Japanese-English

[Rachel]

Was the British Starfleet script a direct translation of the original? I suppose it must be almost identical, otherwise the dialogue wouldn't fit the movements of the puppets' mouths?

[AndyThomas]

Interesting question.  The different translations probably all have a different emphasis in the way they portray the characters.  You may remember that I raised the question of whether there might have been some mistake in the translation which made Prof Hagen Shiro's father when the English version has Shiro meeting Lamia for the first time in the series.  You also get the impression that he's been missing for quite a while, and yet Shiro just says he "hasn't seen him in a while".  You can sort of get round it by saying Shiro's had his head in books at the academy, but even so, that's a bit of a stretch.A similar thing happens when the lads are supposed to be celebrating "New Year" - which was of course at the end of the series!  It's possible it was a birthday or the Chinese New Year or something.  Hard to say without having someone do a translation.  My friend Eleanor even had a little difficulty translating Toru's comments into English because they may simply not be translatable.  It's a "best guess" sort of scenario.If you take the French version as another example, the soundtrack for that is totally alien to the suspenseful one we have.  I suspect that in a sense, our English version is probably the most serious.  Some anime can be totally madcap and quite funny to us, but that's just the norm in Japan.  At the end of the day, the advantage of it being a puppet show is that the mouths would never have been lip synched that accurately, so as long as you get the rough timing right it's easy to dub it.Additional: if you have a read through of Louis Elman's interview you'll see that he mentions they re-scripted the show - so it seems likely that a few things got lost in the translation. Remember that some of the names of the ships were definitely changed - they're different between the series and the Annual, I think it is.Oh, and while we're on the subject, another voice actor spot on an anime tape of mine - Jay Benedict and Peter Marinker doing "Doomed Megalopolis".  They must have been permanent institutions at Manga Entertainment in the early 90s...!

[Shane]

From the vibes I can pick up from the Japanese version of the show, X Bomber has a lot more in common with Gatchaman (Battle Of The Planets) than anything else. The tension between Hercules and Shiro is far more greater in X Bomber than it is in Star Fleet. They are pretty much rivals in the Japanese show in a similar way to Eagle Ken (Mark) and Condor Joe (Jason) in Gatchaman. I know they argued a lot in SF but after a few episodes of XB you can see that their relationship is far more strained. The Prof. Hagen thing is also a paralel to Ken's relationship with his long lost father Red Impulse.I still believe we got the best version of the show. Music can go a long way to defining a show and we can only thank the lord that Paul Bliss churned out the goods. I'd go out on a limb and say that we in the UK got the definitive version of the show. The fact that us pasty people from the UK are the only people keeping the show alive after all this time speaks volumes.Shane.

[Shane]

Theirs no subtitles unfortantely. I'm really only going on the Japanese dialogue, but you can often learn a lot form something when you don't truely understand the words. The extra Search for F01 feature is a real oddity as it's a totall transfer of the English original, complete with dodgy encoding. There is actually different credits on the F01 disk, something like, Panda Productions or such like, I'll have to have a look at it tomorow.Shane.

[AndyThomas]

Hang on a sec. We know that Prof Hagen went missing, and that he was project leader on the X Project. That works regardless of translation issues. But there's footage in the show which suggests that he was with Lamia up until relatively recently, because she's seen with him in flashback quite mature. So I can't see how he can have been missing for as much as 15 years? Unless, of course, Lamia is older in the series than her attitude suggests - but wouldn't she have to be pushing 30 for that timeline to work?I've noted the problem with Prof Hagen being Shiro's Dad before now, and here's something else to throw into the melting pot. In the Fantastic Films article, Shiro's surname isn't Ginga or Hagen - it's Zenan. What's interesting is that the other names are the same as those given in the Manga Max article - which, incidentally, gives Shiro and the Professor the same surname, Ginga. Unfortunately the Fantastic Films article doesn't mention the Professor.So, I'm not sure that your translation makes any difference, Dave? It seems that per the Manga Max article, Shiro and the Prof still have the same surname. Now, that doesn't mean, of course, that they're necessarily father and son - and there doesn't seem to be footage which supports that idea, either.However, if your friend is right, it's possible that Prof Hagen/Ginga is Shiro's Dad but that he left around the time of Shiro's birth. Lamia could already have moved on by then, leaving Shiro to be raised alone by - well, whoever his mother is. That might also work if Prof Hagen met Shiro's mother after Lamia left, and if he was trying to raise her relatively secretly...When you say this is canon info Dave - what's the source of the text, and is the text something that's readily translatable? I understand that Japanese can be difficult to translate literally into English. Does the text actually say that Prof Hagen is no relation to Shiro, and if so, what does it say Shiro's surname is? If you take the Fantastic Films article at face value, then there's evidence there that Shiro has a different surname. However, the author of the Manga Max article also had access to Japanese material and is very experienced with all things anime and manga, so - take your pick.I think it would make more sense for Prof Hagen not to be Shiro's father, personally - and that 15 years figure seems a bit much. I'd thought X Project was pretty far along when the Prof left, it can't have taken 15 years for Dr Benn to get it almost complete?! I don't think this really makes any difference to the overall story at all because there's nothing that hinges on Shiro's relationship to Prof Hagen, but it would be interesting to know if it was a glitch in the translation or in the original storyline...

[Shane]

Shiro and Lamia are the only 2 people who rushed to greet Prof. Hagen on his reappearence. So their must surely be a connection there. I saw the Zenan thing in the FF as well but I'm pretty certain Shiro's Japanese name is Ginga. Maybe Shiro was fostered in his infancy. I've only ever watched the Laserdiscs all the way through the once, and then I was more concerned with trying to find new scenes (which there isn't a lot of) I'll check the first briefing scene on moonbase, to see If I can confirm some names. Maybe if I can make a vid grab of Prof. Hagen's reappearence Japanese style, someone out their maybe able to translate a father or son moment.Shane.

[AndyThomas]

Ahhh. Now then, hang on - I've been thinking about this in terms of Shiro not having been "full time" with Prof Hagen. Your saying Shiro might have been fostered suggests another angle. What if Lamia was the one that was quietly fostered, so what we see if just Prof Hagen visiting her from time to time? If it was her in a different household, then Shiro might well have been unaware of her. I agree, Shane, needs more detective work - and if you can do video grabs of bits like the lads on the shuttle going up to Moonbase, their first meeting with Dr Benn, I might be able to get my friend Eleanor to have a listen and translate them. I agree with your view on the Fantastic Films article - there're a few inconsistencies in there, like him saying it's the year 2300 AD... I'll have to have a flick through the CDRs, see what evidence there may be. I agree that Shiro going to meet Prof Hagen implies some prior relationship...