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I am really steamed with Hasbro and Shout! Factory right now. I just watched a scene from the third episode The Headmasters, and the subtitles used in this new DVD release are WAAAAAAY off with several parts of the dialogue!

It's the part where Alpha Trion revitalizes the Matrix and restores Hot Rod to his Rodimus Prime form, and then Rodimus and Optimus team up together for the first time.

Here's a comparison between the three different subtitled versions of this scene:

Metrodome DVDs

Alpha Trion: "Rodimus, lift up Matrix!"
Alpha Trion: "O Almighty Matrix, resurrect yourself with cosmic wisdom and power!"
Unspecified voices: "Rodimus Prime!"
Another voice: "Rodimus has come back as a Commander!"
Narrator: "Behold! A dramatic moment in history! The birth of Double Optimus Prime!"

TV-Nihon fansubs

Alpha Trion: "Rodimus... Let me return the Matrix to normal!"
Alpha Trion: "Use the energy to recharge the Matrix! Revive the power surpassing the Wisdom of the Cosmos!"
Unspecified voices: "Rodimus Convoy!"
Another voice: "Rodimus has become a Commander again!"
Narrator: "Did you see it? The most dramatic scene of the century! The birth of the dream! Double Convoy!

Shout! Factory DVDs:

Alpha Trion: "Hot Rod, lift up the Matrix!"
Alpha Trion: "May the Matrix of Leadership light out darkest hour!"
Unspecified voices: "Hot Rod!"
Another voice: "Hot Rod has been reborn as Rodimus Prime!"
Narrator: "Behold! A dramatic moment in history! The combined strength of two Primes!"

That second line of Alpha Trion's resembles nothing of what he really says, being nothing more than a case of fanwank forced in as incorrect translation. Not to mention the typo of "light out darkest hour".

And it most certainly is not stated by the narrator to be the "combined strength" of "two Convoys/Primes", but rather that it is the "dream-like birth" of "Double Convoy/Prime".

And what's more, this isn't the only case of this kind of change. Fortress was given the name "Cerebros" in the subs, when he is an entirely different identity from G1 Cerebros. He's as much Cerebros as Ginrai is Optimus.

Sixshot's title of "Decepticon Dinobase Ninja Staff Officer" is renamed "Phase Six Decepticon officer", using a term from IDW G1 that has no place in this show.

All cassette Transformers are subbed as "Deployers", which isn't even a G1 term!

The unspecified energy that was recharging the Matrix directly referred to as Plasma Energy, thus removing any mystique and wonder behind the unknown energy that would help to empower the Matrix. Not to mention that this is well before any of the characters even hear about Plasma Energy.

Episode titles become wonky in the translation. "Four Warriors Come out of the Sky" is subbed as "Warriors from Space". "Behold the Birth of Double Convoy" is subbed as "The Rebirth of Rodimus Prime". "The Great Cassette Operation" is subbed as "Operation: Autobot Deployers". And so on and so forth.

"Scrap" is used as an expletive, over any typical choice like "darn", "blast" or "curse".

Slang terms such as "Autojerk" and Decepticreep" are used where nonexistent

The meteorite named Metemorphose is subbed as "Metamorphosis" And its magnetic properties are redefined as gravitational properties, which is utter nonsense given the context of that episode, since it deals with it having an influence on metals.

And, according to the Evolution of Transformers animation panel at SDCC 2011, there will be even more changes made to Masterforce and Victory.

They're gonna be using the English names for characters in Masterforce who are entirely different characters from their American counterparts. Like, the Decepticon Pretenders Blood, Gilmer, and Dauros are gonna be subbed as "Bomb-Burst", "Submarauder", and "Skullgrin". Though, they did say that some like Ginrai and Minerva (who do have Western counterparts) will be keeping their Japanese names, but there's no telling where they'll draw the line with the others.

Though, I'm not even sure they're gonna even get Ginrai's names right. In the slideshow, Super Ginrai was called "God Ginrai" and the real God Ginrai was called "Super God Ginrai".

And they're renaming the Godmasters as being "Powermasters", which is an entirely different concept whose only similarity lies within aesthetics rather than function.

For Victory, Deszaras is using his "Deathsaurus" name, which is still irksome considering how he's not even a dragon or dinosaur! He's a bird kaiju!

And then there's the Breastforce. Since they're too paranoid to use this term, they've crafted a cover up term in the form of "Chestforce".

