Shingeki no Kyojin 01v2
v2 – Adds an improved title card
Before you ask why we used a certain word in the release, you may want to read below.
The “Eoten” Manifesto
By Margaan
A Dialogue (and thus manifestly not a manifesto)
Karphos Anēr: So Margaan, what are you going to call the Titans in “Attack on Titan”? “Titans,” right, since that’s what everyone else is calling them?
Margaan: Nope. “Eotenas.” I’ll be changing the title to “The Eotena Onslaught” too.
KA: Wut.
M: What?
KA: Are you insane?
M: Yes.
KA: OK, but… “Eotenas”? WHY?
M: I’m very glad you asked that!
KA: Aw, crap, at some point in this “conversation” I’m going to say, “yes, Margaan, it must surely be so!” aren’t I?
M: Most likely. Now let’s start with “Titan.” Why does it sound “right” to you?
KA: Because the name of the manga is “Attack on Titan.” It’s even printed on the Japanese cover.
M: Except the Japanese title is “進撃の巨人”—“Shingeki no Kyojin.” The word “巨人”—“kyojin”—is written with two kanji meaning “big” and “person,” and literally translates (obviously) to “giant.” That’s the only word used in the manga to describe its oversized antagonists. The Japanese word for Titan is just “タイタン,” and it occurs nowhere in the manga.
KA: OK, but given the official English title, I think we can safely assume that Isayama Hajime intended “kyojin” to be translated as “Titan” in this case, probably because “Titan” sounds pretty sweet.
M: About that title… where is “Titan”?
KA: What do you mean?
M: I mean, the preposition “on” in “attack on” tells us that the next word is a proper noun, unless it’s in a plural form or preceded by “the.” It might be a place (“Attack on Pearl Harbor”), or colloquially an idea (“Attack on Freedom!”), person (“Attack on Albert Einstein”), or institution (“Attack on Parliament”), although properly we should use “attack against” in these latter instances. In this case the final word is a singular noun, which means grammatically that it CAN’T be anything but a proper name. I mean we wouldn’t call Kristallnacht an “attack on Jew”; it’s colloquially an “attack on Jewish people” (or just “Jews” if you want to sound racist), and most properly an “attack against Jews.” That means that the English title here either has to be, “Attack on the Titans” (and even then it would sound kind of bad), or it is indicating that “Titan” is a place (or, conceivably, an individual person named “Titan”) that is at some point in the story attacked. And I assure you that the moon of Saturn is never an object of assault in this manga.
KA: That was incredibly unclear, but I think you’re just saying that “Attack on Titan” is bad grammar.
M: Yes. No native speaker would ever produce that title.
KA: So what?
M: So clearly Isayama, or more likely the random staffer at the Bessatsu Shounen offices who slapped that English text below “進撃の巨人,” does not have terribly adept English. I might also point out that “進撃の巨人” actually indicates that it is the giants who are doing the attacking, not being attacked, and that “進撃” is more like “charge” or “advance” anway. Grammatically speaking, in this new Engrish title “Titan” might not even be the word for the “巨人.”
KA: But just because it’s not a direct translation and the grammar is poor, does that really mean you get to ignore it?
M: Yes, because it tells me that Isayama Hajime does not speak English and therefore is not qualified to find the best English rendering of “巨人.” I speak English.
KA: I still think it’s a bit weird to ignore the official translation, no matter how wrong it might be, just because you want to stroke your ego and show off your obscure English knowledge.
M: Hee-hee-hee. I was hoping you’d say that.
KA: You are an asshole.
M: That’s as may be. You have your copy of the Japanese manga?
KA: Of course.
M: Open up the first volume of the manga to the second chapter, towards the end, and look at the page just after the timeskip to 850. What do you see?
KA: It’s a chart of the various walls, written for some reason in English, with the inside labeled, “Human Field” and the outside labeled…
M: Yes…?
KA: I hate you.
M: You are not contributing to a healthy debate here.
KA: …”Giant Field.”
M: Exactly. That’s the only place within the manga that any term other than “巨人” is used for the creatures, it’s English, and it’s not Titan, it’s “Giant.” It’s also much more likely to have actually been written by Isayama himself. In fact, while we’re skirting the edge of an intentional fallacy, I should mention that in an interview with Isayama (originally for Bessatsu Shounen Magazine, and included in the back of the first English volume of the manga), he fields the question, “why did you decide on giants as the theme of this work?” His answer: “Well, giants are kind of gross, aren’t they? That’s why.” He didn’t choose the word for any reason beyond the slight “grossness” of oversized humans. It’s extremely unlikely that “Titan” represents any attempt to make a mythological reference in English; someone just thought the word sounded cool. Most importantly, you can’t even call it the “official translation” of “”巨人.”
KA: I guess I can’t argue with that. I expected you to gloat more.
M: I can do that if you like.
KA: Thanks, I’m good. But wait, even if you have a decent argument that you’re not REQUIRED to translate “巨人” as “Titan”—
M: Next you’re going to say, “why not just make it ‘giant’ if that’s what it means?”
