Disclaimers

• I am not a professional translator, a trained linguist or even particularly good at speaking Japanese
• I’ve just studied a decent amount of the language both formally and informally, and I’ve spent a good chunk of time in Japanese-speaking circles
• I’m also friends with a few people in a subtitling group so I’m casually informed about the process
• I am going to critique the translation stylings of TV-Nihon but it will be good faith critique - no potshots, I won’t call them lazy or anything

Translation Philosophies

• we’ll start by talking about approaches to literary translation
• above all else, literary translation is itself a literary artform - in order to be a good translator, you have to also be at least a decent writer, which also means that translation is subject to stylistic differences much like any other creative writing exercise
• for the purpose of this discussion, there are two broad schools of thought, which we will call “pure translation” and “localisation”

Pure Translation

• the goal of pure translation is to try and recreate the script of the original text in the target language as close to 1:1 as possible
• this includes maintaining things cultural references and language-specific idioms, and frequently involves the use of translator’s notes to provide context or clarification to the audience
• pure translation’s artistic intent: a literary work is best understood in as close to its original cultural/linguistic context as possible; any significant deviations from the original script compromise the artistic integrity and create an entirely new work rather than a recreation of the original work

Localisation

• the goal of localisation is to translate an original script into the target language in a way that makes the translation feel naturalistic
• this often involves taking artistic license with the translation - since things like cultural references and language-specific idioms often can’t be translated directly into the target language, the translation will frequently take the approach of translating ideas and concepts rather than words directly
• localisation’s artistic intent: translating a work of art is necessarily going to result in a different work of art, so the translation should make the script maximally legible to the audience both in terms of pure linguistic function and cultural context

Both are useful!

• these two approaches are not mutually exclusive
• each approach has its place within a work and good translators will often make use of both to varying degrees depending on what the work in question calls for

What is TV-Nihon?

• TV-Nihon (TVN) is a legacy subtitling outfit first established in 2002 - they’ve distributed subtitles for some anime, but their focus has primarily been on tokusatsu, particularly Kamen Rider and Super Sentai
• they were the primary and really only subtitling group which operated in the English-speaking tokusatsu space in the period of 2002 to 2010
• they still operate today although there’s way more subtitling groups and even individual subtitling efforts that exist alongside TVN
• TVN’s subtitling style generally focuses a lot on visual flair, with unique font choices and use of graphics
• but most importantly: they are a pure translation group

Translating Den-O

• Kamen Rider Den-O was the season of Kamen Rider that ran between 2007-2008 and is one of the most enduringly popular seasons of the show
• it’s popular because to bucked a trend: most seasons of Rider before Den-O were various shades of dark, and Den-O became a massive hit with families and particularly kids by having a colourful cast of oddball main characters and a focus on comedy
• must be said that despite its image as the most “for kids” season, Den-O is a notoriously difficult script to translate; its most enduring legacy in the fansubbing space is literally killing sub groups
• to date, TVN is the only sub group to have actually completely translated the show (OZC-Live’s release is a scrub, which is a different and less involved process)
• what makes Den-O so difficult to translate is that it’s full of highly specific wordplay and characters who just talk weird
• these two things often intersect, with character catchphrases forming the basis of puns that are used in other episodes or even titles of supplementary media, which means translations must be cohesive and planned out well in advance

How does TVN translate Den-O?

• TVN’s pure translation approach manifests in a few key ways: overly-literal translations, outright mistranslations and non-translations

Mistranslations

• mistranslations won’t get too much focus because one thing TVN did not have access to which most sub groups do now is episode scripts. oftentimes episodes had to be transcribed by ear before they could be translated, which is presumably how we get lines like “ladies and gentlemen, banana new shoe” or the translation of 降臨,　満を持して (kourin, man wo jishite) as “Advent, to the top” (set phrase meaning “long-awaited”; not sure how you would have to mishear man wo jishite to get to “to the top” but I wasn’t there)

Overly Literal Translations

• as part of its pure translation ethos, TVN tends to translate a lot of words and phrases extremely literally, even when the result feels clunky or doesn’t make grammatical sense in English
• a good example is in the lore-important designator of 特異点 “tokuiten”. Den-O, being a time travel show, has time travel mechanics which can be a little wonky, but its core idea is that the flow of time is directly connected to the memories of people who exist in any given time period. a “tokuiten” in the show is a person whose memories are unaffected by changes to the timeline, and thus act as an anchoring point for time to latch onto
• “tokuiten” literally just means “singularity”, as in the the physics type of singularity. this is fine, but a little jargony and unclear in how it relates to time - I prefer OrangeLion’s translation, “temporal outlier”, which communicates the general feel of “tokuiten” while making its relationship to time more immediately intuitive
• TVN translated it as “singularity point”, apparently taking an extra step by viewing the “ten” in “tokuiten” as its own word - this aside, I think the translation is weaker for not taking the extra artistic license in order to clearly outline what makes a “tokuiten” so “tokui” in the show
• more subtle but notable examples come in the form of the catchphrases of two main characters: Kintaros and Ryutaros
• now to be fair these are some of those really difficult translations that I’ve mentioned, but they’re still examples worth pointing out
• Kinta’ catchphrase is 俺の強さにお前が泣いた “ore no tsuyosa ni omae ga naita,” roughly meaning “my strength has made you cry,” and it gets translated as such. the problem? he only ever says this before a fight, so it just kind of feels gramatically and temporally out of place in English, unless he’s using a kind of prophetic perfect tense. this isn’t really a strident critique because translating sensibly is a frankly herculean task
• Ryuta is similar, with his catchphrase 倒してもいい?　答えは聞いいてない “taoshitemo ii? kotae wa kiitenai!” being translated as “mind if i kill you? can’t hear you!” while “can’t hear you” is not the most literal translation, it’s still kind of awkward because the two phrases in english feel disconnected from each other. a better translation would be something like “not that I care” or even “I don’t need your permission” since that better represents the kind of childishly defiant attitude that defines Ryuta as a character, so “can’t hear you” feels like it’s meant to be closer to the letter than the spirit - which is more or less the goal

