny (ask google translate to say it for you)

Rashoumon is refered to with he/him pronouns

Shibusawa's fog is called "Le Soupir du dragon" (the Dragon's Breath/Sigh). 'Soupir' means 'sigh', but it's also a more poetic way of saying an exhale/a breath out.

Nya in Japanese, Meow in English, Miaou in French 🐱

Atsushi: "Boys need to get their claws out to survive!"

Chuuya's speech pattern is slightly different than others even in written form: we don't have a lot of written contractions in French, but something you can do to give the impression of a spoken/lazy vocabulary is the equivalent of "do not" vs "don't", and forgo the "ne" from "ne pas". Ex: Do not yell! -> Ne crie pas! VS Don't yell! -> Crie pas!

Chuuya called Ango "le lampiste" (the lamplighter) like he did for Oda while in the aircraft ("try to keep your shit" moment), so he's preemptively calling him a low-ranked guy with no power.

"I'm not gonna piss myself and run away either. You know when I'll be allowed to? Quite simply, not at any point." CHUUYA

Apparently the French subs decided Chuuya becomes gravitons during Corruption. Try to work this one out.

"You believed in me and use your Corruption? How touching." // "That was a rather violent way to wake up poor Snow White."

The way Agatha speaks, instead of warning them of having sent a special force to burn down Japan, she is telling them that in order to help them, she has sent special force their way. They'll be starting in 30 minutes, you're welcome :)

Dazai, Fyodor and Shibusawa all use the informal "you" with each other. Tsujimura uses the formal "you" with Chuuya. Ango uses the informal "you" with her.

Today's quotes:

VF: En ce qui me concerne, les autres ne sont que des sacs de viande dont je connais les rouages. (As far as I'm concerned, other people are but meat sacks to which I know the inner workings.) Eng: To me, people are nothing but machines of flesh, behaving in identifiable ways.

VF: Comment as-tu pu faire ça? Ce n'est pas du tout... agréable... (How could you? This isn't very... nice...) Eng: How could you? This feels great.

VF: Ce débile de Dazai est sans doute à l'intérieur de cette chose. Je dois lui coller une bonne droite pour me soulager. (That dimwit Dazai is undoubtedly inside that thing. I need to punch him good to calm myself.) Eng: That dimwit Dazai is inside there. No doubt about it. I need to give him a smack, or I'll never get over it.

[sumerianlanguage]

Silim! I was wondering what some of the basic verbs would be in Sumerian, e.g: 'to be', 'to have', 'to do', etc.

Hello! This is a more complicated answer than you may have expected. As with many languages, the most common & frequently-used verbs are also the most irregular - think of how irregular "be/is/are/were/been", "do/does/did/done", and "go/went/gone" are in English.

Of these core verbs, the simplest in Sumerian is tuku "to have, hold, possess, get", which only has two roots - tuku in the past and tukutuku in the present. Example: Ngae dub ibtukutukun "I have a tablet."

There is no perfect match for "to do" in Sumerian, but the verb aka "to act, take action" covers a lot of the same semantic space. It's used in a lot of phrasal verbs, like kurum aka "to inspect" (i.e. "to do an inspection"), or sagaz aka "to do a robbery, to commit a murder". It's basically regular, appearing as ak or aka in all tenses, but in certain participles appears as just k- (as in kede "for the purpose of taking action.") Example: Zae ana ibakan? "What are you doing? What action are you taking?"

The verb "to say, speak" is also both common and irregular in Sumerian, with three different roots: dug is the dictionary entry, but is only used in the past-tense singular; in the plural or present tense it's e, and in all non-finite forms (like participles) it's di. (Aka and dug are the only verbs in Sumerian with a dedicated participle root.) Example: Ngae iben "I'm saying it", Ngae dug "I said it", Dide "for saying".

The verb for "to go" takes this one step further, in having four separate roots, the only verb in Sumerian with this many. In singular past it's ngen, plural past is ere, singular present is du and plural present is sub. So: Ngenen "I went", Erenden "we went", Dun "I go", Subenden "we go".

