by Kiyoshi
Posted 01-12-2002

Living in England I look at some of the changes made to Japanese animation during translation and wonder why it was done. Why do I wonder this more than Americans though? Because England has more lax censors than America, and some of the things taken out in America would have been left in if it was translated in England. Some of the changes just don’t make sense. For example, flipping scenes so that cars are on the right hand side of the road or so that drivers are on the left of the car or the habit of erasing Kanji would not be done. Now we wouldn’t flip the scenes because the Japanese drive the same way we do and besides, we watch American shows all the time, and do we care that they drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road? No. Anyway, American’s watch James Bond. Do they flip the scenes in that so that Bond drives his car like Americans do? As for the Kanji, sure, signs would be translated if they were supposed to be read in the storyline but being so close to Europe and many diverse languages make England much more open to other languages and, more importantly for Japanese animation, cultures. In England we are used to dealing with other cultures, heck, most of our entertainment comes from other countries. Okay, America may not be much different, but you would be surprised as to how many jokes in sitcoms are not funny in England because we don’t understand them and then there are other European countries, such as France and Italy. We even share an entire channel with Italy on digital satellite, and I’m not talking about channels done by the same company, I’m talking about a bilingual channel, so it shows how open we are to other languages and cultures (nothing funnier than watching an Italian advert!).

Is that enough of a reason as to why England would be a better place to translate Anime? No? Well, onto my next reason. In England we have a television broadcaster called BSKYB. They provide television through digital satellite, and as the government are aiming to shut down analogue transmitters by 2010 it is a very popular broadcaster because of its cheapness and DVD quality pictures (about 66% of the country use it I think). But the most important thing about satellite television (which I believe is just coming over to America, even though we have had it for over 15 years) is that it is encrypted. That means that unlike cable you can’t watch it unless you are supposed to. Yes, cable can try to stop you by not connecting you or something similar, but you can get round that. With satellite, however, they just don’t let your system decode the channels unless you have the right card with microchip, which changes regularly. Plus, with the new digital satellite system the user can block separate channels from children with pin numbers. Now you are probably thinking, so what? But the point is that because the channels are encrypted and have restricted viewing is that the watershed times (the different times for different censors) can be changed to whatever the broadcasters seem reasonable. Now are you seeing my point? In England they could show any anime, even uncut ones, in the middle of the day without worrying, if that certain channel so desired and warned the viewers of the rating and the reason for early broadcast. (Anyone who has visited England and watched one of the Sky movie channels may have heard the phrase "You are watching an encrypted film channel and this movie has an 8pm watershed not 9…").

With the encryption it would give free reign (within English transmission laws) to anyone who wanted to translate Anime in England, but even without it would not be edited to the point that most are. For my example I will use Cardcaptor Sakura because I own the Japanese series and have seen the American dub and can therefore make a firsthand analysis.

Now the first thing I would say is that for it to be shown on an analogue channel before 7pm any admission of Touya and Yukito’s love would be removed, however, it is unlikely that the interaction between them would be touched. Syaoran’s crush on Yukito, and Tomoyo’s on Sakura, would have probably been verbally adjusted to hero worship, and friendship, and clearly defined as such, but his crush on Sakura would have been left in. The names would have probably been kept, because we are used to different cultures and languages over here, as would place names, foodstuffs etc. Cultural reference would be left mostly untouched, although they may try to explain them in the dialogue. Other than that nothing else would have changed (even the music would be left untouched, except maybe some translations, if essential to the plot (like Syaoran’s and Tomoyo’s songs), or cutting out words and leaving instrumentals. It would have probably been dubbed, not subbed, but they would not have changed the characterisation at all, and if it was a show aimed at older people and had been translated by Channel 4 productions then it would more likely be subtitled (Channel 4 do what they think is good entertainment, not what will make the most money) although not shown until after 10pm due to more popular shows taking the place of an adult anime. The main problem (and maybe benefit) is that anime has not really taken off in England, other than the childish dubs, and that the older Animes are very cultish, so channels like Channel 4 would show them but others would not. The benefit is that the cultishness of them would make interested channels appeal to current audiences rather than trying to please the general masses, which would lean to totally uncut and subtitled releases. 

Now this is where the American translations really kick us Brits in the teeth, because although we could show relatively uncut versions for younger audiences and uncut subs for older audiences, none of the channels or producers in England are going to translate them if they have already been done (no matter how poorly) in America because it is less time and money to just buy it dubbed than to do it yourself, and when the rights are brought for America they are usually brought for England as well, so they can’t produce the shows without buying the rights.

Because of all this, it would be much better if Anime was translated in England and then anything else deemed unsuitable for American audiences, like mild swearing or blood etc, could be cut out of the English version for television broadcast in America and give older fans more choice of the type they want to see, without denying English fans good quality anime. I think the closest example to that sort of thing would be Gundam Wing, where they had the cut version in America for early showings and an uncut (although how uncut I’m not sure) version for later viewing. I’m not to sure on this though because we only had one version in England and since it had blood and I think I remember cursing (damn and such, nothing too bad for little ears!) I think we had the uncut version, which was still mild by British standards.

I would be interested to hear what other British Anime fans think of this and whether they agree.