Do anime companies do their own translations of shows?

[SpaceCowboy]

How common is it that anime companies do their translating independently as opposed to receiving translations for shows from the Japanese licensor?

Funimation seems to rely on Steve Simmons for a fair amount of the translation for the literal subtitles on the DVDs of their titles.

Disney uses translations provided by Studio Ghibli for adapting those films into dub form and some of the DVD releases use similar subtitle translations as the Japanese DVDs do (like with Nausicaa). I think Mononoke's dub script had translation work done by Neil Gaiman, but I'm not sure.

AnimEigo translate their anime releases on their own and Central Park Media use people like Neil Nadelman to translate.

Streamline Pictures and Harmony Gold used translations from the Japanese licensor for their titles. Their few subtitled releases were criticized for having numerous errors, and were probably intended primarily for eventual adaptation into dub scripts.

BBC-TV in the UK decided to do a new translation of the subtitles for their airing of Akira when they were dissatisfied with the existing translation Streamline used.
The DVDs Manga UK releases of Naruto have British-centric vocabulary such as "mum" in the subtitles.

I immediately thought of this when there are companies like Illumnitoon that claim that they can't use literal subtitle translations for their DVD releases because the licensor didn't provide it (as is the case with Bo^7), but yet other companies can do translations independently.
And do you feel the translation quality is better or worse if it is done locally instead of by the Japanese licensor? Often local translators can provide cultural or translation notes or can interpret how to maintain the main idea of something that does not translate well into English that a US or Western audience would understand.

[BCVM22]

You answered your own question, for the most part. Some production studios have their own translators on staff, some receive translations from the licensors. I know back when Saban/Sensation Animation was in the dubbing business, they had a translator on staff. Either way, the studio receives the translated scripts and then hands them over to their own writers for localization. It depends largely on the studio.

[Duke]

I know Geneon has their own translator in Rika Takahashi (I think that's her name). Actually, I think she works for Bang Zoom and/or Animaze, as I think I've seen her name in the credits of Bandai's LA dubs.

[AstroNerdBoy]

Funimation seems to rely on Steve Simmons for a fair amount of the translation for the literal subtitles on the DVDs of their titles.

Don't forget Clyde (aka: Mato). :sweat:


And do you feel the translation quality is better or worse if it is done locally instead of by the Japanese licensor? Often local translators can provide cultural or translation notes or can interpret how to maintain the main idea of something that does not translate well into English that a US or Western audience would understand.

I recently purchased the R2 DVD for the live-action Honey and Clover movie (http://astronerdboy.blogspot.com/2007/03/honey-and-clover-movie-review.html). That had subtitles done by the Japanese, which weren't bad. They dropped all honorifics save for "san" but didn't display them in the western way (ie: "Yamada san" rather than "Yamada-san"). There were a few odd translation moments where a more literal translation would have been fine but the translator chose to give it an odd domestication treatment (making changes that I gather the translator figured wouldn't be understood by English speakers when in fact they would have) but otherwise it was fine. Indeed, I'd say it was better than certain American companies would have done in some regards (though I wouldn't have just made every sensei on campus a "Doctor" as a translation of "sensei").

Personally, I want the subtitles to be as accurate as possible while being readable (true literal translations aren't very readable). So I don't want the translator changing things because I might not understand. Give me some translator notes so I can understand and don't remove the Japanese culture from the subtitles.

Ultimately, the quality of the subtitles (whether Japan or the U.S.) boils down to the translator first (does the translator want to give the audience a Japanese perspective or change it to an American one), followed by the company producing the DVD release (different companies have different policies regarding subtitles). My only experience with Japanese-produced subtitles wasn't a bad one.

[Weatherman]

Depends on what is stipulated in the contract they signed to license the show. Sme companies can be really touchy about how a translation is done and prefer to use whatever someone in Japan came up with as the proper translation ratehr than what someone over here is saying.