There's one instance I remember of the fansubbers breaking the 4-th wall unexpectedly. The line the character said as a cliff hanger came from absolutely nowhere and was so staggering that the subber added something along the lines of "We assure you this is no translation mistake", if they hadn't added that I'd think it was so they were right to. (The anime in question is Elfen Lied, I don't suggest you watch it if you're not already deep into J-culture.. and maybe just not at all)
And then there's the notorious scene in Code Geass where two characters are playing chess, and over 50% of the screen is filled with translator's notes about how that's not actually a valid move (when it's clearly an error on the animator's end of things).
Many, many fansub groups are just plain unprofessional in every sense of the word.
The greatest fansub group there ever was in my opinion was dattebayo, mostly famous for their Naruto releases. Their public attitude was as unprofessional as you could get. They would often make fun of their viewers in announcements, and if you'd miss an announcement of a skipped episode due to Japanese holidays of studio co-ops or whatever you'd unsuspectingly download a troll episode. If episodes were filler or had a cheesy storyline they'd make fun of it in the sub of the title frame. But even though their public attitude was unprofessional, their actual subbing was the most professional operation I've ever seen in a sub group. They were always among the fastest, never missing a deadline. Their translations were always top notch, better than Crunchyroll, unlike other speedsubbers that would have frequent imperfections.
They basically held the entire Naruto community hostage with their high quality releases, while making fun of them for being the kinds of person who enjoy Naruto (which wasn't very highly regarded in the community at the time). When they had to quit because crunchyroll took over Naruto it really was a great loss for the community in my opinion.
I disagree. I prefer to have the literal translation and then have the reference explained. I want the purest, most literall translation possible.
Imagine this situation. A character says "He is like a modern Nobunaga". I want the translation to say exactly that and, is the translator feel the need to, have a quick note explaining who Nobunaga was[0]. It would be unnaceptable to have it 'translated' to "He is like a modern Napoleon".
And I believe most of the hardcore anime fans would prefer it like this.
This fenomenon is called Culturalization[1]. It is as disrespectul for the hardcore fans as it is for the anime's creators.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oda_Nobunaga [1] Page 4 - https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.igda.org/resource/collection/6...
In commercial subs you can't make that assumption so, yeah, you explain it every time. But you could get creative with it. Instead ov explaining every single time you can only explain once per episode. And you can use the Intro or the Bumpers to give some context on the joke.
In dubs that gets complicated but, well... Don't watch dubs :)
It's my feeling that this should include what would be automatically understood by natives.
I have never found this to go too far - I have always wanted more local context.
I really dig for those fansubs that explain the context. Some even go extra mile by adding text frames in the video explaining why the speaker said that and what this line actually means.
We tend to miss a lot if we only have a literal translation of what the speaker have said - like a joke hidden in plain words. I remember one anime where the hero's name if written in another way meant pervert - I would have never understood why other characters used to get horrified(in a comic way) upon hearing his name for the first time if the sub had not explained it.
If you can't explain what you need to in the translation itself, just don't. Or include a TLNote.txt if you really must.
I can't speak Japanese, am not embedded within current popular Japanese culture and did not go to a Japanese high school and therefore there are references which I will not understand. These include jokes that rely on wordplay such as puns and malapropisms, and historical notes about Japanese history, geography and society which I am mostly ignorant of.
Without those translation notes, you exclude me from understanding anything but the surface of what's going on.
A lot of anime is like this: full of dualogue that should be translated as-is to capture the immediacy of a joke or expression, but that has context that doesn't make sense to a non-Japanese without explanation.
Also completely off topic, but here is the voice actress for Chiyo-chan, Tomoko Kaneda, being pranked in a taxi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTUYNaNK9ns
I wish there were more English subs of shows like this. I watch them now and then on Youtube but I can only get the most obvious physical humor because I don't speak or read Japanese.
Story about that clip: I was in Osaka getting wasted in a tiny bar. The bartender and some of the patrons were pretty into anime and games -- but the ones we tend to think of as "quintessentially Japanese" aren't universally known there. My compadres for the evening were big fans of ONE PIECE (which was the hotness in Japan at the time) but none of them had heard of Azumanga Daioh or even Katamari Damacy.
So when I said that my poor, drunken Japanese must sound like the cat thing from Azumanga Daioh, I showed them that clip on my cellphone by way of an example. Laughter all around. Those Japanese folks found the "American Sailor Moon" (a.k.a. Saban Moon) pretty funny as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS027mYtRu8
The atmosphere in that bar was so friendly that a few days later I endeavored to return. It took me like an hour to find it using my GPS and photos I'd taken from the first time around but eventually I did, and announced my triumphant return to the patrons with a hearty "HALLO EBRY-NYAN. HOW AH YOU. FINE SANKYU." Again, laughter, as they seemed to get the reference.
I haven't been to Japan since and the bar has closed down. The owner, I believe, decided to open a sports bar elsewhere in Osaka. More's the pity.
That's a difficult line to walk, you can do lighter adaption but require more cultural context (which translates into notes to explain said context to those unaware of it) or heavier adaptation removing the cultural context. Depending on the show, the latter may not make any sense, or require significantly more investment to get an acceptable result, and it divorces the translation from the original to a much higher degree.
