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The Daily Dot: Why did Netflix erase the queerness of ‘Evangelion’? (Spoilers)
- Thread starter Deleted member 3812
- Start date
The line change doesn't change the fact that there's all sorts of gay overtones to the entire episode. They aren't being missed by new viewers because you'd have to be blind to miss them. To "straight wash" the episode you would need to literally excise huge chunks of it a la Sailor Moon in the 90s.
I honestly think some people are just reading the scripts, and not actually watching the scenes, because to call what happens on screen leading up to this line "straight washing" is laughable
We already have a thread where it has been discussed at length: https://www.resetera.com/threads/ne...hanges-fans-arent-happy-with-spoilers.124816/
The most concerning part to me is the fact that the US translation seems to stand alone in some key points, in that same discussion where the main translator lists left leaning terrorists, it's regarded as just 'sects' in other languages seemingly for no reason that same thread being discussed earlier was calling out the justifications via direct translations being equated as left leaning specifically as tenuous at best wrt Eva specifically. Still, the translation has gotten such an appalling reception, I can't imagine netflix is happy. Even if the original subs weren't the most accurate, they've been accepted for decades and are exactly what the people who hailed this showing up on netflix wanted so it's not like one can just shrug and ignore it.
It's an important moment in the episode and us queer folks have to fight for moments like that, so for it to be made even more ambiguous is frustrating as hell.
Does it change the arc? It doesn't sound like it but it definitely changes an emotional pay off.
It's been a while since I've watched the episode, but I think they're gonna have to work a lot harder than that to erase its queerness.
This is something that many people translating or localizing a work often don't understand - up to and including the original creators - is that localization often requires alterations or adaptations that become ingrained in another culture so strongly that it isn't really beneficial to go back and alter it.
Whether it's Nintendo once telling Retro Studios that Samus Aran isn't really a bounty hunter (what?!), or that in Street Fighter Vega is really Balrog and Balrog is really M.Bison and M.Bison is really Vega (hence nicknames of Boxer, Claw, and Dictator during international tournaments), or weird translations like "you spoony bard" which are so beloved that Final Fantasy won't ever alter them, even as the west embraced alterations to characters like FF7's Barrett or FF6's Kefka to the point they're almost entirely different characters.
Localization isn't just translating or being "authentic" to the original dialogue. Being too loyal can rob a series of importance and impact that resonated with a particular culture in a particular way, sometimes beyond the creators' intent. A good localization adapts the work to keep the spirit of the original work, but makes the necessary cultural changes to be a better fit for that particular audience, for better or worse.
I don't have much of a dog in this fight, but reading countless responses from LGBT anime fans on how important Evangelion was to them makes me really feel that - "authenticity" or not - altering such an important and meaningful scene is painful for them and regressive towards the experience they've accepted and appreciated for nearly two decades.
I wonder why they left it unambiguous on other languages, in (latinamerican) spanish is still "I love you"
But again, that has nothing to do with the tweet, which was all about his political beliefs. The tweet didn't mention any translations/localizations or quality. As for the translation, I've read good reviews of it that said it was great aside from the controversial lines. That it wasn't just a literal translation. Haven't seen it myself yet though.
I feel like there was a thread for this? Like, I don't see anything new, unless I'm missing it. Vox did an article I'll link here but I want to single out this quote: https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/24/18701179/netflix-neon-genesis-evangelion-kaworu-gay-backlash
While ambiguity might make for effective drama for cishet relationships, when a central question for most queer relationships is if the characters are queer at all, ambiguity plus society's inertia for heteronormative interpretations means the common understanding of the relationship is never elavated to anything more than just friends(tm). A lot of people insist that Shinji / Kaworu's relationship is still clearly queer coded, but idk; I feel that's the effect of hindsight bias where the queer themes in eva have been understood for 25 years. The sheer obliviousness cishets have towards queer coding elsewhere makes me feel, shy of author confirmation, characters are always assumed cishet until confirmed otherwise. As Bailey points it, even within before the Netflix dub, there were people insisting in a heterosexual interpretation of Kaworu.
