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Fish Sandwich rewatches Kamen Rider Kuuga
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06-06-2020, 11:10 AM
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256
Fish Sandwich
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
Sort of following up on something I mentioned earlier, I figured it'd be fun to do a bit of a bonus post for this thread looking at some the translation differences between Midnight Crew Subs' version, and the recent official subs by Shout! Factory. I've still yet to watch any full episodes with their subs, mind you (as much as I love Kuuga, it's still a little early for me to have that motivation again), but I've been going over plenty of individual
scenes
, and, like I said, it's consistently impressive work. To my knowledge, MCS' subs were the
only
complete version of Kuuga that existed in English until Shout's release came along, so it's highly likely that was the version of Kuuga a lot of us saw. If that's the case, hopefully some quick looks at some memorable dialogue from the show will prove to you how much of an upgrade you're getting with the official version. On top of the two different translations, I'll also have the original Japanese dialogue for each scene transcribed to the best of my ability, if that matters to anyone.
First up is one of Yuusuke's simplest, yet greatest speeches, from episode 8, where he tries to tell Mika how much her life matters.
雄介「七連チャン、できると思う?」
実加「無理だよ」
雄介「信じて」
雄介「皆やる時やってくれるよ」
雄介「そして君にもいつか、なんかやる時が来ると思う」
雄介「お父さんもきっと、それを楽しみに見守ってくれてるよ」
MCS:
Yuusuke: "Do you think you could skip something seven times?"
Mika: "That's impossible."
Yuusuke: "You gotta believe."
Yuusuke: "You can do it, if you try."
Yuusuke: "And one day, there'll be something you need to do."
Yuusuke: "When it happens, your dad will be happily watching over you."
SHOUT:
Yuusuke: "You think I can skip a stone seven times?"
Mika: "No one can."
Yuusuke: "Have some faith."
Yuusuke: "When the time comes, people can do what seems impossible."
Yuusuke: "And I think that someday, you'll have a day like that."
Yuusuke: "I bet your dad's watching you and looking forward to that."
Since episode 8 is one of the ones that got a fully new translation for MCS' Blu-ray releases, both of these translations are pretty dang solid. This comparison is less about raw accuracy, and more about how word choice affects the emotional resonance of dialogue. Both of these translations do a more than adequate job at that, but while MCS focused on trying to reflect Kuuga's habit of saying a lot by saying a little, Shout's approach, in my opinion, does a better job conveying how inspirational Yuusuke is really being here. Neither translation is particularly more or less direct than the other, though, and, again, both are doing a great job with Kuuga's very specific and considered lines, so it's all down to personal preference. If I may nitpick for a second here, I wish Shout had Yuusuke's second-to-last line as "And I think that someday, that time will come for you too". It'd be more direct while still sounding great, properly reflecting the deliberate repetition of
yaru toki
the way MCS did with the "You can do it"/"something you need to do", which I think is a huge part of what makes the original lines so punchy. On the other hand, "people can do what seems impossible" slightly embellishes things in a way I think is to the benefit of the scene. In Japanese, Yuusuke isn't
explicitly
saying anything that extreme, but it's the clear implication of the conversation. Yuusuke is trying to convince Mika that she's strong enough to get through what she's dealing with, and while Shout's translation loses some of the subtlety, it's done in a way that feels considered, and shows how much attention was being payed to the story as a whole, and not just the individual lines, like a poorer translation might do.
Next we'll be taking a look at two different chunks of the massive conversations from episode 26 regarding Hiraku, and the way society treats the worries of youth. Starting with Kanzaki and the group at Pole Pole. This is where things start to get a little ugly for MCS. Some lines will diverge in glaring ways, so just know upfront that Shout's translation is more accurate unless otherwise noted.
神崎「最近の子供たちはね、昔より分かりにくくなりました」
神崎「以外なぐらい素直で」
神崎「きちんと言うことは聞いてくれる」
神崎「でも、なんというのかな…」
神崎「それぞれの差がなくなって、大人しくなったというか」
みのり「大きい子達って町で見かけると、なんとなく覚めてるみたいな気がします」
みのり「保育園ぐらいのときは、色んな顔があって、それがすごくかわいいんだけど」
桜子「本音を出さないようにしてるってとこあるんじゃないかな」
桜子「なんとなく、そういうとこ分かってるっていうか」
神崎「かもしれませんね」
神崎「もう六年生だからなのか」
神崎「まだ六年生なのに」
神崎「なのかね?」
MCS:
Kanzaki: "Children are harder to understand nowadays than they used to be."
Kanzaki: "It's a surprising fact."
Kanzaki: "They listen to what other people say but..."
