3mo ago

Cross culture colloquialism and dubbing?

So I often wonder about japanes cultural things in anime and especially since I watch dubbed (increasingly bad eyesight has made subbed a non starter). Anyway there is a love is ware episode that revolves around a character finding the word wiener funny but it sorta makes me wonder because in english we have that but I would assume other languages would not have the same stuff. At one point too a character is trying to get another to say it by asking another name for hotdogs or for dashhounds. It just makes me wonder if there are real analogues in japanese around this or do the writers have to decide on a different cultural thing for the joke to be around. Anyone know about this? On a side note there is the whole thing of people calling them by their last names and it makes me think about everyone walking around referring to each other like they are a student in their gym class. I wonder how prevalent using the last name actually is.

7 comments

This is called localization.
Information or brevity will always be lost in translation (and communication in general), so the translator needs to pick what information to convey and how to convey it. Sometimes it can be difficult to find a satisfactory localized translation, like translating a pun. Or if the translation has been localizing the Japanese name-honorifics system as whatever the characters in an English speaking country would call each other, but then there is a long dialogue in the show discussing how they are addressing each other; that dialogue can throw a wrench in the translation.
For Love is War, the source joke word was probably ちんちん (chinchin) which is both a childish way to say "penis" (like "poopoo" is a childish way to say 💩, or like "peepee") and a dog trick where the dog sits and begs (it might also have additional meanings). The translator probably had to think about how to make a similar gag with the existing visuals.
- Oh thank you. This scratches my itch of curiosity. That totally fits as the whole thing started with a character showing dog tricks and it sounded a bit wierd in english but I took their meaning to be about the treats she was giving the dog. Makes me think that tranlators have to act like a writing room to determine how to change it. This really makes me wonder about simulcasts. I assume they must get the script and such to translate/rewrite before the japanese audio is even done.

No idea with Japanese, but in Spain, most audiovisual media is dubbed.
Comedy is adapted according to context, both the plot's context and the current cultural context. Jokes are changed to fit the scene AND the translation.
When you start watching them in their original language, usually English, you find that the OG is usually better. And I say usually because in rare occasions, the joke in Spanish ends up being better, at least IMO.
- Yeah that is what im kinda curious about. Is the joke completely different or is there actually a direct anolog of the same type of joke in japanese.

Translation is always a bit of a balancing act. If you translate literally you may lose the jokes, and to keep the same vibe you may need to go for something that's not a literal translation.
One example that comes to my mind is in FLCL there's a line in the dub about a store that still has Crystal Pepsi, however i the original Japanese it's a different discontinued soda. The translators made the call that almost no one outside of Japan would be familiar with the original soda, and that it wasn't really that brand itself that was funny, it was that this store was still selling a soda that was discontinued like a decade ago.
I feel like the weiner/hot dog/dachshund joke is probably pretty universal, it's a pretty simple sort of visual pun- dachshunds look like a hot dog (or maybe a sausage in countries that don't eat a lot of hot dogs) and hot dogs are pretty phallic, I suspect that pretty much every culture and language has similar kinds of jokes that translate pretty well. Maybe in some cases you swap out hot dog for kielbasa or salami or whatever the local tube-shaped meat product is and the accompanying local slang, but overall the joke isn't much deeper than "lol, penises are funny and these things look like a dick"
- One interesting part is at one point there is a line that in the us they call them sausage dogs and im like. whhhaaaattt!? Then whats funny is I think about all the regional things in the us and actually im not totally sure that might be a thing somewhere.

The last name thing is true: outside family and close friends, that's what people call each other by.
I have no idea what the wiener thing was originally :)

7 comments