this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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42
Did the English dub of Spirited Away add a bunch of random lines or what's going on here (cdn.imgchest.com)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by doublepepperoni@hexbear.net to c/anime@hexbear.net
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm rewatching Spirited Away with English subs I grabbed off opensubtitles.org and I had already been confused by some phantom lines that didn't correspond to any spoken dialogue but this scene made it obvious what was happening- there's extra lines added in places where the characters are facing away from the camera michael-laugh

Either the subtitler was hallucinating or these originate from the dub. I grew up watching a VHS tape chomsky-yes-honey in Japanese with Finnish subtitles and I don't recall this scene having dialogue

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[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah it goes off towards the end. The sub script isn’t bad in the abstract, but it’s also kind of weird that they decided to deviate that much. It’s not like the Japanese script has anything weird or problematic. Almost like Disney just assumed that they had to change it because something would be off-putting to Western audiences, even if they didn’t know what.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The dialogue in this scene is clearly expository and it definitely reads like some kind of studio note. I'm guessing Disney assumed the audience needed the stakes explicitly spelled out

Actually watching it again some big wig Disney producer type probably just thought the scene was pointless if it didn't have dialogue

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah mainstream western animation, especially back then, tends to have action, dialogue, or both going on at any time. Execs saw more than a couple seconds of just scenery, emotion and were like “fill the gap with something!”

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

At this point in the movie Chihiro and the audience are trying to figure out what Haku's deal is and the silence as Haku leads her through the flowers, shown from Chihiro's perspective is clearly meant to invite the audience to ponder about him along with her, then it cuts to Chihiro's puzzled face to show what she's feeling

WHY AREN'T THEY TALKING cat-confused

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 2 points 10 months ago

Which in the context of the scene makes sense. They’re sneaking off to a restricted area they’re not supposed to be in while most of the denizens of the springs are asleep, of course they would be keeping quiet as to not alert anyone.

[–] sovietknuckles@hexbear.net 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

with English subs I grabbed off opensubtitles.org

With Spirited Away, it's important not to get dubtitles, which is what you did

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I legit didn't even know those were a thing! I mean yes, I've played games in English with the Japanese audio track and noticed some pretty large differences between the localised English script and the Japanese script but I didn't realise anime dubs went as far as to add entirely new lines.

Lesson learned though, I went and grabbed another set of subs based on the Japanese version which made the experience of watching the movie far less distracting

[–] charly4994@hexbear.net 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I remember reading a while back that after the travesty of the localization of Pom Poko Miyazaki refused to let them change the script because how much they disrespected the film.

Especially with some aspects of the film they added things to try to make it a bit easier to understand for western audiences, like when she first sees the bathhouse, in Japan nobody would need it spelled out, but in the west it does so in the dub she says "it's a bathhouse." It's likely dumbed down more since in the US animation=children.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 7 points 10 months ago

when she first sees the bathhouse, in Japan nobody would need it spelled out, but in the west it does so in the dub she says "it's a bathhouse."

Oh yes, I think that was one of those phantom lines I saw. When Rin and Chihiro see the big radish guy they give Rin a line where she spells out that it is a radish spirit. Shortly after that, when Rin distracts one of the frog guys with the grilled newt, the dub added a whole back and forth between him and Rin while it shows Chihiro squeezing into the elevator with the radish man where in the Japanese version the frog employee just makes noises

The differences were sort of fun and interesting to notice but after this scene I ended up just getting a new sub file that was based on the Japanese script. I might go back and check how they handled some of the later scenes and revelations

[–] AndJusticeForAll@hexbear.net 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don't think Pom Poko has an English dub, does it? Or at least, it didn't back when it released. Maybe G Kids did one.

The movie dub that got Miyazaki mad was Nausicaa which got a heavily edited version, in both video cuts on top of the dialogue translation, called Warriors Of The Wind. It was to make it more black-and-white morality with the Ohma being more menacing and pest-like because of obvious westoid brain worms. Which honestly, it's such a good movie even that didn't totally ruin the quality underneath.

But he saw that and was really protective of the western releases after that. Streamline has versions of Kiki's Delivery Service, Laputa, and My Neighbour Totoro. Buena Vista as part of Disney did their version of Kiki's Delivery Service and then Disney did all the ones after that until G Kids got the western licensing rights and did Ocean Waves, Only Yesterday, (I think) When Marnie Was There, etc.

[–] PigPoopBallsDotJPG@hexbear.net 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What scene exactly?

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

The title is a link to a video though it doesn't show up as such

Pretty sure I've seen people embed videos in comments on hexbear before, it'd be nice if I knew how

[–] PigPoopBallsDotJPG@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ah, thanks, I didn't realize it wasn't a text post.

Turns out the version I have only has Japanese and Russian audio. Both are silent during this scene.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago

Apparently the English localisation was handled by Disney. Going ham on the script sounds like a very Disney thing to do

[–] AernaLingus@hexbear.net 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I wonder what happened with your video clip that made the audio so quiet? I thought there was no audio at first, since I didn't hear anything even after cranking my volume all the way up, but when I threw it into Audacity I could see that there was a barely perceptible signal at like -80 dB. When I amplified the hell out of it I could make out the sounds from the scene (albeit barely poking above the noise floor).

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I did some tests and it seems like Xbox Game Bar just lowers the volume of whatever you record by like 50% for some reason maddened

I could hear the sounds on my computer but it is definitely pretty quiet

Edit: How's this

[–] peppersky@hexbear.net 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Man this movie is so fucking gorgeous why do we feed kids CG Disney slop at all

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 2 points 10 months ago

No awful smarmy humour either

[–] AernaLingus@hexbear.net 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Huh, I've never used the Xbox Game Bar but that seems odd. Googling the problem, it seems like another possibility is that that your system volume is low (even though it's plenty loud enough for you to hear it through your speakers/headphones) which results in low signal level for the recording; I know personally that if I plugged my headphones into my PC directly I would only raise the system volume to about 4-6%. You could try maxxing out both the system volume and the player volume (if applicable) but with your headphones/speakers off and see if that improves things.

Clip's still pretty damn quiet, but if I max the volume out on my phone (~4x higher than I'd usually have it) I can hear it okay.

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 1 points 10 months ago

My system volume is already maxed out since I have a volume knob on my headphones that I use to control volume instead thonk