Hi there. I'm the current preliminary editor for Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, having taken over for Celestine around the beginning of the Europe arc so that she could work on Let's & Go full time. You may remember me from when we first did Medarot; I took a break for a while thereafter, but that's neither here nor there—with the writing of this post, I hope to inform you why we made some particularly tricky editing decisions over the past arc.
Keep in mind that we plan to correct any issues in both my own and Celestine's work for the final batch.
Team WHO (Team Shadow)
- Inconsequential as it was, this was changed in translation because we couldn't make sense of the original Japanese—we're all Westerners, and a newer subgroup at that, so the pronunciation of wasei-eigo can sometimes screw with us. Hoshi no Yume was nice enough to correct us on this one, so props to them.
- Names of some other team members will be de-localised for additional clarity, but here are explanations regardless:
- Kairona was localised as Phan because I interpreted the 'kai' to be the same kai used in youkai; it was condensed from there to match the simplicity of the others' names.
- Jai was assumed to be a condensation ja nai, to refer to his not being human, so I used the cadav from cadaver.
- Vlad was misinterpreted as Blood for the same reason as the team name,
and while it's really still the same idea, we'll correct it for the
sake of posterity.
- Howly is supposed to be Howling, but they really don't emphasise that -gu...
Tone
- I tried to distinguish characters' voices a little more, not only to match the original script, but also to spice up the language of our own. It's likely the most time-consuming part of my process, as I have to figure out how to make things translate well to English whilst keeping in mind each character's mannerisms, tics and habits. I basically put myself in the shoes of each character.
- I gave Takao some additional conjunctions and simplicity, partially because SquareAnon's translations are naturally a bit stiff (can't blame non-native speakers), but also because he was talking a lot more fancily than he sounded.
- The Professor speaks the most stiffly amongst the BBA, and sometimes a little too politely. His dialogue now more accurately reflects that.
- Kai is fairly emotionally distant, or at least tries to be, so I toned up his apathy to better match what he's saying without making him sound like a total edgelord shounen protagonist.
- Rei and Max speak fairly normally as far as foreigners go, so they weren't affected nearly as much. I did ensure that Max (and his mother's) dialogue sounded a little bit more American here or there and fact-checked the occasional reference to Rei's heritage, but you probably won't notice them.
- Oliver is an artist, and as another artist, I get where he's coming from. Still, his elitism and snobbishness had to be on full display to fit the thematic purpose, so he may sound a bit mean at first. He does warm up with time.
Paris
- I'm from a French-speaking part of Canada and have a good grasp on the French language and culture, so I went all-out on the couple of episodes that took place in Paris, stereotypes and all. If you have any suggestions or complaints, send them my way.
Italy
- Information and exposition for these episodes were predominately handled by SquareAnon, as he's Italian to begin with. He did a good job.
Other
- I played with the capitalisation and contextual usage of some things, particularly switching between BBA Team and BBA, and better capitalization for proper nouns like the World Tournament.
- While I write in Canadian or British English, the script will remain in American English.
I actually am running late for an appointment and have to go, but please
let me know what you think of these changes, and as always, feel free
to leave as much positive and/or negative feedback as you wish. Any and
all comments or suggestions are appreciated. Fansubbing deserves more transparency and that consumers deserve to be in the know, so this is just a quick post on my way out. Hope it clears some things up, and that you have a nice day. Our tiny revisions of HnY's Beyblade 40 will be with you shortly.
P.S - I'm actually looking for shorter things to start subbing on my own under the group name (in other words, taking on my own project), so if you have any suggestions as to smaller work that remains unsubbed, I'm all ears. Anything will be considered.