Cruel Translator's Thesis. A comparative translational analysis of a professional and a fan-made subtitle of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Abstract

This study will investigate the relationship between a fan translation and an official, professional translation of a Japanese anime, both in a cultural and qualitative context. Do fan translations do more to bring out the 'foreignness' of the source material? Is there an obvious difference in the quality or accuracy of the fan translation and the official work? By transcribing the original Japanese dialog and both translations, this paper will analyze the differences between the official translation and a fan-made translation of the mid-nineties TV animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion. This analysis will be carried out using existing literature by, first and foremost, Lawrence Venuti, Antoine Berman and Yoko Hasegawa. By comparing word-choices and sentence-structure, the study examines whether there are any patterns to how the two subtitles approach translation of Japanese into English, and whether any translation strategies can be discerned by studying such patterns. In conclusion, the study finds that the official translation employs a consistent strategy of familiarization, while the fan-made subtitle haphazardly mixes foreignization and domestication. This in turn means that the professional translation is both more consistent, and of higher quality from a more general standpoint.