海外大学字幕プロジェクト

Now entering its third year, the Global Universities Subtitling Project kicked off its 2020 program with students at Ghent University in Belgium working together to translate the 2019 Japanese short film When the Rain Stops (Ame no yamu toki, dir. Yui Yamaguchi).

While all participants were passionate about Japanese culture, there was plenty of variety in their personal favorites. From Studio Ghibli and other anime, to hit TV series like Terrace House and Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories, and even the works of novelists such as Yoshimoto Banana and Natsuo Kirino, the students came to the session with a diverse range of interests in Japanese media.

JVTA instructors began the session with a discussion of a key subtitling point: storytelling. The lecturers reminded students of the importance of narrative structure, as well as understanding how media reflects its social and cultural context. Students joined in with a story exercise identifying the plot points and climax of the film before beginning their translations.

Later, students broke into groups to analyze their assigned scene in detail and brainstorm subtitle approaches. Each group’s interpretation surprised lecturers with their nuance. For example, some students picked up a slightly flirtatious subtext to Rikako’s invitation to protagonist Kouta: “chotto tsukiatte yo!” Their translation of the line as “Let’s hang out for a bit” perfectly captures the film’s focus on the bittersweet awkwardness of adolescence.

For the second session of the GUSP program, students at Ghent University continued their subtitle translations for the 2019 Japanese short film When the Rain Stops (Ame no yamu toki, dir. Yui Yamaguchi). With each of the five groups bringing the works-in-progress of their assigned subtitles, students shared what they found challenging as well as interesting about the translation processes.

The students’ first hurdle was finding language to reflect the characters. With a cast of mostly young teenagers, the students had to carry over the witty expressions of Japanese high schoolers and their abbreviated expressions, and ironic slang like kitakubu - for which the students coined a charming new expression “Anti-social Club.”

Another sticking point concerned what the main characters should call each other. In Japan, it’s common for young people to call each other by their family names even after becoming friends -- as was the case for the two stars of When the Rain Stops. However, students identified this as a cultural difference that needed to be addressed in the subtitles.

If Rikako and Kota weren’t on a first-name basis, would their friendship still come through? Or, for a Western audience, would family names sound too distant and formal for typical middle schoolers? On the other hand, shouldn’t their family name be preserved in the subtitles for authenticity and closeness to the original dialog?

Students engaged in a lively debate on the approaches used by each group. Ultimately, the final product needs to be consistent on character names, so the JVTA instructors took advantage of the online meeting platform to put the question to a vote.

A digital show of hands saw the class decide on using the given names “Rikako” and “Kota” in their subtitles but the discussion revealed the complex decisions that go into every translation choice. Although this short film clocks in at just under 30 minutes, GUSP students are finding it a rich opportunity to read deeply into Japanese culture and media.

In this final GUSP session, students showed off for one last round of feedback. With just a few adjustments, their professional-grade subtitles will officially be ready to screen.

In the previous session, students compared notes on their approaches to some of the trickiest lines of dialog. The class started swapping ideas on how to communicate the charm of the original Japanese, such as translating the teen slang kitaku-bu -- meaning students who don’t join extracurricular activities -- as “Anti-Social Club.” It’s clear that the students have a good grasp of what makes subtitle translation so special: every word counts.

However, it’s not just words that make a difference. Even punctuation can drastically change the nuance of a scene. Working with subtitling software over the film in real-time, the JVTA instructors experimented with different ways of rendering the dialog in a scene where one character called out to another. Should it be Rikako? or Rikako! or Rikako or Rikako… Each option seemed to give a drastically different tone to the scene. To make the right choice, students analyze the “film language” of lighting, costumes, camera angles and the characters’ body language to enrich their interpretations.

Then came the technical side, where the instructors brought the focus on formatting. How can we distinguish between a character speaking out loud and another voice on the radio? What’s the right place to position the subtitles on the screen? When should you use line breaks? All these tiny rules go towards seamless subtitles that the audience can enjoy effortlessly.

In just three sessions, this term’s GUSP students rose to the challenge of communicating the charm and complexity of director Yui Yamaguchi’s short film When the Rain Stops through professional-grade subtitles. We can’t wait to see where these translators take their talent next.