Kanzaki: "How should I put it..."
Kanzaki: "They seem to be losing their childhood, and they're becoming more mature."
Minori: "Whenever I see older kids on the street, they always seem so cold."
Minori: "At the preschool, they all have different faces, and they're really cute."
Sakurako: "Maybe it's just something they bring into words."
Sakurako: "We should be able to understand that."
Kanzaki: "I suppose."
Kanzaki: "He may already be a sixth grader..."
Kanzaki: "...but he's still just a sixth grader."
Kanzaki: "Right?"
SHOUT:
Kanzaki: "Kids these days are harder to understand than they used to be."
Kanzaki: "They can be surprisingly honest"
Kanzaki: "and do a good job of listening."
Kanzaki: "But... I don't know how to put it."
Kanzaki: "It feels like there's less individuality... and that they're more docile."
Minori: "When I see older kids in town, they seem kind worn out."
Minori: "When they're in preschool, they're all so different, and cute..."
Sakurako: "Maybe they're afraid of expressing themselves."
Sakurako: "I understand where they're coming from, in that case."
Kanzaki: "That could be it."
Kanzaki: "'I'm supposed to know what to do. I'm in sixth grade already.'"
Kanzaki: "Or, 'I'm only in sixth grade, how would I know?'"
Kanzaki: "Either way."
Despite the typo where it should say "kind OF worn out", I think it's pretty obvious which of these translations is more coherent and easier to follow. Moving on to part of Yuusuke and Hiraku's conversation.
拓「ずっとここで悩んでいれば、答えが出るかな?」
雄介「出ないだろうね?」
雄介「だって、そんな簡単に出ったら、悩むことないじゃない?」
雄介「何年かかったっていいんだよ」
雄介「みんな、悩んで大きくなるんだから」
雄介「君の場所はなくならないんだし」
雄介「君が生きている限りずっと、その時いるそこが君の場所だよ」
雄介「なんてね!」
雄介「これは神崎先生の受け売り」
雄介「その場所でさ…」
雄介「自分が本当に好きだと思える自分を目指せばいいんじゃない?」
雄介「ね?」
MCS:
Hiraku: "Can you get an answer from sulking all the time?"
Yuusuke: "Of course you can't."
Yuusuke: "If the answer was that easy, there'd be no reason to sulk."
Yuusuke: "It doesn't matter how many years it takes."
Yuusuke: "Everyone grows up sulking."
Yuusuke: "Your place won't disappear."
Yuusuke: "As long as you're still alive, that time will always be your place."
Yuusuke: "As if!"
Yuusuke: "I just borrowed Mr. Kanzaki's words."
Yuusuke: "About that place of yours."
Yuusuke: "If you can just find one you really like, isn't that enough?"
Yuusuke: "Right?"
SHOUT:
Hiraku: "If I sit here and keep thinking about it, do you think I'll get an answer?"
Yuusuke: "Probably not."
Yuusuke: "I mean, if it was that easy, you wouldn't have to worry in the first place."
Yuusuke: "It doesn't matter how long it takes."
Yuusuke: "Everyone worries their way into growing up."
Yuusuke: "And you'll always have a place where you belong."
Yuusuke: "As long as you're alive, then wherever you are is where you belong."
Yuusuke: "Or something like that!"
Yuusuke: "That's what Mr. Kanzaki taught me, anyway."
Yuusuke: "And wherever you are..."
Yuusuke: "Just try to become the kind of person you would want to be."
Yuusuke: "Okay?"
The differences in this set of scenes are far less drastic, but a lot of little things come together here to seriously improve the overall way everything is conveyed. More than anything, Shout's subs actually made sure to translate Yuusuke's penultimate line, where he tells Hiraku to try becoming a version of himself he wants to be, in a way that reflects the fact the entire title of the episode, "Myself", is drawn from it. The episode's name is
jibun
, and that's what Yuusuke is saying there. Hiraku's whole problem is that he's losing his sense of identity. It's not a coincidence, and once again, I appreciate how Shout's subs pay attention to these things. It's both more accurate, and better sounding. There are loads of individual little bits I like that I could single out. How "Everyone worries their way into growing up" gets across much more clearly that Yuusuke is directly implying that worrying is what
allows
people to grow up, matching the message of the episode. Or even just how he says "probably" not. "Of course you can't" simply doesn't match the specific tone Yuusuke is taking with Hiraku here that makes him such a great guy to give speeches. Yuusuke basically admitting he doesn't know for sure either, he's putting himself on Hiraku's level there. He speaks to him as much like a peer as he does a child he's trying to help, and he also is never needlessly blunt. All around, Shout's translation does a significantly improved job conveying that, and I give them extra props for how they handled Yuusuke's use of
nante ne!
here. That's one of those stock Japanese phrases that can immediately destroy any attempt at a good translation with how deceptively tricky it is if you aren't careful, and that's exactly what happened to MCS here. The phrase is often used to sarcastically walk a statement back, which is why, like MCS did here, you'll often see it rendered as things like "As if!", or "Just kidding!". The problem with doing that here is that Yuusuke was dead serious about what he just said. The use of the phrase in this scene lacks that sarcasm, and is more about Yuusuke simply clarifying those words aren't his own, a point thankfully still made clear by the line immediately following, but, again, Shout's professionalism shines through with this one.
