General Anime/Manga Discussion 15: The Beach Episode

[LaZodiac]

I'm not sure how much sense Mikami being the gun devil makes, as in getting herself shot and then killing a bunch of her underlings. Though that could be just quirky planning or bad writing. But it's clear something is up. I rather like sword devil, though.
I wonder what else would make for a powerful devil.. Spiders? Zombies? Darkness?

Ah, I'm sure there must have been worse endings than Souma's. I mean, it was very disappointing but it didn't make me angry. It was just extremely Meh. Wait for it, in thirty years One Piece will end the same way


And if we go with the Isekai theme for a new title, can't we pick an actually good inspiration, like
God's (Giant's?) Blessing on this wonderful Thread
Or we pick a classic and go with
Spirited Away
?

That wasn't a sword devil, that's a Sword Man, like how Denji is a Chainsaw Man. It could be that Mikami doesn't realize she's the gun devil, though.

I mean for this series "a wet fart" is kind of a terrible ending to go out on

I've got a thread title idea: General Anime/Manga Discussion 15: Trapped In Another Thread

[Aotrs Commander]

So while I spend most of another week on enforced rejuvenation (first time I have been able to make it to the iron idiot - and we were supposed to have been away today but Mum's been ill to boot), I did finish Glitterforce dokodoki and also to watch FMA Sacred Star of Milos.

The latter was excellent, as expected.



The former did indeed crap some plot into the last six episodes, but it was a little bit late, really. It was... The same as the rest of Glitterforce, just not quite really as good and the attacks and such were kinda lame. Resounding "meh."



Next cleaning-room telly is Madoka Magika. (But no, having watched SF Debris review of it - else I wouldn't have touched it - sadly, you won't get to laugh at any over-reactions to the plot twists therein.)

[Kato]

Okay, so chainsawboy might just have gotten a good bit darker.. Not that it was gumdrops and rainbows before but yikes.

Also, I hear the internet is going crazy over Netflix 'censoring' their NGE broadcast.. Netflix, censoring stuff? What?

[Ramza00]

Also, I hear the internet is going crazy over Netflix 'censoring' their NGE broadcast.. Netflix, censoring stuff? What?

The specific scene is a complicated scene to translate into English and it was always a complicated scene to translate into English but we as "English viewers" were always not getting the ambiguity that was purposeful in the scene.

The word "suki" can be translated as "like" or "love" and it depends on context. In that specific scene Kaworu is purposefully keeping the labels ambiguous while trying to express his affection, his caring, etc. He is being playful and ambiguous on purpose with his language. Kaworu is being coy, where the main intent is to show he has affection for Shinji but do not get it. Shinji is so starved from affection that even when he gets it, it hurts (the hedgehog dilemma) and love without labels, affection so on and so on is something he craves yet it hurts when he tries to do what he craves.

If Kaworu wanted to say "love" there were other words he could have said besides "suki." The whole point I am trying to say here is Kaworu is purposefully being coy and that is evident if you are familiar enough with the whole conversation. Yet when you try to translate this into English literally the ambiguity, the coyness is lost.

This scene has never translated well into English in any of the dubs or subs in the 23 years of this scene. The ambiguity was always lost. (Let's come back to this later.)

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(Sorry for the Run on Sentence.)

• In the drafts of this Episode 24 prior to tho this episode being aired (aka the decided to go a different route for episode 24 was majorly rewritten but the episode prior drafts were published in a 1996 magazine to compare for Evangelion was super popular back then)
• In the manga,
• In the dating game,
• In the rebuild anime, etc, etc.

...In other scenes it is flat out made far more explicit that Kaworu and Shinji are romantically and sexually attracted to each other. It is not just a love for humanity or the potential in an individual, but they feel more alive and have joy^{as in beauty, a positive form of pleasure} and delight^{delight is a form of pleasure that is a relief from negative pain, the world sucks less} in each other's company. Shinji feels both pleasure and delight being with Kaworu and vice versa. They crush on each other (per the other Evangelion sources, both prior to this episode and after this episode.) Sometimes they also kiss.

Yet even though in other scenes it is flat out more explicit, the whole purpose of this love / like scene is to be ambiguous. To show Shinji's fear, his pain, and so on in this "liminal" space. Even when he is with a person who loves him part of Shinji is confused, doubtful, and in pain. The pleasure mixes with the pain for that is the nature of life. Pleasure and pain happens when you alone, and pleasure and pain happens when you are together, but the contact space, the liminal space between two extremes is the most scary and Shinji fears contact more than anything. (The hedgehog dilemma.)

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(Comes back to this thing from later.)

I do not personally think this is the case of "straight-washing" it was always a case of bad translation, both with the older dubs and subs but also with the newer versions of this scene. Sometimes it is great to be literal with your translations and keeping the same sentence structure and try to translate word for word.

But sometimes this transliteral way of translation loses a whole lot of context, a whole lot of meaning when you try to change one language to another. The word play of language involves things that are figuratively, idioms, metaphorical, euphemism, so on and so on. The meaning of the words used and the communication that is being expressed may not be properly communicated when you change language.

In that case you need to localize the sentence or even the entire conversation and say the thing you are trying to communicate in an entirely different way. But Netflix (and arguably the older dubs and subs) did not do this. Aka you sent a train down tracks with two paths and both paths lead to bad outcomes, the solution to this problem is not pivot the train prior to sending it down a pathway that only has bad outcomes in the first place. Transliteration is sometimes useful and sometimes it leads to disaster, sometimes you need to relocalize the sentence and what is being communicated.

P.S. The new English Voice Actor for Shinji in the Netflix Dub is Trans / Non-Binary.

