Recent Japanese Cinema

[Mark Nornes]

On Monday, February 9, 2004, at 10:03  PM, mark schilling wrote:

> The problem is, first,
> getting the information and, second, getting the films themselves. 
> Someday,
> maybe, the Japanese film industry will make these tasks easier, but for
> now -- the struggle continues.

I just returned from a conference in London on subtitling and dubbing. 
It was specifically for practicing translators, not just academics in 
translation studies. Much of the buzz about the current situation has 
to do with DVDs. There is much to say about this, but Mark's graph 
above struck me. The latest trend across the globe is for 
producers/studios to expect one-stop shopping for their translation. A 
template file is created in English, and then up to 40 subtitle tracks 
are translated in other languages. One look at disks from many 
countries other than America---and particularly East Asian countries 
other than Japan---will discover disks with many subtitle tracks.

Curiously, Japanese producers doing this are few and far between, and 
nearly all of them encode in Region 2. The means are there to exploit a 
global market for their wares, but why leave them lay?

Perfectionism? An unwillingness to publish anything but the best 
subtitles, and thus too expensive to produce?

Are they holding out for dreamy, large-figure distribution deals?

Stupidity?

Markus