Behind The Nihon Review » Translating

Looking at Minorigate and the Tokyo Loli Ban through Anime Expo 2010

Kylaran — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:09:57 +0000

I bought a poster of this game at Anime Expo. Suiheisen Made Nan Mairu?

I went down to Anime Expo this past weekend, surviving almost a week of no sleep and irritable fans. Amongst the many stories worth blogging about, perhaps what seemed most surprising to me about Anime Expo 2010 was the powerful presence of visual novels. While other blogs, such as AnimeDiet, have covered extensively some of the prominent Guests of Honor, I had the pleasure of gleaning some very useful comments from actual visual novel makers, as well as those involved in the localization process. It is my hope that through a bit more digging and scavenging, we, as fans and consumers, can come to understand the workings of game makers in Japan.

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Minorigate, or, How to Piss Off Otaku Without Really Trying

Akira — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:29:27 +0000

The probability of BtNHRV receiving a DMCA injunction from minori just rose twentyfold.

There’s been quite a hubbub in the eroge-playing community this week, sparked by minori (ef, Wind, eden*) inducing an edit war on TLWiki’s eden* page. Now, for those of you who remember, minori was one of the first eroge companies to block website access from foreign IPs last year after the Rapelay controversy exploded, citing a fear of “violating local laws and causing trouble for foreign fans” as motivation. A year has passed since then, and the minori website has remained shut to foreigners. Last week, minori emerged from its isolationist shell to delete the eden* translation project in its entirety. For a more detailed and comprehensive account of the events, please read these articles. The gist of minori‘s argument: We hold the copyright to these games, and we don’t want them to be translated. Therefore, we’re going to delete all of your translations and request that you stop. Reasonable, right?

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A Different Approach to the Translation of Ero-Scenes

Akira — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:40:24 +0000

This is Nishino Aki, my assistant for this article. She is not amused at what I am about to put her through.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how I translate sex scenes (エロシーン, ero-scene) in visual novels. It is one of the least pleasurable aspects of my hobby, and I’m rather glad that I never had to deal with ero-scenes during my time as a fansubber. Ero-scenes are notoriously difficult to translate well; several inherent linguistic barriers prevent accurate and succinct translation. What I am proposing here may not be new, or radical, and by no means is it perfect, but I believe it to be a different take on the translation of the ero-scene. This system will not make the reading of an ero-scene enjoyable. An ero-scene is an inherently cheesy, silly thing to read, and nothing that I, or any other translator, can do would change that. Rather, this is simply a way for translators to cut their losses. I have always facetiously advocated that there is no such thing as an ero-scene translation that is good; there are simply those that do not suck. Leave the sucking to the heroine, I say.

(WARNING! This article is filled with boring linguistic technobabble. In addition, people might think you’re a freak if you read this at work, or at any other time, for that matter. There are no NSFW images in this article, I promise. Also, please note that this does not represent my general translation philosophy. It is an extrapolation thereof, and in no circumstances should be applied to non-ero scenes. It would be a terrible choice.)

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My Paradigm

Akira — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:28:17 +0000

In his latest article, Sorrow-kun addressed the issue of dialogue in anime. As a non-native speaker, he said, he had to rely on translators to understand what was going on at all times. It’s inevitable that non-Japanese anime fans have to place their trust in translators, as without them, anime-watching becomes an utterly pointless exercise at the point where the viewer can not understand anything that is being said. Sorrow-kun also said that he would like fansubbers to put out their translation philosophies. Here’s mine.

Note: The following opinions belong to me and me only. I can not speak on behalf of other translators.

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Voices from the Other Side: ef ~melo~ Episode 9

Akira — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:08:25 +0000

Back again with my semi-regular column. How’s everyone?

This week, I was asked again to fill in for our translator, who was absent due to personal reasons. In this installment, I’m going to give all of you a deeper insight into my job as a translator using Episode 9 as a case study; the second half of the article will be devoted to my general impressions of the series, which I haven’t really talked about yet.
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Voices from the Other Side: ef ~melodies~ Episode 6

Akira — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 03:15:14 +0000

I’m Akira. Haven’t written much on this blog before, but those of you who know me know that I’m NHRV’s resident Japanese-speaking reviewer and niche anime geek. In addition to filling a role as the resident weirdo, I’m also a translator and fansubber. In this not-so-regularly updated series, I will strive to answer your questions on the supply side of the anime fandom. If you ever wanted a translator’s perspective on the fandom, here’s your chance. (WARNING: MAJOR ef ~melodies~ episode six spoilers!)

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