Translation Issues

When it comes to translating, the Lupin the Third series seems trickier than it looks.

Regarding some series, it got to the point where a Lupin III Wiki:Name Variants page was made because the translation including the main characters was that inconsistent and there was no official source because the official sources are inconsistent with each other. While a majority of anime and manga have their creators on their say regarding character names or names in general, Monkey Punch was mostly hands off (even then in the manga many characters don't even have a name, Fujiko was often a random woman in the chapter for a while). In most cases, characters from Part 4 and 5 are handled better because there is some consistency (outside of the Italian dub calling Enzo Bron Enzo Brown) but even then they have their issues when it comes to some minor characters.

Unlike a majority of countries where official media has subtitles, in Japan these are considered optional and rarely that anime features subtitles. Lupin Part 1 does have apparently have subtitles on Netflix however outside of Japan, they are all translated into different languages. It means for the Lupin series there were several ways that translation happens, both officially and unofficially:

By ear - This is done if there are no scripts or no other translation. This is how fan translation is often done. Sometimes official anime translation was also done by this from other companies.

Using another countries subtitles - This was what fan translators used for the Part 3 translation (and in the past episodes past 80 for Part 2 however a majority were cleaned up outside of minor characters) and the early fan translations of Lupin III: The First by translating from Portuguese. Technically this is what the Italian Blu-rays used for their subtitles since episodes 1-79 of Part 2 were based off the English Pioneer/Geneon translation and Part 1 was based on the English subtitles that are on streaming sites.

Actually having the subtitles - Some fan translations are lucky to have the subtitles whether it is burned in like Lupin VIII or modern enough to have them included such as Prison of the Past and Lupin III: The First. These are usually the best fan translations as they are more closer to not only the Japanese but to prevent translation mistakes such as the Sidney typo passing from English to Italian on the Part II Blu-rays. Translation mistakes can still happen though.

Having the scripts themselves - TMS made English scripts in the event if they ever got dubbed however these scripts had typos and spelling mistakes, they may also have differences in dialogue when compared to the episode itself. This is an example from Wager on the Monaco GP: [1] While they were officially used for Part IV onwards for both sub and dub, Part 2, Part 3 and various TV Specials have scripts as well. In the case of Part 2 and the TV Specials, dialogue was rewritten by distributors such as Streamline, Pioneer and Funimation. It is unknown regarding Part 1 as that was made before TMS existed.

Characters[]

In case people wonder why certain characters are not on the wiki, this is the reason why.

Part 2[]

There are four English sources and two Italian sources for Part 2. Pioneer/Geneon translation Episodes 1-79, streaming service translation that has some simplification (e.g. all references to Tottsan are Zenigata rather than Pops) used in places such as Crunchyroll and Tubi.tv, online translation that can be found in various places and the English synopses that TMS uses for websites. For Italian, there is the dub and the Italian subtitles that are found in the Blu-ray.

There is a 5th English source, the Discotek translation however currently have limited access and there are sources saying that this translation has some errors that even a beginner can pick up on from episode 80 onwards. While sometimes there is consistency between sources, sometimes there isn't especially officially.

Kid Detective who influenced Conan - from The Skateboard Murder Mystery.

This is one of the few characters from the Geneon translation era that has large issues and actually mentioned on the article itself. The Japanese Emotion VHS is a rare case of being written in English.

Geneon English translation (both dub and sub) and the subtitles on the Italian Blu-ray: Boronco
Japanese Emotion tape and Italian dub: Bolonco
Transliteration: Boronko

This character not only suffers from the l/r translation issues in Japanese but also the n and m one too since in Japanese things can be written with either a m or a n. So the character can be Boromco or Bolomco as well.

The detective claims to be the son of Columbo and has a vague look of the detective but even then it is not enough to influence a choice (even if Bolomco is more of a closer spelling).

Current status: Possibly on the wiki as the first option due to its higher usage.

