Recently, I found a collection of Case Closed episodes and thought, "Why not?" So, upon beginning to watch, I noticed several differences and having seen a couple of episodes in English before, thought nothing of them. I knew of the name changes and of the difference in personality that comes from different voice actors. I also expected Funimation to trim the episodes as they have done with so many other series. What I didn't expect was episode 68. This is episode 66 in Japan and is titled something along the lines of 'night road murder case' or similar. Sleeping Kogoro reveals the killer and the killer reveals his reasons for murder. The original Japanese reveals his reasons to be something along the lines of:
Spoiler:
the killer witnessed the victim reveal his reasons to leave the killer's fiancee to die in the cold on a hiking trip to be a whim of anger. A jovial display of a lack of remorse sends the killer into a murderous rage.
The American Case Closed version of the show reveals his reasons for murder to be:
Spoiler:
the killer plotted with the victim to kill his fiancee, who was secretly the killer's wife, to collect on a secret life insurance policy only to find the victim bragging about the crime to the man the killer would eventually try to frame the murder on to silence them both.
This revelation reflects to me that Case Closed is not a translation at all, but something more resembling a spin off of 'Whose Line is it Anyway?' in which contestants view a silent cartoon and write a script that makes sense with the visual clues. The fact that the names have changed means that the show 'Americanizers' never need to have seen an episode of the Japanese original or to have any information about it at all.
Last edited by x64_02 on September 18th, 2008, 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
1) AO. Nothing really gets hurt by changing an AO.
2) I agree it's slightly odd. There's one other episode that had a rather odd change, don't remember the number. It's the one where the woman is being stalked, ends up poisoning him, and they discover that if she hadn't, she'd likely be the one dead now. The change is at the end what Conan (as Kogoro) tells her.
In one version, he says something along the lines of "You're still young. Do your time, repent, and when you get out live your dream of opening your bakery shop."
In the other version, he berates her, saying something like "No matter the circumstances, you still took a life. In doing so, you've thrown your own life into despair."
Something like that.
3) Sometimes the japanese doesn't fit verbally to how it would be spoken in english. They may have tried it the real way first, and had trouble fitting it within the spoken time-frame while matching lip movements (ie: not making them talk REALLY fast to fit it).
GinRei wrote:
Sometimes the japanese doesn't fit verbally to how it would be spoken in english. They may have tried it the real way first, and had trouble fitting it within the spoken time-frame while matching lip movements (ie: not making them talk REALLY fast to fit it).
I don't really see the need of fitting the voice with the lip movements with high accuracy, as lip movements aren't that accurate in the first place (I mean "close" and open" mouth drawings in alternating frames). The bad thing is, the American version changed the lines, thus changing the images of the characters (in x64_02's case, Conan). I think the only lines that are OK to change are those of side puns etc, like Agasa's quizzes and other jokes (and it's better if they could draw to change what is needed to change for their version).
Speaking of dubs, I was even wondering how other countries would air Episode 304 and others where Japanese characters are involved in solving the case.
first to note, I'm referring to episode numbers according to dubs.
Sometimes, the translation makes no sense. Two examples that annoyed me especially are episodes 15(The shooter), and episode 34(A Hunting We Will Go) . It really annoyed me because it is obvious what it says, but they translate it as something far different from what the English words say!
Spoiler:
In episode 15, there is a calculator, that translates out to "291 Heisei E," but the way that Richard(Kogoro) translates it out as SoHo express, with something to do with high speed train, or something like that
Spoiler:
In episode 33, Conan finds an old manuscript from his father, with the name "Yusaku K." clearly written on it, but it was read as Booker Kudo
BTW, about this statement:
GinRei wrote:
1) AO. Nothing really gets hurt by changing an AO.
You guys should watch episode 56(Game Gone Bad), which in case you don't know involves Tequila. Somewhere in the beginning, Conan thinks aloud this(in original Japanese):
Spoiler:
"Gin and Vodka! Those of the codenames of the men in black who used a chemical to shrink my body.
Here is the dubbed version:
Spoiler:
"Gin and Vodka. A while back, Harley told me those were the codemanes for the men in black who shrunk my body.
GinRei wrote:
In one version, he says something along the lines of "You're still young. Do your time, repent, and when you get out live your dream of opening your bakery shop."
In the other version, he berates her, saying something like "No matter the circumstances, you still took a life. In doing so, you've thrown your own life into despair."
To me, that's a justifiable change. The Japanese version, indirectly or otherwise, actually ultimately comes off as "Hey, murder's OK!"--no matter the reason for it. The English version is still sympathetic with the murderer, but doesn't in any way advocate murder.
It's a responsible change, if anything.
Juansmarts wrote:
BTW, about this statement:
GinRei wrote:
1) AO. Nothing really gets hurt by changing an AO.
You guys should watch episode 56(Game Gone Bad), which in case you don't know involves Tequila. Somewhere in the beginning, Conan thinks aloud this(in original Japanese):
Spoiler:
"Gin and Vodka! Those of the codenames of the men in black who used a chemical to shrink my body.