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Note the "suki" meaning like or love (depending on context) is not the only bad translation that has occured. For example choosing "I am the lowest of the low" may be a better transliteration, but saying "I am so [expletive] up" captures the scene better and thus using this euphemism and "liberty" with the original Japanese when you translate to English makes a whole lot more sense.

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Also, I hear the internet is going crazy over Netflix 'censoring' their NGE broadcast.. Netflix, censoring stuff? What?

But hey whatever, nothing is ever the ideal and that is okay. Learn to love messed up pieces of works is part of the message of Evangelion in the first place. Do not let the rejection and the frustration overwhelm you, instead turn off your brain and love it anyway. Let the internet with its reddit and twitter get frustrated with the new dub and sub.

Signed a gay man who is homoflexible (aka a form of bi.) I am fine with this even though it is not exactly how I wanted it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (please feel free to disagree with me.)

[Aotrs Commander]

This is the reason why stuff like Asterix (the English translation, anyway) has always been held up as the gold standard - the two folk who did it (both passed on now, sadly) knew how - and when - to change something that didn't translate into something that did (e.g, to replace some of jokes which English-speakers might not get with a new joke in the same sort of context that they would).

But that is, like, hard, and one suspects - given everything else around these days - that the poor translators are almost certainlt overworked and not given enough time and thus can't (or won't) be as creative. (See also late Naruto's painful pre-ponderance of "visual prowess" or almost everyone's over-use of "life on the line.")



Also, shouldn't we, like, start a new thread now...?

[Rynjin]

P.S. The new English Voice Actor for Shinji in the Netflix Dub is Trans / Non-Binary.

...I'll bite, what's the relevance of this?

I never got around to watching NGE all the way through, does Shinji come out as trans by the end or something?

[Ramza00]

...I'll bite, what's the relevance of this?

I never got around to watching NGE all the way through, does Shinji come out as trans by the end or something?

It is an argument that there was probably no malicious forethought in this contrevsary.

Instead the controversy was created probably out of accidental afterthought that only makes sense in hindsight.

If the goal before hand was to straight-wash that is probably not synonymous with similar goals that some people have that are uncomfortable with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans people.

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If you still do not get this after I said it here, then this argument probably will not apply to you. Arguments are not based around reason after all, they are born more from emotion, sentiment, aesthetics, etc. The idea of logic in arguments is trying to make these "aesthetics" seem more appealing to people who do not share the original aesthetic temperament. But some things are not logical and they do not take root in other people who view the world differently (this is okay, for humanity is full of so many subjective experiences and preferences.)

[Rynjin]

It is an argument that there was probably no malicious forethought in this contrevsary.

Instead the controversy was created probably out of accidental afterthought that only makes sense in hindsight.

If the goal before hand was to straight-wash that is probably not synonymous with similar goals that some people have that are uncomfortable with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans people.

-----

If you still do not get this after I said it here, then this argument probably will not apply to you. Arguments are not based around reason after all, they are born more from emotion, sentiment, aesthetics, etc. The idea of logic in arguments is trying to make these "aesthetics" seem more appealing to people who do not share the original aesthetic temperament. But some things are not logical and they do not take root in other people who view the world differently (this is okay, for humanity is full of so many subjective experiences and preferences.)

Ahhh, I had to look up to get the context form this, Kaworu's a dude. So they have ambiguously romantic feelings in the original, but not in the second dub, got it.

[LaZodiac]

Ahhh, I had to look up to get the context form this, Kaworu's a dude. So they have ambiguously romantic feelings in the original, but not in the second dub, got it.

Other way around.

Anyway yeah I personally think it fits better to have Kowaru be more explicit about his love for Shinji, but that's just me.

[Zalabim]

Meanwhile, I watched the show and didn't pick up a hint of romantic attraction. Then again I'm deep in the "maybe she's from Canada" part of that one Casually Explained video.

[Kato]

I should have been more explicit when I posted my question...
I knew it was about the bit between Shinji and Kaworu, though I didn't know in too much detail. I just was wondering why Netflix would censor... well, anything, but especially gay love, I guess. It just being lost in translation might make sense, and I don't really mind either way, but I'll admit it feels like something that was pretty clear cut originally.
Then again, my memory of NGE is twenty years old and from the German dub and I only vaguely remember very young Kato being slightly confused at the thought of gay love when I first and last watched it, but it stuck.

[LaZodiac]

I should have been more explicit when I posted my question...
I knew it was about the bit between Shinji and Kaworu, though I didn't know in too much detail. I just was wondering why Netflix would censor... well, anything, but especially gay love, I guess. It just being lost in translation might make sense, and I don't really mind either way, but I'll admit it feels like something that was pretty clear cut originally.
Then again, my memory of NGE is twenty years old and from the German dub and I only vaguely remember very young Kato being slightly confused at the thought of gay love when I first and last watched it, but it stuck.

I can explain this!

It's a studio mandate from Japan. That's basically it. The people in charge of the actual series said "for this dub we'd like the line to be this". It's the same as how they're really trying to present Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus as Just Friends, even though they're allowing them to in show be like "hey Neptune let's _not_ talk about our sex lives in front of these people, let's save it for private" and stuff like that. It's way more explicit in the text but they want to present it as Just Friends on relationship charts and stuff.

Specifically caused by this incident with Rebuild 3: https://twitter.com/fooly_cooly/stat...30726607114240

[ellenate]

It is an argument that there was probably no malicious forethought in this contrevsary.

Instead the controversy was created probably out of accidental afterthought that only makes sense in hindsight.

honestly, i think netflix started the whole thing themselves... the whole thing just seems off

[LaZodiac]

Oh hey look a new thread.