While ambiguity might make for effective drama for cishet relationships, when a central question for most queer relationships is if the characters are queer at all, ambiguity plus society's inertia for heteronormative interpretations means the common understanding of the relationship is never elavated to anything more than just friends(tm). A lot of people insist that Shinji / Kaworu's relationship is still clearly queer coded, but idk; I feel that's the effect of hindsight bias where the queer themes in eva have been understood for 25 years. The sheer obliviousness cishets have towards queer coding elsewhere makes me feel, shy of author confirmation, characters are always assumed cishet until confirmed otherwise. As Bailey points it, even within before the Netflix dub, there were people insisting in a heterosexual interpretation of Kaworu.
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Maybe it isn't mandated from the powers that be and the Spanish translator just isn't a jerk.
Is this translation stuff a big enough issue that I should stop watching the Netflix version? I watched EVA in high school but barely remember it outside of the finale so I'm essentially watching it for the first time and the dub has been pretty okay to me outside of the bizarre "third children" stuff.
Both "I love you" and "I like you" end up ambiguous because the ambiguity doesn't hinge on the depth of Kaworu's feelings towards Shinji. The ambiguity stems from Kaworu's relationship with Shinji (and humanity) where there are layers beyond "gay romantic relationship" involved that are designed to question just what type of relationship and/or feelings Kaworu has towards Shinji.
Though if someone was to go "Oh yeah Kaworu's just a regular old heterosexual boy" as their take, they're delusional.
Though if someone was to go "Oh yeah Kaworu's just a regular old heterosexual boy" as their take, they're delusional.
Seriously.
This is why I don't think this changes the meaning or adds ambiguity. It's not unusual with how I'd expect a teenager to profess romantic feelings and doesnt appear to be a mistranslation (as far as I know)
Of course, but, anecdotal, watching that episode and the series at this point it has a very prominent message of how Shinji is searching for a form of unconditional love and acceptance in his life. A huge part of his arc - and self-destruction - is how unhealthy his concepts of love and acceptance are, where no one EVER overtly tells them they love him, appreciate him, or accept him without strings attached. Not his father, caretaker, or friends.
So to have a blatantly, powerfully, bluntly overt declaration of love at that point is cathartic and meaningful in a way beyond innocent flirting or childish declarations of "liking" someone, because this was everything he was searching for being given to him in a way he never expected and struggles to process... which also makes his actions, and their repercussions later on, have more weight because there was less ambiguity and thus much more pain involved in those actions and their ramifications.
... That's my take, at least.
In short, the translator decided to keep the Japanese speech construction instead of using the italian one.
It's interesting to me that people are taking for granted "I love you" is more unambiguous.
I 100% understand why: it's more intense, it lines up with our conception/the reality of the typical grand confession scene, and the new translation consciously interprets the text in a way that moves away from the original "I love you."
But "I like you" is often times a romantic sentiment, and "I love you" is often times a platonic one. Now, again, the reality is that none of this is being said in a vacuum, it does make a difference which one of those lines is used, and the translator undoubtedly was in the wrong with his changes. My point is this: reading queerness into that scene never relied on the words "I love you" being undeniably romantic in and of themselves. It feels like, as legitimate and necessary as the criticisms of the new translation are, some people are letting their investment in the original lull them into attaching too much implication to the specificity of the wording.
(Note: I'm mainly addressing the headline of The Daily Dot article here. That's the "too much implication" I'm talking about.)
I just want to make explicitly clear. LGBTQ friends, i'm not trying to downplay how you feel, or patronise you in any way. I sincerely mean that. (so much so, i'm not sure posting this is a good idea. Because i don't want people to think i'm being an insensitive asshole)
Changing love to like. Doesn't change their relationship at all, i feel.
Shinji and Kaworu's relationship is still homoerotic as fuck. And hasn't been whitewashed by the change.
On a slight tangent. But i think it goes into a bigger thing nowadays with literalism (no pun intended) where people don't see the subtext and metaphor of art, and just go for the most surface level reading.
