I was watching Aria the Animation with a friend, and we came across a scene in which Aika says her trademark line, “Hazukashii serifu kinshi!” Given that fansubs were usually consistent, I always figured this meant “Embarrassing remarks aren’t allowed!”
So I was puzzled when it’s shown in the first episode of the DVDs as “No sappy lines allowed!”
In Nozomi/Right Stuf’s sub of Aria the Animation, the line is translated as “No sappy lines allowed!” I repeated the word, “Sappy,” but my friend suddenly says, “They should’ve used embarrassing…”
Here is HnK&BSS’s version of the line:
So I want Nozomi to change the damn line for Aria the Natural and Aria the Origination to “Embarrassing lines are prohibited (or aren’t allowed)!” Why is this such a big deal for me? It isn’t. It simply bugs me. Translating is often open to interpretation, but I just want them to change it to embarrassing. Is that too much to ask? It’s not like there is a voice actress that needs to re-record the line… it’s just changing text. While they’re doing that, they may as well replace all of our copies of Aria the Animation with a fixed version in which Aika’s line is “Embarrassing lines are prohibited!”
Woohoo, there we go, a second post in November! Next up, a post on Detroit Metal City… hopefully that won’t be shit like this one. Because this one feels very forced. Because it is.
EDIT: No, I’m not being serious in this post. It actually does bug me, but it’s not really an issue. Don’t flame or criticize me for this post, kthx.
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IcyStorm—read this post again.
No, seriously, read it again.
What is this, may I ask? Violent rhetoric in response to Nozomi’s kindness? Remember when deftoned blogged about how shitty Aquamarine’s subs of Origination 12+13 were, and I was like, “err, deftoned, dude, how can you hate like that?”
… the line is sappy. Aika calls Akari on it. Sappy and embarrassing, despite not being synonyms, are interchangeable in this context. The line is embarrassing because it is sappy. Sappy is a perfectly usable word here. It makes sense. It works.
I don’t see any problem with this translation. Sticklers of “literal” translation are more often than not weeaboos who don’t understand the meanings of the English words. People who want a word in a subtitle because it was in the fansub are just ungrateful.
C’mon, IcyStorm. Where’s the love?
@lolikitsune: I’m not being serious. It does bug me, yeah, but not to the extent that I actually want Nozomi to change it. I’m glad they released the DVD. Don’t take it too seriously…
WHY DOES IT BUG YOU YOU PIECE OF SHIT
Don’t call people that word, Mr. lolikit. It’s not nice and wonderful :[ Akari and Alicia are frowning.
They don’t frown, you two-faced bitch.
Well it’s all the same in raw Japanese, and that’s how true anime fans watch anime!
Somewhat related but I was watching the Gurren Lagann dub for ep. 26 and when it got to Viral’s dream they changed “sweet dream” for “sappy dream”. These really aren’t the same thing and changes Viral’s character. In the grand scheme of things, though, it’s no big deal but it still bothered me a bit.
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They have to realize most of the people buying the Aria DVDs were fansub watchers and changing a well known line might bother some fans.
“WHY DOES IT BUG YOU YOU PIECE OF SHIT”
Because it was what we were used to, I guess?
I know from my experiences, when ADV originally translated the manga coming out here in the US, the phrase was “Embarrassing phrases are prohibited”, which is a literal translation of the stock phrase (I believe), but it works well. And the fact that the fansubs kept that phrase didn’t hurt.
So it was strange hearing the new wording that Tokyopop and RightStuf used because it was new. There’s no problem with the phrase, but I guess it’s a matter of having an established comfort zone with what we knew. As Icy says, it’s not really that serious. :P
It works well enough. Just like TheBigN says, we got used to “embarrassing,” but in all the cases where the catch phrase was used, obviously it was sappy stuff.
Comes right back down to the standard issue where most fansubbers (and this has been the case) don’t feel it’s their place to interpret, but people like Nozomi have an obligation to sell DVDs to westerners and tend to interpret. On the extreme end of this is Funimation and their wild deviations, so I guess we should be thankful that this is the big difference.
sappy whines about sappy lines not allowed shouldn’t be allowed IMO.
what N and otou-san said, otherwise. The “embarassing” remarks translation is borderline transliteration. Sappy doesn’t map as well to “hazukashii serifu” aurally but it is more natural. Whatev.