Ponyo on the Cliffs - Ghibli Movie

[sqizzo]

i'm not trying to kiss somebody's ass but i believe that its better to donate to you all rather than wasting your money buying japanese drama/anime/any series from distributors because they really suck in translating stuff.
you all are the best translators/subbers there is(as far as i know). undeniable.

[riderkicker]

As an adult-minded person, I didn't really think much of this movie. For the child inside of me, I was pleased with this movie. I watched it both ways, dubbed and subbed, and was entertained either way.

Since it is a Ghibli film, I just had to shut up and enjoy the sights.

[takenoko]

> For starters, there isn't that much adventure. Not that much happens.

There are a lot of Ghibli movies where there isn't any adventure, like Whisper of the Heart or Only Yesterday. One of the things I like about Ghilbi movies is that they create this beautiful little world, I guess in gaming terms this is more sandbox than goal driven.

Like halfway through the movie, when Ponyo is first being human and discovering stuff with Sousuke, I thought "This is probably going to be the best part of the movie. I hope they don't mess this up with conflict that's forced in." I think they did a real good job milking the tiny details in this world, like the path that they travel down. One time when it's clear, another when it's stormy, then finally it's submerged. It's a very simple plot of just making it from one point to another, but it's kind of great to see the difficulty increase and the direness of the desire to reach one's goal (make it to work/make it safely home/ find Lisa)

>After Ponyo escapes and teams up with Sousuke, they just kind of sit about for a bit, then wander around.

Yeah, that's what I really liked about the movie. It's just about these kids and they're kind of cute together

>Ultimately, the film fell short of Miyazaki's high standards for me. Not bad, by any means, but I don't think it deserves to go down in the ages alongside the greats.

I really don't see this film being all that different from Totoro or Kiki. "What's this? A story where some kids meet some furry animals? Where's the plot?!" Like it sounds like you're comparing it to Howl or Nausicaa or something, but even then Howl and Spirited Away aren't great because there is this major conflict that the characters need to solve. They're great because the characters and world are so lovable

[Mister Chief NZ]

There's no reason for all this to be quoted, plus it's the post right above yours. -snipped

I think one of the reasons that this film doesn't work as well as something like Totoro is that it feels like there is conflict brewing but nothing ever really comes to fruition. It's like it is being sold as something that it is not. On the other hand one of the main strengths of Totoro is that it is purely escapist entertainment, for the characters and for the audience. It's goals as a film are clear from the beginning and it achieves them without fault.

[Joe_Mello]

>I consider this to be a generally misleading statement

How so? Can you explain?

Well, if we're talking about quality, consistency, and aesthics, then yes, fansubs are better. In terms of economics, though, they aren't so good.

[Darien_Shields]

>There are a lot of Ghibli movies where there isn't any adventure, like Whisper of the Heart or Only Yesterday. One of the things I like about Ghilbi movies is that they create this beautiful little world, I guess in gaming terms this is more sandbox than goal driven.

I haven't seen Whisper of the Heart, but I saw Only Yesterday and found it... really, really forgettable. The only bit that really stuck in my mind was then the PUMA logo appeared on the screen. Only Yesterday, IIRC, was Ghibli, but not Miyazaki...? Ponyo definitely holds up well compared to that one. Don't know about Whisper of the Heart.

>>After Ponyo escapes and teams up with Sousuke, they just kind of sit about for a bit, then wander around.

>Yeah, that's what I really liked about the movie. It's just about these kids and they're kind of cute together

If you like that, that's great. Heck, I liked it too. I think the film really achieved its goal if its goal was to make the kids look cute, realistic, and to explore these small details. But it still felt lacking...

>I really don't see this film being all that different from Totoro or Kiki. "What's this? A story where some kids meet some furry animals? Where's the plot?!" Like it sounds like you're comparing it to Howl or Nausicaa or something, but even then Howl and Spirited Away aren't great because there is this major conflict that the characters need to solve. They're great because the characters and world are so lovable

I'd disagree on both Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service. Let's talk about Totoro first.