New York Cowboy Detective - from Lupin vs Superman

This was mentioned before but just to recap:

The English subtitles on the TMS translation say Joe MacLeed
The other translation and the subtitles on the Italian Blu-ray say Joe McReed
The English TMS synopsis says McLead

In Japanese it is ジオ・マクリード (Jio Makurīdo), the first part translates as Geo or Gio rather than Joe (ジョー) but the second part could be McReed, McLead, McCreed, it could even be McLeod. The Japanese part of the name could be a transcription error as Joe would make sense being American rather than Geo/Gio however even if it was, it is his surname that's the problem. The main problem stems from the l/r problem in Japanese and this character is a victim of it.

What is the Discotek translation of the character? Sadly inconsistent... It flip flops between Gio McCreed and Geo McCreed in the subtitles. Meaning that we don't have a clear answer for this one and also meaning that Discotek may need a proof reader or at least a second opinion.

So why would there be a cowboy type of detective in New York? There was an American TV series called McCloud where it was about a detective who was dressed as a cowboy in New York that lasted from 1970 to 1977 [2]. It was aired in Japan as Inspector McCloud (警部マクロード) in the mid 1970s on NHK and had a small fan base, enough for DVDs to be released over there however not enough for all episodes to be dubbed with only 39 out of 46. It is likely that the detective from the episode was based on him.

What is his name in Japanese? マクロード Very very close outside of one character. My gut feeling would have been McLeod as it sounds similar and Lupin has had characters that sound similar (e.g. Rasputon for Rasputin, more recently Znowden for Snowden) but gut feelings are not always the right thing to do especially if you are not sure.

So the next step is listen to the dialogue, in the Japanese original it is inconsistent. The first bank guard repeats Joe McCreed while the second guard says Joe McReed, the security officer says Joe McCreedo then Mcreedkeibu and the detective himself says McReed-a. It is hard to say for the bank robbers. Looking at this alone it is a toss up between McCreed and McReed.

Current status: Gah... It looks very unlikely to be on the wiki for a while because of the translation issues. If it does make it to the wiki, then it would have to be compromised such as Inspector McCreed or Inspector McReed with the notes written above in the article.

The World War II Officer - The Southern Cross Looked Like Diamonds

While Kimihiro is generally agreed to be part of his name no matter which translation that you have, it is the other part of his name that causes the issue. Many websites don't have the other part of his name translated at all. So what is his full name?

君広一飛曹

The first two characters is Kimihiro but the second is where the problem lies. Let's have a look what we have:

Streaming sites translation: Hajime Kimihiro
Fan translation: Kimihiro Ippsou
Italian Blu-ray subtitles: Kimihiro Ippisou (would be 君広一臂曹)
Google translate: Kimihiro Ichiboso

It is to note that the synopsis does not mention Kimihiro and the Italian dub just calls him an air force officer. Currently have no access to the Discotek translation if it is like above...

For the top translation, Hajime is usually translated as 一, 元, 始, 肇, 基, 創, 孟, 朔 or 甫. It looks like whoever did the translation for the streaming sites only did a partial translation.

The thing is to note that 曹 is often skipped or untranslated in online tools as it is a based Chinese character, in Japanese it is so or zo that on its own means cadet or friend. The first two characters means first fly.

Before a character makes it on the site, research is done before hand to make sure that the quality of the wiki can be as good as it can get. Much of the time, this isn't needed as much as the character is self explanatory. We know that the character is a World War II pilot and sometimes TMS does use a bit of history when they come up with a character (e.g. the various descendants of real and fictional people, characters based on real people or were real people). Searching for Kimihiro is not much use due to that a xxxHolic character keeps popping up in searches so we have to try another angle.

Now Kimihiro did have a real life connection Yamamoto Isoroku who was admiral for the Japanese Navy during World War II. There was a character called Samejima (that doesn't have a translation problem) who later on in the episode discovered that his island is an aircraft carrier. Kimihiro had access to a bomber plane so what does this mean?

