History Main / TranslationStyleChoices

** The follow-up series ''Manga/{{Yotsubato}}'' zigzags this – ADV's adaptation of the first five books was often straight from the Woolsey school. After ADV collapsed and Yen Press picked up the title, later volumes (and reprints of the first five) had ''much'' more literal translations. In both cases, some things would be explained in the gutters between frames in the manga.

'''1'''. CutAndPasteTranslation: It shouldn't be too hard to guess what method this is; the line between "translation" and "adaptation" is often blurry with regards to this style of localization. This can be fairly advantageous for the viewer who is otherwise unfamiliar with the source material (hey, no cultural changes for you to appreciate[=/=][[ValuesDissonance go "what the blank" over]]!), but hardcore fans of the original will feel violated to say the least (and if done without the consent or knowledge of the original producers, ''[[FlameWar they]]'' can feel rather violated as well).

** In order to reach the 65 episodes needed for syndication, ''Robotech'' combines a fairly faithful adaptation of ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' with two other series (''SuperDimensionalCavalrySouthernCross'' and ''Anime/GenesisClimberMOSPEADA'') whose adaptations defined the term {{Macekre}}.

* Outside of anime, there are far fewer examples of this. One of note, however was Eric Thompson's translations of ''TheMagicRoundabout'' for Creator/TheBBC, in which only the visuals of the original French versions were used. Thompson made up his own storylines which were conveyed by the dubbed narration.
* Like ''TheMagicRoundabout'', the UK dub of ''WesternAnimation/{{Insektors}}'' abandoned the original French lines for brand new lines with lots of regional accents. The US dub was less creative.
* ''Anime/SamuraiPizzaCats'' fell into this by necessity, since Saban was not given scripts along with the footage. The staff made up their own names, stories and dialogue. As with the previous example, very few people even know or care about the original, and the English version is considered quite good in its own right.

'''1.5'''. [[Creator/StreamlinePictures Streamlined]]: Somewhere between CutAndPasteTranslation and {{Woolseyism}}. With Streamlined dubs, the plot is usually kept intact, although almost all dialogue is thrown out the window and replaced. [[Manga/{{Akira}} Sometimes]], this works [[{{Woolseyism}} quite well.]] Creator/StreamlinePictures, the TropeNamer, and Creator/MangaEntertainment UK were very famous for this style of dubbing.

* Any of the Disney-[[StudioGhibli Ghibli]] dubs. The character's names, stories, and overall plots remain true to the originals, even though the translations are often liberal (and in the case of ''Anime/KikisDeliveryService'' and ''Anime/CastleInTheSky'', contin some additional pieces of music; the latter of which was done by, interestingly, the original composer himself, JoeHisaishi, to Miyazaki's personal approval). Of course there are fans who insist that the Japanese versions and/or previous English translations are the only way to experience his films... but there are others who have responded otherwise.
** Come to think of it, didn't [[WordOfGod Miyazaki himself]] say that the ideal experience for any viewer is in their own language--i.e. dubbed?
* Brazilian translation for Harry Potter uses it. The character's and the four houses' names were changed, probably due the age of target public of the books when they were published. But most Brazilian fans dislike these translated names, and they're usually not used.

* Pretty much most, if not all, non-English versions of the ''LordOfTheRings'' series was rooted into this. Tolkien himself provided detailed indications for translating the names for places, characters, artifacts and so on, when not giving the translation himself (as he was a [[{{Omniglot}} polyglot]]).
* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}!'''s translation and dub was specifically written to give off the air of old-time gangster flick. Research involved watching entirely too many James Cagney and 1930 crime movies.

'''3'''. Formal equivalence: Some productions, however, decide they're going the direct route. The story is getting straight-up translated, ValuesDissonance be damned, and no pesky [[FirstNameBasis honorific changes]], [[KansaiRegionalAccent dialect jokes]], or [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseCulture cultural variations]] are going to get in the way. This is the most ''literal'' of the methods, typically translating only dialogue and [[TooLongDidntDub leaving anything that doesn't directly translate fully intact]]. The downside to this is that a lot of the necessary elements for full understanding don't make the journey overseas with the dialogue; as a result, J. Random Viewer (lacking proper context) is left scratching his head, as some lines will [[DubInducedPlotHole sound strange]] or seem to come out of nowhere. In the worst cases, some figures of speech may be translated literally, instead of going with an equivalent from the vernacular language or simply translating the meaning. The hardcore purists will probably hate it, too; they'll just use it as another example of "[[SubbingVersusDubbing how dubbing is the devil's work]]," for instance.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' is particularly {{egregious}}. Only three recurring terms in the dub were translated: [[TheGrimReaper shinigami]] (to Soul Reaper, likely to distance itself from the western conception of the idea); the Gotei 13 (to the 13 Court Guard Squads); and "[[{{Mana}} reiatsu]]" (to "spiritual energy" or "spiritual pressure"). Everything else -- shikai and bankai, [[EmpathicWeapon zanpakuto]], spell names and incantations, even wordplay gags about the proper usage of one's first name and philosophical metaphors regarding old parables -- was left pretty much completely intact.