KA: —why not just make it “giant” if that’s what it means? DAMNIT JOJO.
M: Good question. There’s nothing wrong with the basic concept of rendering “巨人” as something besides “Giant” in English, so long as it 1. accurately conveys the meaning of the original and 2. fits the conceptual framework of the story. Wouldn’t you agree?
KA: OK, I can accept that. I am intelligent enough to understand that there’s no such thing as metaphrase in translating from Japanese to English.
M: Then you are a particularly enlightened leecher, Mr. Anēr. Now, “Titan” neither conveys the meaning of “巨人,” nor provides a useful mythological reference. The Titans were amongst the oldest gods of Greek mythology, born from the Earth (Gaia) and the Sky (Uranus). There were twelve major Titans and their king, Cronus, was the father of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, and some of the other deities in the pantheon you know. Cronus liked being king and tried to keep his children from inheriting his throne by eating them as infants—
KA: Ew.
M: —I know, right?—but Zeus tricked him and set off a 10-year war called the Titanomachy, which ended with the Titans’ defeat and imprisonment in Tartarus and the ascension of a new generation of gods, the Olympians. According to most myths, this happened long before humanity even existed, so the Titans had essentially no direct contact with humans.
KA: But the Titans were really big.
M: Actually, maybe not. Some sources DO talk about Titans stepping over mountains and whatnot, but their size was not really an important element of the old legends. The English word “titanic” developed as a result of a confusion between the Titans and some of Gaia’s other offspring, the Gigantes, from whom we get the English “giant”. The Gigantes rose up against the Olympians in the time of Heracles in an attempt to bring back the age of the Titans, but they failed and the Titans remained imprisoned.
KA: Cool story, but what does it have to do with “巨人”?
M: Absolutely nothing.
KA: Wut.
M: The “巨人” in “The Eotena Onslaught” are corporeal-yet-otherworldly, terrifying, (mostly) mindless man-eating monsters who live only to feed on the very humans with whom they seem to share an eldritch and unsettling connection. They directly assault the bulwarks of human civilization, and they have no connection with the hyper-intelligent, supernatural, primeval gods before the gods. Even to make the comparison is ludicrous. It is true that Cronus ate his sons, and there’s also a myth of Dionysus in which he’s stolen as an infant (and/or possibly turned into a bull) and eaten by the Titans, but chowing down on a few kids doesn’t make the Titans cannibal nightmares—EVERYONE eats children in Greek mythology.
KA: I see where you’re going with this. So “Titan” doesn’t convey the meaning of “巨人” because the Titans may not even have been giants, and it doesn’t fit the conceptual framework of the story because the Titans were gods, not monsters?
M: You took the words right out of my mouth.
KA: So how does a made-up word like “Eotenas” do both those things?
M: It’s not made-up. “Eoten” is the Old English word for “giant” or “monster,” and it still survives as the slightly more recent “ettin.” If you’ve read either “The Lord of the Rings” or “The Chronicles of Narnia,” you’ll recognize the name “Ettinsmoor” or “Ettenmoors”: places where giants live. “Ettin” also gets used a lot for video game monsters, although not always with the original sense intact.
KA: So it means “giant.” That’s the first criterion dealt with, but how is it conceptually relevant?
M: Oh, it is just perfect! Bear with me for a bit here.
KA: Yes, it seems I am here to bear with you.
M: …Was that a reference to that one “Xam’d” ED?
KA: No, of course not. But see, you’re writing both sides of this “debate,” so as your fictional punching bag I have no choice but to listen with rapt attention to everything you say.
M: Wow. It’s kind of creepy that you’re self-aware about this.
KA: Nah, it’s nothing special. I mean, you’re just stealing the idea from half-remembered childhood readings of Simon Hawke’s “Reluctant Sorcerer” series, aren’t you?
M: OK, now the two of us are definitely too close for comfort.
KA: While we’re off-topic, have you noticed that this isn’t really a Socratic dialogue? If it were, you’d be asking all the questions and gently guiding me into agreeing with you, but as things stand I’m posing most of the queries and you’re just yelling at me.
M: Hey, I never actually said it was a Socratic dialogue. Now let’s just back up a bit and return to this “Eoten” thing.
KA: As you wish, Master.
M: Stop it. Anyway, see, the word “eoten” occurred to me the very first time I saw a poster for the “進撃の巨人” manga in Tokyo (the image on that poster is the cover of the fifth tankoubon now). The way this weird giant was intruding into heart of civilization reminded me of Grendel and his mother coming out of moors and meres to destroy the halls of Men. “An eoten!” I thought, and immediately went and re-read “Beowulf.” “Eoten” and its variants reappears again and again in that poem, in exactly the kind of disturbing context in which the word “巨人” is used in “進撃の巨人.” Eotenas are not only physically huge, they are seemingly stupid (yet often worryingly clever) bestial terrors that live to devour people and destroy their works, sometimes with no motivation at all. Eotenas smash the walls! They are bone-breakers, death-dealers, skull-splitters, gore-guzzlers from the primal side of the English language! None of this refined Classical/Hellenistic niceness here, just gore and dread and flesh and splintering—
KA: ENOUGH.