There was a bomber plane called Yokosuka D4Y (nicknamed Judy by the Allies) that was launched on aircraft carriers (even though the episode apparently had a Zero fighter) and searching for ichihiso found something. [3]

Could Kimihiro be based on Tadamasa Iijima Ichihiso? Sadly information in English on the Japanese side of World War II is minimal and compressed (focusing on the American side of the battle if it does get mentioned) plus the only search for Ichihiso is that one result. Even when researching Rabaul where the episode was set, very little is known about the pilots in English. It might be something that would require access to a library and also a good Japanese translator.

The other way that it can be translated as is hitohiso however results only show the Japanese Emperor Hirohito and the characters for him are different.

Using ear, it sounds like Hitsoah however he has an accent that is kind of hard to hear. Definitely not the translation that is on streaming sites that's for sure.

Current status: Unlikely to be on the wiki at this time, it needs a bit more research that is out of my field.

Episode Titles[]

While the wiki is working though its way in terms of episode titles (Part 2 and 3 have the problem, the others are generally not a problem), there are some that are on hold. It is mainly Part 3 even though some Part 2 episodes are guilty (e.g. Lupin's Splendid Failure - the last word doesn't mean failure and there's no no for it to be Lupin's...).

Just for fun, we'll do Episode 13 from Part 3. Yes, the Seijun Suzuki written episode.

Currently on the site, it is listed as Play a Joke on the Variation. The old mid 1990s fan translation that will be changed soon and it is explained here.

TMS has officially translated this episode as Masquerade in Hell
Crunchyroll however decided to call it Musical Variation of Monkey Business
Fan translations include Variations on Getting Carried Away and Variations of a Bad Joke
Google translate calls it Evil Nori Disguise

People have said in the past that this episode name is hard to translate and you can see why because it can be translated into different ways.

悪のり変装曲

悪 means evil and のり meaning either glue or law/rule however 悪のり meaning getting carried away or overdoing. Until the TMS translation uses masquerade 変装 was unknown even though when the characters are split says strange (or variations of the word) dress. It is unknown how the word variation popped in there and four different translations have that however...

The romaji is hensōkyoku. Outside of that meaning, it means variation (as in a musical type) however it is written as 変奏曲 or more simply へんそうきょく. There was no simplified Japanese text on the title card.

The last character 曲 means song or tune but it could also mean pleasure (despite that there are also words meaning this).

Doing this research, it shows that the older translations were translating by the romaji rather than the letters and characters themselves or misread the kanji. This explains the bad translations as Japanese can have many phases of words, a bit like slang between English countries or same words for different meanings like between France/Spain with Quebec/Mexico as examples. It also shows that Crunchyroll got it wrong as well despite changing the translated terms to make the episode title work for them.

So what is the translation? Honestly, I have no idea.

Overdoing Masquerade Melody? Evil Rule Masquerade Pleasure? Musical Masquerade Getting Carried Away? The first and the last examples sound like what could be an episode name.

To make it easier, much of the time the episode title describes the episode e.g. Wads of Bills Bloom in the Rio Sunset because it what happens in the episode. So what is the synopsis for the episode?

A deadbeat Lupin is tricked by Fujiko into infiltrating a women's party in a castle that turns out to be a rocket ship, which lands in a country where he is captured and about to be executed. Unfortunately, a storm of crows lands in the execution grounds, allowing Lupin to escape. Unfortunately, he must now survive this entire mess alive while being followed by Pops... and a mysterious lady with a death wish.

Right. There's a masquerade (well... party) but the rest? Absolutely no idea.

Now how would Seijun Suzuki would have written it in English had he been still alive? His titles in English are normally straight forward like Branded to Kill or Tokyo Drifter.

Translation Issues

Contents

Characters[]

Part 2[]

Other characters that have translation problems[]

Episode Titles[]