Now for an exchange between Chouno and Tsubaki about Yuusuke from episode 30 that I feel particularly lost something in MCS' version.
蝶野「あいつだ」
蝶野「4号のあいつがとっとと未確認をやっつけてれば今頃…」
蝶野「どうせあの調子でヘラヘラしてやがったんだ」
椿「本当にそう思うか?」
椿「あいつがただ、ヘラヘラしてる奴だと思うか?」
蝶野「だってそうだろう!」
蝶野「4号とか言われてどんどん強くなって、未確認をやつけて…」
蝶野「何やっても上手く行きゃ、誰だってあんな風に、明るくなれるさ!」
蝶野「俺は何やったって上手く行かない」
蝶野「ずっとそうなんだ」
蝶野「動力だってした」
蝶野「目一杯やった」
蝶野「でも結局こうなんだ」
蝶野「あの時23号に殺されちまえば良かったよな」
椿「いい加減にしろ!」
椿「お前はやっぱり何でも人のせいにして逃げてる最低な奴だ!」
椿「こんな絵捨てちまえよ!」
椿「甘ちゃんなんだよ!」
MCS:
Chouno: "That guy..."
Chouno: "If #4 could just completely get rid of the Unidentified Life Forms, things would be different."
Chouno: "Anyway, what he said about enjoying life was total nonsense."
Tsubaki: "Do you really think so?"
Tsubaki: "Do you think he's just some guy who spouts nonsense?"
Chouno: "But it's true!"
Chouno: "No.4 keeps getting stronger in order to fight the Unidentified Life Forms!"
Chouno: "If everything would go as easy for me as it does for him, I'd be a very happy person!"
Chouno: "It seems like everything I do is wrong."
Chouno: "It's always been this way."
Chouno: "I work hard."
Chouno: "I give it my all."
Chouno: "But it always ends up like this."
Chouno: "It would've been better if #23 had just killed me that time."
Tsubaki: "Stop it already!"
Tsubaki: "You keep blaming everything on other people and you keep running away! You're the worst kind of person!"
Tsubaki: "Just throw this away!"
Tsubaki: "Stop acting like a spoiled brat!"
SHOUT:
Chouno: "It's his fault."
Chouno: "If Number Four had gotten rid of the damned Unidentified faster, maybe I'd..."
Chouno: "I bet he was grinning like a dumbass, as usual."
Tsubaki: "Is that what you really think?"
Tsubaki: "That this is some walk in the park for him?"
Chouno: "Well, isn't it?!"
Chouno: "He gets a nickname like Number Four, gets stronger, kills off the Unidentified..."
Chouno: "Anyone could be as cheery as he is if they had his kind of luck!"
Chouno: "But nothing works out for me, no matter what I do."
Chouno: "It's always been that way."
Chouno: "It's not like I haven't tried."
Chouno: "I've tried as much as I can."
Chouno: "And you see what I get for it?"
Chouno: "I'd be better off if 23 had killed me."
Tsubaki: "I've had enough of you!"
Tsubaki: "You're just a piece of trash who blames everything on other people!"
Tsubaki: "You might as well throw this out!"
Tsubaki: "Because you're nothing but a brat!"
At this point Chouno punches Tsubaki in the face, and after Kuuga begins fighting, the scene cuts back to let Tsubaki make his final statements.
椿「俺を殴ってどんな気がした?」
椿「嫌な気がしただろう」
椿「それをあいつはずっとやってるんだよ」
椿「体が自分のものじゃなくなるかもしれないっていう恐怖の中で」
椿「弱音も吐かず」
椿「皆の笑顔を守るためにな」
MCS:
Tsubaki: "How did hitting me make you feel?"
Tsubaki: "It felt bad, right?"
Tsubaki: "Even so, that guy is always doing the same."
Tsubaki: "Even if he's afraid that his body may turn into something he can't control."
Tsubaki: "He doesn't complain."
Tsubaki: "Because it's to protect everyone's smile."
