I like mystery shows. I like anime. I enjoy long running series that allow you to really drop in  almost anywhere and you don't have to worry too much about continuity. As you can imagine, I like Detective Conan.

However, it is difficult to find episodes, so I go online and look for fan translations. Most of them are good, but then there are the really bad translations. One of my personal favorite atrocious subs is a fansub of Season 5 Episode 120 (JPN)/127 (INT), A Honey Cocktail Murder Case. Despite Conan saying "Honey Cocktail" in English, the translator decided to translate the episode title as "Case of the Bee-Chicken-Tail". But what do you expect when they spell Conan as "Konan"? (I'll definitely talk more about this one in another post someday, I couldn't understand what was happening the subs were so bad 😭)

But for this specific post, I'll focus on a fandub of Season 6 Episode 159 (JPN)/169 (INT), The Legend of the Mysterious Five Storied Pagoda (Part 1). (Spoilers for this specific episode ahead.) I'll quote the text messages I had with one of my friends while I watched this

I skipped the opening of this episode because I don't like the OP of this season (and I wanted to cut to the chase), so I may have missed some telling signs in the beginning. As soon as the episode started, I knew something was off when they weren't translating the text in the blue box that gives establishing information. (This was only fixed halfway through the fansub.) I noticed that the dialogue for different characters had different outlines, which I thought was a nice touch. But then... it happened. The thing that established to me that this wasn't gonna be a normal field trip, but that I was in fact stuck on the Magic School Bus with Ms. Frizzle.

As Ran said the words "Otou-san", so did the English subtitles. "Note: Otou-san means father", the translation said. I laughed it off and though this would be another "Note: 'keikaku' means 'plan'"  translation... little did I know how much I underestimated this fansub.

A couple sentences later a new character was introduced. No clue who he was or why he's here because the translator couldn't bother with the aforementioned establishing text in the blue box. The random guy explained that the place Conan, Ran, and Kogoro were sightseeing is home to a 5 story tall pagoda. Of all the things to make a translator's note of, that apparently wasn't one of them. The translator also translated "the Edo Era" as "the Era of Kung Wu"?????? Who the hell is Kung Wu and why is he in Japan?! By this point I knew to expect the worst... but I still wasn't prepared for the stupidity of what was to come...

It isn't until the next scene and a full story later that we learn what a pogoda is. However, they have also now established the word "abbot" but have not explained what that means. (For those curious, it's the head of a Buddhist temple.) Inconsistency.

The current abbot of the pagonda showed up and the guy who I still didn't know anything about that's just telling the Mouri Detective Trio (as I'll refer to Conan, Ran, and Kogoro because I don't want to type their names out every time 😅) this story exclaims "Tan Kai-sama!" when he sees him. "Note: The prefix '-sama' is attached to names as a show of respect." Thanks translator... really needed that... don't need that establishing context square that you won't translate underneath this new new character, though...

The scene explained that a business is going to tear down the environment because some rich guy wants to build an amusement park. Then, the scene shifted over to the Mouri Detective Trio eating at a fancy restaurant with said rich guy. And let me tell you, this scene broke me.

New characters don't have their establishing context squares translated, okay. Same old, same old... wait... now this "Odashi" guy (the rich guy) has his context square translated just seconds after the other guy didn't?! Like I said earlier: Inconsistency!

Odashi explained that the amusement park project will take nearly eight billion yen to complete. And what does our dear translator say? "Note: 100 yen = $0.83 or 0.512 pounds" ...WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THAT, TRANSLATOR?! DO YOU WANT ME TO DO THE CONVERSION MYSELF? BECAUSE THIS REALLY PLAYS DOWN HOW EXPENSIVE THIS PROCESS IS. YOU'RE THE TRANSLATOR, TRANSLATE THE AMOUNT OF MONEY IT WOULD TAKE IN YOUR NOTE! And not even the decency to tell us how much 1 billion yen would be. No, no, that's not enough of a challenge. They only told us how much a FRACTION of that money is. (For those curious (again) here's the conversion: 8 billion yen is equivalent to 49,954,728 USD and 39,478,981.75 pound sterling.)

A few more sentences pass by and... wait... I've seen this before...

"Note: The prefix '-sama' is used to show respect for someone in a higher position than you."

That note was near identical to the one they used about 3 minutes ago! HUH?!

But that wasn't the thing that broke me, oh no. What broke me was only a few seconds later...

Kogoro noticed Odashi's tie clip, to which Odashi said has a 5 carat diamond.

"Note: 1 carat = .20 grams or 1/142 oz."

I was confused why that needed to be specified, but I figured it would come into play later in this episode. (It did not.)

"Wow, 5 carats!" Kogoro said after Odashi told him about the tie clip.

"Note: Mouri is surprised because it is hard to tell how many carats a diamond is by looking at it. A 5 carat diamond costs at least $50,000 today!" (Yes, they changed the font color from white with a black outline to bluish-green with a black outline...)

This was what broke me.

Why did this need to be said? No shit someone wouldn't know how many carats a diamond is by looking at it! It's not some sort of unusual reaction!

I had it with the absurdity of this fansub. I needed to share it to my group chat. Funnily enough, one of my friends had already sent a screenshot of the new YouTube community notes thing (run by Google AI, which calls itself a "chat summary") doing something similar. My friend was watching a Fortnite live stream and in the screen shot, everyone was saying "W".

"Chat Summary: (Auto-generated experiment - Quality may vary) People are excited about a game mode being released for a popular game. Viewers are discussing the upcoming release."

