Translation review: [Hadena] Shinsekai Yori 01

The first review in a season should be fun. Therefore I’m taking a look at Hadena’s Shinsekai for the lulz.

Hadena keeps claiming that their subs are full of crap because they’re speedsubbing. Sorry guys, but just as in the case of the kids’ game here, it doesn’t work that way. Which game, by the way, isn’t one-on-one, so this should be “we” and not “I”. The next sentence she even uses a plural pronoun, so no excuses for this one.

I don’t know what the translator heard here, but she’s saying “flag” and not “his other side”.

What does this even mean? It makes no sense at all.

Even just calling it the Cheshire Cat would’ve been better. She’s referring to a demon, a monster, not a god.

No offense, but how is it even possible to fuck this one up? It’s written clearly on screen, then how? It’s Kamisu District 66, and there’s nothing on screen that could possibly be read as “Hacchoujime”. Not to mention that if you actually watched this episode then you’d know that Hacchoujime is the barrier surrounding Kamisu 66, not a place (that huge rope just a scene later).

Falling leaves? Really? It’s 若葉 (wakaba, young leaves), not “falling leaves”.

His name is Mushin.

I’m pretty sure this is a guesslation, but it’s a lucky one. (The encode is quite bad by the way, that banding is in the video, not a product of my screenshot.)

I didn’t complain about them not translating any of these names, because they’re names, but you know if you’re ignoring the meaning already, at least get the spelling right. It’s Zenjingakkyuu (全人学級).

This mistake is representative of this release. It’s a mistake of huge gravity (haha), since psychokinesis is a central element in this series. They call it 呪力 (juryoku), which roughly translates to “magic”. It’s not 重力 (juuryoku), which means gravity.

Object? No. He says “return it to the divines (神仏) that gave it to you”.

I don’t like “humanoid”, but that’s just a choice of words. On the other hand, translating 立たせなさい (tatasenasai, “make it stand”) as “hit it” is a mistake.

This line is mistimed and so are the next four or so.

I don’t really know what the translator thought is being said here, but sure as hell it’s not what the subs say.

No. “We’re group one.” (I won’t even comment on all the background noises missing, such as the other kids calling Saki cute and so on.) Mamoru is from the Friendship School (友愛園 yuuaien) and not UIN. It’s a school just like the Wakien mentioned earlier.

I don’t even. It would only take typing this in to realize that it’s 大器晩成 (taiki-bansei, late bloomer), and not… whatever the “translator” heard here.

妙法 (myouhou) is not “weird”. It’s a sacred phrase meaning “wonderful teaching” and also used to refer to the Lotus Sutra. And the place doesn’t “look” like that farm, it feels like it. She even explains that a few sentences later.

The… what? I know, this doesn’t really make sense without the long description in the books, but still, what?!

No. 悪鬼 (akki) and 業魔 (gouma) are demons related to psychokinetic powers.

No. It’s the complete version, as in contrast with the “for kids” abridged version they were taught in grade school.

“… he reached the rope of the Hacchoujime.” Also, “medicinal plants” are called “herbs”.

This is horrible. This sentence is simple, and yet it’s so mistranslated.

The same 悪鬼 was first totally mistranslated, then (the previous line) translated as “evil spirit” (which isn’t wrong), then here it’s left as Akki. At least try to be consistent.

First page, not last.

Image and imagine aren’t the same thing.

Stop raping the English language please. I don’t even point out any others, because there’s no end to them.

It’s “storehouse” and not “object”.

Consistency, again. That’s the same thing as what was “translated” as “cat god” in the beginning of the episode. (Not to mention it’s not even “spirit” (魂 tamashii), but “fake” (ダマシ damashi). Probably an intentional pun on the side of the writer though.)

Not Mama (ママ), but “so-so” (まあまあ maa-maa).

About half the sentence is missing here. All words the translator didn’t understand, he just ignored. Such as カヤノスヅクリ (kaya-no-su-zukuri), which is an animal, or Mushin, the name of that priest earlier who was the principal back then. Other consistency errors follow in the next few lines.

His name is read Kishi Yuusuke. At least look that much up!

I’m kind of glad they didn’t even attempt to translate the ending. I like the song, so it’d be a shame to see it raped by Hadena’s “translation”.

Mistranslated. “Pride sows the seed of sin (or “bad karma” if you want to keep to Buddhist imagery) and loneliness nurtures it.”

Conclusion: Avoid

Avoid at all costs. Horrible encode, bad timing, horrible translation, even worse editing. Considering that even UTW is doing this show, there’s no reason whatsoever to watch Hadena. All the more to avoid it.

This entry was posted by Vale.

9 thoughts on “Translation review: [Hadena] Shinsekai Yori 01

  1. I’m impressed at Hadena outdoing themselves with this one.
    Not content with just having horrible TL, but doing a worse-than-stream encode job too!

  2. Aww, you didn’t include one of my favorite Hadenaisms from this release: “”Since then Akki hasn’t been found ever this that happened.” But I guess if you went through the trouble if including all the incomprehensible lines, you might as well just link to the torrent at that point.

  3. Spotting mistakes in this script is like shooting fish in the barrel of a blunderbuss. One thing, though:

    >Image and imagine aren’t the same thing.
    True, they aren’t, but the meaning イメージ is much closer to “imagine” than “image”. Using “image” would have been an translation error, so Hadena is actually right on this one.

    • I don’t agree on that one. イメージ *can* mean imagine, but not in this context.
      The way they use that verb here doesn’t really fit any meaning of “imagine” I can think of (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/imagine). Imagine is just too… inconcrete. They aren’t imagining the picture, since it’s right in front of them. They need to create a mental image of something that’s actually there, and I think “image” covers that more accurately.

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