Analyzing the localization of K3/DT (pt. 2)
Here's a line that made me do a double take when I first saw it in English, so I would like to take a closer look at it.
それに お前は危なかしいからな……
俺の目の届くところにおいた方がいい
Sore ni omae wa abunakashii kara na...
Ore no me no todoku tokoro ni oita hou ga ii
Lit.: Furthermore, you're reckless... so I better put you where my eyes can reach.
Official translation: Also... You have a tendency to walk right into danger. Better to keep you at my side - where you'll be safe.
At first glance, the literal translation looks quite different from the official translation, and it feels like the English translation added a whole notion that isn't there in the original version. Looking closer at it, though, I don't think this line was badly localized.
First of all, 危なかしい abunakashii is a little difficult to translate literally. If you look up the definition, you'll come across terms like dangerous, uncertain, unreliable, but the context here is important: abunakashii usually carries to nuance of "something or someone that brings danger to itself/themselves and others." For example, a wobbly ladder that would break if you step on it and injure you would be called abunakashii. But you would also call a reckless driver abunakashii, or a risky plan, or a toddler walking on wobbly feet. The closest I could think to define the term is "a person/thing/action that elicits worry for someone's safety," and I can't really think of a word in English that captures that exact nuance, but in the specific context of this scene I think reckless is the closest translation.
And that's where the "where you'll be safe" part of the English translation comes in - it's not literally there in Japanese, but abunakashii implies it. Daigo thinks Mine's behavior is dangerous/reckless in a way that makes Daigo worried about Mine's safety - so by putting him close to himself, he wants to keep him safe.
At first glance, people would easily assume that the English wording makes the line sound gayer than it was originally intended to be. But incidentally, I don't think that's the case! Unfortunately I can't provide receipts for this, but I've seen not one, but several people on Japanese twitter state that this line sounds like something straight out of an Otome game. Which I can't confirm nor deny since I don't play Otome games lol, but I'll trust their word.
In summary, I think the literal translation of this line doesn't quite catch the nuance it has in Japanese, and the English re-interpretation basically spelled that nuance out for us. So while it may look inaccurate at first glance, I don't think it was a bad translation.
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