The Perils of Translation: Part 1

Since starting the translations of the novelizations of Blood+ into English I have kept of running list of tricky translation points that may be of interest to up-and-coming speakers and readers of Japanese as well as those interested in translation of Japanese media. (Or just Blood+ fans.)

This will be a periodic posting and I have about 20 points already, but will start with three perilous translation points for today.

1) Non-translatable hints as to who is speaking: Pronouns.

This month I will finish the fourth volume of the Blood+ anime novelizations. Older brother, Kai, always refers to himself as おれ ore in the first person. Riku uses ぼく boku. Lulu says あたい atai and Mao says あたし atashi. These are all different personal pronouns for the English "I" or "me" (and aren't even a complete list). In Japanese light novels it isn't uncommon to have streams of dialogue where there are no ", said Saya." or ", said Hagi" helpers. Sometimes it can read a little like a script. For the Japanese reader, these unique indicators (generally decided by gender and age) reveal who is speaking, but we don't have that distinction in English. 

After discussions with the editor and proofreader, we decided to add the ", said XXX" when it wasn't clear who was speaking, as the Japanese hint didn't translate into English.

2) Changing perspectives

The author of a novelization like Blood+, based on an anime, tries to do what he can to take advantage of the media that prose fiction allows. In this case author Ryo Ikehata constantly shifts the first-person perspective of the story. When watching the anime, the viewer always has an omnipresent view. However, in the novels the reader reads from the perspective of one character in each scene. I think this makes for a dynamic read, as we can get in the heads of Saya, Kai, Van, David, etc. but it is also a "unique challenge" for the translator... a nice way of saying "a pain in the butt". 

I have seen this in other Japanese novels. Each perspective drifts between personal and omnipresent (as sometimes situations are described even though the character has his or her eyes closed). 

In Blood+ the Frenchman, Van, uses more flowery language and multi-syllable words, where the teenage boy, Kai, is more rough and direct. Translating that into a coherent and smooth English has been fun challenge. 

3) Big brother - Little sister

This last one isn't too complicated. There is no direct word for "brother" or for "sister" in Japanese. 

There are four words:

兄 ani (oniisan) older brother

姉 ane (oneesan) older sister

弟 otouto younger brother

妹 imouto younger sister

So any time you see simply "brother" or "sister" written in an novel or manga translated from Japanese, you can know that the translator dropped the "older" or "younger" (big or little) distinction. Finding that balance is tricky when translating into English. One reason is the distinction of age is much more revered in Japan than it is in the Western world. Even twins in are distinguished by who was born first, even if by mere seconds. 

Kai, Saya, and Riku are siblings (of a sort) in that order, but it felt funny to constantly write "Hey big brother," or "She's my younger sister". When the age distinction didn't make a difference in what a character was trying to say I usually dropped it. If they were all left in, it would probably have been distracting for the reader.