As you can see, I am very disappointed in this. Regardless of the flaws of Metrodome's and Madman's DVDs, or even those of the TV-nihon fansubs, at least they tried to adhere to artistic authenticity (TV-Nihon especially). This, however, is just sad.

I own the Metrodome sets and as far as I know their subtitles are done well. Please note that I don't speak a single word of Japanese. The names correspond with what's on the TF boxes, FWIW.

And well, Kaiju-dragon... A thin line. I take Deszaras to be inspired by Rodan. What defines a dragon anyway?

RhA wrote:I own the Metrodome sets and as far as I know their subtitles are done well. Please note that I don't speak a single word of Japanese. The names correspond with what's on the TF boxes, FWIW.

The only problematic subs that Metrodome had were those of The Headmasters. But those were mostly spelling and grammar issues, and one episode having the subs of another episode appear on screen during its moments of silence. But other than that, they were passable.

RhA wrote:And well, Kaiju-dragon... A thin line. I take Deszaras to be inspired by Rodan. What defines a dragon anyway?

It's the head that makes all the difference. His altmode head is neither draconian nor reptilian. It is clearly avian in appearance.

I own the Madman set import from Austrailia I bought back in 2007 and it has the same subtitles as the Metrodome ones.
Thats sounds really strange that Shout made those odd changes. Especially Fortress being named Cerebros when they know that the American fan base already know Cerebros to be someone else in the American series and was never even used the Japanese version.

I'm sure I read somewhere that some of the changes were forced by Hasbro, who didn't want the Japanese concepts "out there" on top of what they had already established. The logic seems to be one of brand cohesion/identification for the more casual fan.

This was the same reason given for not including the so-bad-it's-good Star TV dub; Hasbro didn't want it anywhere near thier logo.

Quite who they think is buying Japanese subtitled TF cartoons is another matter entirely....

Pretender Skywarp wrote:This was the same reason given for not including the so-bad-it's-good Star TV dub; Hasbro didn't want it anywhere near thier logo.

A shame really. Crap that bad is on it's own level.

Pretender Skywarp wrote:Quite who they think is buying Japanese subtitled TF cartoons is another matter entirely....

Hilariously strange, yes. Let's be realistic, it's awesome the sets can be watched by anyone who wants to now, but the target audience of these sets... Well, that would be us. And we like Goryu jus the way he is.

RhA wrote:

Pretender Skywarp wrote:Quite who they think is buying Japanese subtitled TF cartoons is another matter entirely....

Hilariously strange, yes. Let's be realistic, it's awesome the sets can be watched by anyone who wants to now, but the target audience of these sets... Well, that would be us. And we like Goryu jus the way he is.

Exactly! They changed the Breastforce to the "Chestforce" out of fear that the parents of the kids watching this will get angry at Hasbro, yet kids are not the people who are going to be buying, much less watching, these things.

This could have easily been rectified by marketing them to the "Ages 13 and Up" crowd just like every other uncut anime series is.

And what's more, I've discovered even further changes made. In some later episodes on The Headmasters DVD set, they actually CUT OUT some lines of dialogue, none of which were even slightly offensive. So much for these being uncut releases.

Both "original" were stupid and nearly nonsensical anyway. Shout! Factory improved the situation.

Translation from Japanese is never one for one. When it is, it often sounds awful. The new versions are perfectly acceptable from my view.

Counterpunch wrote:Both "original" were stupid and nearly nonsensical anyway. Shout! Factory improved the situation.

Translation from Japanese is never one for one. When it is, it often sounds awful. The new versions are perfectly acceptable from my view.

Have you no appreciation for artistic authenticity? If that's the way the original creators envisioned the story to be, then so be it. It's their vision, not ours, and we are to respect that.

Sabrblade wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:Both "original" were stupid and nearly nonsensical anyway. Shout! Factory improved the situation.

Translation from Japanese is never one for one. When it is, it often sounds awful. The new versions are perfectly acceptable from my view.

Have you no appreciation for artistic authenticity? If that's the way the original creators envisioned the story to be, then so be it. It's their vision, not our, and we are to respect that.

I have to agree with CP that, for the most part, these are appropriate changes. Translating from Japanese to English is a tricky beast - if you've ever read any academic articles about translating Japanese to English, I suspect you'd have a better appreciation for this challenge. But I have to say, based on what you showed us, the new subs are an improvement, and they seem to have done an excellent job of keeping the authorial intent while creating more comprehensible subtitles.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you are assuming that the previous dubs must be 100% exact translations, which may not be true.