Top man Dan Olsen did a good video on the subject in relation to Annihilation.
Changing love to like. Doesn't change their relationship at all, i feel.
Shinji and Kaworu's relationship is still homoerotic as fuck. And hasn't been whitewashed by the change.
On a slight tangent. But i think it goes into a bigger thing nowadays with literalism (no pun intended) where people don't see the subtext and metaphor of art, and just go for the most surface level reading.
Top man Dan Olsen did a good video on the subject in relation to Annihilation.
No. Keep watching.
I don't get the controversy.
In Japanese "Ai shiteru" means "I love you". This is what you say when you don't want to leave any room for interpretation.
In Japanese "suki" means "I like you". This is the word used in the scene in question.
While "suki" is never used between friends as in "I like you, buddy", the new translation is totally in keeping with the context of one teenager expressing warm, romantic feelings for another teenager. "I like you" is definetely the most obvious translation given the context.
Just because "love" was the original translation does not make it more correct.
And given the context of the scene, the "gayness" is absolutely still there.
In Japanese "Ai shiteru" means "I love you". This is what you say when you don't want to leave any room for interpretation.
In Japanese "suki" means "I like you". This is the word used in the scene in question.
While "suki" is never used between friends as in "I like you, buddy", the new translation is totally in keeping with the context of one teenager expressing warm, romantic feelings for another teenager. "I like you" is definetely the most obvious translation given the context.
Just because "love" was the original translation does not make it more correct.
And given the context of the scene, the "gayness" is absolutely still there.
You're misreading the post you quoted. They're saying it should be "berserk", but the translator used "fury state" instead.
No, I read it right. I'm saying when I watched I'm pretty sure I heard them say "berserk" in the English dub so I'm not sure the translations to other languages are all from the same person.
It's a pretty pivotal scene and I'd remember if the said something as awkward as fury state
Te amo. Which in spanish is way more direct, I like you or "Te quiero" would also be a romantic expression, even more when you have the context in which is being said in the series, but at least here in Mexico, "I love you" as in "Te amo" is reserved 99% for a family member OR an SO, even when is taken for granted that you can love your friends or other people that is usually expressed ith a "Te quiero"
"I like you" still is a declaration of romantic feelings if you watch the scene, but as Nerokis said, it is not in a vacuum and replacing the more direct "love" for "like" feels like an attempt to dodge any controversy and thus I am happy it backfired.
But the poster is complaining that the Italian translator was being too literal with the translation and used the awkward sounding fury state, whose fault is that if not the translator's? No one said anything about fury state being in the English dub.
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mexican drunk girls will say "te amo wey"
soy de mexico carnal, simplemente no e llegado a ese cap para saber como lo pusieron haha
Oh ya. I wouldn't take the words of a drunk girl (or any person for that matter) at face value anyhow lol
yeah , anyways, its funny how te amo could be something with so much weight and something that means nothing at all.
but yeah, even if you love your friends, "te amo" is not something people will say to their friends unless is a very important moment or something
because thats why they meant back in 1995?
A lot of the posts in here seem to be attributing things to literally the same translator. I'm saying it's not the same person doing all the translations like some people seem to think
Neither the plot nor the new subs give any context to foreign viewers about 1995/2015's Japanese politics. If you have to start doing Japanese history lessons for your script to not seem shitty to the people you're making for, you fucked up. Know your audience.
I've seen the ADV version about a million times on DVD and I have no beef with the Netflix version.
It's weird that the voices are different, and weird that the dialog is different-yet-the-same. Plenty of series catchphrases were altered and some plot points feel slightly different. I have to assume this is just the nature of translation.
The original was a classic, but was also a late 90s/early 2000s anime dub that embraced the cliches of the era.
I feel like I'm betraying the fandom when I say this but, for a contemporary viewer or someone who isn't a seasoned anime fan, the Netflix dub is probably a better point of entry than the ADV dub.