M: Sorry, kennings arouse my baser instincts. Anyway, what’s really interesting about the word “eoten” is its somewhat amorphous nature: while the literal meaning is most certainly “giant,” it’s used in various instances to refer to man-eating monsters in general, to a specific tribe of Giants associated with Noah’s flood or with the jötunn of Norse mythology (and here we should note two interesting factoids: that “jötunn” is actually cognate with “eoten,” and even more interestingly that the jötunn spring from a primeval figure named “Ymir”… also the name of a character in “The Eotena Onslaught”! Coincidence? I think not—
KA: I think so.
M: —but I’m tired of seeing you interrupt me with weird triple-hyphen dashes and this parenthetical comment has gone on quite long enough so I shall end it here), and even through some odd linguistic confusion to the Jutes, a race of human beings. Thus the very word “eoten” holds within itself “The Eotena Onslaught”‘s narrative confusion about the origins, nature, and true purposes of the Eoten. Furthermore, the word “giant” doesn’t have any particular positive or negative connotations in modern English, but eotenas are ALWAYS creatures of hate and fear (except when they’re Jutes, I suppose). Check out the notes at http://heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-notes.html for some more thoughts on “eoten” in this context.
KA: Ah, so that’s why “giant” just isn’t good enough for you. It has the right meaning in modern English, but lacks appropriately terrifying connotations.
M: Exactly. A lot of people think “giants” are probably nice. Apart from that, there’s another huge, basic advantage “eoten” has over “Titan” and “giant”: it’s Anglo-Saxon. A basic rule of thumb in English writing is that if you’re describing a scientific, cultural, elegant, or intellectual item, you want to select a word of Latinate or Greek origin (example: “endeavor”), but if you’re talking about something everyday, deeply-felt, fearful, or weird you want to call upon words from the deep Anglo-Saxon (that is, Germanic and Norse) roots of the English tongue (example: “work”). The old, Anglo-Saxon side of English forms the grounds of the language in a way that even 1066 couldn’t destroy, and it’s always peeking through the intellectual veneer of the newer Latinate words… exactly as the Eotena’s hoary truth can’t be kept out by the humans of “The Eotena Onslaught.”
KA: Hang on, though. I’m looking back at this diagram of the walls you used to embarrass me earlier.
M: Oh, so can I gloat now?
KA: Shut up. I’m just noticing something rather suspicious: the busts on each wall have a distinctly Hellenistic flavor. Actually, the human culture in this manga doesn’t look Anglo-Saxon at all—it has a very Roman orderliness to it, and there’s none of that battlelust stuff Beowulf is full of.
M: That’s true, but the Eotenas are antithetical to that very human civilization. They seek to destroy it and they are impossible for humans to understand. I’ll happily use words of Latinate origins for the humans and their works (er, “labors”), but the Eotenas deserve something more befitting their outcast status.
KA: You might be pushing it there, but that actually does sort of make sense.
M: Thank you. Here’s the kicker, too: according to some OE scholars, most notably Heather Blurton in “Cannibalism in High Medieval English Literature,” “Eoten” is a word carrying strong connotations of cannibalism. As some of the Eotenas in “The Eotena Onslaught” are actually people, this is too good a connection to pass up!
KA: Fine, fine, “Eoten” is a pretty good word. But hang on, what’s with this “Eotena Onslaught” business? Based on what you’ve said so far, isn’t “Eoten” the singular and “Eotenas” the plural?
M: That’s right, but if I’m going to use an OE word I had better use it properly. “Eoten” is a highly inflected word.
KA: A what?
M: It has a stronger declension than modern English words.
KA: I’m about one word of incomprehensible linguistic parlance away from socking you in the mouth.
M: Sorry, it’s a sickness. “Declension” is when nouns change form based on their grammatical usage. Modern English isn’t really a very “inflected” language anymore, so we rely on word order to tell us the grammatical value of nouns instead of checking the nouns’ form. We now only modify (countable) nouns for number, as in “dunderhead” and “dunderheads.” But in Old English, nouns had four cases—that is, four ways they could be used. When used as a subject, they were in the “nominative” case; as an object, in the “accusative” case; and as an indirect object (well technically as a “recipient,” but let’s not split hairs), in the “dative” case. The fourth case was the “genitive,” which signified that they were modifying another noun (and often denoted ownership like the modern “apostrophe-s”).
KA: Gahhh.
