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The Localization Shark Tank

Is it possible to talk about anime and localization without stirring fans into a bloody feeding frenzy? 

Short answer: Not that I've ever seen.  

What is "Localization?" Simply put, it's the smoothing of text and/or dialogue an anime or manga must receive after a direct translation. Localization makes all the difference between a memorable story and a funny-sounding mess that'll leave you scratching your head. Remember beating old Nintendo games and being told, "A Winner is You?" Those games lacked any kind of localization. 

On paper, Localization is a positive process. In reality, it usually is. It's also a simple process, right? Not so much.  

I've never personally come face-to-face with an anime or manga that pleased every single person in its intended audience. Established anime fans are often displeased with the changes a publisher makes to an original Japanese work, but without those changes, new audiences might feel alienated by references to Japanese pop culture or in-jokes, and become hesitant to pick up future installments of a series. 

A good localization appeals to a happy medium. Easier said than done. 
 

The Internet is for Complaints 

The Internet has brought a lot more attention to the process of translation. It used to be fans just watched their anime or played their video games without any sense of being short-changed. There was no real way of knowing what was censored or changed the Japanese source material.  

It makes a great case for eating the Forbidden Fruit and gaining knowledge versus leaving it alone and staying blissfully ignorant in the shade of Eden. There was a time when fans were generally happy enough to say, "Wow! I'm watching anime!" without fussing over bad translations and editing jobs. But now that the medium is more available, standards have been raised. 

Early episodes of Dragon Ball Z are infamous for their censorship hack-jobs (and for the now-immortal phrase "It's over NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAND!" but that's an article unto itself). Ignorance and stupidity are two different beasts; when DBZ first aired, the Internet's popularity wasn't as widespread as it is now, but fans knew they were getting shortchanged. The series' "localization" included hardcore censorship and the Americanization of Goku's supercharged martial arts ("Power Pole", anyone?), as well as the cutting of any racy scenes or raunchy humour, which is a little harder to miss if you don't know it was there in the first place. 

Interestingly, anime and the Internet matured together. Many DBZ fans took their first staggering steps on the World Wide Web by accessing fansites and discovering how badly they'd been screwed. Saban, the company distributing the series at the time, received all sorts of colourful feedback.  

When Funimation took over the series later on, the censorship lessened considerably but the localization remained thick with American slang and pop culture references. That, too, lessened over time, and by the end of the series, feedback along with trial and error tempered an end product both fans and newcomers were relatively happy with.  

Criticism Within Boundaries 

Anime fans have a right to be displeased with an unbalanced localization, although the process itself can be a little grey. When Viz Media began brining manga over to America, the company faced a lot of criticism for "flipping" their manga upon translation--that is, mirroring pages so a manga would read from left to right, like an English book. Viz shrugged off the criticism and said making American audiences feel comfortable is more important than exact accuracy.  

Viz's concerns were valid, but when Tokyopop began publishing manga, the company opted not to flip the original Japanese works as a cost-saving procedure. The format was accepted by new manga fans and appreciated by old ones. Not only does Tokyopop still published unflipped manga, but almost every company that's published since has stuck to an unflipped format. Worries about American audiences not adapting to the Japanese reading style of right-to-left proved unfounded.  

But it's also considerate of manga and anime fans to understand what localizers must go through in their attempts to please both camps. For example, the Japanese school system works very differently from North America's, and sometimes changes are made to reflect the latter. If the change doesn't directly affect the story, it's usually not an issue worth getting into a lather over.  

Some fanatical fans won't be stopped, however. Video games are subject to even more localization issues than manga or anime, and I once played an action game where the player could opt to take a long quiz as a sidequest. Most of the quiz questions involved 80s bands and other fun stuff. One hardcore lover of the Japanese language informed me the original Japanese version of the game had questions regarding the language, such as kanji trivia. He then said Americans were too "stupid" to answer such questions. Sorry, I have yet to memorize the calligraphy of 2000 Chinese characters. Yes, that makes me a dumbass.