A couple of years ago I made a post about making Japanese subtitles for the the 1978 British cartoon Watership Down, based on the book by Richard Adams. Back then I had actually finished 3/4 of it when I made a mistake backing up my work and accidentally deleted the whole thing. I was really ticked off, since I had just lost several weeks worth of work. I was so frustrated with myself that I ended up giving up on the whole thing.
Just a few days ago though, I was going through some old files of mine on my computer at school and found a backup copy! I was ecstatic and decided to finish the subtitles. Some interesting parts:
I mentioned Cowslips gothic poetry in the last post, here is my translation.
è°·å·ã‚ˆã€ã©ã“ã¸ã„ã？
é ãã¸ã€é ãã¸ã€‚
è°·å·ã‚ˆã€é€£ã‚Œã¦è¡Œã£ã¦ãã ã•ã‚Œã€‚
æš—ã„æ—…ã«é€£ã‚Œã¦ã€‚
主フリースよã€å…‰ã®å¿ƒã¸é€£ã‚Œã¦ãã ã•ã‚‰ã‚“。
沈黙よã€æ„気を下ã™ã€‚
命よ。沈黙よ。
There is also one scene that I cannot figure out what to do for the life of me. It’s towards the end when Hazel is running to try his desperate plan to save his warren from the General Woundwort. As he’s running, he says a prayer to Lord Frith:
Hazel: Lord Frith, I know you’ve looked after us well, and it’s wrong to ask even more of you. But my people are in terrible danger, and so I would like to make a bargain with you. My life in return for theirs.
Frith: There is not a day or night that a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla, his life for his chief. But there is no bargain: what is, is what must be.
I cannot figure out for the life of me what Frith is really saying here. How I’m interpreting the rhetoric just doesn’t make sense. Is he saying that mother deer don’t sacrifice their life for their young and that honest captains of Owsla don’t sacrifice their life for their chief? That doesn’t make any sense at all. Or could the sentence be interpreted to mean the opposite of that? Which one makes more sense given that Frith tells Holly there will be no bargain? I’m not sure.
Anyway, if anyone is interested in checking out the whole translation, I’ve zipped both the English and Japanese subtitle files here. In order to view both files at the same time, I would suggest using Subtitle Workshop. It’s freeware (but Windows only I think, however there are similar programs for viewing and editing subtitle files on other platforms) so there’s nothing to worry about downloading and using it. Be sure to set the Japanese subtitle file to ShiftJS encoding or you won’t be able to see the Japanese.
As a final treat, here’s a screenshot to remind you why Watership Down is not for kids (click for full-size goodness):
What he is saying is that, Although Hazel thinks he is offering a great bargain, it is one that Lord Frith hears every day. In spite of the frequency of the bargain, it is one that is never made. What is happening is what must happen.
I mostly agree with Spencer except that I think the key point, the emphasis is different. Yes. Lord Frith is saying that many lay down their lives out of love or loyalty. I don’t think he’s saying that the willingness to make the sacrifice is so common as to make it unworthy. Only that this is a situation in unchangeable.
Lord Frith does not say whether he is unwilling or unable to intervene. Spencer seems to infer that he is unwilling–you don’t bargain with god. I infer that he is unable. Que sera, sera. What is, is.
Whatever the meaning is, I think this sentence is really hard to understand. I should dig out the book and find what it say there.
Hi,
If you check the WikiQuotes for WD…
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Watership_Down_(film)
You’ll find it actually does say
“There is not a day or night when a mother doe does not offer her life for her kittens”
The piece is basically saying that although many people (and animals) may often ask God to take their life in return for their dead children/friends/relatives may be brought back to life, Lord Frith/God/Source etc. is implying that sadly this noble sacrifice would not bring them back…That there can be no deals/bargains made with him… Even though he also might feel the sadness and loss indirectly…
It’s a deeply philosophical statement and one of many from WD that always brings a tear to my eye…
Hello, I’m actually trying to locate Japanese subtitles to Watership Down and am having trouble.
I’m an English instructor for a university here, and was wanting to show the film in my class.
You wouldn’t happen to be willing to email the .srt file to me would you?
Regards!
I sent you an email with the subtitles. Let me know if you have any questions or problems.
Wow, you translated all of Watership Down?!! Kudos to you!
But do you have it in .srt form, or only .sub?
Well, I never said it was a *good* translation, but I hope it at least gets the general meaning across.
The subtitle translation program I used, Subtitle Workshop, saves natively in the .sub format. However, I’m sure that there are utilities or other subtitle software that can convert from one to the other. Considering that most subtitle files are plaintext anyway, you could probably convert it yourself with a python or perl script if you had to.
Besides, decent players like mplayer classic or VLC can play just about any kind of subtitle file out there.
I was wondering if you could answer a few questions about three books I picked up today from a used book store?
I’ve always loved Watership Down, the book and the film, so when I came across three volumes of Japanese Manga style books, basically turning still shots from the film into comics, I just had to grab then, especially since they were only $1.00 each.
I’ve tried googling them to find more information, but so far I’ve come up with nothing. The three books are printed in full color, except for the covers which are in blue ink only. They are entirely in Japanese, with no English subtitles. The artwork from the film is really shown off well by the books.
Being familiar with the story, the Japanese text doesn’t bother me too much, although it would be nice to find English translations.
Have you heard of these books? Do you know anything about them? I’d be happy to send you scans of them if you’re interested.
Thanks for any information you can provide me.
By the way, I just discovered the publisher’s name in English on the spine of the books. They were published by Kodansha Anime Comics. However, that new information doesn’t seem to be helping me find more about them with Google.
Mike,
I wasn’t able to find much with an internet search either. First I needed the name of Watership Down in Japanaese, and for this kind of stuff that generally isn’t in a dictionary I usually use wikipedia. From the English page there is often a link to the Japanese page, giving me the Japanese name (In this case, ウォーターシップ・ダウンã®ã†ã•ãŽãŸã¡). Knowing it’s published by Kodansha is a little bit of a help, but as they’re the largest publisher in Japan it’s still like looking for a needle in a haystack.
When looking for books, videos, and other various media in Japan, a good place to look in the internet is amazon. A search for Watership Down there turns up quite a lot, but I don’t know if what you’re looking for is there.