My Friend: YouTube has its own community notes

Me: YouTube community notes: (the aforementioned "Mouri is surprised" translation note)

Me: (I opened the group chat to share this and then saw your text. Crazy coincidence 😂)

My friend then talked to my brother about Fortnite, so I continued on with the painful subs

Odashi opened his wallet and had a lot of money, so the Mouri Detective Trio were shocked. "What? This is only a small part of the money," Odashi said.

"Note: This guy has a habit of saying 'what' to point out how rich he is."

No shit, Sherlock. You should be in the show.

I also sent this to the group chat

Me: Help me. I'm in Hell

Friend: I couldn't tell by the fit

Friend: Or the dialogue

Me: There's been 7 TRANSLATION NOTES within the first 10 minutes! And some of them were the same thing 😭

(I roughly estimated this, but going back through everything I've said, I was actually on the dot. There were exactly 7 translation notes up to this point, including the one I just posted to the chat)

Friend: *Moist Cr1tikal gif of him talking and getting progressively more agitated*

And then... the weirdest thing happened.

"The revenue from the sightseeing development will also benefit the temple," said Odashi. And on his forehead, the translator put the word "Greedy" on it in a yellow font.

I also sent this to the group chat

Me: I couldn't make this shit up if I tried 😭

A scene change happened, Kogoro got a call from Tan Kai (the abbot) who said his prediction of evil people being punished by the gods came true, and the scene faded in on the temple and Tan Kai praying.

Say, Translator, what's he saying?

"(The monk is saying some prayers)"

... Excuse me... You won't even bother to tell me at the very least the SYLABLES HE'S USING?!

Sent this to the group chat

Me: ...

The Mouri Detective Trio are told to look up at the temple and Conan gasps because he sees that Odashi is hung from there just like in the story the random guy who I still don't know the name of talked about in the beginning.

But what exactly did Conan say when he looked up at the dead body, Translator? I have to know!

"Gasp!"

... Thanks... so helpful...

I sent this to the group chat

Me: Chat... what are we DOING?!

The episode cut to the doors closing for the commercial break and the translator added their own text.

"This is a free fansub. Not for sale or rent. If you paid for this, you got 0wned."

1) Unprofessional and 2) not "owned" with an "O", but "owned" with a ZERO!

Sent this to the chat

Me: 0wned... with a zero

Me: For reference I just made it halfway through the episode

Friend: *a gif of CaseOh in a green hoodie leaning in to see what's on the screen with a blankly confused stare on his face*

Friend: Me having to look at the subtitles because I clearly can't see what's happening on screen

I continued the episode and Sango Yokomizo (one of the reoccurring inspectors from the series) came by to check on the scene.

"I came because of certain reasons," he said.

"Note: Detectives are supposed to keep their clients' information confidential"

Sent to the group chat

Me: WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO TELL US THIS?! 😭

I carry on and Kogoro is making a hypothesis about Odashi's hanging. Kogoro uses the nickname "Oda" to refer to Odashi in one of his sentences.

"Note: 'Oda' is a nickname of Odashi."

Me: Now they're explaining that the detective is using the dead guy's nickname... great stuff...

Friend: "Chat, what am I watching right now?"

Me: I knew this fandub would be good when it kept the Japanese word for father in and had their note explain that the word they kept in means father 🤦

(I accidently called this a fandub instead of a fansub because I was typing too fast, so the reason why my friend calls it a dub is because of that 😅)

Friend: *the meme template of Gus Fring from Breaking Bad looking at the reader while adjusting his tie in a pale, dim, grey room with lots of shadows* The meme reads: "You are up past 12 AM watching poorly dubbed anime. I am up past 12 AM waiting for Fortnite update leaks. We are not the same."

Me: Sometimes it's 4 AM

My Brother: *the same meme template as before* The meme now reads: You are staying up past 12 AM watching poorly dubbed anime; I stay up past 12 AM watching a poorly made Marvel movie (Dark World); We are not the same"

Friend: Dark World is easily one of the worst MCU movies

Me: Fr

Brother: It took me a day to get the motivation to watch it

Friend: I don't blame you

By this point I had continued the show only to be met by the most BRAINDEAD translation note I've seen so far. Sango is talking to Tan Kai. He says, "I just need to  confirm your alibi at the time."

"Note: In the Latin language 'alibi' means 'somewhere else.'"

Sent to the group chat

Me: MOTHERFUCKER I TOOK LATIN! SHUT YOUR ASS UP 😭😭😭😭

Me: Now they're just explaining ENGLISH WORDS TO THE ENGLISH AUDIENCE

Friend: *an image of Jonsey from Fortnite in a suit and tie holding a phone with a confused look on his face*

Friend: Me when the dub explains a Latin word that is frequently used in the English language

Then, at LONG LAST, the episode ended without any more annoying notes. I immediately scrolled down to the comments.

One comment said "The explanation in the top screen are really helpful to understand the story. Thank you subbers team 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻❤️‍🔥"

Sent to the group chat

Me: It's Joever

Friend: Can't tell if that's sarcasm or not

Me: Neither can I 🥲

The... End

FINALLY!!!!

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....What now...?

What do I do now that I don't have anything to ramble about...?

Do I... continue on with life...?

Do I... continue watching the series... go to sleep... make art...?

What do I do...?

Well... I know what you should do...

Come here...

Little closer....

right there...

okay...

here's what i need you to do...

LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE CONTE-

*gets sniped by Jonsey from Fortnite who's celebrating the Fortnite news after the live stream*

Um... yeah... I don't know how to end blogs

Um... bye, ig :P