Translation review: [PM] Pokemon Best Wishes 2×14 This entry was posted by Vale.
A while ago these guys asked me to check their translation for Pokemon. Well.
I’ve never seen anyone sub that notice before.
The opening has the lyrics hardsubbed, as usual for children’s shows. It’d be hard to mess this one up, and PM does okay.
In that jungle of text, I had trouble finding which one is the dialog at first. (And you don’t use ellipses like that.)
It’s a bus.
I know this is nitpicking, but they’re all speaking in a very precise, snobbish manner here, so using contractions like “what’s” feels out of place.
Lucky they use honorifics in the script.
That.
Why “beast”? Don’t tell me it’s a “literal” translation for 畜生 (chikushou)… Just “curse you!” or something would do.
This line ends like two seconds too early.
The ending has the Japanese lyrics hardsubbed too, so it’d take significant skills to mess this up. PM did just fine.
Conclusion: Great
I don’t think this was much of a question at all. This is a children’s show with a script meant for grade-schoolers. It’s simple and clear. The only thing I’d complain about is that the English subs ignore the snobbish style of the Japanese completely. Though I’d say that if you’re watching Pokemon with subs, most probably you won’t mind.
I like the “You beast!” translation. It makes the picture look epic.
Thanks for the review.
The writing for the snobby girls… yeah, it should’ve matched their way of speaking better. I have no idea what happened there, but we have indeed handled it better in other episodes. Likewise, the “car” and “that” issues are just sloppy errors that should’ve definitely been caught in qc.
“You beast” was just meant to give the line a bit of flavor, though, not to be an overly-literal translation. I think it fits.
As for the last line, we always make it end before the “To be continued” text shows up, since the last words in the last line, those said while that text is on screen, is almost always “mada mada tsuzuku”.
I thought that was intended with the “to be continued”, but then the sentence should be restructured to fit.
“Satoshi and friends’ journey towards Higaki City, where the Isshu League will be held, is…” “To be continued”
I dunno, sounds way too wonky, unless there’s some clever way to word it that escapes me.
In most episodes, though, the narrator says the “mada mada tsuzuku” bit as a separate line, speaking it just as the “To be continued” text shows up, so we’ve generally treated that as “subtitles” for that line. If he says this last bit a while before the actual end of the episode, which usually happens if there’s some foreshadowing scene at the very end, we sub the entire thing, adding a subtitled “To be continued” line if he says that bit as a separate line.
In this particular episode, he starts saying this bit quite a while before the on-screen text shows up, but it shows up shortly before he finishes. I realize the way we do it doesn’t always look ideal, but it does look much better in almost every single other episode.
>I’ve never seen anyone sub that notice before.
Static-Eclipse did it for all ~50 eps of Hayate. However the notice was voiced by a character, so it was a bit more deserving.