Sumez wrote:
It's a really tough balance that translators always face. Even though it's easy to say that a translation should always be literal, and it's up to the audience to apply their own knowledge of cultural differences, it's just never that simple. There's always some amount of localization necessary in order to grasp the correct tone and intent in a dramatic scene. And if there is voice acting too, it gets even more complex.
Clearly that's true, and I wouldn't dispute it.
What I have a problem with isn't when translators change the translation in order to preserve the meaning, it's when they change the meaning completely in an attempt to introduce elements that would be more familiar to the target audience.
Often times, the rationale for this is that "the animation or game company in Japan told us to change it as much as possible in order to create maximum engagement. If they had their way, these games and programs would resemble the source material even less." Or something like that.
Honestly, I don't care that much for myself. I don't watch dubs (which this is most relating to), and I speak/read well enough to get by without subs anyway. I have absolutely no skin in the game at all. Regardless, I don't think they should be changing the meaning of things to cater to western audiences. Changing things to make the original feeling more clear is correct, but rewriting things to be westernized sucks. I grew up with the Robotech and Voltron bastardizations in the US, and it was a revelation when I finally was able to see the original shows and understand what was actually going on.
What's been going on in the translation world (at least in the japanese one) recently is a trend towards more heavy-handed localization to the point where things are sliding back towards the 80's again, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
The whole experience of learning about a new culture and understanding those differences is embedded in the experience of deciphering mysteries in the dialog. If I had watched all of those 90's anime with seamless, localized dubs, I never would have wondered what things meant and never looked any further. I would have been robbed of the important part of the experience.