** In more recent episodes you can move that down to two: reiatsu is it at least part of the time left untranslated now.
** To be fair, the Bleach dub also changes the naming conventions, and has half-Japanese half-Mexican Yasutora "Chad" Sado going by his westernized name. It is still one of the most literal of translations.

* ''{{Hellsing}}'' provides another example. A proper translation taking into account English names and titles would have resulted in "Dame Integra" (a female knight, as opposed to "Sir Integra").
** Then again, Hellsing is not a proper example, at least in the manga -- the American translators decided to randomly give Father Anderson a Scottish accent and had the Major speak with an exaggerated German accent even when he was supposedly speaking in German.

* Done with the translation of ''Anime/ExcelSaga'' in the anime, though the notes were deleted from the collected edition [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination to encourage fans with more money to buy the more expensive one.]]

* ''Creator/{{Animeigo}}'' was well-known for this, and actually had paper liner notes in the days before [=DVDs=], but has also adapted references at times.

* Towards the end of its individual novel run, ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'' had 'Translator Notes' in the back to help explain a few things; they did admit to dipping into method 2 for a couple of very language-dependent jokes. Note that the anime actually kept the jokes as is, for the most part. ''Yotsuba&'' seems to be adding the comments in the gutters between frames in the manga.
* Del Rey Manga seems to go this route often, including translation notes (including two pages on name suffixes like "-san" and "-kun") in ''{{Negima}}'', ''TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' and ''XXXHolic''.

* The fansub of ''PaniPoniDash'', a WidgetSeries with so many in-jokes you have to freeze-frame to get all of them, had a PDF file accompany each episode explaining the references. These files often ran to ''a page a minute'': over 20 pages for a 22-minute episode.
** In the ADV Films release, there's a separate subtitle track where all the writing in the background is translated as well as pop-up cultural notes. Trying to read the extended subtitles and the cultural notes ''and'' see the action is nearly impossible (all the extra information covers a lot of it up anyway, and is really only meant for a second or third watchthrough).

* ''Anime/LuckyStar'' technically falls under this one due to its American release. Considering the abundance of many of the anime and cultural references, Bandai Entertainment had the foresight to include a 4 page pamphlet of liner notes for any particular volume. While some of the references are incredibly obvious and don't need mentioning (they do it anyway), they go so far as to include things that can only be noticed when watching the show with the Japanese language track, even if the dub had used language in such a way that none of the original context was lost.

* Also common for modern translations of older works, especially classics -- ''Literature/TheIliad'' or ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', for example--though often the translators choose a more pragmatic (Woolseyist) than literal approach.

* The English version of ''SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' (manga) features several pages of notes at the back of the volume, and even with that they make a point of saying that there are so many references and details, they don't have enough room to explain them all.

* ''ZeroWing'' cannot be forgotten to be mention.

* Every single UsefulNotes/HongKong bootleg DVD that doesn't just rip the R1 subtitle track or download an existing fansub script off the Internet.

* Before broadband internet became widespread in Poland a large chunk of the pirated games market was controlled by Russian bootleggers. They sometimes attempted to localize English PC games into Polish, but in their case they usually knew some Polish but didn't know English. The results were [[SoBadItsGood amusing]].

** In order to reach the 65 episodes needed for syndication, ''Robotech'' combines a fairly faithful adaptation of ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' with two other series (''SuperDimensionalCavalrySouthernCross'' and ''GenesisClimberMOSPEADA'') whose adaptations defined the term {{Macekre}}.

* Any of the Disney-[[StudioGhibli Ghibli]] dubs. The character's names, stories, and overall plots remain true to the originals, even though the translations are often liberal (and in the case of ''KikisDeliveryService'' and ''CastleInTheSky'', contin some additional pieces of music; the latter of which was done by, interestingly, the original composer himself, JoeHisaishi, to Miyazaki's personal approval). Of course there are fans who insist that the Japanese versions and/or previous English translations are the only way to experience his films... but there are others who have responded otherwise.

* ''MDGeist''
* ''GenoCyber''
* ''CyberCityOedo808''

* ''AngelCop''
* ''ViolenceJack''
* ''MadBull34''
* ''DeadLeaves'' is either this or the single greatest Woolseyism ever.

* The ''{{Asterix}}'' series. Although faithful to the general plots and spirit of the originals, many of the jokes and puns are completely changed in the English version. Notably, a lot of afficionados feel that the [[PunnyName punny names]] are even better in the English version.

* The fansubbers of Æsir prefer to do this, particularly seen with their translation of ''Series/KamenRiderGaim''. They changed Armored Rider Gridon's name to Ornac in order to communicate the idea that it was supposed to be an AtrociousAlias, saying that the original intent was ruined by English-speaking fans who had declared Gridon an AwesomeMcCoolname because they didn't know that it was just an anagram of "donguri", the Japanese word for acorn. For the same reason, they changed the name of Gridon's [[BringDownTheHammer hammer]], the Donkachi ("kachi" being the onomatopoeia for a heavy impact), to Ornac Donker.

