Well, it’s been a long while since my last review, so I guess it’s time for the long-awaited Interrobang review~ Also, since we were already well into the season when I started reviewing, I decided to use the time until the next one to simply refine the review format. So don’t expect too many of these until then.
そこの猫を抱きかかえているあなたは。
That “は” at the end changes the tone of this line, so that it would be a question, rather than a statement.
e.g.“What about you, with the cat?”
で、野蛮で凶暴そうなあなたは。
She’s addressing Izayoi here, so this line should be directed at him.
e.g.“And you, the feral barbarian, would be?”
し、しかたありません。
“Fair enough” implies that this is a response to what Izayoi said, but that isn’t the case. She missed the timing to make a nice entrance, but she realizes there’s nothing she can do at that point, aside from revealing herself.
e.g.“Th-There’s no way around it.”
ここで激怒されたり帰られたりしては黒ウサギ大ピンチです。
“帰られたり” was translated as “let them retire,” but that seems to imply that the three want to retire, which isn’t the case. Kurousagi is thinking that she can’t afford to tick them off and drive them away.
ギフトゲームは人を超えたもの達だけが参加できる神魔の遊戯。
I don’t see why “神魔” had to be omitted from the translation. It’s not a word you would find in a dictionary, but from the meanings of the individual kanji, you can interpret that it means something along the lines of “relating to gods and demons” or simply “supernatural”.
e.g.”Gift Games are supernatural games that only beings who’ve transcended human limits can participate in.”
箱庭の世界は外界より格段に面白いと黒ウサギは保証いたします。
“外界” should be translated as “outer world,” rather than “human world” because it’s been stated that people from different worlds have been gathered in The Garden and the fact that there are humans living there shows that The Garden can be considered to be a “human world”.
外から天幕の中に入ったはずなのに。。。
While translating “天幕” as “tent” is fine as a literal translation, we can see that the building they entered is by no means a “portable shelter”. Perhaps “pavilion” would work, but as far as I know pavilions are supposed to be light structures, so I’d suggest directing attention to the fact that there’s a roof of some sort.
e.g.”Even though we walked into a roofed area,”
未だ召喚されたばかりで落ち着かないでしょう。
“落ち着かない” doesn’t mean “tired,” but something along the lines of “unsettled”. Also, the meaning of “ばかり” wasn’t reflected, but could have been with the simple addition of a “just” in front of “being”.
詳しい説明は軽く食事を取りながらでもいかがですか。
“軽く” isn’t being used to describe the meal, but rather the action of talking/explaining in more depth that’s reflected by “詳しい説明”. The tone would also be represented better as a question.
e.g.”Why don’t we continue our conversation more in-depth over a meal?”
このあたりは特定の神仏がゲームテリトリーにしている場所。
Those certain gods don’t just play their Games in that area; they have that area designated as their Game Territory, which is what “ゲームテリトリーにしている場所” was meant to relay.
e.g.”This area is designated as the Game Territory of certain gods.”
そ、それは心強いギフトですね。
I don’t see why “心強い,” which means “reassuring,” would be translated as “convenient” in this situation.
Misc. Comments
“Hakoniwa” was translated as “The Garden,” but the more commonly accepted term for the world is “Little Garden”. Regardless, terminology translation is for the translator to decide, unless there’s an official translation for it.
General Thoughts
-The tone isn’t matched at times.
-There’s a tendency to ignore conjunctions and split lines up into shorter sentences.
-Line lengths are sometimes blatantly inappropriate.(This is something the editor could be helping with though.)
Verdict/TL;DR
Watchable
There really wasn’t a clear winner for me and taking into consideration the fact that Commie got a TLC on the project starting episode 2, I don’t feel it’d be right to recommend one group over another. Not to mention, it was the first episode, which everyone naturally has issues with(work flow and whatnot). Sorry about that~
Review Policy Changes
-First episodes will no longer be reviewed.
-Grades will be given from the following categories: Disposable, Watchable, Archivable.
-Suggestions will be given for lines that would benefit from them.
-A few sections (General Thoughts, TL;DR) were added for those who aren’t interested in long reads.
Thanks for reading and I hope you got something out of it.
Where were the cucumbers you promised? Though Kurousagi is fine too.
10/10 Would read again. Seriously, kudos to you, Rekyuun~
My little cucumber did a nice job <3
Thanks again to Rekyu for doing these reviews.
Starting Ep.06 I joined to do serious QC for IB on the show, including rephrasing specifically for the length and tone of lines. I appreciate your suggestions and look forward reading D_S’s TL Party from a later episode as well.
wowliteral
>overliteral
>TL review
How do you write a liberal TL review?
…The whole point is literally about analyzing the degree of faith to the original Japanese script.
Where’s lyger for outrage when I need him?
I already gave Rekyun my thoughts on his review format over IRC (said thoughts involving neither the word “literal” nor “liberal”, which I do not believe are useful descriptors, as I’ve mentioned before).
What it amounted to is: Right now I think he’s focusing too much on describing features of the translation without saying why they are important.
For example, “The translation omits this word.” Okay, so? Why was it important to include that word? Or was it perhaps not that important? What would including that word add to the translation? Does the viewer miss out on important information? Does the tone of the sentence change? Does it sound more poetic?
A more detailed analysis might say, “The translation has a tendency to omit words or phrases that do not contribute significant information, resulting in an overall concise script. However, in some instances it’s arguable that the omitted words contained information, either explicit or implicit, that should have been communicated to the viewer. Furthermore, some characters are portrayed as bombastic or melodramatic, and may have benefited from a more verbose translation style for their dialogue.”
Or take the bullet point in his “general comments”, where he mentions that long lines with conjunctions were often split into shorter individual sentences. Okay, that’s an observation, but can you tell me more about what that does?
I might say something like, “Having shorter sentences in a subtitle allows the viewer to absorb complete thoughts at once and can make the translation easier to understand. If a long thought has to be spread across multiple subtitles, it’s easier to lose track of what the sentence is trying to say. On the other hand, the fact that it was a single sentence in Japanese implies that the thoughts contained therein were meant to be logically connected. Splitting the sentence up into shorter pieces might hurt the logical flow of the dialogue, making it unclear how one thought relates to the next one. In the worst case, the speaker starts to sound like he or she is spouting a series of disjointed ideas, with no clear direction or objective.”
Then I’d give a few examples of this phenomenon from the release and say whether I thought each instance overall helped or hurt the quality of the translation.
welcome to ENGL 111
That’s almost exactly how I view this scenario, lyger. Hence why I mentioned your name.
Brilliant post.
Digging the new format. I hope this one stays~
I definitely look forward to seeing this evolve. Dark_Sage has the English side almost down to an art form so watching the TL aspect should be most interesting & informative. I support lygerzero0zero’s points, as they would definitely give more perspective on how TLs manage/balance the process. Perhaps as your review style matures, we can start seeing personal idiosyncrasies, as with Dark_Sage himself, to spice up or simply add additional value.
I truly appreciate the new translation reviews. They’re informative and actually take into account the other 1/2 of what translating is all about – the source language.