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The translations in anime at least are unlikely to actually be worse, since a lot of the English anime translation industry are obsessed with inserting woke pol

The translations in anime at least are unlikely to actually be worse, since a lot of the English anime translation industry are obsessed with inserting woke politics and cringey zoomer jokes into their translations and more or less hate the people who buy their products. There's a reason a lot of people are laughing at the activist translators losing their jobs to AI. In areas where the translators are actual, responsible professionals, the quality will suffer.

SunlitCat 2y ago
Although your comment is unnecessary strongly worded, you raise some very serious points. Especially Japanese - English entertainment media translations, it is very often pretty apparent that there is some kind of agenda behind translation of such works (even with translators admitting it them self doing so in comments / messages on different social media platforms). Something I just wonder is, why does especially this niche part of this profession (translating Japanese entertainment media) attract people doing so and even let them admit to make it more culturally appropriate for western markets? It's really an interesting phenomena.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  Japanese entertainment is among the more popular entertainment venues in recent years, and that means it's also a useful tool for political espionage. People interested in pushing political agendas would be fools to not exploit this as they would any other. Hell, the distribution of Japanese entertainment across the world is in large part a Japanese government agenda[1] for diplomatic ends. It's all politics. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan
  - SunlitCat 2y ago
    Hah! That "Cool Japan" thing! I remember some (lesser known) people to advertise for it. Dunno, it (cool japan) came to a halt in 2020 and never took off again afterwards.
- soundnote 2y ago
  I don't think Japanese translation is all that well paid, and if people don't get money from their work, they'll go for the job for other forms of payment (eg. status), or extract payment in other ways (half-assing things, being a petty tyrant like reddit mods, etc.)
autumnstwilight 2y ago
As someone who can understand both languages, it's less that the translators are obsessed and more that the gamergate-adjacent crowd has decided to drag their culture war into anime translations. There are a handful of examples where the translation could be debated and a lot more where it's actually pretty accurate and tonally consistent with the Japanese (which is often not exactly high literature itself), but some guy armed with a Japanese 101 textbook and Deep-L wants to get an internet mob going about it because he's convinced that someone with a trans flag in their Twitter profile can't possibly be doing it right, or that Japanese creatives themselves couldn't have left-wing/pro-LGBT views. See: people getting mad about the word "LGBT" appearing in the English version when the Japanese version also literally said "LGBT".

SunlitCat 2y ago

Although your comment is unnecessary strongly worded, you raise some very serious points. Especially Japanese - English entertainment media translations, it is very often pretty apparent that there is some kind of agenda behind translation of such works (even with translators admitting it them self doing so in comments / messages on different social media platforms). Something I just wonder is, why does especially this niche part of this profession (translating Japanese entertainment media) attract people doing so and even let them admit to make it more culturally appropriate for western markets? It's really an interesting phenomena.

Dalewyn 2y ago
Japanese entertainment is among the more popular entertainment venues in recent years, and that means it's also a useful tool for political espionage. People interested in pushing political agendas would be fools to not exploit this as they would any other. Hell, the distribution of Japanese entertainment across the world is in large part a Japanese government agenda[1] for diplomatic ends. It's all politics. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan
- SunlitCat 2y ago
  Hah! That "Cool Japan" thing! I remember some (lesser known) people to advertise for it. Dunno, it (cool japan) came to a halt in 2020 and never took off again afterwards.
soundnote 2y ago
I don't think Japanese translation is all that well paid, and if people don't get money from their work, they'll go for the job for other forms of payment (eg. status), or extract payment in other ways (half-assing things, being a petty tyrant like reddit mods, etc.)

autumnstwilight 2y ago

As someone who can understand both languages, it's less that the translators are obsessed and more that the gamergate-adjacent crowd has decided to drag their culture war into anime translations. There are a handful of examples where the translation could be debated and a lot more where it's actually pretty accurate and tonally consistent with the Japanese (which is often not exactly high literature itself), but some guy armed with a Japanese 101 textbook and Deep-L wants to get an internet mob going about it because he's convinced that someone with a trans flag in their Twitter profile can't possibly be doing it right, or that Japanese creatives themselves couldn't have left-wing/pro-LGBT views. See: people getting mad about the word "LGBT" appearing in the English version when the Japanese version also literally said "LGBT".