You know what grinds my gears? When fansubbers constantly use swears in fansubs, or simply drops one every now and then. Nothing takes me out of the moment more than when someone like Goku drops an ‘F’ bomb instead of a spirit bomb. Yes, I understand that these are indeed fansubs, and if I don’t like what’s in them I can either buy the DVDs or shove a bulldog up my ass; but this isn’t what this rant is about.
This isn’t because I don’t like to swear, or that I’m against swearing at all, (F*ck!) see. My anger comes from something else entirely, something a little bit more personal. Fine, I’ll say it. Fansubbers, when you put a swear in a subtitle where it does not belong, you are no better than 4 Kids when they put a Super Soaker in where a gun should be. Yes, I went there. Read the rest of my swear-free rant after the f*cking jump.
When I watch my anime I enter into the otaku awesome zone, and usually stay there until the episode ends. There are some things that take me out of that zone, such as unnecessary swearing, karaoke in insert songs, and stupid untranslated words like “kawaii”. As I mentioned above, its not that I hate swearing, but because it sets off a bunch of questions in my head, taking me away from the show. “Is this something that particular character would stay?” “What did they say in Japanese?” so on and so forth.
The Japanese don’t really have any hardcore swear words in their vocabulary like ours. You got baka, kuso, and yaro, which pretty much mean, idiot, damn, and bastard. Sure you can upgrade these words up to shit and asshole, and that is fine and all, but in excess they can be bad.
So what’s the real reason for substituting and spicing up such fine words as: hell, hate, kill, and you!!! with fuck? Part of it has to do with fansubbers trying to make anime more adult by adding in massive amounts of this particular spice. Well, I hate to break it to you but it isn’t working. Putting on purple lipstick doesn’t make you look more adult, it makes you look like a prostitute; the same thing with this particular issue.
It’s not all the fansubbers fault though; the American anime industry did the same thing for a long time. I remember back then when I thought anime was so cool because they swore so much, seriously it was ridicules. They used to say fuck and shit so much that the voice actors probably made a drinking game out of it.
So the moral of the story is to not sub swears where they don’t belong; unless you like making your favorite anime look like a two-cent whore. However, there is one exception to this rant, and his name is Hiruma.
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But... Fuck is my favorite word lol. seriously though. there are times when i think it really fits (i liked it in lagann but i know it didnt work) like if someone says dont fuck with me. thats when its like... awesome. or anytime anyone ever says it in Gantz lol.
"There are some things that take me out of that zone, such as unnecessary swearing, karaoke in insert songs, and stupid untranslated words like “kawaii”. "
I thought that this was like the holy trinity of one piece fansubbing lol
I fully agree these trends are massively annoying
Profanity does have its place - see the opening of end of evangelion
but there are far too many examples like the you posted up before.
There's definitely something to be said for misplaced cursing...however...generally a good translation is not literal, it takes into account the two cultures, and attempts to translate what the person said into the original language into what would have been said by a person in the language it is being translated into. Thus, as I am fairly large in my use of cursing, I would be likely to translate something with a lot of cursing. That said, I am not really defending the fansubbers, since I really have not seen that many cases of cursing in the anime that I watch, and when I do see cursing, it is generally warranted. I really can't judge whether or not the cases you are talking about are warranted or not.
I came expecting a rant against the overuse of the word "fail" (epic or otherwise) on the Internet specifically in the context of anime-centric sites such as 4chan and Gaia.
see now u know where my anger also comes from when stupid directors change epic anime movies or series when they have live actors, almost the same root of the problem shit that isn't supposed to be there SHOULDN'T BE THERE.
Swear words are overused, to the extent that it is palced in situations where they don't even fit. I can't stand watching something like Azumanga Daioh, and then the word 'fuck' appearing every ten minutes.
After all, while 'temee' is a vulgar way of saying 'you', it doesn't mean motherf*****.
Angel Cop is an exception. It's so violent and bloody, without swearing would be an insult.
I think you're just having a bad day Len, while you do see the occasional fucking swear word thrown in for motherfucking shock fucking value, it's not that fucking big of a fucking de-fucking-al.
I can see your point, it does throw the atmosphere off sometimes, but there are other times when not swearing just doesn't express the same kind of anger and emotion. I dunno about you, but if someone just shot me in the arm, "Motherfucker" would be just the tip of the god damn fucking iceberg.
Black Lagoon is also an exception to the rule. As Revy is SUPPOSED to swear like all fucking hell, fucking shit God dammit, motherfucker ass fucking tits Gary Coleman.
I find it annoying too. Funny, but annoying. Oh well, what can we do. Wait for better subs on DVD or live with "fuck the candy cane shit for giggling bastard children made from shitty fuckers."
And as for the Karaoke insert songs *throws keyboard at screen*
Sure, it's cool to learn the words, but it feels like they've inserted a music video, disney sing-a-long into my anime and it makes me want to punch somebody. It takes away from the effect and feel of the anime (unless, of course, it's used for effect in an anime where it could work)
I find it annoying to curse in scenes where it doesn't fit. Really some common sense can show where it is and isn't ok to add the occasional fuck or shit instead of a more family-safe word.
If the character is supposed to sear a lot like Reevy, then I have no problem with that. Just with the characters who don't normally swear, or seem out of place.
I've never heard of Angel Cop before, but it reminded me how much I miss traditional 2D animation; it just seems like it has this warmth that's lacking in modern CG-enhanced anime.
I'll never understand the logic of any group that sees it fit to translate the dialogue of 10-year-old nice kids with the same dialect as high school students on an off-day.
I've never run into a problem with cursing in the translations that I've seen. A lot of the tone is in how the person is saying it, so to insert the swears makes perfect sense.
Also, let's see if you can keep PTS family-friendly when I'm on, Len :P
I don't really have this problem, at least not that I can remember. I can totally see where it would be awkward for certain characters to swear though.
I usually don't have too much of an issue most of the time. I mean, Agito from Air Gear is the kinda guy whose going to be dropping F-bombs all over the place, same with Revy in Black Lagoon. I guess I just don't watch enough anime that don't use swear words. I can imagine it would be pretty strange in certain anime though. Ah well, I'm more likely to notice something else that's completely redundant in a fansub then its use of profanity anyway.
I know this is off topic, but why did you use a clip of Hiruma from the totally absolute crap that was the Eyeshield Jump Festa video? They didn't even use the same voice actor for him in that as the far superior TV series...
But yeah, I've never run into this problem. I usually stick to fansub groups I've heard of and am comfortable with though, so I rarely have ever had this sort of problem. BSS/order did the best Gurren Lagann subs and didn't use annoying fonts either, Shisen is always a good choice when available, gg, Aero, Ayako, a.f.k (I think they are afk btw since I haven't seen them in forever...), ANBU, Eclipse, and Coalguys are also some good reliable sub groups that don't abuse stuff like excessive cursing and (usually) don't use annoying fonts/karaoke-effects.
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