I want to make it clear that I have nothing against Miss Dream as a person, she seems really sweet and her translations and uploads make talking about the Sailor Moon Manga online soooooo much easier. She's not a bad person, I don't wish anything negative onto her.
That said there are a bunch of translations that I disagree with. A lot of them are really small things and really just a matter of opinion because Japanese and English are really hard to translate between. Some of them are goofs that I think really should have been checked like this scan:
Viluy says she's gonna use her nanomachines to dissolve Sailor Mercury's body to nothing....and then says she's going to take her body as a host? What?
In the original, Viluy said she's going to take Mercury's "Hoste" meaning Holy Body, or Soul, something the Death-Busters have been taking for Pharaoh 90 throughout arc 3. Miss Dream translates this as "Host" which leads to goofiness like Viluy saying she's gonna destroy her body and then use her body as a host body.
Most of the time this doesn't really impact the plot too severely, however there's one quote I had to make a specific blog post on because it's one of my favorite lines of the entire series and it was somehow morphed into meaning the exact opposite it's original, turning one of the most powerful lines in the series core to it's message into a completely standard uninteresting line of dialog:
Throughout the 5th Arc, Usagi sees her friends gets killed by Galaxia and near the end, Galaxia sends their star seeds into the Galaxy Cauldron, which erases things forever. However Usagi still saves Galaxia who, unable to understand Usagi asks why. Here is the Miss Dream Translation of Usagi's response:
This is an incredibly conventional line about how you went through a lot of trials and so on. But the original contains a complete opposition to this. Usagi's line in the original and one of my favorite lines in the series is:
"All this time, I've never fought for peace and justice. Only for my loved ones and friends, were the reasons I came to fight."
This is actually EXTREMELY important to understand. Usagi is a subversion of the Classic Hero, she doesn't fight for any great ideal, something abstract that she can't relate too. This has been the point of her character since chapter 1 where she cried and freaked out at a monster but went to fight it anyway because her friend was in danger.
For all the talk of Peace and Justice in Sailor Moon, there are not actually what Usagi is willing to fight for, abstractions that she can't emotionally relate too. Rather Usagi fights for her beloved friends, who in this way bring the best out of her. This is the idea of Cosmos in Sailor Moon, a great inter-connected whole where each part brings out the best in another. Just as Usagi helps us see the greatness in ourselves, we through her love bring her into being her best self.
What was so groundbreaking about the character of Usagi was despite being the reincarnation of an alien princess and the messiah and all of that, she was as she protested just a normal girl, no hero. That is central to the story of the Sailor Moon manga, that she isn't a perfect hero who can stand absolute for her virtues, but that's she a normal flawed girl who just wants to make her friends happy. That any of us, no matter what we felt about us, could be a hero like Usagi was.
So ummm yeah, that is the translation I really have to take issue with.
No comments:
Post a Comment