Some fans are not happy with Netflix's new dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
It's a time-honored media pastime at this point to bend over backward in order to avoid describing gay relationships as, well, actually gay. Just look at these gal pals! Just a couple of guys being bros! Those aren't lesbians, they're, uh, cousins.
But there's a difference between an animation studio choosing to keep LGBTQ relationships subtle, and censorship of queer themes and language. Translation falls right into a grey area between the two.
Neon Genesis Evangelion, one of the most popular and influential anime series to come out of the '90s, was recently released from licensing hell, and has found a new home on Netflix. For unknown reasons, Netflix made an updated English dub of the whole series with a new script translation.
While this has come with its own controversy from fans who love the iconic late '90s dub, the LGBTQ community has taken notice of a particular issue with the new voiceover in regards to how it handles the queer subtext between the main character, Shinji and fellow pilot, Kaworu.
See the original on the left, below, compared to Netflix's script on the right:
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In the original subtitles, Kaworu's confession is striking because it's translated as "I love you," which has been changed to the less intense and less gay "I like you." Fans also couldn't get behind the odd, yet strangely platonic phrasing of "worthy of his grace" in place of Shinji describing that Kaworu said he "loved" him.
While some fans argued that this is technically a more "accurate" translation of the line from Japanese to English, others said that it misses the character motivations and erases the lingual context of intimacy.
Translation is arguably more of an art than a science, but a lot of fans feel like this is another incident in a long history of "straightwashing" characters when it comes to writing English dubs and subtitles of queer characters in anime. Writer and YouTuber Zeria released a video titled "The ACTUAL Problem with Anime Subtitles" which highlights some issues of implicit bias in anime translation.
"Even in modern times, dubs frequently get a bad wrap for straightwashing characters, and for good reason. Everyone is aware that dubs, especially old ones, [change] characters and the text," she says in the video.
But while dubs are far more blatant, Zeria also describes how subtitle translation fairs no better. "Subtitles are often, unconsciously to be sure, a tool of cisheteronormativity, entirely confusing viewers as to how scenes should be read."
One of the translators on the new script of the Netflix dub, Dan Kanemitsu, recently responded to the community's thoughts that the romantic dialogue felt less explicit. Netflix did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment.
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While Kanemitsu emphasized that his main goal was faithfulness to the original source material and good storytelling technique, depriving LGBTQ fans of explicit representation didn't sit well with many people.
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What's done is done, but Twitter couldn't help but highlight the no-homo hypocrisy by pointing out other explicitly queer anime relationships and dubbing them "worthy of [their] grace."
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While it may not be based in intentional malice, as we see more and more canon LGBTQ characters showing up in anime, translators need to keep in mind that viewers' perception of certain characters and themes can be entirely shifted by even the simplest of phrasing.
Or you could just try not to cut the one song that the series is known for. That too.
Mashable has reached out to Netflix for comment and we will update this post if we hear back.