Here is the dubbed version:
Spoiler:
"Gin and Vodka. A while back, Harley told me those were the codemanes for the men in black who shrunk my body.
how is that for hurting only AOs?
I think what GinRei was saying is that the AO's are already a far cry from anything canon in the first place, so changing anything in them really doesn't affect anything meaningful.
GinRei wrote:
In one version, he says something along the lines of "You're still young. Do your time, repent, and when you get out live your dream of opening your bakery shop."
In the other version, he berates her, saying something like "No matter the circumstances, you still took a life. In doing so, you've thrown your own life into despair."
To me, that's a justifiable change. The Japanese version, indirectly or otherwise, actually ultimately comes off as "Hey, murder's OK!"--no matter the reason for it. The English version is still sympathetic with the murderer, but doesn't in any way advocate murder.
It's a responsible change, if anything.
...
It was a silly re-write. It was borderline self-defense. Conan even made it a point to recover the stalker's bag to show that the threat against the culprit was imminent. The re-write mischaracterizes Conan and the severity of consequences the culprit is facing after being caught, even (perhaps especially) in the U.S., pretty badly. About the worst case possible to chose to force feed a moral message like that (and I think the writer was more interested in lampooning Conan than giving moral lessons).
Juansmarts wrote:
first to note, I'm referring to episode numbers according to dubs.
Sometimes, the translation makes no sense. Two examples that annoyed me especially are episodes 15(The shooter), and episode 34(A Hunting We Will Go) . It really annoyed me because it is obvious what it says, but they translate it as something far different from what the English words say!
Spoiler:
In episode 15, there is a calculator, that translates out to "291 Heisei E," but the way that Richard(Kogoro) translates it out as SoHo express, with something to do with high speed train, or something like that
Spoiler:
In episode 33, Conan finds an old manuscript from his father, with the name "Yusaku K." clearly written on it, but it was read as Booker Kudo
FUNi actually did video edits for those scenes to reflect the dialogue, for the Adult Swim version. There's also a kanji name puzzle they treated similarly. Unfortunately, between people whining about wanting a bajillion episodes per release* and poor sales over all, FUNi didn't bother to keep the edits as an alternate angle when they put them out on DVD.
* MPEG2 doesn't do a very good job maintaining the fidelity of flat color line art, people! Especially when FUNi wasn't using VBR encoding... and of course FUNi used the self-serving interpretation of "more episodes per release" as "more episodes per disk" to save money on what they probably saw as a poor performer at that point.
Last edited by Nyarl on September 18th, 2008, 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nyarl wrote:
It was a silly re-write. It was borderline self-defense. Conan even made it a point to recover the stalker's bag to show that the threat against the culprit was imminent. The re-write mischaracterizes Conan and the severity of consequences the culprit is facing after being caught, even (perhaps especially) in the U.S., pretty badly. About the worst case possible to chose to force feed a moral message like that (and I think the writer was more interested in lampooning Conan than giving moral lessons).
I would almost guarantee that FUNi changed the line strictly due to what I said above. I'm not sure which one was which, since GinRei only said "one version" and didn't specify. I may have mis-attributed the Japanese to the top line and the English to the bottom, but that's how it seemed to me.
Nyarl wrote:
FUNi actually did video edits for those scenes to reflect the dialogue, for the Adult Swim version. There's also a kanji name puzzle they treated similarly. Unfortunately, between people whining about wanting a bajillion episodes per release* and poor sales over all, FUNi didn't bother to keep the edits as an alternate angle when they put them out on DVD.
* MPEG2 doesn't do a very good job maintaining the fidelity of flat color line art, people! Especially when FUNi wasn't using VBR encoding... and of course FUNi used the self-serving interpretation of "more episodes per release" as "more episodes per disk" to save money on what they probably saw as a poor performer at that point.
That was the case with the murdered blackmail guy with the TV crew, right? I actually lied that episode, since I watched it first on AS. I thought with its use of the english language that it almost appealed to an American audience. What I don't get is why Funimation didn't add an english version and original japanese version videos to the DVDs. I guess it took too much space to fit it all on DVD.
btw, why didn't you use the spoiler thing instead of small font?
The changes done by FUNi might not be destroying the true storyline, but it doesn't feel comfortable watching dubs when the dubbing voice actors' statement don't relate to the pictures shown. It's irritating, if you ask me
Jd- wrote:
Juansmarts wrote:
btw, why didn't you use the spoiler thing instead of small font?
Spoiler:
Small fonts are totally in fashion.
LOL, saying that when you are using both of them
BTW, was it your settings that make spoiler tags unreadable to guests?
Hey i'm done reading most of that long ass posts. The early translation/editings of the show arent exactly 100% correct to begin with. So unless you speak japanese and can compare without the use of the fansubs then DONT. Just cause a name was left out in the fansub doesnt mean the name was actually said. We do like to shorten lines as well. ^_^
from what I've seen the translation is fine. The real problem is that Funimation's voice actors just don't fit the show. (and this is coming from someone who got used to the Funimation One Piece voices in about two episodes even though I've seen at least 320 episodes in japanese)
. It really annoyed me because it is obvious what it says, but they translate it as something far different from what the English words say!
) 