I was at one of the 3.0 screenings where this happened, and all I can say is that Khara/Funimation was willfully ignorant if they didn't realize that anime has huge kitsch appeal in the US.
People laughed at the moving chairs on the bridge of the Wunder, people laughed at Gendo's visor, people laughed at Asuka's hat, people laughed at the entire piano scene.
It was a sold out theater on a Friday night to see an anime movie. Maybe there was a more general viewership of something. Everyone was enjoying themselves.
I could definitely see how someone poured their heart into a dramatic film would be mortified to see it received as camp and comedy, but that's the undeniable nature of anime in the US.
Unless the possibility of leftist terrorists offends you on principle I don't know why it would be shitty. If it it's closer to what the original script meant it makes sense to adjust the translation
I agreement with it being a problem, but from what I've seen in discussion of the translation, I think the line shouldn't be discussed in isolation. I feel like the "worthy of my grace" stuff makes it worse, since it affects the sentiment of it beyond just if it's romantic affection or not.
IIRC "suki" is not the word used in Japanese? Or maybe I'm just confusing this with the "grace" situation now, haha.
99.99% of people reading/listening in English aren't going to know that it was supposed to refer to The New Left or w/e. At best, it just seems vaguely nonsensical? And then beyond that, like some sort of weird dig.
It's just not a particularly good way of handling the line, since they basically picked the wrong bit of what it was referring to when deciding what term to use in English.
IIRC "suki" is not the word used in Japanese? Or maybe I'm just confusing this with the "grace" situation now, haha.
99.99% of people reading/listening in English aren't going to know that it was supposed to refer to The New Left or w/e. At best, it just seems vaguely nonsensical? And then beyond that, like some sort of weird dig.
It's just not a particularly good way of handling the line, since they basically picked the wrong bit of what it was referring to when deciding what term to use in English.
Why is that shitty ?
If people find it a dig. Then that's their own insecurity, and problem. Not the show's.
Well, too bad.
This is a Japanese show from the 90s. Not every single piece of dialogue needs to be filtered through American sensibilities as to not specifically make leftists think it's a dig at antifa.
this is where the debate of "translation vs localization" starts, but being honest, it is a pretty fucking inconsequential piece of dialogue.
the only thing that matters in that piece is that the "population" is retaliating against the current gorverment
It's not really "closer to what the original script meant", though. What they'd apparently be referring to wasn't "leftists" in the general sense, it was a specific thing.
So to put "leftist" in there is kinda missing the point of what it was referring to, since that's obviously not what Americans are gonna take it as. It's really not the biggest issue, or one I think reflects the translator's politics or anything like that, mind. Just sorta feels like a bad decision w/r/t preserving intent, since it invites some misunderstanding instead.
even if it referes to the new left specifically, it is still a leftist movement lol
Seriously, I find it more cringeworthy that "love" is always the word used with teenagers.
Yeah, those are two different lines. The line with "grace" is the correct one in that situation.
lol ok
The Japanese line literally doesn't mention the "left". That's the point of this. Literally the next tweet in the Twitter thread Shy just posted:
The translator apparently went "it referred to The New Left, so I should use 'leftist'" when nobody is going to understand that jump. It's really not a matter of the original being filtered to American sensibilities when it's the translator who's introducing the misunderstanding to begin with. That's all.
EDIT: I agree with collige's point below as well. You don't want to "filter" or w/e you're using negatively here, but you do want to convey the same meaning as best you can to your audience in their language. That requires being aware of how things come across in context. Because there's not really a way to convey that full context for a throwaway line, using "terrorist" or "sect" or whatever alone probably gets closer to the actual idea as a result.
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Filtering through sensibilities is literally the point of localization though. I'm just gonna defer to deepFlaw since their posts have essentially described my position more eloquently. The original outrage about both Kaworu and the leftist bit are better explained by Hanlon's Law
I understand that it's actually closer to the Japanese script but the original just sounds better in English. This is one of the reasons I liked Working Designs games back in the day because they didnt just make their script 1 for 1 with the Japanese script and made it flow better in English.