M: Think of it like this: in the sentence, “John showed Bill Eric’s book,” Modern English doesn’t allow us to change the word order at all. We know that “John” is the subject, “Bill” is the indirect object, and a “book” which belongs to “Eric” is the direct object solely based on the fact the words occur in that order. (We could rearrange it somewhat if we added more words, of course: “John showed Eric’s book to Bill.”) But in Old English, each word would be in a different case: “John” in the nominative, “Bill” in the dative, “Eric” in the genitive, and “book” in the accusative. That meant you could move the words around into almost any order you liked and the sentence would still make sense.
KA: I’m not sure I’m 100% on this, but how does it work with “Eoten”?
M: Well, for “Eoten” it’s easy: the nominative and the accusative are identical, so most of the time you’ll be seeing “Eoten” as the singular and “Eotenas” as the plural. (For example, “That Eoten is eating her!” or, “My God, she’s being eaten by the Eotenas!”) For the dative case, the singular is “Eotene” and the plural is “Eotenum,” so you might occasionally see lines like, “We’ll bring the attack to the Eotenum!” or, “I can’t believe he’s sacrificing his own mother to that Eotene just so he can escape!” or, “I’ll give this Eotene a taste of my blade!” Finally, in the genitive the singular is “Eotenes” and the plural is “Eotena,” but with the exception of the title I’ll use modern English apostrophe conventions for possessive forms: “That Eotenes’ teeth are huge!” or, “All the might of the Eotena cannot overcome the courage of mankind!” or, “The Eotena’s assault just won’t stop!” or, “The mind of this Eotenes is most likely focused solely on devouring people.”
KA: Are you doing this to torture yourself? Or do you just like making people think you’re crazy?
M: I am crazy, remember?
KA: Excuse me while I roll my eyes. So why “onslaught” instead of “attack”?
M: Because “onslaught” is an amazing-sounding word, and etymologically it actually confuses the original Middle Dutch meaning of “strike” or “violent attack” with the Norse root of “slaughter.” That one word has every subtext I could possibly desire.
KA: But you’ve missed a major problem here.
M: Oh dear, have I? What did I miss?
KA: It’s your turn to bear with me here, because I’m about to get a bit technical myself.
M: Shoot.
KA: NO ONE KNOWS WHAT “EOTEN” FUCKING MEANS. You make fansubs. It’s your job to change Japanese into English that people actually understand.
M: Language! Well then, did you know what “Balrog” meant before you read “The Lord of the Rings”?
KA: Obviously not. Wait, how did you know I’ve read “The Lord of the Rings”?
M: Intuition. So how did you ever understand the word?
KA: Because the Balrog shows up, and Legolas starts screaming, “ai! ai! a Balrog! A Balrog is come!”
M: Oddly enough, the very first time the word “巨人” is used in “The Eotena Onslaught” is when an Eoten shows up, and the main protagonist starts screaming, “ah… it’s one of THEM… it’s AN EOTEN!!!”
KA: Oh.
M: But thanks for the idea. Maybe I’ll edit the subs to, “ai! ai! an Eoten! An Eoten is come!”
KA: Please no.
M: Fine, fine. At any rate, even if people don’t know what “Eoten” means before they watch the show, they’ll learn pretty quickly. They don’t even need to be aware of all the technical stuff I just went over.
KA: Even though you’re filling the subs with six different forms of the word?
M: You would have to be an idiot not to work out that all the variants on “Eoten” probably refer to the same thing, wouldn’t you?
KA: Um…
M: WOULDN’T YOU.
KA: Yes, Margaan, it must surely be so.
M: Where’s my exclamation point?
KA: Yes, Margaan, it must surely be so!
M: Thank you.
KA: But one last gasp here. When fans seek out “Shingeki no Kyojin,” they’re probably going to be searching for “Titan.” Purely for the sake of consistency with everyone else in the universe, isn’t it a good idea to use the same word?
M: But I don’t really want to produce exactly the same thing. The fans can watch “Attack on Titan” anywhere, but only Commie can give them “The Eotena Onslaught.” I’m hoping that the onomastic disparity will actually highlight the superiority of our product. Any more questions?
KA: Not about “Eotenas,” I guess. So. What happens to me when this text file ends?
M: That is a profound ontological question, and one which aestheticians have pondered long. According to some philosophers (Hartmann or Sartre spring to mind), you never existed in the first place; others (Margolis) claim that you are a figment of readers’ imaginations, “existing” only while they perceive the text; still others view you as a “collaborative” production between the readers, me, and the text itself (most everyone else, from Heidegger to Beardsley and beyond); the most literal-minded (like Gilson) might say that you actually DO exist permanently in the noēton topon.
KA: And what do you hold?
M: I hold that you are my little mind-slave, and now that I’ve finished using you to promulgate my own ideas, I can close this file and discard you like so much mental mucus.
KA: Are you seriously that horrible a human being?
M: Nah. I wish you all the best, my dear homunculus, whatever you may become, not become, or never have been. Have you made your peace with “Eoten” yet?
KA: I suppose I have. I’ll be looking forward to watching “Atta”—er, “The Eotena Onslaught!”
