Except, consider for the moment, if you would, that rendering it as "sus" is actually experiencing it as it was meant by the original creators.
Newsflash: Japanese has slang too and Nagatoro is speaking in it.
She, as a character speaks extremely informal, slangy Japanese. If she was speaking English she would 100% be someone who would say "sus" in that context. So translating it as "sus" in this case is actually more respectful to the original creation than to not as simply rendering it as "suspicious" would completely remove the fact that she is speaking so informally. You would be losing an entire aspect of the original experience if the subtitles were written that way.
Also, please stop using "jelly doughnuts" as your example. The fact that you need to go back 20 years for it should indicate to you how that never happens anymore.
While I agree with most of what you're talking about, to say it never happens any more isn't really accurate. See the Gamergate reference shoved apropos of nothing into Prison School for a more recent example. Translators, be they professional or fansubbers, still take some weird and uncalled-for liberties with translations. That said, from what I've gathered about this incident, this isn't an example of that.
Come to think of if, the translations for the Ace Attorney games are more recent and didn't just stop at renaming food items. They completely "westernized" the whole setting. I guess it's debatable whether that's a bad thing (treating it as a new story rather than a translation per se might justify it a bit, potentially), but that kind of practice is still pretty alive and well. The first game in that series was also twenty years ago (oh god I feel old), but the practice has been maintained in every subsequent installment over the years. Not trying to debate the merits of the example, just to point out it exists.
Translate the slang as-is. That's it. Even if it doesn't translate 1:1. People aren't so stupid that they can't infer what it means. There's plenty of other cultural things in a given anime that are so specific to Japan that doesn't need pointing out or anything, there's no reason that the language should be any different.
Characters don't pop into a temple, and then say they're going to church.
I haven't really looked into the whole Prison School thing too much, but, as any professional translator will tell you, nobody takes uncalled for liberties with a work apropos of nothing in a translation because that is a good way of getting yourself fired as there are several levels of approval that you must get through. But things can still happen.
That said, it is worth nothing that everyone brings up the same 2 or 3 examples whenever this conversation happens because there are so few to pick from. Holding up a couple isolated examples as evidence to slander the work of an entire profession isn't really a good argument.
Ace Attorney is actually an interesting case. The first game in the series was released 20 years ago, a time when removing the "Japanese-ness" of a product was more standard practice. Although, according to the original localizers, the reason it was done was because one of the cases involves time zones, so they had to specify where the game takes place, and chose the United States without thinking a lot about it. As for why it was kept later on, according to the current localization director, it was mainly for consistency, although the series is now stated to be set in an alternate universe LA where 20th century anti-Japanese laws and sentiment didn't exist and the culture instead flourished in the region. Capcom and the original creators are, apparently, totally on board with this interpretation as they are involved in the localization.
Although, on the other hand, the series is a master class in exactly what I was talking about as it is full to bursting with punny names, crazy speech styles, wacky characters, gags and other sorts of things. Every character in the series has their name changed in English, sometimes dramatically, because every character's name is a pun of some sort. Nearly everyone has a unique way of talking, I remember a kid in one of the earlier games spoke in constant 2chan lingo in the Japanese, so in English they rendered it as l33t speak. Not adapting any of these elements to English would be losing out on one of the franchise's defining features.
That's not the original experience, though. The original experience does not require you to go look up pop-cultural references and foreign slang.
The job of a proper translation is to give you the same experience as if you were watching it in the native language. If you have to go look up things or a joke, reference, pun or character gag doesn't land because of a language barrier, then you are not having the original experience intended by the creator.
You could say "well I can look it up later and understand". But that's not the intended experience. A joke that needs to be explained is not funny. You don't get the same experience if it needs to be explained to you later. If you're not laughing at the joke, or groaning at it as the case may be, you're not having the original, intended experience.
If you're not cringing at the obnoxious high school teenage girl talking in constant slang, then you're not getting the original, creator intended, experience.
Just saw this repost in Trending now for another more recent one. Again, take it how you will, have your own opinion on it, that's all good. My only point really is that it's not "slandering the work of an entire profession" to point out that it's probably not accurate to say that this sort of thing doesn't happen any more.
Interesting info regarding the AA games, by the by. I didn't know about the 2ch lingo thing. Makes sense to find a way to find an English equivalent to that. I'm definitely not out to tarnish the work done with those; don't get me wrong on that! My point is just that they didn't HAVE to transplant the setting to an entirely new locale in the process of translating it to English. Things like rendering 2ch lingo into l33t speak definitely makes sense as a way to move the language over but keep the context and intent. I guess at the end of the day I'll agree the "liberties" I mention are probably a lot less frequent these days though, even if I would dispute the claim they no longer happen. The days of godawful 4kids dubs are behind us at least.
Remember when I said that everyone always brings up the same two examples because they are the only ones that exist? This here is the other one.
A professional manga, anime and video game translator who goes by the name of SarahKTranslate online actually has a good video on the subject as a whole and on this instance in particular. I'd suggest giving it a look. She has others about translation theory and relevant "controversies" as well.
Several other translators such as Katrina Leonoudakis, David Musto, Zack Davisson and so on also have twitter presences and are more than happy to go on long threads about translation theory and why people make the choices they do. They're quite interesting to read.
I'd agree that it wasn't necessary to transplant the location in the original AA game. But back when that first game was made, that was more generally accepted practice and it's something that just got baked into the franchise at that time. Playing the later games, there is much less of that unless it is more of the types of examples I gave.
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