SHOUT:
Tsubaki: "How did it feel to hit me?"
Tsubaki: "Felt bad, didn't it?"
Tsubaki: "Now think about how much he's been doing it."
Tsubaki: "He has to worry about his own body turning against him..."
Tsubaki: "But he never complains."
Tsubaki: "And he does it all to keep the rest of us smiling."
I think this one largely speaks for itself. The main difference here comes right at the start, where MCS missed the entire point of what Chouno was complaining about, which changes the context for the conversation a fair bit. What he's questioning isn't the validity of Yuusuke's ideals, but how little Chouno believes Yuusuke has to endure hardship. He doesn't make any direct reference to Yuusuke's words from their meeting in episode 14 (hence the awkward and disjointed "anyway"), because what he's talking about is much more broad than that. Chouno's whole line of thought here, which is very revealing of the kind of worldview he has, is that the
only
way someone could be happy, in his mind, is if they never had to put up with anything bad. It's the mentality that leads to Tsubaki calling him a brat. He doesn't ever stop to consider that the difference between him and Yuusuke might not be in
what
they've had to deal with, but in
how
they each chose to respond to it. Thankfully, the majority of the conversation is still more or less on the right subject in both versions, but even then, Shout's take on it is significantly easier to process. I also consider the use of the idiom "walk in the park" here a major indicator of the quality. That's not a phrase that exists in Japanese, and thus is not what Tsubaki is saying (more directly, he's just repeating the thing about grinning), but it's what Tsubaki is
saying
, you know? It's a very good spot to bust out some figurative language!
Here, we have a quick bit from episode 40 where Yuusuke admits how much he lost it during the battle against Jaraji.
雄介「じゃあやっぱり俺、なりかけたんだ。凄まじき戦士に」
一条「なんだって?」
雄介「42号の事件の時、」
雄介「あの高校生の子たち、いつ死ぬのか凄く怯えてて、」
雄介「そのために、自殺した子まで出ましたよね」
雄介「それまでにも、助けられなかった人はいっぱいいるけど…」
雄介「なんか、そういうのも重なったのかな?」
雄介「理屈じゃなくもう、なんか凄く42号が憎くなって、」
雄介「ものすごい力が湧いて、」
雄介「一瞬、赤の金の力まで、使おうか、って思ったんです」
雄介「一条さんや、杉田さんたちが、そばにいるのに」
MCS:
Yuusuke: "Then that means I'll become a fearsome warrior."
Ichijou: "What do you mean by that?"
Yuusuke: "During the No.42 incident,"
Yuusuke: "those high school students were afraid"
Yuusuke: "of their impending deaths and some of them"
Yuusuke: "even tried to commit suicide."
Yuusuke: "Up to now, there have been many people I couldn't save."
Yuusuke: "I felt all that accumulated hatred"
Yuusuke: "rising up inside of me."
Yuusuke: "I hated No.42 so much that"
Yuusuke: "a powerful strength erupted inside of me."
Yuusuke: "For a split second,"
Yuusuke: "I felt like using"
Yuusuke: "red's golden power."
Yuusuke: "But Mr. Ichijou and Mr. Sugita"
Yuusuke: "were with me so I didn't."
SHOUT:
Yuusuke: "In that case, I think I almost became this fearsome warrior."
Ichijou: "Wait, what?"
Yuusuke: "During the case with ULF 42,"
Yuusuke: "those school kids were being terrorized with attacks."
Yuusuke: "One of them even committed suicide."
Yuusuke: "There were people I couldn't save before, but somehow..."
Yuusuke: "Maybe it was just everything stacking up over time?"
Yuusuke: "It stopped being a rational thing. I just started hating ULF 42 so much..."
Yuusuke: "And there was this burst of power."
Yuusuke: "For one second, I considered using the gold power when red."
Yuusuke: "Even though Ichijo, Sugita, and the others would've been caught in the blast."
I should probably mention that since episode 40 is one of the ones MCS never got around to updating before the official release, the lines are all
extremely
broken up, which I think was something of a recurring issue with their original versions, although I don't remember too well at this point. This obsessive attempt to match partial English lines to partial Japanese lines is probably what resulted in everything sounding so heavily stilted. Shout's translation does a seriously impressive job of making everyone sound more human in general, but in a scene like this, that forms such a major emotional core of the story being told, that quality is truly appreciated. I probably don't need to really say anything about this one either, but, you know, it's the little things too. Getting the tense right on that first line ("almost became" vs. "I'll become"), correctly remembering the specific, single student from episodes 34/35 who really did commit suicide (it wasn't just an attempt), or the addition of specifically saying everyone would've been "caught in the blast" if Yuusuke had went through with using Rising Mighty, which is what he means, but the original dialogue is simply stating that he didn't because they were there, with it being left up to the viewer to fill in the obvious reason why. Once again, it's an embellishment that proves how much care was being taken with the translation, and one that results in a smoother sounding line that more clearly makes its point.