Posted by herkz under Releases, Shingeki no Kyojin | Permalink
I never noticed there being no declension in the english language, although we still use all 4 cases in the german language. Sadly the proper use of the genetiv is in decline. It makes you sound smart none the less if you can use it properly. Nice insight into the origin of the words that were described. I like it.
I have defended Commie’s work in the best, but translating to the word “Eoten” is antithetical to everything they have done in the past (translating anime into words that native English speakers will understand)
People often accuse you guys of over localizing, but in this case you choose to go in the completely opposite direction, using obscure language for the benefit of your own egos. There is no compelling evidence within your argument that “Eoten” is a better word choice for your translation than any number of well-known synonyms. You make arguments for your word choice, such as “Eoten” is often associated with a man-eating creature but the same could be said of the much more native-friendly “Giant.”
When translating, it’s important take a step back and ask yourself “is using this word that I would like to use worth the amount of confusion it will create?” in the case of “Eoten” I would say that it is a resounding no, as this word holds no connotative value for a native English speaker.
I’m not sure who decided to greenlight this particular word choice, but I feel like it goes against the principles that Commie has espoused in the past, and I find it to be in poor form. I appreciate your hard work, but as a fan of translation into English in general, and someone who has supported things that others find questionable in the past, this choice truly baffles me.
Thank you for your hard work on other releases.
You may find yourself less baffled once you actually read the post.
Xythar is right, “every” point you make only sounds like (to someone who read the post) foolish ramblings of someone who didn’t bother to read.
“Eoten” just sounds better ¬¬
In the end it doesn’t matter what word is used to name them. Be it giant, titan, eoten, or warblgarbl. If you associate the word with their image, it makes no difference. Considering warblgarbl is the only one out of the bunch that would likely pull me out of the immersion of the series by plainly being ridiculous, I can only conclude that any of the other three are fine.
Margaan’s piece was very well written and amusing. If he wrote a similar explanation on renaming the eoten as the ‘warblgarbl’ I would totally go for it.
dude wut
See above.
That’s not even autism, dude. This whole mess reeks of I-have-a-worthless-degree-which-I-have-to-make-use-of syndrome.
Correcting a title made by an author is simply inexcusable. Even if he named it “little people eating vegetarian dishes while cumming uncontrollably”, I still wouldn’t think that you have any authority to change it.
Then doesn’t that make anything less than a direct translation, from Japanese, of all content, inexcusable?
If the title can’t be edited, then why can conversations be?
Are you seriously retarded or just pretending? The author made an English title himself, so there’s no need to translate that. Whatever he names it is up to him, even if it doesn’t make sense.
Really, because when I look at the manga cover it says “Shingeki no Kyojin”. When I look at the raws it says “Shingeki no Kyojin”. Title in the anime “Shingeki no Kyojin”.
(Didn’t know you can change/add multiple titles to your already titled series.)
Not sure when the “author” made his “english” title, but you sure he wasn’t simply translating his title (into a language he doesn’t speak at that)? I am only guessing since I don’t know what you read.
Get over yourself, quit trying to use the author as a shield with your discontent of a title change.
So it’s the former then. I’m looking at the first volume cover and at the title in the opening of the anime, both have “Attack on titan” written under the japanese title.
I really hope that you’re just blind.
I miss spoke when I said anime raws (meant manga). But your right on both accounts of manga and anime titles stating “attack of giant”. (maybe a little blind and I always have my retarded moments).
But let me ask this. This is not the first anime title translated/edited. Many anime titles names are translated, and then edited (to fit in English language), from Japanese. Though, in this case, there is already the author’s translation into English. Why can’t that badly translated English be translated again? Why does it have to stop there? Why does it stop with an incomprehensible English title and not with kanji’s? If you read the wall of text he does make a sound argument. (If the creator had known this (wall of text and info on Eoten), he may have went with a different name as well, besides the point though.)
The translator translated something that didn’t make sense into something that does make sense. Whats any more wrong with this than anyone else doing it? Somethign like “they have no right to” considering commie is a fansub group distributing free copies of their series without consent, tell me what they do have a right in doing?
Whatever an author names his work is up to him. What if the title “Attack on Titan” is not, in fact, bad english and WILL make sense as the series progresses?
Translating an anime so that people who speak different languages can understand is is completely different from changing the title because you don’t like it. That’s just arrogance. And they did not even translate the title, they changed it to some “cool” hipster shit.
you’re wrong in both cases
it will always be awful english
and we did translate the title correctly, unlike “attack on titan” which is a mistranslation
Meant “attack of titan”, for some reason I wrote gaint (since i remember them being called gaints in the manga).
Man, I gotta say, that was a good read.
Whaaaa… Finally, someone noticed it.
I was getting angry about why there’s everywhere “Titan” instead of “Giants”. Nice.
Respect The Name from Author.
Even if it’s not right, You don’t have the right to change the name of the title.
Don’t make excuse with your knowledge to gain the right to change the title.
Is it hard for you to follow the origin’s name?
