Localisation Bad anime subs and their origin

[YakuInTheFlesh]

I think we all know by now the good old Dragon Maid line, but I think it would be good to have more then one example to show just how bad it is.

I'm making this thread, since I was watching "Dark Gathering" with subs from SubsPlease (they just rip the subs from Crunchyroll and others) and noticed this fine line:
"I'm not going to let some god and his problematic age gap beat me."


The girl speaking the line says something about lolicon, so I would guess the "real" translation would be along the lines of:
"I'm not going to let some lolicon god beat me."

Do you have any other examples to add? I think it's important to note if the origin is "official" or a true fansub, so best include that info!

 

[PhantomXero1x]

ghost stories it flopped in Japan so ADV was given permission to just do whatever hence the result we see now lol.

 

[YakuInTheFlesh]

ghost stories it flopped in Japan so ADV was given permission to just do whatever hence the result we see now lol.

Honestly Ghost Stories isn't all too bad. No kid would understand the "lore" behind the ghosts and it would be too "childish" for most adults. Therefore they turned it into an official Abridged series / fandub.
Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't want anybody do that today, but I don't see this as an example that is malicious at it's core.

 

[The Only Otori Kaede Fan]

I think Theres more from the show but the voice actor of her had a few day long temper tantrum arguing with everyone over her doing this shit

 

[あんらい]

I think it's important to note if the origin is "official" or a true fansub, so best include that info!

I'm glad you included this part because a lot of people adopt this mentality of "fan translations can do no wrong", which is just silly. It's just easier for someone with no Japanese knowledge to point out "mistakes" of localizers because their changes stick out like a sore thumb, while stuff like this, a flat out mistranslation, would fly under their radar.

Here's a screenshot someone on the pleroma posted a while ago of Zero no Tsukaima, subbed by Doki Fansubs

JP: この運命に魔法かけた 君が突然現れた
Doki Fansubs' interpretation: I placed my destiny on this magic, and you suddenly appeared.
My interpretation: "You, who enchanted this fate, suddenly appeared"

But even if you were to believe their interpretation to be the correct one, the translation itself is still wrong as they mixed up the position of "magic" and "destiny" in the sentence
この運命に魔法かけた - (I) placed (my) magic on this destiny/fate (enchanted this destiny/fate)
この魔法に運命(を)かけた - (I) placed (my) destiny on this magic

I get that fan translations are usually preferable over the shit official translators put out but barely anyone bothers actually checking if the shit they wrote is correct, which leads to people mindlessly putting them on a pedestal. You'll often hear from localizers and their bootlickers that people are just looking back at the era of fansubbing through rose-tinted glasses, and I have to admit they're not entirely wrong, though obviously the one big difference here between (most) fansubbers and localizers is incompetence vs. incompetence + malintent. And the reason I put "most" in parantheses is because you can't always blame all of it on incompetence, some of them are just localizers in the making, changing random stuff as they please.

tl;dr you can't trust anyone but yourself really ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[JX475]

I'm glad you included this part because a lot of people adopt this mentality of "fan translations can do no wrong", which is just silly. It's just easier for someone with no Japanese knowledge to point out "mistakes" of localizers because their changes stick out like a sore thumb, while stuff like this, a flat out mistranslation, would fly under their radar.

Here's a screenshot someone on the pleroma posted a while ago of Zero no Tsukaima, subbed by Doki Fansubs
View attachment 17306
JP: この運命に魔法かけた 君が突然現れた
Doki Fansubs' interpretation: I placed my destiny on this magic, and you suddenly appeared.
My interpretation: "You, who enchanted this fate, suddenly appeared"

But even if you were to believe their interpretation to be the correct one, the translation itself is still wrong as they mixed up the position of "magic" and "destiny" in the sentence
この運命に魔法かけた - (I) placed (my) magic on this destiny/fate (enchanted this destiny/fate)
この魔法に運命(を)かけた - (I) placed (my) destiny on this magic

I get that fan translations are usually preferable over the shit official translators put out but barely anyone bothers actually checking if the shit they wrote is correct, which leads to people mindlessly putting them on a pedestal. You'll often hear from localizers and their bootlickers that people are just looking back at the era of fansubbing through rose-tinted glasses, and I have to admit they're not entirely wrong, though obviously the one big difference here between (most) fansubbers and localizers is incompetence vs. incompetence + malintent. And the reason I put "most" in parantheses is because you can't always blame all of it on incompetence, some of them are just localizers in the making, changing random stuff as they please.

tl;dr you can't trust anyone but yourself really ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I would say they make mistakes because they are ESL and most likely know 3 languages at once. It's not like nobody notices when they make mistakes, but they are more forgiven because they are closer to the authors intent overall vs a localizer who deviates by a lot. If people dislike the lack of QA they can join those teams or demand a faithful translation to works as a whole.

 

[YakuInTheFlesh]

Not an anime but manga! In the last chaptet of "Sorry For My Familiar" I found this:

The source is Seven Seas.
Of course it's a minor thing, but "have to interrupt you mid-stream" does not fit whatsoever and is clearly some zoomer speak inserted for no reason.
The entire manga the most they said was that he "rambles" or "lectures" and at the end they felt the need to slip this in...
It really stood out like a sore thumb to me.

 

[JX475]

Not an anime but manga! In the last chaptet of "Sorry For My Familiar" I found this:
View attachment 17323
The source is Seven Seas.
Of course it's a minor thing, but "have to interrupt you mid-stream" does not fit whatsoever and is clearly some zoomer speak inserted for no reason.
The entire manga the most they said was that he "rambles" or "lectures" and at the end they felt the need to slip this in...
It really stood out like a sore thumb to me.

You are correct, unless this has to do with technology or even TV something along those lines, it does not make sense whatsoever. Random Zoomer Lingo does not make sense and anything that tries to do this, will date itself very quickly. Things that are accurate do not date itself at all.