Finally, there's nothing else I could leave off on besides the very exchange from episode 43 that inadvertently led to this thread's creation,
thanks to Die getting so confused by it in his thread
, he put out an active call for someone to explain what was happening,
which led to me rewatching that episode
, which led to me rewatching a few
more
episodes, which led to... well, you get the idea. For context, this is the scene from the end of the episode where Mika explains to Yuusuke how afraid she was seeing Ichijou subdue a criminal at her flute competition.
実加「怖かったんです、凄く」
実加「その前に笑った顔の一条さん見てたから、」
実加「多分余計に」
雄介「そうか」
実加「なんか、同じ人じゃないみたいで」
雄介「でも、本当の一条さんだよ」
雄介「そういう一条さんもいるんだ」
雄介「怖くて嫌だけど、」
雄介「どうしようもなくいっちゃうんだ」
雄介「でもさ、笑った顔も本当の一条さんだから」
MCS:
Mika: "I was afraid. Extremely."
Mika: "I saw Mr. Ichijou's laughing face earlier but"
Mika: "it's probably something he doesn't need."
Yuusuke: "Really?"
Mika: "For some reason, it feels like it's not the same person."
Yuusuke: "But it was the real Mr. Ichijou."
Yuusuke: "If that kind of Mr. Ichijou is here,"
Yuusuke: "even though I'm afraid"
Yuusuke: "I won't ever go."
Yuusuke: "But you know."
Yuusuke: "The real Mr. Ichijou has a laughing face too."
SHOUT:
Mika: "I was so scared."
Mika: "I think... because I saw how he smiled before..."
Mika: "That made it worse."
Yuusuke: "I see."
Mika: "It was like he was a different person."
Yuusuke: "But it really was him."
Yuusuke: "There's a part of him like that, too."
Yuusuke: "It might be scary and unpleasant,"
Yuusuke: "but there are times when that kind of thing happens."
Yuusuke: "But the smiling face you saw? That's him, too."
Yeah suffice it to say, Die probably wouldn't have been having those problems if he had just waited a few months to watch Kuuga! MCS' translation of this scene is
not great
, to put it mildly. It would take a long time to really get into it, and I'm terrible at explaining these things in detail, but, basically, the parts that strayed competely away from the real meaning were the result of misinterpretations caused by a few problematic words like
yokei
("That made it worse"/"something he doesn't need") and
icchaun
("that kind of thing happens"/"I won't ever go"). It's a thing that happens a lot in fansubbing done by ear, which is the need to bascially play fill-in-the-blank with bits of sentences you either can't make out or can't understand. In MCS' defense, well, like Yuusuke said: that kind of thing happens. The end results are still unfortunate all the same though, and that's why it was such a breath of fresh air seeing Shout's take on it for the first time. It's clean. It's easy to read. The lines flow and connect. It sounds like normal people just having a conversation, and the underlying meaning of that conversation is easily deduced. It's basically everything a good translation should strive to be.
And that's really the whole story with Shout's subs for Kuuga. They're very clearly a labor of love, and I'm really happy I got to do a post about translation errors in such a chilled out fashion. Instead of getting to bemoan how much better we could have it, I get to revel in the fact that we actually DO have it way better now. So far, the only notable mistake I've found from Shout, which is something MCS did actually get right, is a scene from the finale where their translator(s) misheard a や as a は, resulting in Pops incorrectly attributing Yuusuke's father's letters to Yuusuke himself. It's a bummer, especially for a scene in the last episode, but man, compared to all the things that have been fixed, I just can't even be upset about it. I showed you a bunch of monologues, but there are so many little individual lines throughout the show that have been cleaned up significantly too. And despite that mistake I mentioned, a lot of the stuff that isn't technically 100% accurate is generally changed in ways that are extremely thoughtful and considered, as I've shown here. Again, it's a labor of love, and just to prove it, TokuSHOUTsu's YouTube page has uploaded yet another clip from Kuuga since the last time I mentioned it. It literally has no dialogue whatsoever, and thus no subs, but like, who needs words when you've got a beetle guy on a motorcycle chasing after a grasshopper guy also on a motorcycle? Yeah, the storytelling is great and everything, which I've talked about plenty already, but this is
exactly
how you should be selling people on Kuuga.
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誰かの笑顔のためだろ?
Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 04-06-2023 at
06:33 PM
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