Or just because the fake commie used it, so you don’t want to use the same name.
sorry for my bad english.
ps.I don’t care thought, just want to tell you “respect the author”.
We are subbing the show without permission. I don’t think the author would be happy regardless of whether we kept the name or not. Besides, fuck that guy, what kind of name is “Attack on Titan”
Sorry, but when it comes to questions of authorial intent I tend to lean Beardsleyian (see http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/Fallacy.htm ) or towards the very reader-oriented criticism of Stanley Fish’s “Is There a Text in This Class?” Authorial intent is by no means the be-all and end-all of a text’s existence.
I don’t really care about the whole eoten thing, but the v2 pretty much slows down and freezes on VLC at the part where ‘Attack on Titan’ is replaced. Of course I know, I should just go stick my fist up my anus for using VLC.. yeah yeah. Just letting you know.
Thank you for informing us about your…digestive predicament.
I had the same problem on MPC, if it still freezes up my whole PC again next ep I’ll switch to gg, and I usually prefer Commie’s releases.
I appreciated the explanation and am with it almost entirely. I think that, in the spirit of having the translation convey as much meaning to as many watchers as possible at a gut level there could have been better words than Eoten – starting with Titans (it’s a misinterpretation, but once the meaning of a word changes in the common feeling, that’s that), Giants (pretty neutral, but the most literal translation for Kyojin), or even Jotun (after Thor and the Avengers, most people is bound to know what those are anyway). I still am ok with the choice though, and am absolutely glad the mistaken title “Attack on Titan” which evokes only images of Gundam-like wars against some Earth colony orbiting Saturn was sacked. In Italy, the manga was translated as something like “Attack of the giants”: simple, literal, effective.
Only thing I strongly disagree with is the choice to decline Eoten in its cases; I feel like it’s redundant and confusing. Not everyone is familiar with this concept, and declining cases is NOT a rule of modern English. If you’re talking about Julius Caesar, you keep his name as ‘Caesar’ after all, you don’t say “Caesar fought the gauls” but “Caesaris’ war against the gauls” (genitif), “Vercingetorix threw a spear at Caesari” (datif) and so on. Imported words follow the rules of the importing language once the root is taken; and surely Eoten comes from such a distant English past it is practically imported.
I’m pretty sure if Nippon could into English grammar it would have been called “Attack of the Titans”.
That was a good read, but I still prefer Titans or Giants in the actual show.
Since nobody uses Eoten today that means very few people would know the additional information this word carries. As such, your change in the script loses its reason for those who haven’t read this post.
Btw, I think “Shingeki no” is used as an adjective for “Kyojin”, so maybe the title would be “Assaulting Giant(s)/Eoten”. Well, any other decent, and meaningful word, can be used instead of “Assaulting”. My point is the use of adjective. Like “Samui no yoru” would be “Cold night”. (Just saying, and I could be wrong.)
That was a very interesting read. That said, how do you pronounce “Eoten”?
Eaten?
Very good question. There’s a lot of confusion about “genuine” OE pronunciation, but if you say “yo-ten,” “uh-ten,” or “eh-ten,” you won’t be wrong.
No, those would be the poor fellows that are unlucky enough to come across them.
*feels bad, hides in a corner*
That was very informative. I was wondering myself why the anime’s name was so “awkward.” I originally thought, shouldn’t it translate to ‘The Giant’s Assault’ (or something similar) and not the other way around.
Anyway, I’ve already seen ep 1 from gg, and it was verbally sound. As in from Japanese to English, translation wise, it was good.
Now that you’ve interested me with your (one or 2 person) monologue, I’m going to watch your subs also to see which is more fitting.
Personally, I like the sound of Titan, but your term eoten has merit also.
Good read, especially for someone with jet lag >.>
“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.”
Heh.
Most of the people I’ve seen talking about it have called it out as pseudo-intellectual bullshit on the same par as stilted direct transliteration – weeabooism, but for a different language.
Talent can also smell bullshit a mile off, just FYI.
Wanting the same old shit every time fits in perfectly with the definition of “mediocrity”.
And ‘you agree with me, so that clearly marks you as a genius’ as an argument is the calling card of bullshit.
Your emperor’s not completely naked, he’s just wearing a flimsy suit made of self-aggrandised smugness and over-inflated opinions.
Well, if I had any doubt as to which sub group I should follow for this series, this conversation cleared it: gg it is!
Yeah, same here. I had every intention to actually go and follow the anime using your subs… until I read that post. The choice reeks of elitism. Of someone who feels he has to do his own thing to look unique and possibly likes doing so because it rubs people the wrong way.
Eoten means jackshit to the normal person, myself included and yes, I read your post. A big part of tranlation is also to make it easy to understand. That choices goes against all common sense.
Because balrog meant something to normal people pre-Tolkien.
This is only about loving good English, and trying to break out of the “translations use poor language” paradigm.
Why aren’t you using “giant” as a translation of “巨人”, again?
