R1 Credit Mistakes

[GokuMew2]

Sometimes I wonder if whoever translates the credits for R1 DVDs ever does any research on the names of the seiyuu. I don't know how many times I've seen Morikawa Toshiyuki's name written as Tomoyuki. I mean, yeah okay, transliterating Japanese names is a pain the butt cuz kanji can have so many readings, but a little search for the name online will get them the correct reading.

I'd understand if it were an obscure seiyuu, but some of the ones that have mistakes are big names. I remember in Slayers, Midorikawa's name (he played Zelgadis) was written as Midorigawa.

Are the credits just not important enough to spend that much time on? If it is then that kinda saddens me. :( *is a seiyuu fan*

[John]

I don't know enough about the way other American distribution companies handle their credits, but I can tell you that all of AN Entertainment's releases have used either the English spellings of seiyuu names provided to us by the Japanese licensor, or we've submitted our translations of credit lists to the Japanese licensor and had them corrected and approved.

All of the Japanese cast and crew credits listed in AN Entertainment DVDs are "official" English language spellings authorized by the original Japanese copyright holders.

[Suiko Eiji]

Sometimes I wonder if whoever translates the credits for R1 DVDs ever does any research on the names of the seiyuu. I don't know how many times I've seen Morikawa Toshiyuki's name written as Tomoyuki. I mean, yeah okay, transliterating Japanese names is a pain the butt cuz kanji can have so many readings, but a little search for the name online will get them the correct reading.

To be honest, translating names is rough because in times where a discrepancy arises, the actual pronounciation of the name isn't at all related to any of the other pronounciations of the characters.

When one runs across something like 春日, one might expect to read it as Haruhi, or Harunichi. Nope. It's pronounced Kasuga. As far as I can tell, no real rhyme or reason.

I'm not saying translators don't make mistakes; I've done it before and realized when double-checking my work. Sometimes, though, what may seem to be a grevious error just may have been an unfamiliarity with an odd pronounciation.

I'd understand if it were an obscure seiyuu, but some of the ones that have mistakes are big names. I remember in Slayers, Midorikawa's name (he played Zelgadis) was written as Midorigawa.

This one is a lot harder to argue in favor of the professionals. Midorigawa would be the name of the Midori River; Midorikawa should be the name of an individual.

Are the credits just not important enough to spend that much time on? If it is then that kinda saddens me. :( *is a seiyuu fan*

I would say they are fairly important. I always make sure to do my best when translating names because it's their work that I am translating, not creating my own, or something like that. Also, using the Internet as a tool isn't a bad idea; I'm sure there might be a few pros who do use it to double-check, but in the days before the net, it was the translator, thier dictionaries, and their own devices. Plus, not having a source that breaks the proper pronounciations down at all (either from a "cheat sheet" like John/ANE have or furigana for the kanji). Searching the net is a mixed bag, too; you can rely on folks whose English is moderately good (Doi Hitoshi, for example) or a fan translation, neither of which really immediately guarantee any more accuracy than taking that shot in the dark if you have to but might be marginally better for an excuse.

I've always maintained that all of the credits should be left in their original languages on screen with a translated section following it. This way, people who love seiyuu can take the time to match the names to hunt down the folks they like and have both the original kanji and a transliterated name to search with.

[tenshi_a]

This is one of my number 1 gripes about American R1 dvds; they get the names wrong, and don't provide the kanji version of the credits so you can damn well read them yourself.

I think it's silly; getting people's names wrong, when they're *the star of the show*, or they're *super famous* seiyuu like Midorikawa Hikaru, or Kuwashima Houko (I know it's written Noriko, but everyone knows Kuwashima Houko, don't they?), or even Koyasu Takehito!

It's an insult to all seiyuu fans! And it's an insult to the actors themselves!

To add insult to injury, the space that could have housed 90 seconds of end credits in Japanese, are often taken up by 30 mins of English-language voice actors making an arse of themselves because they think it's an "extra" that we'd prefer to watch.

It doesn't take *that much* research, honestly. It's not a case of translating the name yourself; the work has already been done by someone else. It's about 1/2 an hour's research with a web browser, these days! Most seiyuu even have their own homepage, and it will often tell you how their name is pronounced, and should be written in English!

(thanks for giving me the opportunity to join in with your rant!)

[GokuMew2]

All of the Japanese cast and crew credits listed in AN Entertainment DVDs are "official" English language spellings authorized by the original Japanese copyright holders.
I'm glad to hear AN Entertainment goes the extra step to make sure everything is correct. .^^

I'm not saying translators don't make mistakes; I've done it before and realized when double-checking my work. Sometimes, though, what may seem to be a grevious error just may have been an unfamiliarity with an odd pronounciation.
I can totally understand that. But the internet is a vast database and, like I said in my first post, people can just look up what the reading for that person is. There are also Japanese seiyuu databases available that include readings of each person's name, so I don't really see why there should be any mistakes on names that are listed there.

I've always maintained that all of the credits should be left in their original languages on screen with a translated section following it. This way, people who love seiyuu can take the time to match the names to hunt down the folks they like and have both the original kanji and a transliterated name to search with.
I like that as well.

Reminds me of how some fansub groups use the same credit sequence over and over though. I'd hear a guest chara or someone whose voice I recognize and want to make sure by checking the credits, but the character isn't even listed because it's not the correct credit sequence. *pouts* Okay, went a little off track there, sorry.

