Ask Lemmy

It's the little things. So there is a scene in which a person opens their hand to see what is written, and it was supposed to be somebody's name, but it's not. I can't really say more without spoiling an amazing scene. But the official English subs do just that. Before the hand even opens, the subtitle prints the whole thing across the bottom, so the character's delayed reaction has far less impact. With the fansubs, the kanji are translated individually as they read them, so the character's reaction matches the viewer's and it feels way more authentic.

Another aspect is the songs. So writer/director Shinkai wanted the songs to be available in English, because English speaking people had such a good reaction to his previous film. So he got a band whose singer claimed to be able to sing in English, but what the guy really meant was he knew how to use Google Translate and he could sing what the machine spat out. So, Shinkai achieved his goal, sort of. If you watch the film in Japanese, the songs play in Japanese. If you watch in English, the songs play in English, but there's something kind of off about them. Now, if you watch the film in Japanese with the fansubs, the lyrics make a LOT more sense. One of the translations was so bad that it was held back from the soundtrack. The song was re-released on the band's album and they used that one instead. So the Japanese version on the soundtrack is this epic nine-minute power ballad with four or five minutes of ambient sound in the middle. And you get that in English, too, but only in the movie. On the soundtrack, the English version doesn't have the instrumental bit in the middle, it actually has another verse or two in there, and it's way shorter. It's... okay, but it lacks the gravitas of the Japanese song, and especially given what is going on in the story at that time, it really needs that gravitas. They needed to go hard, and they absolutely did in Japanese, but the English effort is far less impactful.

It's not just the subs. When 君の名は。 (your name.) came out in theaters, I would have had to drive 8 hours each way to see it. It wasn't shown any closer than that. When its soft sequel 天気の子 (Weathering With You; not really a sequel but considered by Shinkai to be part of a series with it, about natural disasters) came out, I was able to see it in theaters because I chose to drive over 2 hours to see it. But it was worth it. When the third one, Suzume, released, it was shown just up the road from me. People talk about anime films as being so big now. It's not just about the rising popularity of anime itself. That really blew up in 2012 and 2013 with Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online. My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, and the other big ones came a bit later. But in 2016, you had to drive 8 hours to see a big anime movie in theaters, and a lot of anime clubs, game stores, and the like would rent buses and you could chip in and ride. Unless, of course, you lived in one of the 5-8 big cities it played in, or closer to them. I have a good friend who has never seen an episode of Demon Slayer, but went to see the recent movie and loved it. I didn't, because I haven't seen the season leading up to it. They said it didn't matter, they explain everything. But I can't bring myself to watch out of order. I did see the first Demon Slayer movie, Infinity Train (or Mugen Train) in theaters — that movie is now considered Season 2. I've seen all the My Hero Academia movies in theaters, but those are pretty bad IMO (I like the series, though). Sword Art Online's movies are a bit better, but they feel like long episodes — like some Star Trek movies. Attack on Titan should have been shown in theaters. But back in 2012 it wouldn't have worked.