And finally there's "to be", which barely operates as a verb at all. Instead, it acts like a set of suffixes at the end of a sentence - so -men "I am", -(a)m "it is", etc. It also works only in linking two nouns/pronouns, as in Ngae lugalmen "I am the king", Lugal is'habam "The king is a villain." In English we often use "to be" to connect a noun to an adjective, as in "The king is beautiful", but in Sumerian such a construction would use a dedicated verb like sag "(to be) beautiful". Lugal sage is literally, "The king beautifuls".

I hope that's helpful! If you'd like any more example sentences translated using one or more of these verbs, let me know.

[lilyginnyblackv2]

“Father” Based Words in Buddy Daddies

I figured a lot of Buddy Daddies fans might be interested in this video from Unseen Japan called “How the Japanese Words for Parents Lost Out to English.”

I also thought that this would be a great video to talk about how Kazuki, Rei, and other characters usage of words for “dad” and “father” in Buddy Daddies thus far (as of Episode 9, though, if there are any further interesting usages or things I feel could be added after the series ends, I will definitely include and update reblog on this!).

In Episode 3, when Rei asks Miri:

“What about your real father?” He uses the term 父上 (chichiue), which is far more formal than other terms that we see other characters use, such as Miss Anna. She refers to Kazuki and Rei either as お父さん (otousan) or パパ（達) (papa (tachi)), usually she uses Papa when talking about Kazuki or Rei directly to Miri:

(Miss Anna to Miri:  “Are you happy to have two papas?”)

While using otousan when directing her speech at Kazuki and/or Rei :

(”Two fathers, you say?” - She uses お父さん - otousan here, which gets translated to “father,” just like Rei’s use of chichiue did, because they are more polite and formal ways to say “dad.” But, we’ll talk a bit more about this later). 

We’ve never had Kazuki mention his mother and father separately, just in a more unit type of way (”parental abandonment” etc.). But, we see that he refers to the other mothers as ママ友 (mamatomo), which can be translated as “mom friends” or “other mothers/moms,” like in Episode 6:

(Kazuki: “Of course, the other mothers all say the same about their kids.” - Since he is talking more generally here, and not, for example, about his group of mom friends, it makes sense that the English translation went with “mothers,” instead of “moms”).

When talking about himself, he sometimes uses papa, specifically when talking to Miri about himself, like in this Episode 6 scene:

(The English subs use: “Anna-chan told me a little story,” while the Japanese itself has Kazuki saying “Papa heard something from Anna-chan” or something more so along those lines, that’s a bit unnatural sounding, and usually English speakers don’t refer to themselves as their parental role, unless it’s something like “As your father/mother/etc...”).

And, speaking of that phrase, in Episode 6 as well, when Kazuki states:

“As a father...” He uses chichiue. Like Rei did when talking about Miri’s father, which we’ll get to in a bit. I believe there is one time when Kazuki is referring to himself as well, and “dad” gets used, either in the sub or dub translation. I can’t remember the exact scene though. But,that fits with the point that, generally speaking, Kazuki is pretty informal with his speech. Like how he calls Kyutaro, Kyu-chan, as opposed to Rei, who calls him Kyutaro-san (more formal). Miri seems to be following after Kazuki in this way though.

This post is getting quite long as it is, so I’ll put the rest of this under a Read More:

Although, the teen Miri that Kazuki envisions, isn’t just informal in her speech, but also rude.

The subs have her calling Kazuki, “old fart,” which is an appropriate way to translate ジジイ (jijii), both a very informal and rude way to refer to one’s father.

Getting back to Kazuki though. He uses chichiue when talking about the idea of “father,” right. “As a father...,” but not for himself. Since chichiue is distant sounding. It’s colder and more formal (Draco Malfoy refers to his father as such in the Japanese version of the Harry Potter books, for example).

This then brings us back to Rei. He referred to Miri’s blood father as chichiue, and then he thinks:

“Father...” using chichiue and thinking of his own. 

When he calls out to his father, he uses 父さん (tousan), which gets translated to “Dad!” It’s a very common way for older children, teens, and adult children to call their fathers, so that makes sense. Most children speaking English, at least in the states, switch from “Daddy” to “Dad” when they’ve reached the age Rei is here (probably near his preteens). 