While Totoro did have a lot of excellent adorable moments between the kids (and a lot of really beautiful scenes just exploring the lucious Japanese setting) it also had more going on. The kids aren't just screwing around with magic, they're also trying to adapt to the fact that their mother is really, really ill, and they're kind of stuck in the middle of nowhere with only each other to depend on sometimes (thus Mei getting so upset when Satsuki goes off to school). One of the things I really like about Totoro is that the dramatic climax doesn't come out of the magical elements- it's entirely from the characters (and pretty believable too). We see Satsuki's determination to find her sister even when she's worn out and exhausted, and get a feel for just how far she's going to go, before finally, with a little magic, she succeeds.

Compare just that last aspect to Ponyo. Do the characters ever struggle much to achieve their goals? It's been several months since I saw the film now, but I don't remember any great moment of tension like that. I think there was one bit where Sousuke had to run away from a wave or something...? Considering the Queen of the Sea (or the Goddess of Goldfish, whatever her name was) was trying to test Sousuke to see if he really loved Ponyo, it felt like there could have been a lot more done to show that he really did, how far he'd go for her, and how hard he'd fight.

Another thing that pulles both Totoro and Kiki up is the age of the protagonists- Satsuki and Mei are 12, and get a lot more character depth as a result. Kiki's story in particular has more about coming of age and finding her niche in the world.

Anyway, I won't go on and on (unless you really want me to), but for me there's a clear difference between Totoro, Kiki's, and Ponyo.

On the subject of being jaded, well, if I sound jaded I probably am. Although I will say that I saw Howl's Moving Castle not that long before I saw Ponyo, and I really enjoyed it, although my friends really didn't. I did like Ponyo, I just didn't love it the same way I love the classics.

[takenoko]

>Compare just that last aspect to Ponyo. Do the characters ever struggle much to achieve their goals?

Besides the part where the kids have to go across a flooded city to find the boy's mom? What about the girl's goal to leave her dad and become her own person? But put in another way, is a show not good if the characters don't have adversity to overcome? It's not an action film, so I'm not really understanding why you think it needs tension and stuff. But there was the scene where Sousuke finds Lisa's car and starts crying and stuff

>Anyway, I won't go on and on (unless you really want me to), but for me there's a clear difference between Totoro, Kiki's, and Ponyo.

Well not to me. Maybe it's just one of those things that you can't really put tangibly in words. To me, all three are just children's movies where the main plot isn't the ostensible goal or conflict to overcome but the children just interacting with the world. Totoro isn't great because something happened in the end, people remember it because it's a bunch of girls that are screwing around with these magic furballs

[Darien_Shields]

>But the characters are all clearly Japanese with Japanese names

Okay, you got me, no idea then.

>Is this based on some information that you know off hand? I genuinely don't know the answer, but I definitely feel like there are translators out there who have never been a part of the fansubbing scene

I couldn't give you a link and I might be mis-remembering, but I think there was an article on Kotaku a while ago about how people got into translating video games officially after being involved in big fanslation projects. Not the same thing, I suppose, but I had had very similar feelings towards official video game translations. But I think that guys like Ted Woolsey, for all their faults, are genuinely doing their best.

I suppose there's really a mixed bag when it comes to translation of anime. Case in point, 4Kids One Piece (really didn't seem to care) and Funimation One Piece (obviously massive fans of the series trying to do the best they can).

>I try to make tolerances for reasonable translations. But did you see my list? I don't feel like they were mistakes so much as they were conscious decisions for something to be that way

A couple of those errors seem like big slip ups ("We'll eat Sousuke's dinner!") that an editor should have caught, definitely. I recognise that my original point of "we all make mistakes" is a little off the mark. For something this big there should have been enough people on board to catch most of the mistakes, so it doesn't wash in all cases.

However, some of the examples you gave don't sit right with me- mostly Kanon and Honorifics.

