It has been pointed out to me in the notes below that this review was full of hot air. I stand corrected – the translation in the one case I illustrated was fine. ;-))
I am so irritated about this volume of Madlax, I’m not really even sure where to begin.
So to begin, I’ll touch on the good things. First and foremost, this volume is fun, with a capital “fu”. I mean, how many other places can you watch a gentle maid go totally postal on some entitled wannabe frat boy? I particularly enjoy it when Elenore snaps the kid’s wrist, because he hurt Margaret’s wrist. And when Vanessa says, “How vicious,” she really doesn’t sound all that disapproving. ^_^
Other good things – the liner notes include highly amusing fan art drawn by some of the staff, complete with in-jokes that have to be explained. I really enjoyed these.
And that about covers it. The plot is dense, the bad guy is a joke, but those haven’t changed from my first viewing of the series. And the rest of the episodes are actually very interesting, as we finally start to draw a connection between Margaret, the book and Madlax.
(Remind me to engage in a light rant about the book next review…^_^)
The really stand-out not-good thing on this volume is the seriously awful translation. The first volume was pretty good, but again, its like they switched midstream and stopped actually listening to what was being said, and instead started guessing at something sort-of close to the meaning.
I can’t remember all the things that annoyed the living daylights out of me, but there were several. COME ON, anime distributor companies! We are notstupid. We are not children. JUST TRANSLATE WHAT THEY SAY. Not something “close enough” to it. And leave the \expletive deleted\ honorifics alone, already! Stop the dubtitling.
It’s absolutely infuriating to pay money for something that is not done properly. It may be cheaper for you to dubtitle, but it stinks for those of us who want to watch the Japanese. Thanks for treating us like second-class citizens, when we are your fan base.
No ratings, I’m in a bad mood.
Hmm. As I understand it, “feminist” got adapted into Japanese in two ways: one meaning someone who is pro-women’s rights, and the other meaning somone who is kind to women, i.e. gentlemanly or chivalarous. Since chivalry and chauvinism sometimes go hand-in-hand, it can be really confusing to tell which is which in Japanese. So I’m not sure that this is a mistake.
I’m sure the “feminist”/”chivalrous” thing occurred in the official Utena TV subs as well, actually…
Yes, in episode 9, Touga has a feministo spiel going on. Most memorably when he gets slashed by Saionji saving Utena. When asked why he answers “Feministo, dakarana” or somesuch.
I will be very glad to stand corrected on this. Thank you, all, for pointing out one of what appeared to be many errors, was in fact, mine. :)