But Rei’s father replies back:

“Don’t call me, ‘Dad.’“ He uses 父 (chichi), which is more formal. Over on Hi Native, a Japanese individual did a break down on politeness levels for different father words:

Text: 

お父様 - otousama - formal polite

父 - chichi - formal

お父さん - otousan - polite

父さん - tousan - less polite

親父 - oyaji - casual

パパ - papa - casual

His father requests that Rei uses “Boss,” a term not attached to fatherhood at all, and it is the word Rei does end up using:

(Rei: “Forgive my long absence, Boss.”)

As we can see here in Episode 8, when he calls his father, “Boss.”

But, of course, when it comes to himself, Rei is a Papa. He calls himself Miri’s Papa, responds to Papa, and has used it for Kazuki as well.

Rei’s own experiences with his father, his ideas and concepts of fatherhood, and his own relationship with politeness levels all played additional roles in his reluctance to referred to as “Rei Papa/Papa Rei” at first. 

But, as you can see, Buddy Daddies has used a variety of different words for “father” over the course of the show, each with their own levels of politeness, tone, and warmth to them, and many of which are mentioned in the above video I embedded into this post. So definitely give that a watch if you haven’t yet! 

[hashtagloveloses]

i just rewatched all of trigun stampede in the spanish dub after first watching in japanese with subs and then in the english dub and here are some fun facts (i am a native english and spanish speaker but not japanese so please correct me if any of the subs are off):

instead of tongari, needle noggin, or blondie, wolfwood calls vash "pelos necios" which is like messy/silly/stupid hair (correct me if i'm wrong, that's not a slang my family uses so)

when wolfwood yells at vash about the orphanage and vash gives him the heart eyes, the japanese is translated to just "wolfwood," the english he says "wolfwood, i - ", and in spanish he says "pero wolfwood" (but wolfwood)

in japanese and spanish, when wolfwood is trying to escape the holding cells, he says he wants to get back to the ORPHANAGE. in english he says i will get back HOME

when vash turns to wolfwood inside the big worm and in english and japanese he says "i can see it in his eyes," in spanish he says "i can see it in his gaze/look" (puedo verlo en su mirada)

in vash's letter when as a teen he leaves his home ship, in english and the subs he said "this is my atonement" but in spanish he says "es mi penitencia" (it's my penance) which WHEW the CHRISTIAN IMAGERY

when wolfwood is hiding behind a wall during his fight with livio, in english he says "i'll take care of you livio, even if that means i have to kill you", in spanish he says basically "it's my fault livio, which is why i have to kill you myself"

in the english dub, luida says to teen vash that he could have a new job as a plant doctor or like a counselor, but in spanish she just says "could you take a look at the rest of the plants?"

[room-surprise]

Delicious in Dungeon Anime Season 1, Episode 2 Review

Spoilers for season 1, episode 2 below the cut! There may also be mild manga spoilers so proceed with caution.

This episode was great! I think it was a big improvement on the first. Honestly no real complaints... I do kind of wish both Marcille and Chilchuck could have had stand-alone episodes dedicated to their character development, to allow for a deeper focus, but I understand why they didn't do it, and the pacing was still excellent. I do still sometimes feel like the show is in fast-forward at times, because with 3 meals in one episode, it feels like the characters finish eating, and we jump cut to them saying that they're hungry again, without anything to help really impress upon viewers that time has passed. Makes it feel a bit like we're reading a collection of short 4-panel gag comics instead of a continuing story… which, early Dungeon Meshi DOES have that as part of it's format, but it changes with time, as we get into longer individual stories.

