Sentai Filmworks rightfully came under fire for the dub of To Love-Ru, which featured a word replacement in a conversation about a character wanting a wife who could cook. In the original Japanese version the character was mocked for being old-fashioned. In the English dub the character was told that wanting a wife that could cook was “misogynistic”. Given that the word means a hatred of women, every literate weeb, otaku, and anime fan was up in arms about the change in dialogue. Well, the script writer in charge of the automatic dialogue replacement attempted to take to social media to explain why the change happened.
On March 7th, 2020 the ADR script writer, Holly Segarra, made a Twitter thread explaining why the change took place, and attempted to defend it, writing…
“I wanted to put this out there cause I know folks are mad at me, (and honestly I hate making anyone mad) but there’s some difficulties in dubbing you may not be aware of that can effect choices; such as syllable count, animation mouth flaps, and rhythm.
“Ideally we keep it as close to original translation as we can but dubs just aren’t that simple they have to flow and work with the animation. For you purists out there subs are definitely for you and I personally like both depending on the show.
“My job as an ADR writer is to make things sound natural, & avoid sounding too stiff. There’s no 1:1 trade when it comes to translation.
“It involves a lot of puzzle solving & spending tons of time with the material. I put a lot of love in my work, I promise no hidden agendas.”
The typical supporters of agitprop and the infestation of anime were quick to pat Segarra on the back.
However, another translator from Kawasaki, Japan, stepped in to point out that “Misogynistic” and “Old fashioned” don’t sound the same and certainly don’t fit within the same contextual window when it comes to translation.
As a translator myself, there had to have been a way to not put implaid meaning of gender discrimination into the script and still match the lips
“Get with the times”
“You’re so behind the times” etc
時代遅れ isn’t 女嫌い— リゴニ鈴音(Alita) (@alita87) March 8, 2020
Someone attempted to defend Segarra and the use of “misogynistic” in the localization of To Love-Ru, but they were promptly put in their place.
Which is why I said there is probably something similar.
“Old fashioned” and “Misogynistic” are VERY different words.
The second does push an agenda, which people are right to be annoyed about.
When dubbing you have to adapt, but completely changing the implied meaning is a no
— リゴニ鈴音(Alita) (@alita87) March 8, 2020
It’s true.
Any number of alternatives could have been used, including but not limited to:
- “You are old school, huh?”
- “Hey, don’t be so rude!”
- “That is old fashioned.”
- “That’s so silly. Come on.”
- “That’s so completely rude.”
- “That’s so chauvinistic.”
A few Centrists™ tried using the excuse that the word would have to fit within a single animation flap of the character’s mouth, but the actual English dub for the phrase extends across three flaps, and “misogynistic” is still a polysyllabic word that goes well over a single animation flap, when something much more taut and appropriate could have been used.
Basically, Segarra is trying to say that there was no agenda involved, even though there’s a flowing lake of words in the English lexicon that could have been used in place of “misogynistic”.
Not only did the word not fit tonally to the conversation at hand – since the character she was responding to simply stated that a wife should be able to cook – but it was distracting to the overall scene, which is why it was picked up by so many during their initial viewing. If you’re unfamiliar with how everything went down, YouTuber Hero Hei did a recap of the event, which you can check out below.
Expect more white knights to run to Sentai Filmworks aid or more excuse to be used in order for more localization efforts to be butchered.
We’ve seen this time and time before, especially with Funimation. And once people will no longer accept that it was just a mistake or they didn’t mean to use that word, you can bet your bottom dollar that a post about “harassment” will pop up at some point to mitigate the criticism.
You know what could have prevented all of this from happening? An accurate translation.
(Thanks for the news tip Nathaniel Enoch and Prinz The Iron Blood Heavy Cruiser (18+))
