00:00I think it was about a month ago or so that I was told we would be doing a cross
00:05and so I jumped at it.
00:07In the year 1999, a huge object fell from the heavens.
00:12A gigantic space battleship over 1,200 meters in length.
00:16We didn't have any scripts at that time. I just had the DVD.
00:20I popped it in and started listening to it and I realized about halfway through the very beginning narration
00:27that I was going to need more of a back story, more information.
00:30So I immediately just stopped, didn't even try tackling any translation and just got online, did a lot of research.
00:37This story is so huge, it's 36 episodes and there's all these characters and all these mecha and all this
00:42massive history.
00:43I figured I had to sit down and take a look at that first, so that's what I did.
00:47If I don't understand the story, I could mis-translate something, misinterpret something.
00:51So it was very important for me to do that research first.
00:54Thank goodness.
00:55There were a couple almost sort of fanatical Japanese websites that really helped me out.
00:59It listed a lot of the characters and the mecha and whatnot.
01:03And the original Animego release had these lantern notes by a man named Egan Liu.
01:08And so Googling his name turned up very quickly.
01:10A very extensive website called the Macross Compendium that also was very useful for me in figuring out this terminology
01:18in English.
01:19There was also a long-term struggle in the end of the world.
01:22And the world was once again at peace.
01:25The alien battleship, rebuilt by human hands, was given a new name with which to start its new life.
01:32The Macross.
01:33Initially our goal wasn't to re-translate Macross because it had already been translated.
01:38Initially I was brought on board to analyze that translation and just to verify the accuracy of it.
01:43What had happened though was I found that as I went through the translation there were a few issues that
01:51I thought could use addressing.
01:53And as I began to address those issues I found that more and more of them were.
01:58I was seeing more and more of them.
02:00Everything from slight misinterpretations to problems with accuracy to misheard lines.
02:07Truthfully I don't think of myself as the project translator.
02:10I would like to think of myself as the project editor.
02:12Sometimes the editing process will be simply changing a few lines.
02:16Sometimes it will be completely rewriting from start to finish.
02:18In my case I read the Japanese and I get or I hear the Japanese and two things happen.
02:23I mean I process the words themselves and I process the feel of the words.
02:29You know how does it sound?
02:30How is it delivered?
02:31What is the emotional content of the words?
02:33And so there's that process.
02:34And then I guess almost instantaneously you know like when you read a book in English you hear the words
02:40in your head.
02:40Well that's what happens with me.
02:41I process the Japanese and I just hear the English in my head so I just type it out.
02:44There are some instances where it just doesn't cross over.
02:48For example idioms.
02:50I mean that's the same in English or as in Japanese.
02:52I mean I remember when I was living in Japan I used to sort of laboriously try and translate some
02:56of my favorite idioms into English.
02:57You know he doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.
03:00And I just met with these blank stares and they're like what is the hole?
03:04Is he going to go to the bathroom in the hole?
03:06Like no he doesn't know the difference.
03:07He can't.
03:08And that just was completely lost on them.
03:10And the same thing goes from Japanese to English.
03:12Some idioms just don't translate.
03:14Another thing is just simply cultural concepts.
03:17Or you say a word and you can translate it literally but the word has another meaning altogether in context.
03:24I think an example of this is in episode 6 you have a character who says something that you know
03:27literally would be translated as sorry.
03:30My translation was thanks.
03:31And the reason for this is it's very much part of the Japanese culture that's built into the language.
03:37I mean when somebody does something and you want to thank them for it lots of times Japanese will say
03:43I'm sorry.
03:44I mean you can go to a restaurant somebody brings something for you and you'll say sorry.
03:47They mean thank you.
03:48It's just sort of a cultural thing like you know sorry for making you go out of your way and
03:52I thank you for it.
03:52But this is me you're talking about.
03:55Well thanks.
03:55And if you want to look at the culture of Japan they have a very highly stratified society with clear
04:00delineations between who is at what level quote unquote.
04:03And there were what the requisite grammatical forms to reflect that.
04:08Is that you Hikaru?
04:10I know that voice.
04:12Senpai.
04:12It's been a while.
04:13You actually find this in Macross.
04:15We have the character of Hikaru who constantly calls Roy Faker calls him Senpai.
04:21Which is well you know one of the the hallmarks of the Japanese culture is the Senpai kohai or you
04:26know senior junior relationship.