During the Basilisk/Doni and FIonil section, I really do miss some of the dry humor from the manga. ("Hurry, he's getting cold!" "Move him closer to the fire!") The hilarity of slowly preparing a meal while someone is dying of poison has unfortunately been lost, which makes Doni and Fionil much less memorable characters…. But it benefits the other 2 stories in the ep to have more time so I think it was the right choice to make. It also gives people something to go back and read the manga for, since it's a little different! If you're reading this and you're an anime only, consider reading the manga while you watch the anime! I promise it's worth it. I'm excited about next week because I think they'll devote the entire episode to Laios and the living armors, which is me and my spouse's favorite early DM storyline, and the part where we both said "Oh, I LOVE this manga..." and got really invested. It's 2 chapters in the manga so it could be an entire episode…. which also would make sense, if that's why they needed to crunch 3 chapters into episode 2. Just like the first episode, animation was fantastic, and as usual the weakest points are when characters are just walking or talking and not doing much. Everything more dynamic is just bouncy and adorable and full of life. Very rarely is anything animated in a dull or flat way. They're doing their best to use "move a drawing around" or "zoom on a drawing" for comic effect and I think it's working well so far. There's some great animal animation in this episode, the bat flying around and the basilisk chasing Marcille in particular. Translation was better this time around, no dumb modern or game references in the dub ("newbs" "as if" etc.) … But there are differences between the subtitles and the dub script that change how easy it is to understand what's happening. When Senshi tells Chilchuck to cut up the giant bat, the subtitles make it hard to understand what he's telling him to do, and the dub makes it a lot clearer. In the subs when Senshi calls Chilchuck a half-foot child, the subtitles say "I'm not a child" and the dub says "I hate it when people call me 'kid'"… The latter is more interesting for keeping the mystery going for things that happen later in the story. If the show continues like this, I think the English dub may be the more satisfying way to watch it (even though the Japanese performances are great), mostly because the subs are very literal and sometimes miss things that the English dub somehow manages to include. And for some reason Netflix isn't including translation of Japanese signs on-screen during the subtitles, but they DO provide them when you watch the English dub. A lot of Dungeon Meshi's humor is sometimes in those background signs so completely missing out on them sucks. Anyway those are my thoughts for this episode! See you next week Meshiheads.

[craniozito]

Tezuka Productions just started to post the 60s Astro Boy on YouTube for limited time buuuuuut I think is only available in Japan 🙄

Time for me to rant, sorry not sorry.

I find very odd how stingy they are with Astro Boy, and only with Astro Boy in general.

Is the only one that is a real pain to find subs and HQ episodes that is not in a weird site or you need good contacts inside of the fandom to get a link to watch it.

Any other Tezuka anime is really easy to find, or is on YouTube or on Internet Archive, even Black Jack has basically everything on YouTube and they don't give a flying fuck about it for some reason.

And also I can watch Black Jack on their japanese Youtube channel but not Astro Boy, because ??????

I just wish they were not stingy with old anime and we could watch it legally with options of dub and subs for who wants it.

I personally really dislike English dub things in general (not original audio just to be clear) I think is pretty bad and on Tezuka Productions English YouTube most of the time they only give you options of dub versions which is bad so unfortunately I go look for a sub it somewhere else or PT-BR dub when is dubbed of course.

And even if is dubbed on my language sometimes the dub is so old that is really hard to even understand what their are saying so I give up and I just go watch a sub version instead.

Like, is not difficult to hire someone to make proper subbtitles fr.

I think they removed that option of the community to add subtitles because we cannot have good things.

I just wish I knew fluent japanese because I would be like:

No one wants to translate this old ass anime I like?

Anyways, long story short: GIVE US LEGAL OPTIONS!

Again, sorry not sorry for the ranting, this just makes me mad.

[drstonetrivia]

🦇 Ever wondered why Asagiri Gen is sometimes compared to a bat?

Me too, so I did some research! :)

Firstly: the origin.

The usage of "bat" to describe Gen seems to mainly be in the first half of the series, and it's not a nickname given by only one person. Several people use it, including Gen himself.

Chronologically, the first instance was when Gen wandered back to the science shed alone after they'd completed the Sulfa drug, as he wasn't allowed inside the village. This happens in chapter 40/episode 15.

The Japanese word for bat is コウモリ (koumori).

However if you were watching either the English dub or reading the manga, this reference would have been completely gone! Instead, Gen refers to himself as an "opportunist", and the dub replaces "bat" with "rat".

The next instances were both during the katana fight against Hyoga, in chapter 48/episode 18. First, Kohaku calls him a bat after she assumes he'd gone and betrayed them.

(In Japanese, bat can also be spelt as 蝙蝠, and is pronounced the same way)

Again, the dub replaced "bat" with "rat", and the English manga translation uses opportunist instead.

The final instance I found was from Hyoga a short while later, when he gets betrayed by Gen, but for real this time. Both Kohaku's and Hyoga's usages are very negative and insulting, especially in the subs.