There are different schools of thought on translating, obviously. I feel like I am in a bit of a strange position, though, because my personal preference for watching is the TV-Nihon style, dripping with honorifics, sticking to the original Japanese names with explanations as required, generally keeping in lots of the details. Geki Jyuuken just wouldn't be the same as "Fierce Beast Fist" (Wikipedia is so confusing). However, when I approach translating myself, I've been taught a different philosophy, and I think that it's the same school of thought that most big companies subscribe to.

A translation should aim to make things 100% understandable in the target language with absolutely 0 knowledge of the source language. While "-chan" and "-san" are increasingly understood in some corners of the western world, they are not an aspect of the English language. If a ten year old watches the film with no knowledge of Japanese, these honorifics might wind up being confusing. Worse still, when people take pains to "translate" them, they can wind up sounding really painful. "I'm home Mrs. Mum. I bumped into a Mr. Old Man on the way home from school while I was hanging out with Little Mei and..." etc. etc. That's just not good English. For an entirely English audience, it's simplest just to cut these terms out.

... admitedly, following on from that philosophy, I'd probably have changed Sousuke's references to Lisa to be "mom" mostly. Calling her by her first name seems really weird.

Anyway, Kanon falls into a similar boat, and I agree with a certain extent of Cultural Scrubbing. If a kid's watching and they just mention Kanon out of the blue, it's going to take them right out of the film. They'll start wondering just who Kanon is- are they a character? Should they know about them? Admitedly they might get curious and want to research, which is good, but it's still a major distractor from the film. For this reason I think it's reasonable to gloss over that sort of thing in translation.

On other things, no clue why the song isn't translated, that seems like a boneheaded move (although not as bad as the "translated" version of the song released in the US...)

The translator must have understood the "baka" bit, I think they were just stuck in the unloveable position of having this hardsubbed word there in English that wouldn't make sense to their audience. If they just dropped in "Idiot" on top of it, it might look confusing- "If they mean Idiot, why does it say Baka?!". Maybe they were trying to play "BAKA" off as shorthand for another insult? That's my best guess.

Anyway, those are my thoughts... sorry for really droning on and on about all this.

[takenoko]

Well, here's another thought on this. The dub exists, that's the one targeted at the mass audience, kids and so on. If that's the case, why not do a more faithful translation with the Japanese audio and English subs?

As for Kanon, you know, people probably don't know where this town is in Japan, but that doesn't mean they should drop the name because people aren't aware. That doesn't make any sense. It's like talking about Greek mythology without mentioning any of the gods' names

And even if they didn't do honorifics, they could at least keep the nickname Sou when people use that. It just seems kind of weird the things they think they need to change when there's no reason to change it

[Dragoon]

Well the downside with translating and dubbing anything animated from japan to the US is the fact that its up to the translators and the director how the script goes. But thats it...they want to make it "easy" for those in the US who dont understand japanese culture to watch something like this, they dont care about how it looks to the others that do understand.

[Korcas]

This leads me to the biggest problems with the subs in the movie. Sousuke calls his mom Lisa and dad Kouichi. However, it's like the translator forgot halfway through, so the latter half has the subs say "mom" instead of "Lisa" even though you can still hear him saying Lisa. There's other examples of random stuff being changed for no apparent reasons, but this is the most blatant one

That's really nitpicking, but I can understand your gripe with it.

-Lisa drops Sousuke off at a day care next to the old folks home where she works, but they translate it as just school

The fansubs have it as just school too, IIRC, I don't remember what Lisa says in Japanese, but this really isn't a big deal.

-There's a scene with Morse code. The Japanese subtitles are hard coded into the film, but there's one part where they write out "baka" in English. The translation they went with was something like "bugger off". I mean, people who have never taken a class in Japanese know what baka means, how stupid is the translator that works at Disney to think people won't notice that?