It doesn't take *that much* research, honestly. It's not a case of translating the name yourself; the work has already been done by someone else. It's about 1/2 an hour's research with a web browser, these days! Most seiyuu even have their own homepage, and it will often tell you how their name is pronounced, and should be written in English!

(thanks for giving me the opportunity to join in with your rant!)
Indeed. With the internet at our disposal, I really don't think these kinds of mistakes should happen as frequently as they sometimes do.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who feels irked by this. .^^

[SonRyu]

I often have to translate names from Kanji when I tag mp3s, but all I have to do is google the kanji and often times I will get many pages that have the official translation. I have to assume the one that comes up the most is correct unless I know better myself (which is wy Anime News Network is a great resource for my needs anyway). There are times when I can't find ANY info on the artist when using their name in kanji, so what I end up doing is looking for family name and given name separately, which gets me results. There's no way I can be 100% accurate though that the findings of family and given name separately are the same as both as a whole; I've come across many artist names that have the same kanji but different translations, similar to Suiko Eiji's example. This is just me though; I would expect a distribution company to put in a lot more effort than I do.

[tenshi_a]

Reminds me of how some fansub groups use the same credit sequence over and over though. I'd hear a guest chara or someone whose voice I recognize and want to make sure by checking the credits, but the character isn't even listed because it's not the correct credit sequence. *pouts* Okay, went a little off track there, sorry.
Yeah, my brother is another person who gets really irate about that too! If he can, he'll try and switch groups until he finds one that uses the right credits!!

(he's hardcore... he reads & recognises names in kanji... I can only recognise the kanji of some of my favourite seiyuu...)

[Suiko Eiji]

I can totally understand that. But the internet is a vast database and, like I said in my first post, people can just look up what the reading for that person is. There are also Japanese seiyuu databases available that include readings of each person's name, so I don't really see why there should be any mistakes on names that are listed there.

To be honest, the Internet is as good a reasearch tool only as the person using it. Plus, the Internet isn't infalliable. Up to a certain point, the information on the Internet is only as good as the author presents it. Check out your average forum postings for that one.

Do seiyuu databases contain complete film/discographies? How current/well updated are they? Granted, I don't spend my free time searching through Seiyuu Databases, so my experience is incredibly minimal with them. In order to hunt down a single seiyuu whose name one sees in the credits, one has to have something unique to identify that person from the rest of the Tanakas, Satos, and Fujiwaras in Japan.

Not to mention, fans can be mistaken (though, I will cite that if they are a fan of that specific person, the chances are lessened). I've made elementary (re: retarded) mistakes transliterating here before. A slip of the keyes when typing and not paying attention could lead to the same sort of quality error, both from fans and from professionals.

[GokuMew2]

Yeah, my brother is another person who gets really irate about that too! If he can, he'll try and switch groups until he finds one that uses the right credits!!

(he's hardcore... he reads & recognises names in kanji... I can only recognise the kanji of some of my favourite seiyuu...)
Haha, okay, I won't go as far as to switch subbers since I like having series done by the same group. .^^;

To be honest, the Internet is as good a reasearch tool only as the person using it. Plus, the Internet isn't infalliable. Up to a certain point, the information on the Internet is only as good as the author presents it. Check out your average forum postings for that one.

Do seiyuu databases contain complete film/discographies? How current/well updated are they? Granted, I don't spend my free time searching through Seiyuu Databases, so my experience is incredibly minimal with them. In order to hunt down a single seiyuu whose name one sees in the credits, one has to have something unique to identify that person from the rest of the Tanakas, Satos, and Fujiwaras in Japan.

Not to mention, fans can be mistaken (though, I will cite that if they are a fan of that specific person, the chances are lessened). I've made elementary (re: retarded) mistakes transliterating here before. A slip of the keyes when typing and not paying attention could lead to the same sort of quality error, both from fans and from professionals.
First off, I'm sorry if I'm making you feel the need to defend translators. I'm not blaming R1 staff or anything like that, and I know how hard transliterating names can be. I just think they might be a little lax in this area.

The mistakes I notice are really ones that shouldn't be made, and it's those ones that I'm kind of criticizing. It's true that not all information on the internet is correct and you need to know what is true and what is false, but I think a search on a JAPANESE search engine would be very useful. I'm sure a Japanese source is much more credible in these cases, especially the seiyuu database sites that include reading in furigana or even the romanized name. If there's only furigana then the translator would have a little bit more work, but transliterating hiragana/furigana is not hard.

I just think there are too many errors that could have easily been avoided with a little research.

[cat_clan]

When one runs across something like 春日, one might expect to read it as Haruhi, or Harunichi. Nope. It's pronounced Kasuga. As far as I can tell, no real rhyme or reason.
Because is using the nanori reading (reading exclusive for Japanese names) of the kanji 春.
春 - Nanori Reading: かす.
日 - Kun reading: -か.

[Suiko Eiji]

Because is using the nanori reading (reading exclusive for Japanese names) of the kanji 春.
春 - Nanori Reading: かす.
日 - Kun reading: -か.

Thanks, I figured it would have to be something like that. I more or less saw it was Kasuga and just went with it. I'm not really one to care about the 'why' with languages.