(For completeness again, I'm adding Hyoga's manga translation which is similar to his dubbed line, "filthy turncoat". As @DrStoneShots on Twitter said, Hyoga can be surprisingly eloquent lol)

So now the question is, why "bat bastard"? Why not "slithering snake" or "wriggly worm"? They've all got the same negative connotation of a crafty conman, right?

Let's start with the western view of the bat. Normally they're associated with Halloween, and thus remind us of things like darkness, death, witchcraft, and malevolence.

Native Americans consider them tricksters as well.

So far it sounds like it's suiting Gen's initial malicious mentalist persona quite well. I mean, he died, came back to life, uses poisonous flowers for his tricks and tricked Magma into thinking he'd die if he took so much as a single step.

…But then why call yourself a bat?

As it turns out, the symbolism associated with the bat in China and Japan is slightly different. Up until the 20th century, bats were popular in Japan thanks to influence from Chinese culture, where they are seen as a symbol of happiness, good fortune, a long life and good luck.

(Side note: I wonder if bats being associated with good luck, and therefore Gen by extension, is a narrative foil for Senku's extraordinarily bad luck?)

Now that we have both the bad and good of bats, why does the translation of bat->opportunist/turncloak arise when neither the western nor eastern interpretations mention anything about it?

Turns out, it's actually from one of Aesop's Fables, "The Bat, Birds, and The Beasts".

If you're not familiar with the story: the Birds and Beasts were fighting, and asked the Bat which side they were on, as they could both fly like the Birds and were furred like the Beasts. The Bat, uncertain, fought on both sides—choosing whichever was winning at the time.

The result was that afterwards, the Bat had no friends as they'd betrayed both sides several times, and ended up getting attacked by both the Birds and the Beasts, who now had a common enemy.

The alternative ending is that the Bat was not allowed to partake in the peace party.

Sound familiar? On several occasions, especially early on in the series, Gen felt like he had to keep a certain distance away from everyone, otherwise he'd get injured. He kept himself closed off and his true intentions hidden to stay safe. (Although he still got stabbed…)

The good news is that this particular bat's story ends happily, and with a whole kingdom's worth of friends. He learnt to open up and devote himself to a cause, even though it was risky to himself. His selfishness turned into selflessness when it truly mattered.

End of thread!

This was actually a request from @obviously6969 (on Twitter), who wanted me to find out more about Gen + bats! Now the only question is, can someone relate Gen to the Miracle Cave via bats… 🤔🦇

[tristamp-gunpede]

I wanna talk about триган (aka the russian dub/translation of trigun)

i haven't watched 98 in russian, but i did watch tristamp and have seen the fanart/fic in russian over the years. here's all the differences i can think of off the top of my head:

the BIG one!! there's no 'stampede' anywhere. which makes sense bc there's not really a great word for stampede in russian... бегство или движение? хз. the word they use instead is hurricane (ураган).

i've seen him called 'humanoid typhoon' (гуманоидный тайфун) but i think it must be more from the 98 anime or maybe manga? in tristamp dub they just called him 'person hurricane' or 'person typhoon' (человек-ураган/человек-тайфун) which i think sounds so much better tbh

at least for tristamp it seems you can tell who's watched sub/dub in vashwood fanfics based on vash's nickname from woowoo. cresty/combhead? (хохлатый) is from sub and shaggy (лохматый) is from dub as far as i can tell. idk abt 98 or manga. in fanart especially i often see something relating to hedgehog too (ёж/ёжик/тд)

not in tristamp but i need to get it off my chest: they did our hornfreak dirty. in the manga they apparently call him mad/crazy musician (безумного музыкант) which has NO FLAIR OR STYLE at all. the freak deserved better

this one isn't different i just love the name millions knives in russian (миллионс найвс). like i get that it's not a name that should be translated bc it's literally his name and not just him being millions of knives but still. i almost expected them to use the russian word for knives (как миллионы ножей). i dont know why. the russian-accent-knives is fun to say though so i love it (i kratkoe my beloved)

[miyamiwu]

Super, super late reply, but I was tagged by @variabels to list 5 anime/manga recs. Thanks for the tag! (I also love Durarara and Baccano ヾ(•ω•`)o)

I’m gonna list mainly Chinese media in this list, though, because that’s what I consume more. And ha! How brave, asking an ND person like me for recs. Prepare to be bombarded by my rambling!