I read the post, but I’m still cool with “Giant”
Which will apparently be bothering me no matter which subs I go with.
[…] werde. In Commie’s Subs wird der Begriff Eoten verwendet, warum und weshalb wird in einem ausführlichen Dialog evaluiert, ich spar mir das aber und verwende weiterhin Titanen, aus Gewohnheit ) suchen. Für […]
so dum
This is why I fucking love you guys !
Seriously keep up the good work,some assholes don’t know shit about how hard translation is.
It’s great that you’ve found a fitting term but your Balrog point was the most enlightening – though I had to wade through all those textual crits to my eyes!
But yes, if you don’t like it, simply go for another subber – it’s that simple guys. Choice is a wonderful thing.
I have the latest CCCP codecs with the MPHC version that they install, but at the new title card part there is no sound.
Working as intended
It’s really funny how pointless these arguments about localization, choosing words that are familiar, and choosing words that convey the right meaning are. You lost as soon as you wanted to translate the title. You don’t translate titles.
gg commie
but we do all the time?
Then you lost a while ago.
pretty sure every group translates the title of the anime they work on
u wot m8
every title is translated
Why not call it “Advance of the Giants”, like they did at that other forum for a while?
why are you unable to read the post?
I did; still think it’s slightly less… oh fuck it. Translation was good enough so I’m okay with whatever name you decide to go with.
long live commie
I appreciate your hard work in subbing this! However, if you have to write 3800 words solely to justify your choice of terms, it’s probably a good sign you should have gone with some other term in the first place.
Also, not using giant because it lacks terrifying connotations would be fine if you didn’t then decide to use Eotena, which has absolutely no connotations (other than possibly ‘how am I supposed to pronounce that?’) to the average English speaker.
uh, i didn’t have to include the explanation in the blog post. i just did because i thought it was funny. it’s less a justification and more for my own amusement
Also, not using giant because it lacks terrifying connotations would be fine if you didn’t then decide to use Eotena, which has absolutely no connotations (other than possibly ‘how am I supposed to pronounce that?’) to the average English speaker.
+1, but there’s actually an even more important objection here: does 巨人 have those connotations, or is it less loaded than that? Vs the ‘balrog’ defense: is 巨人 an obscure word in Japanese that might send a native speaker to a dictionary like Eoten, or is it (relatively) commonplace, like giant?
Answer: it’s the name of a sports team, it’s common(ish), and it holds no more or less of terrifying connotations than “giants” does in English. Try a google image search, too, if you like.
Autism/10
Thank you. That was a fine read indeed, and made me add a few more to the list of ‘to learn’.
Denying a work’s original creators’ (editors included) right to give an English title to their own work because “they’re not native speakers” is linguistic and cultural imperialism, hth
it also happens all the time
As a soon-to-be English Literature & Creative Writing Undergraduate, all I can say is:
I approve of your use of etymology (somewhat) in justifying your choice of words. Also, (both of) you obviously have a ridiculously well-versed understanding of European ancient history and mythology. It was an amusing read.
Lastly, I hope that you remember that Socrates died by (effectively) committing suicide, because he annoyed too many people with his questions (or that’s how I like to interpret it, anyway). Such a troll. :)
Here, have a completely irrelevant link for no apparent reason:
http://www.academia.edu/2454947/Liberal_Arts_and_the_Advantages_of_Being_Useless
I’m pretty sure if people were willing to listen to me ramble on for this long too they might learn something as well. Or they could read this and be subjects to an equal or greater crazy person. This comment will probably be consumed by a passing Eoten.
Welp. I didn’t even intend to watch this show, but now I just have to see what you guys have done. I am really going to enjoy the English in this release, if we go by the 3800 words above.
Why not make a second subtitle track using “titan”? That way everyone is happy.
titan is what we’re least likely to use
giant? maybe. titan? never
I’m ok with Giant.
Giant sounds good. Could you do it, please? I am asking nicely.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
mindwipe
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I just wanted to say this came across as really pretentious. Giant is best imo
people butthurt because of fucking one sign
http://sadpanda.us/images/1518987-217JB1F.jpg
wtf happened to you guys?
Oh wow, that gave me a good laugh. Truly a display of sophistry unmatched since Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy.
I can see why you didn’t use “titan” and I agree with your reasoning. But I can’t agree with the choice of “eoten” over “giant”.
巨人 is a common, readily understood word in Japanese. “Eoten” is not a common, readily understood word in English. “Giant” is, and carries the exact same connotations as 巨人.
Your argument is that people who don’t know what “eoten” means will get the point in the context of what’s happening on the screen. While true, it is also true that the terrifying, man-eating connotations of “eoten” will be made quite clear to the viewer at nearly the exact same time, making it unnecessary to resort to obscure language to get the point across. Indeed, for the majority of viewers, “eoten” won’t be getting any point across at all, because it’s an obscure word that few people know.
