anybody here following the "SobsPlease" sub drama re: Girls Band Cry? any thoughts?
(for the uninitiated the line "告白です" "it's a confession" (literal) was translated as "I want you to feel loved" which the translators are claiming isn't an attempt at gay erasure, the official french release is "Je te déclare ma flamme." which is romantic.)
more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/yurimemes/comments/1d774ya/well_this_is_awful_girls_band_cry/
especially this comment with a breakdown: https://www.reddit.com/r/yurimemes/comments/1d774ya/comment/l6yeqfx/
comments and funny memes in here: https://www.reddit.com/r/yurimemes/comments/1d825vv/theres_been_some_tiny_issues_in_the_girls_band/
comments and the sub here: https://nyaa.si/view/1828268#comments
y'know, maybe the straights are onto something
okay you sickos here you go
here's the blank (very large) meme template if anybody wants it
so the official Toei english subs for Girls Band Cry (released in Indonesia on Catchplay) are out and SobsPlease stans just can't take the L. It turns out denial isn't just a river in anime egypt.
(for those who want the official subs they're here: https://nyaa.si/view/1831845, it's just the subs, they're slightly off if you try to sync them with the Nakayubi subs versions, so I recommend getting Japanese raws, the Toonshub ones seem to work perfectly)
i know this isn't new for queer stuff in translated fiction (just look at the cope people did with Bridget and Vivian), but at this point if you say the French, Chinese, Spanish subs are wrong, all the other English fan subs and people who know Japanese are wrong, and even the official subs that translated the line exactly the same way as the fan subs are wrong, we're really into epistemology "how does anybody really know anything" territory to try to deny that a girl can love another girl. How can anybody know the truth of the words of a fictional character if everybody, even the source that created those words have interpreted them incorrectly? How does anybody know anything? Is there in truth no lesbians? Is Japanese even real? Are we real?
the whole "SobsPlease is just trying to make it sound the most natural way for English speakers to speak" thing isn't even true, like if you look at the 3 English translations (Sobs 1, Nakayubi 2, Catchplay 3), Sobs is much more awkward, made even more so by them trying so hard to avoid the dialogue being even slightly gay-sounding. And "is it so hard to believe" is so much more stilted, especially at an emotional moment, than "What else?" or "Isn't it obvious?"
(Also there's quite a lot of hubris to insist only you understand what's being said when literally every other translation, French, Spanish, Chinese, and several English subs, unofficial and now official, has translated it to "confession" or "confession of love")
But also, the more important part for me, is that "I want you to feel loved" isn't just incorrect, it COMPLETELY CHANGES THE SCENE AND NINA'S CHARACTER. She doesn't want Momoka to "feel loved" so she's being nice to her. That's not Nina. Nina is pure-id & very self-focused (sometimes to a toxic degree tbh), if she says she loves Momoka it's b/c she wants Momoka & it's what she feels, not as some sort of benevolent gesture to make Momoka feel better.
And despite what Sobs claims, it isn't a similar line that can be interpreted as love if the series goes that way. I made this Star Wars meme as a joke, but think about the difference if Leia said "I want you to feel loved" after the kiss instead of "I love you." The meaning completely changes & so does Leia's character.
ok my last word on this as somebody who has done translation & subbing, is that there's a difference between translating meaning between languages & changing it to what you think the character means vs what they said...
an example of the former is if a character asks "did you get to first base?" to mean "did you kiss her?", translating that literally might make no sense but translating to "did you kiss her" preserves the meaning...
an example of the latter, is like Vader's line "I am your father" in Empire. when it came out, apparently a lot of people (including James Earl Jones) believed he was lying... that doesn't mean you should translate the line to "I might be your father" or "maybe I'm not your father" just b/c you personally think he's lying... he still said it even if he's lying
@ami_angelwings
*snrk* do a Destiel one next!
@ami_angelwings Thank you for indulging our perversion
@ami_angelwings i don't even watch it and I'm so glad that you said it? I'm reading a supposedly really highly rated Japanese mystery novel right now, and I feel like the writer and my own philosophy of how to set up a mystery is similar, but the translator 's approach is the complete opposite, and it's making the whole experience really terrible.
Edit: like in my life time I've seen translated work better than the original as well, but it's almost like every time I read something in a different language it's a different story
@ami_angelwings "Search your feelings, you know it to be plausible."
@otherdracula "I want you to feel conflicted"
@ami_angelwings Discussing our own interpretation of art with others is fine, I’d even say a good thing. We all interpret and experience art differently. We shouldn’t let bad actors stop us from doing so.
Because the bad actors aren’t trying to interpret anything, they are just pushing hate and bigotry. They aren’t worth listening to and they don’t add anything of value at all.
Screw what is official or not, if people enjoy characters in a certain way, let them.
If people want to ship characters left and right, let them. It’s not my thing, I don’t care for it, so I just let them do their thing. Doesn’t stop me from enjoying fictional media.
@yon I'm not saying that official word is word of god or that people can't ship things, people can interpret whatever they want, I'm talking being a translator...
@ami_angelwings I agree. Asking/wanting to know what was intended/in the minds of the author(s) is absolutely valid, and hell I’m curious about that too sometimes.
I just dislike (and I think we are on the same page) when someone is trying to use it or deny it because of same hate agenda.
Basically these doofuses that think nobody in Japan is ever LGBTQ+ because they have this weird hate utopia in their heads.
To be clear, these people don’t have a higher knowledge about Japan or the Japanese, they just suck.
Sorry if I was unclear earlier:/
@yon i didn't want to make my original post really long by adding that every other sub also said the same thing but i did, then it makes it clearer... also the original cope was that "we'll only know when the official word comes down" but it came down against them so now the cope is even the official word is wrong... that's what i was reacting to
@ami_angelwings Ah I see. I probably commented kind of in the middle of things (wish I had a better interface:/). Bad habit of mine:/
Sorry if it sounded like it I said it was a wish ship or similar. Just meant that it’s ok.
I’m not LGBTQ+, nor a PoC, or anything interesting. I don’t really have that much of a view into any of those worlds. So I’m just happy to see more diverse characters in media. It’s about time.
@ami_angelwings Companies are quite the chickens still
@ami_angelwings "anti loc" dudes trying so hard to erase any queer content in the original text while saying they're staying true to the work will always be funny... And infuriating
@ami_angelwings Thanks for reminding me that I need to catch up on that series. Didn't expect it to make a queer turn.