04:28And as a sign of respect I don't think Hikaru ever calls Roy Roy calls him Senpai.
04:32And so it was chosen to keep that intact.
04:35Oh damn it!
04:37Hey!
04:37Get the hell out of there!
04:39The issue of translating Japanese curse words into English is really kind of a mixed bag.
04:43I think simply because this is a perfect instance of where you can't necessarily take words at their face value.
04:49You know in English you have this wide variety of curse words at our disposal.
04:54And if I say you know hey hey you buddy I mean it cannot be interpreted any other way.
04:59But in Japanese a lot of it is contextual.
05:04Hikaru!
05:07Shit!
05:08I mean you have a word one of the most often used curse words there is is kuso which literally
05:13means shit.
05:15But I mean it doesn't always mean shit.
05:17And a perfect example of this is the fact that cartoon characters will say this word.
05:21I used to ride the subway and there was this great little poster that was up on the side of
05:25the train.
05:27And it had this lady it was like you know the many faces of the average office worker.
05:30And it showed her you know vexed and you know frustrated and overworked.
05:34And in one she's going kuso which again literally means shit.
05:38But in this case it's more sort of a vexed oh man oh gosh.
05:40So it's all contextual.
05:42You know if I curse under my breath it might not necessarily mean shit.
05:46But if I point to you and say ah ah ah ah but most definitely.
05:49So I think you'll find that if you really want to sort of keep out a keep an ear out
05:54for the way that certain words are translated within Macross.
05:57You'll find that one A isn't necessarily always B.
06:00Depending upon the forcefulness and the context.
06:03So a lot of that is contextual.
06:05What planet is that?
06:07The fifth planetary body counting inwards.
06:10It is my belief that they will attempt to use its cluttered orbital debris as a means of cover.
06:15As I'm going through the translation I find that the zentradi, the alien race, have referred to Saturn as being
06:21the fifth planet.
06:23And I kind of stopped and like wait a minute.
06:25It's the sixth planet.
06:26It doesn't make any sense.
06:27So I kept watching and sure enough in the next scene they showed a view screen of the zentradi viewing
06:34our solar system.
06:35And it showed Saturn where it begins in the correct position.
06:38So I was like okay.
06:40Just kind of chalked it up to error.
06:41Corrected the error.
06:42Wrote a note.
06:43And then moved on.
06:45And then came around to episode seven.
06:47And in the original script it had written Mars as being the fourth planet.
06:52And that was scratched out and handwritten in seventh.
06:55And so we had the second instance of there being a discrepancy.
06:59But now it became clear that this was, you know, it wasn't a discrepancy of oversight.
07:04Someone had clearly wanted this to be the zentradi counting system.
07:08It didn't make any sense because even if you count from the sun going outward or from Pluto inward, the
07:16numbers didn't match up.
07:17But when we have Mars and then we have Saturn, I kind of looked at those and then it all
07:21made perfect sense.
07:23The zentradi have knowledge of a tenth planet and are counting backward from that, including that tenth planet.
07:27And when you think about it that way, then suddenly Saturn is the fifth planet and Mars is the seventh.
07:33But the thing of it is it's never addressed in the actual show.
07:36They just sort of include it, I guess, as an in-joke to anyone in the know.
07:40Talking this over with Matt, Matt Greenfield, the producer for the show,
07:43he decided that to be on the safe side it would be better to render this as orbital body rather
07:48than planet.
07:48So my final translation for episode six was that it was the fifth orbital body counting outward.
07:56I was pulling out my hair over that one and just sort of storming around the office.
07:59It doesn't make any sense!
08:01And one of my fellow translators said, there's have to be a tenth planet!
08:04And I was like, that's it. There is a tenth planet and they're counting backward from it.
08:10As part of Robotech, Macross was really what sort of caught my interest in Japanese animation
08:14and what I think provided at least some of the initial impetus for me to start learning Japanese in university.
08:20So, I mean, it really holds a very special place, you know, for me in my heart
08:24and I think in the hearts of a lot of other people who are in my same age bracket.
08:28So, one of the reasons I really wanted to do this myself was for that sort of sentimental value
08:33and for the importance it holds for me.
08:35So, one of the things I set out to do was to make this sort of, to help make this
08:39a definitive edition of Macross.
08:41And part of that, on my end, entails just doing the best possible, most accurate translation possible.
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