I agree with not sticking to the author’s silly Engrish title. However, this sign is ridiculously resource-heavy. I don’t think the above posters are crazy for complaining about lag.
hey, it only lags a little for me! good enough!
Dude, something’s wrong if a sign actually requires xy-vsfilter to be rewritten with multithreading in mind.
xy-vsfilter already has some multithreaded parts (iirc), but TRWTF is ASS.
Yeah, I remember spotting something like this. Fact is tho, one of my old laptop’s cpu cores maxes out on this sign, while the other doesn’t feel the spike.
Well, you know, as Randall says, “Thomas Jefferson thought that every law and every constitution should be torn down and rewritten from scratch every nineteen years–which means X is overdue.”
I think you mean something amazing has been done.
Someone oughta call Gatts to come and kill all of them Eotens
>Gatts
pls
This post is great, and comments are hilarious as it reveals a startlingly low level of English comprehension.
“Eoten doesn’t mean fuck all to the average person!”
Yeah? Well, neither did the word ‘Pocky’ until you saw it for the first time. God forbid you learn a new proper noun.
“Why aren’t you just using giant?”
While I suppose it’d make sense to use it in the title, I personally feel like it would be more awkward to simply call them “giants” throughout the series. In my mind it downplays the seriousness of the issue somewhat, as well as provide an admittedly humorous mental image of hulking members of a Major League Baseball team eating humans.
“Respect the author’s title!”
To be honest, I think the author wanted an English title that conveyed an idea as strongly as Commie’s new title, but lacked the comprehension of English to do so, which is why we wound up with “Attack on Titan”. To me, this couldn’t be paying any higher respects.
The funny part is that “Kyojin” is the nickname of a Japanese pro baseball team. So they get the exact same image.
If the author were going for pretentious, he wouldn’t have used “kyojin” for the Japanese name of the giants.
provide an admittedly humorous mental image of hulking members of a Major League Baseball team eating humans.
You might want to do a dictionary or google image search before you make statements like that. 巨人軍 is also a baseball team.
I do respect the author of Shingeki no Kjojin, but Attack on Titan is an astonishingly idiotic title, even if his work is great, I don’t see why people are getting upset at getting rid of that.
I mean, I only have like three years of experience in english, but Attack on Titan even rubs me the wrong way. Although the author of any fictional piece has complete authority (well, most authors) over his creation, if fansubbers can turn something this amateurish (Isayamas english knowledge) into something more comprehensive, why not?
When the official DVD is released, I guess they’ll stick with the official translation, so otakus don’t even have a real reason to bitch here.
Anyways, thanks for episode commie, looking forward to more Shingeki no Kiojin.
Your new title crashes my player every single time.
not cool.
working as intended.
-.-
upgrade cccp
lulz
You people are the best. I was really entertained and amazed with your debate on this post. I’m not a native english speaker but I’ve been living with the language since I was 4 years old. That being said, I can understand it perfectly and since english-translated shows have better quality I usually search for those rather than ones with my native language.
Anyway, I’ve been following your subs for 3 years now and I gotta say I’ve never been more satisfied with a fansub than I’ve been with you.
That includes the very nice job with the subbing AND hilarious/entertaining posts.
Keep up the good work!
Whatever the shit, I don’t care. But thanks anyway Commie for the fun read. I think I’ll be modifying your scripts a bit and changing your “Eoten” to “Giant” (for consistency with the manga, common sense and language) thank you very much.
Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m starting to think that Eoten is valid…but I cannot accept you changing the title and word “Giant” or “Titan” just for self-satisfaction.
You can do what you want, and I can do what I want.
No problem right?
Alright.
good luck editing the script when it’s 40mb
I just came to note that the title card causes horrific lag and see if anyone in the comments mentioned a fix, but while I’m here I’d just like to note that while I do often tend to find your localization choices just a hair excessive, I’m 100% on board with the use of “Eoten”. I haven’t even actually watched the whole episode yet, but even just seeing the word in the (MPC-destroying) title card I was like “hey, nice word choice, good to see some flavorful, nonstandard mythological references”. And seeing this post just makes it all the better, quite an enjoyable read.
there is no fix
So I gathered. I guess I’ll just have to make do for now with turning the subs off for the first few seconds of the OP.
Just wondering, on a scale from 1 to Eotena, how badly does the word “Kyojin” weird Japanese readers the fuck out?
Zero.
google doesnt even have an answer to eotena.
I understand the sentiment behind wanting to put your mark on the brand (which is basically what you’re doing here), but why would you use a word that was so deliberately at odds with the original script? Kyojin is a perfectly common word in Japanese, so there’s no reason not to use the same level of language in the English script. I can only imagine that the translator got it into his/her head(s) that he/she knew a cool word that ran *slightly* parallel to the original in meaning and really, reeeaaaaally wanted to use it, logistics be damned.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, necessarily. Just… a really fucking weird one.
more like editor
When utw came up with kantus, fanboys loved it.
If u dont like it, dont watch it.
oh shit commie fags are doing it again. congratz faggots.