I’ve noticed that there are a lot of posts buzzing around on tumblr and online comparing the manga to the anime in terms of dialogue.
I figure most people know this already, but, almost without exception, the dialogue in the anime is identical to the manga. The differences are in the translation. Which brings me to another geek ramble about language...
I know I’ve said this before, but translation differences are important. They change the nuances of the character, the plot, the situation. And they can inspire us into discussion, debate, and blog posts, depending on the impact.
Translation into and from Japanese is especially like this, because so much of Japanese is not explicitly stated. A translator has to work with the nuances, and sometimes, if the person translating is not familiar with the context (or not paying attention) odd or wildly different translations for the same sentence can occur.
One of the biggest things with translating from Japanese is that a lot of the time, Japanese dialogue doesn’t need pronouns, nor does a character need to specify if they are talking about one person or a group of people. In fact, in Japanese, all you need for a sentence is a verb (although sometimes even the verb is not articulated, as the Japanese have various language shortcuts to avoid having to say a whole sentence where one or two words will do.
If you’ve ever heard a character say “Kimi wa?” or in Daiya, more likely, “Omae wa?” then you’ve basically heard them just say “you?”. In the context of the conversation, a Japanese person will understand whether that means “Who are you?” “What are you going to do?” “What do you think?” “Where are you going?” without ever saying any of these things out loud. Because Japanese is that kind a language (and English isn't), translators have to rewrite sections of the manga or the anime to join those gaps for the reader/viewer. That means the nuance goes away, and someone applies a concrete interpretation for that ambiguity. Which is sometimes helpful and obvious, and sometimes problematic.
Let’s take a fairly uncontroversial example of this, which everyone knows already. The Ichidai game, when Eijun comes off, and the coach speaks to him. The translation for what the coach says is often “I’m sorry, You saved me.”
The line itself doesn’t actually include the word ‘me’. It does include the word ‘you’, but it’s just as likely (in my opinion, more likely) that Kataoka said “you saved US.” (If we want to be pedantic, it’s a passive, so more accurately, we were saved by you, but let’s not split hairs).
Eijun’s actions saved the team, not Kataoka. Kataoka’s job is in no danger, so it makes sense in context to translate that as ‘us’, not ‘me’.
Another one, maybe more controversial, is Furuya’s comment at the end of the Hakuryuu game, where Eijun tells him that he isn’t satisfied yet. Furuya’s comment gets translated multiple ways, but the CR subs put it as “you can still compete with me”. This created something of a backlash among fans against Furuya’s arrogance, but I don’t think that’s what he said.
Furuya doesn’t use any articles at all, so the ‘you’ and the ‘me’ in this sentence are always added by the translator, not included in the original manga. On that basis, it’s just as likely Furuya could be saying “I can still compete with you”.
For me, though, Furuya’s actually saying ‘we can still compete with each other’. This is because, in Japanese, even if you don’t have pronouns, you can still tell a lot from the verb. This is a bit geek detaily, but Furuya’s verb is seri-a-eru.
Seri is from seru, which means to compete.
The a is from au - a verb suffix which indicates to do the verb (here compete) mutually.
Then the ending, eru - indicates to be able to do the verb (to compete).
Furuya has no pronouns or articles but his verb is detailed enough that we don’t need them. To me he says WE can still compete WITH EACH OTHER.
This changes the nuances of Furuya as someone arrogant looking down on Eijun, to someone (as Haruichi I think) points out, trying to keep face in the light of the disaster that was the Hakuryuu game for him.
Small details make a big difference in how the story is both told and understood. Fans are always interested in tiny details, so it’s both interesting - and sometimes frustrating - how those tiny details are handled in translation in different ways to create completely different nuances.
And my disclaimer for this post is that, as any translating person, I too have to use my judgement in deciding where to put those pronouns and other missing words ;)
A cute Japanese detail for Eijun fans that translation may lose...
This seems like a standard image of Eijun epic-pitching, which it is. But what I want to highlight is the text on the right hand side of the panel.
This bit. Because those two kanji, they say Eijun’s name.
Some folk probably know this but in Japanese, especially in manga, it’s not uncommon for there to be tiny little characters (called furigana) down the right side which tell you how to read/pronounce kanji.
Mostly this is just standard phonetic script for the word.
Sometimes it gives kanji with a western word reading (like pitching) so that the Japanese reader has some context.
And sometimes it conveys an extra nuance.
In Japanese, it is possible to say two things at the same time by writing one word in kanji characters and then giving the reading/pronunciation for another word alongside it. This is far from unusual. It often happens in manga, in books, in song lyrics. These are often (not always) lost in translation, with the translator often having to choose either the word or the reading to translate coherently, not both.
This language trick generally implies that these two terms mean the same thing, or that one indicates the other.
This is one of those times, and for those who don’t speak Japanese, just in case the translation misses it...
The line probably best translates as “The ace, Sawamura’s pitching also ramps up a gear.” but the original Japanese is basically telling readers that now Sawamura = Ace.