Dude, Ghibli films are family films, and are marketed as such, too, no one who isn't a weaboo or confronted with Japanese culture knows what "baka" means. I'll give you that bugger off is a pretty dumb choice, and idiot or stupid would have worked much better. But leaving baka as baka would have been endlessly retarded. A translator's job is to translate.

-There's a scene where some guys mention Kanon, the Goddess of Mercy. The subs drop the name and then kind of make up some stuff when they're praying. My co-worker calls this sort of thing "cultural scrubbing". I get that maybe most kids don't know about Buddhist gods, but do we really need to cover that up?

I don't know that scene, but this one sounds like a case of dubtitles.

-Hey, do you like songs? Well, the Japanese song isn't translated

No one translates lyrics anymore. No one does karaoke in professional subs either. It's considered obnoxious. The only professional subber that's done song subs was AnimEigo, and they were usually pretty wrong.

-Sometimes people refer to Sousuke as Sou-chan. Guess what, totally not represented in the subs. No surprise there though, no honorifics either

It's a translation. If you see that as a negative in an official translation for English speaking people, then you really should stick to RAWs.

To me it sounds a lot like you only like your own style in terms of translations, and we've already expressed how that is FAR from how professionals do it. Not saying your style sucks, frankly. It leaves stuff to be desired, but it's your style, your work, and you'll do what you want anyway.

But don't pan professionals for not using honorifics or translating songs, that's just wrong, man.

That said, I'm not a fan of professional releases for one single reasons:

The yellow, non-antialiased subtitles that look REALLY horrible.

[Coldfission]

>
I'd disagree on both Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service. Let's talk about Totoro first.

While Totoro did have a lot of excellent adorable moments between the kids (and a lot of really beautiful scenes just exploring the lucious Japanese setting) it also had more going on. The kids aren't just screwing around with magic, they're also trying to adapt to the fact that their mother is really, really ill, and they're kind of stuck in the middle of nowhere with only each other to depend on sometimes (thus Mei getting so upset when Satsuki goes off to school). One of the things I really like about Totoro is that the dramatic climax doesn't come out of the magical elements- it's entirely from the characters (and pretty believable too). We see Satsuki's determination to find her sister even when she's worn out and exhausted, and get a feel for just how far she's going to go, before finally, with a little magic, she succeeds.

Compare just that last aspect to Ponyo. Do the characters ever struggle much to achieve their goals? It's been several months since I saw the film now, but I don't remember any great moment of tension like that. I think there was one bit where Sousuke had to run away from a wave or something...? Considering the Queen of the Sea (or the Goddess of Goldfish, whatever her name was) was trying to test Sousuke to see if he really loved Ponyo, it felt like there could have been a lot more done to show that he really did, how far he'd go for her, and how hard he'd fight.

Another thing that pulles both Totoro and Kiki up is the age of the protagonists- Satsuki and Mei are 12, and get a lot more character depth as a result. Kiki's story in particular has more about coming of age and finding her niche in the world.

I have to agree with Darien on this. Sure the movie was about two children interacting with the world, but I felt that, since the children were so young, they didn't have much character depth to them compared to Totoro and Kiki. I'm a huge fan of the whimsy Ghibli has created, and I have the Archives of Studio Ghibli, so I have seen the great classics. Ponyo, while enjoyable, felt less than up to par compared to other Ghibli movies. I agree with the statement that it seems that Souskuke would love Ponyo forever felt off. It seemed an unusual request to ask of a four year old, as well that kids that age tell each other that they love each other all the time. To them, love is similar to a deep friendship. Also, if Miyazaki tries to bring a sense of realism to his films, I feel that he failed right there. I just seemed odd to me that something like that would happen. I did enjoy the dubs over the subs, and I feel that Disney did a great dubbing job on Ponyo, and the other Ghibli movies. Overall, Ponyo was enjoyable in its own right, but compared to the legacy Ghibli has, it just fell short.

[Go-On Macaroni]

Considering the Queen of the Sea (or the Goddess of Goldfish, whatever her name was)

Her name's GranMamare, iirc.