Starting off with the media currently featured in my header (excluding Blue Lock coz most of my mutuals already know that)...

1. The Earth is Online (danmei* novel)

* Danmei - Chinese boys love stories

The plot basically: Everyone on Earth is pulled into a death game.

A good intro to the unlimited flow* genre. Each instance is thrilling and complex. The boys love aspect is not much, as it focuses on plot, but it’s definitely not subtle. The characters are also quite diverse. Most UF novels just focus on the Chinese characters and revolve around what happens in China, but this one actually features those from other countries. I also like how the protagonist isn’t treated as the entire world’s savior. Other people around the world are also doing their part.

Where to read: An official English release is coming out in 2024. Translations will be done by luckkoi, the fan translator. As such, they've taken down their translations online. There's an alternate translation by @leonsrightlations , but only a few chapters are out right now. There are several completed translations online, but they're all edited mtl (machine translation). If you don't mind that, you can go google it. I recommend the one by Rainbow Mushroom. Their translations require a password, though, and you can find that on their Discord server.

* unlimited flow - Chinese genre of web novels where the protagonist is pulled into different instances to complete challenges which, if failed, would result in punishment or even death. It’s basically the death game genre, but instead of just one game, there are multiple.

2. Legend of Hei movie + Legend of Luo Xiaohei series sequel (donghua*)

(I downloaded this video from YouTube years ago. I can no longer find it there, so I’m reuploading it here…)

* Donghua – Chinese anime

A story about the young cat demon Xiao Hei and his quest to find a new home after humans destroyed his old one. Cute cat + cool powers + awesome fighting scenes + clean and crisp animation.

You can watch this on Netflix, but it’s not available in all countries. There’s an English and Japanese dub available, but I strongly recommend watching it in the original Chinese. (I can send you the full movie with English subtitles if you want). The series, which takes place after the movie, can be watched on YouTube. S1 of the series is more slice of life, but s2 is action-packed.

3. Low Tide in Twilight (BL manhwa)

That BL trope where the bottom has a mountainload of debt, while the top gives him a way out… except, not really, coz the male lead Taeju is partly the creditor, and he’s forcing Euihyun into a relationship with him in exchange for money.

Typical BL story with an initially toxic couple, but better. Complex characters, and a manhwa that relies more on the art to tell the story instead of the words. Also, Taeju gives off that same annoying but hot vibe as Kaiser. What more do you want?

4. Link Click (donghua)

The title (时光代理人) would be literally translated as “Time Agents.” I have no idea why the official English title is Link Click.

The plot basically: Two guys with time-related powers run a photography shop, where they accept orders from clients to dive back in time through a photo.

Funimation did this donghua so dirty by not promoting it more back when it aired in 2021. The English subs were also terrible.

Did you know that it used to rank #20 in MAL, surpassing MP 100 S2, Jujutsu Kaisen, and many other mainstream anime? Now, it’s ranked #41 on MAL, lower than before, but still pretty high for a donghua on MAL. That’s just how good it is.

Here’s a link to the blu-ray version with fansubs. Just pick the normal English track option and not English (CR).

Edit: OKAAAY, it turns out that link has the episode order all mesed up. Just ask me if you need an HD copy with good fansubs.

5. White Cat Legend 2020 (donghua)

Title (大理寺日志) would be literally translated as The Journal of Dali Court.

Another cat boy donghua! Can you tell I just love cats?

The plot: Chen Shi travels from the countryside to the big city to search for his missing brother and inadvertently ends up working at Dali court under the cat guy Li Bing.

Slice of Life + Comedy + Drama + Supernatural + Mystery + Action

Baiting you with a hot guy gif~

It's a historical show btw, so expect some references to real-life events.

The animation is also really smooth in this one! You can watch it on YouTube. Here's a link to episode 1.

Season 2 is also out! I'm yet to watch it, though. I should really do some time...

----

Tagging some mutuals to check these out, and also to list 5 recs (no pressure)~

@potato-longsocks @echarie @takeunknownroadnow @gachagon @bachirasbodyguard @blonde-batgirl @oo-mi-ru-oo @www98vikitoo @whiteapplesandblackblood

I recommend creating your own post instead of adding your recs in a reblog. My post is already pretty long. Turn this into a long thread, and we'll be a menace on the dashboard haha