* ''FateStayNight'' hovers along the sliding scale here; the anime drifted more toward Woolseyism, while the otherwise appreciated fan translation by Mirror Moon erred on the side of a BlindIdiotTranslation.

* Outside of anime, there are far fewer examples of this. One of note, however was Eric Thompson's translations of ''TheMagicRoundabout'' for TheBBC, in which only the visuals of the original French versions were used. Thompson made up his own storylines which were conveyed by the dubbed narration.

* The Spanish translation of "WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb" has a lot of this. One of the songs translated goes like this "ornitorrinco, australiano, mamífero, semi-acuático, agente." (a platapy australian, mammal, agent) instead of a "semi-aquatic egg laying mammal of action". This, for the hispanic audience avoids the {{WMG}} of, is perry a girl? or else, why would he be egg laying? (and makes it rhyme)

** In order to reach the 65 episodes needed for syndication, ''Robotech'' combines a fairly faithful adaptation of ''SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' with two other series (''SuperDimensionalCavalrySouthernCross'' and ''GenesisClimberMOSPEADA'') whose adaptations defined the term {{Macekre}}.

* The ''AceAttorney'' series.

'''1'''. CutAndPasteTranslation: It shouldn't be too hard to guess what method this is. This can be fairly advantageous for the viewer who is otherwise unfamiliar with the source material (hey, no cultural changes for you to appreciate[=/=][[ValuesDissonance go "what the blank" over]]!), but hardcore fans of the original will feel violated to say the least (and if done without the consent or knowledge of the original producers, ''[[FlameWar they]]'' can feel rather violated as well).

* ''{{Persona 3}}'' kept food and place names intact, along with Japanese honorifics like -chan and -san. Did not cause undue confusion, as most fans of the game would understand what those mean anyway.
** The sequel ''{{Persona 4}}'' did the same thing. Atlus went as far as including a glossary including all the non-translated terms.

* The [=DiC=] dub of ''SailorMoon''.

* Just about any anime dubbed by [[FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids Entertainment]]. This still leaves out stuff like ''FunkyCops'' and the more recent ''DinosaurKing'', both which are perfectly faithful to the original.

* ''[[DotHack .hack//]]'', even to the point of characters being unsure of how a character's written name is "read". Not [[HollywoodSpelling spelled]], ''read''.

* ''[[DotHack .hack//]]'', even to the point of characters being unsure of how a character's written name is "read".

* The Spanish translation of "PhineasAndFerb" has a lot of this. One of the songs translated goes like this "ornitorrinco, australiano, mamífero, semi-acuático, agente." (a platapy australian, mammal, agent) instead of a "semi-aquatic egg laying mammal of action". This, for the hispanic audience avoids the {{WMG}} of, is perry a girl? or else, why would he be egg laying? (and makes it rhyme)

* ''{{Animeigo}}'' was well-known for this, and actually had paper liner notes in the days before [=DVDs=], but has also adapted references at times.

* The official translations of ''HarryPotter'' into Chinese have notes explaining jokes like "it's getting blacker every day" and other things that don't translate very well in Chinese. It gets a little silly, however, when they have explanations for things that shouldn't even be explained. For example, in the sixth book, when there are only three people in potions because of Apparation lessons, there is a footnote explaining that they are all turning seventeen after the lessons, or something like that.

* Every single Hong Kong bootleg DVD that doesn't just rip the R1 subtitle track or download an existing fansub script off the Internet.

* ''SamuraiPizzaCats'' fell into this by necessity, since Saban was not given scripts along with the footage. The staff made up their own names, stories and dialogue. As with the previous example, very few people even know or care about the original, and the English version is considered quite good in its own right.

* The legal translation of ''{{Rin-Ne}}'' is this out of necessity, as it is being translated and put online a very short time after the Japanese publication. They don't have enough time to even replace visual sound effects, so everything is explained in the margins, and what can't be there is explain on the section of the translators' blog noted.

* Also common for modern translations of older works, especially classics -- ''Literature/TheIliad'' or ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', for example, though often the translators choose a more pragmatic (Woolseyist) than literal approach.

'''1.5'''. [[Creator/StreamlinePictures Streamlined]]: Somewhere between CutAndPasteTranslation and {{Woolseyism}}. With Streamlined dubs, the plot is usually kept intact, although almost all dialogue is thrown out the window and replaced. [[Manga/{{Akira}} Sometimes]], this works [[{{Woolseyism}} quite well.]] Creator/StreamlinePictures, the TropeNamer, and Creator/MangaEnterrtainment UK were very famous for this style of dubbing.

* Every dub of the original ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'' series (with the exception of the ADV dub), including ''BattleOfThePlanets'', ''G-Force: Guardians of Space'', and Saban's ''Eagle Riders''.

'''1.5'''. {{Streamlined}}: Somewhere between CutAndPasteTranslation and {{Woolseyism}}. With {{Streamlined}} dubs, the plot is usually kept intact, although almost all dialogue is thrown out the window and replaced. [[Manga/{{Akira}} Sometimes]], this works [[{{Woolseyism}} quite well.]] StreamlinePictures, the TropeNamer, and Manga UK were very famous for this style of dubbing.