The Impact of Localization on Enhancing Slice of Life Anime Series

Summary

Squid Girl is a shining example of a well-localized anime, with an English script that effectively translates the humor of the original Japanese script to an English audience.

In anime, the translation and localization process has a turbulent history characterized by numerous mistakes. During the 90s, dubs of anime often altered character names, censored certain scenes, and even omitted entire episodes.

However, the translation team responsible for Squid Girl shattered these negative trends and delivered an exceptional job. They skillfully preserved the original humor by making clever language choices and incorporating puns. In doing so, they successfully emphasized the stark contrast between Squid Girl, a non-human character, and the ordinary world she interacts with.

One exceptional exemplar of a slice-of-life anime with an unconventional twist is a work of art when it comes to effective translation and localization. The English adaptation of Squid Girl is truly extraordinary in its ability to strike a harmonious balance between honoring the comedic essence of the original Japanese version and skillfully conveying that humor in both a linguistically and culturally relatable way for an English-speaking audience.

The process of translation and localization is always intricate and requires careful handling. In the realm of anime, there are countless instances of subpar translations that fall short. Past anime dubs from the 90s, in particular, gained notoriety for freely altering character names, censoring content deemed inappropriate, and even omitting entire episodes. In more recent years, translators have endeavored to uphold a significantly higher level of fidelity to the original scripts. Despite these efforts, challenges still persist for translators, particularly when it comes to translating jokes, especially those laden with wordplay and puns, which are notorious for being exceedingly difficult to effectively convey between different languages and cultures.

Squid Girl's Translation Team Did a Stellar Job

Fortunately, Squid Girl serves as a stellar example of successful anime localization. The series derives much of its humor from Squid Girl's everyday life on land, where she works as a waitress at a seaside restaurant, feeling like a complete outsider. The humor of this concept is further amplified by the clever wordplay and puns delivered by the characters, skillfully translated into English.

In the original Japanese version, Squid Girl has a distinctive verbal quirk where she often includes the phrase "de geso" in her lines. This pun revolves around Japanese grammar and the word for "squid" in Japanese. Explaining this joke in English proves challenging, making it an uphill task for the translators to retain its humor. Their solution was to omit this particular joke but maintain the essence of Squid Girl's speech, which continues to feature a plethora of delightful fish puns.

Rather than having a single specific verbal tic, Squid Girl's English dialogue is filled with various ocean-related puns. Her unsuccessful attempt to conquer the surface world is referred to as her "ink-vasion", she "gets kraken", and incorporates numerous words that rhyme with "squid" and "fish." This vocabulary, based heavily on fish puns, accentuates Squid Girl's identity as a sea creature in the English version. As a result, it highlights the contrast between her non-human nature and the ordinary, everyday setting, enhancing the humor derived from everyday situations and slice-of-life experiences.

Occasionally, achieving a high-quality translation involves modifying the wording of the original text to convey its essence effectively. The English dubbed version of Squid Girl, a beloved slice-of-life anime, serves as a remarkable illustration of the advantages gained through meticulous localization.