Non-translations

• arguably the most prominent and obvious manifestations of TVN’s pure translation approach
• for all the various mistranslations and overly literal translations, many of my biggest personal bugbears with their translation of Den-O come from the ways in which they just… don’t translate certain words or phrases at all
• a prominent example is in their use of honorifics. anyone familiar with the Japanese language knows that there’s a fairly intricate system of honorifics that inform manners of address depending on the relationship between speakers
• there are good reasons to maintain honorifics in a translation, particularly if the “Japanese-ness” of a setting is important to the narrative - see Persona 5 as an obvious example
• this social character of honorifics doesn’t map cleanly to any linguistic concepts in English, so it can be useful to keep them in. the tone and precise meaning of “Owner-san”, “Ryotaro-kun”, “Hana-chan” aren’t fully translateable and there’s good reason to keep honorifics in the subtitles
• but there are some honorifics in Japanese which do not serve a social purpose and only fulfil a grammatical role - a pertinent example for our purposes is the honorific “tachi”, used to refer to a group of people associated with the person being addressed. this can be easily represented in english
• so why did TVN not bother to actually translate the phrase “why not ask Yuuto-kun-tachi?”
• a really important one is momotaros’ catchphrase, 俺、参上 “ore, sanjou!” this is a really interesting japanese phrase because while “sanjou” technically means “to arrive” or “to visit upon,” it has a particular cadence and meaning associated with it that precludes it from being used in ordinary speech - it’s less of an everyday announcement and more of a pro-wrestling introduction
• it’s commonly accepted in large sections of the Kamen Rider fandom to have this phrase quite plainly translated as “I’ve arrived,” which started with TVN’s translation of the phrase… in a translator’s note
• yes, TVN subtitles “ore sanjou” as “ore sanjou”

What’s wrong with this approach?

• again, there are plenty of worthwhile reasons to translate some things more literally or maintain otherwise untranslateable concepts in their original form
• the problem with this particular approach to translation is twofold: it assumes far too much knowledge on the part of the audience, and it frankly does a disservice to the script
• even if translator’s notes are used, leaving words and phrases untranslated is leaving the audience to pick up the slack, meaning that the translation carries an implied assumption that the audience has a degree of familiarity with the japanese language - which is maybe not unreasonable, but it kind of defeats the purpose of a translation
• but more importantly, it robs the script of its creativity. the words being translated aren’t just words floating around in abstract space, they’re being said by characters in a story, and overly literal translations as well as non-translations deny the characters their ability to be characters
• let’s take a look at “ore sanjou” again: if we simply translate it as “I’ve arrived”, that gets the point across but the phrase demands a lot more bombast and hot-headedness than that. it does a lot more for momotaros’ character if the phrase is translated as “I’m here to kick your ass”, or even if we lean into the theme of the show and turn it into a train pun - “looks like I’m right on time!”
• even if we look at smaller examples: momotaros mispronouncing Deneb’s name as “Odebu”, effectively calling him “Tubby”. this exact pun doesn’t really work in English because we don’t have a word for “fat” that sounds like “Deneb”
• leaving the joke untranslated and adding a translator’s note robs the wordplay of its humour, because you’re basically explaining a joke instead of telling one. in this case the translator is probably better off taking the approach of trying to translate the fact that there is a joke rather than trying to recreate the exact joke - see the OrangeLion/OZC-Live release translating this wordplay as having momotaros call Deneb “Denim”
• again, in complete fairness to TVN, the more literal approach does have its uses, particularly when translating effectively by ear on a weekly basis. their approach is basically the entire reason why their translation of Den-O is the only complete one

Final Remarks

• so like. translating is hard
• it’s hard not just because the act of literally translating things from one language into another is difficult, but also because translating a creative work is itself an unavoidably creative exercise
• for all my critiques of TVN’s overly literal translation sensibilities, they still have to take some artistic licence in their translations otherwise there is just no translation to be had at all
• but translation is a creative writing exercise and I think treating it as such is the best way to honour your source material
• also if you’re planning to translate Kamen Rider Den-O, spend a lot of time thinking about how you’re going to translate the various puns and make sure you have this all worked out before you begin translation work. remember, the title of the canon mid-season movie is a pun on Momotaros’ catchphrase

Riot Games was always going to be fighting an uphill battle trying to win me over. I have never liked a single one of their games, I have zero investment in the characters or shared universe they’ve built off the back of League of Legends¹, and their long-awaited entry into the fighting game space has been marred by all the problems associated with a decade-long development cycle that included at least one full rewrite of the game concept, as well as the future problems associated with free to play monetisation that will undoubtedly cause the game to slide off my brain as if it were coated in teflon.

In 1986, a man named Yu Suzuki, along with a small handful of developers at SEGA AM2, would release an arcade racing game called OutRun. Suzuki had previously made some fairly successful motorcycle racing games for SEGA by way of Hang-On and Enduro Racer, and with OutRun, he sought to create a racing game predicated primarily on allowing players to enjoy the experience of driving and, in his words, “feel superior”¹. With incredible graphics for the time, a stellar soundtrack and shockingly well-realised driving physics, OutRun was a huge hit in arcades throughout the late 80s and even early 90s, and is one of the most influential and important games in the genre.