Knew this was gonna be a point of contention! While I'm sure it's a big departure from the OG translation, it's a better translation. Thread below! https://twitter.com/bubbozo/status/1331995279000743937

I've been agonizing for weeks about how to handle にいにい. (My friends can tell you -- they even offered their own 'helpful' suggestions such as "Big Chungus" and "Broseph")

I knew I didn't want to shove "Nii-nii" into my beautiful subs, but when every fan and official translation, good or bad, has stuck with "nii-nii", you know you're going to piss off a hell of a lot of people.

(This brings up an issue that plagues the anime translation community: the influence of a long history of poor translation (both fan AND official: see the 90's/00's) and a strong belief that 'fan' is better than 'official'! But that's for another thread...)

Let's talk translation theory, specifically, "translation shifts". In 1958, Vinay and Darbelnet published a method of categorizing translatory actions by type.

These can be used to answer the question: how do you translate a word/phrase that doesn't culturally or linguistically 'work' in the target language/culture?

From "least transformative" to "most transformative", we have...

BORROWING: Literally just take the word and clap it in. "Sashimi", "udon", and "senpai" are all instances of borrowing.

CALQUEING (Loan translation): a literal translation of a fixed expression. "知らぬが仏" translated as "not knowing is Buddha". is a calque. Duwang subs use a lot of calque.

TRANSPOSITION:　Shifting the word from one part of speech to another. For example, shifting a noun (変な感じ, calque "a weird feeling") to a verb ("This feels weird").

MODULATION:　Shifting perspective, passive to direct, figurative to literal, etc. This is very common in high-to-low-context translation (JA>EN!) Ex: sleep in the open → dormir à la belle étoile

MODULATION:　Shifting perspective, passive to direct, figurative to literal, etc. This is very common in high-to-low-context translation (JA>EN!) Ex: sleep in the open → dormir à la belle étoile

EQUIVALENCE: Replacing the phrase or word with an equivalent in the target language. Ex: 車軸を流す (calque "axles are flowing") -> "it's raining cats and dogs"

CULTURAL ADAPTATION: Expressing a source language socioculturally framed word/phrase with a one better suited for the sociocultural frame of the target. (hint: this is what I've done here!)

There's also EXPLICITATION, where you add extra explanation to a borrowed word. ("Watanagashi means 'cotton-drifing'!)

So if you're still here and not bored out of your mind by translation theory, let's talk my approach for にいにい！

I'm a big subscriber to functionalist theory, which states that a translation should function the same way as in the original.

More to the point, I believe that for media translation consumed by a wide audience, the translation should make the target audience have the exact same experience that the original audience would have.

To me, the "equivalent experience" is interrupted when an unknowing audience encounters clunky wording, "translationese", or hamfisted calques. If you have to pause the show to look up a word, the translator did a bad job.

So, にいにい. How does the Japanese audience experience this? What is the function of "nii-nii"? You could ask any Higurashi fan (even those who don't know Japanese) and get the right answer: it's a cutesy, toddler-like way of saying "onii-chan", which means "big brother".

Why did Ryukishi07 have Satoko call Satoshi "nii-nii"? To show both how close they were and how much she fawned on him / was dependent on him. To show her childish side.

All these things get taken into account... but then, how do you translate it?

"Nii-nii" was off the table. Yes, some people will be upset, but it's not my fault they're accustomed to a translation that is, in my opinion, a poor choice at best and at worst, lazy and incompetent.

So I had the meaning and function: cutesy. Toddler-like. Shows affection and childlike immaturity. Also, since Satoko says it a lot, and there are multiple references to her use of the nickname in conversation (see: Rika, Shion), it needed to be consistent.

Let's look at our target language and culture now. While in Japan, it's common to refer to an older sibling by "onii/onee" and an honorific, we don't call each other "big sister" or "stepbrother". (Unless this is a porn, and you're asking what your stepbro is doing.)

Typically, in Western English-speaking culture, we call our siblings by their name, a nickname, or an insult (depending on the family). For example, I call my brothers Matthew and Stephan "Matt" and "Steve". (And sometimes 'nerd').

The idea of "Toshi" was floated around (a nickname utilizing his name, which would fit our culture better), but it wouldn't work with the multitude of functions (Shion's 'nee-nee', the dinner table argument).

Calling him "big bro" would be much easier to work with functionally, but I needed to find a way to make it sound natural. Toddler-like. Childlike. Both my little brothers called me "Tatie" or "Papie" when they were little, attempts to call me "Katie". That was a promising idea.

But then, of course, came the debate: how do you fiddle with "big bro(ther)" in a way that (A) sounds as natural as possible, (B) won't look stupid and annoying when it comes up 200 times, and (C) won't get me lynched by fans?

(C) was going to be impossible, anyways, so I struck out to find something that was the least obnoxious but also reflected the toddler-like sound of "nii-nii" in Japanese.

Here's what me and my friends "workshopped".

Eventually, I came to a verdict: Everything was horrible. Why would Japan do this to me. Still, "Big Brudder" was the least worst choice, though I'm still partial to Big Chungus.

This choice would slap me across the face as soon as Shion said ねえねえ.

My helpful friends suggested "Big Shitter".

I went with "Big Shister" betcause "Big Sistuw" would get me owo'd to oblivion.

It's only been three hours, and oh, how the floodgates have opened.

I'm sorry. This is the best translation. If you want, there's a "fix-it" group who takes my subs and "adjusts" them for you.

I won't be offended if you prefer that, just so long as you know that when it comes to translation theory, that approach was incorrect.

(At least the livewatch /a/ thread eventually devolved into people screaming about 'who has the right to criticize a translation", so at least a few Anons have a brain.)