I’ve been going with Tenshi. We are going to see about adding “Angel” in small letters above the first instance of “Tenshi” in the VN, as a way of explaining the introduction scene.
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That’s going to be much more better.
I prefer to have it translated as “Angel” though, since it’s not a name, but a title, “the servant of god”.
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I always call her Angel as it’s called “Angel Beats!” not “Tenshi Beats!”. I’m fine with either one though.
Iya. Tenshi is her name. Not Angeru.
It’s actually a bit more confusing as Japanese doesn’t really have a distinction between proper nouns and improper nouns. So for all we know, they could be just calling her “an angel”
No it’s not! “Angel” is like job class in RPG, ya know! It shoulda be translated yo! If it got translated to other languages then it’s not “Tenshi” or “Angel” anymore depending on the language yo!
No, Tenshi is her name. You don’t translate names.
We’ve had this discussion many times already and this is the conclusion we’ve reached. Let’s stop treading over old ground.
BUT THEY USED ANGEL IN THE DUB!!!1!1!!1!1!1
(maybe theres a reason why hehe)
Nope I’ve never been into whatever that discussion you’re talking about. Tenshi is not her name, you know what’s her name. Translating Otonashi’s name to “No Sound” or Yuri as “Lily” would be wrong, but translating “Tenshi” to “Angel” makes more sense to me if we’re going to translate this into English.
If you’re going to not translate that title, then we might as well not translate the nicknames for the amnesiac Otonashi as well, because his nicknames, even for only a short moment, were his “name”.
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I, uh… Hm. You’ve got me there.
Still, I think this should be treated on a case-by-case basis. The majority of the fandom already knows her as ‘Tenshi’, so I think it’s fine as long as you establish that Tenshi means Angel.
@Purple
That’s exactly because the translation and dub team had no reason why they should keep calling her “Tenshi” instead of “Angel” and keep reminding people each frame that “tenshi” means “angel”. (Also while we’re at it, we should also put that “sakusen” means “strategy”)
@Aspirety
I just find it more natural to call her Angel from the very start, because like I told you, it’s a title, not a name.
e.g. in the first exchange
(not actual exchange since I forgot the exact words)
Protag: “Hey, those freaks called you Tenshi. Are you really Tenshi?”
?? : “Nope. Not Tenshi. Just student council president.”
(Of course she would say no. Tenshi isn’t her friggin name.)
Instead should we have this
Protag: “Hey, those freaks called you angel. Are you really an angel?”
?? : “Nope. I’m no angel. Just student council president.”
But again the majority of the fandom will choose to call her “Tenshi” so I’ll lose this argument no matter what. I’m out, peace.
The only reason any segment of the fandom chooses to call her Tenshi is because some fansubbers screwed up and called her that, because of course they did.
You can fix that, if you want. Set things to rights. Or, as Hirato pointed out, you can have nonsense dialogue. Choices are fun~
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The discussion came from me asking whether we should translate it to Angel or keep it as Tenshi. I said I liked Tenshi from a reader standpoint, but it makes translation complicated. Some said Angel, most said Tenshi, and Biz had a big talk about how translating it as Angel is stupid, which I argued against.
At the end of the day though, more people chose Tenshi than Angel.
The Tenshi=Angel point needs to be clarified in translation to explain the title, and the “but she’s just a normal person” thing. However, it is treated as her name for a long time. The Otonashi nicknames are in-jokes - They need to be translated to keep the comedy aspect intact, and the reader is aware that it’s just a joke.
Tenshi is treated as a serious name for large parts of the story. It’s not a “nickname” it’s a “we don’t know her name, so we’ll give her a title.”
She is called Tenshi. That is her name, and it should be treated as Otonashi or Yuri’s names are. Heck, if you look in the voice control options, you’ll see “Tenshi” alongside all the other characters until you learn her real name. It gets the same treatment as the other’s real names (and TK.) One replaces the other. There is never a point where she is both Tenshi and Kanade, it’s one of the other.
Plus, it’s always nice for the voices and the text to use the same names.
I said only on the first instance.
I don’t remember the dub at all, but for this translation we are following the sub’s terminology and uses, because they are what most are familiar with.
We could add an option if you want? But we’d get more complaints about translating it as Angel than keeping it as Tenshi.
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If you’re following the actual sub, then…
see http://i.imgur.com/rXJXumN.png
(admittedly, “I’m not an angel” isn’t quite right given her tone, but I digress.)
You might as well call Evangelion’s Angels “shito,” every duke “kou,” and P4’s Teddy “Kuma.” Insisting on using the Japanese name here is equally silly. That more people would complain is largely irrelevant.
Whether or not people complain shouldn’t matter, if you’re translating you should do it right. I’m on the Angel side, as I watched the dub first and refer to her as Angel because they used it.
When did you guys agree on using Tenshi anyway?
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We’ve had this discussion already and came to agree on Tenshi- It’s a title. Why is this coming up again?
Stop wasting time on it.
Do this. Leave it at this. Move on.
Did it ever occur to you that they did it incorrectly?
‘This is so stupid.’
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I didn’t even know CR had AB. How many years did it take them? o.o
It’s blocked where I am anyway.
The way I see that conversation, Otonashi’s “they said you’re an Angel or something” is an expression of uncertainty. He heard them calling her “Tenshi” and was like “so she has wings and stuff?” when in fact, Tenshi is a moniker, not a descriptor. It’s a way of portraying how nonsensical Otonashi finds the situation he is currently in.
I slept through Evangelion, and I have standards, so I can’t speak for P4. Those examples are going over my head.
That depends what you are making the translation for. Personally I’m going for a translation for others, not for myself, so I’ll live by the majority opinion. The small group matters less than the large.
When we started the translation, so, a while ago.
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Angel Beats! episode 1 was available on Crunchyroll starting July 30 2012. They also always refer to her as “Angel” never “Tenshi”, I’d say if it’s already decided just stick with Tenshi. I’ll keep calling her Angel but I’m fine and know who you’re talking about either way.
Not gonna lie: i’ve watched the CR sub of AB! many times, haha.
If there’s such controversy and division over this, could there be a ‘switch’ to change it? I don’t know much about hacking into the engine, so this may not work in the slightest; but maybe all it would take is a Kanade name variable in each instance of Kanade’s text. Whether that variable is equal to ‘Tenshi’ or ‘Angel’ would be decided by a switch in ‘Options’ or a number in a ‘settings.txt’ in the patch, which the user can change if they want her name to be one or the other (0 = Tenshi, 1= Angel).
Just a thought.
