I'll be starting on specific series soon, but I want to make sure I cover as much general stuff as I can first. So today I'll be talking about common things that are difficult to translate, or are just different in Japan.
Many anime series take place in or at high schools, as a large number of fans arein high school. There are a few major differences between Japanese and American high schools. Japanese high schools only last three years, and the grades don't have specific titles. Instead of freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior, Japan just has first-years, second-years, and third-years. This isn't too much of a problem with first or third years, but second years can vary between being translated as juniors or seniors. I can't think of any dubbed series offhand that simply use the Japanese system. For example, in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Mikuru, a second year, is said to be a Junior in the English version. I found it odd that Haruhiism DIDN'T follow the Japanese system, considering they didn't bother translating "golden week" holiday. Which leads us to the next translation problem.
Holidays. About the only things that are the same in Japan are Christmas and Valentine's Day. Japan is largely Shinto, so Christmas isn't celebrated religiously, but is still a holiday. Valentine's Day is similar to the American counterpart, but there is one major difference. Only girls give out chocloate to the boys they like on Valentine's Day. Exactly one month later, March 14, boys have to give a return gift. They call this White Day.
Another holiday that I just mentioned was Golden Week. I forget the exact details, but somehow there's about 4 holidays in one week, so the whole week becomes a holiday. I think it's at the beginning of the school year, August or September, so there's a chance it could be translated as Labor Day.
I forget the name of this one, and it's not exactly a holiday, but flower-viewing is another kind of celebration in Japan. If you've seen just about any anime in existance, you've probably heard the name "Sakura". Literally translated, it means "cherry blossom". The cherry trees in Japan are so famous both because of their beauty and the fact that they only blossom once a year for a few weeks. Yes, it's a Japanese cherry tree at the Jefferson Memorial. I believe it was a gift from Japan sometime in the 20th century.
Summer break is also very different in Japan. School goes till sometime in June, and then students get the rest of June and all of July off. However, they have work to do over the summer, and they go back to school at the beginning of August.
Since we're on the topic of schools, I'll go mention uniforms. Japanese uniforms were originally made to look like Western-style clothes waaaay back in the mid-19th century, and they've been pretty much like that ever since. Even public schools have uniforms in Japan, which is why you see so may uniforms in anime. Overall, they look pretty much the same, so I'm not going to describe them. Inuyasha, Fruits Basket, Bleach, Death Note, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Yu Yu Hakusho, xxxHolic, Carcaptor Sakura, Yugioh, Ouran High School Host Club, Kare Kano, and Slam Dunk are just some titles I can think of offhand that'll give you a good example of Japanese school uniforms.
Japanese legends and myths also have a hard time being translated. These don't pop up too often, though, so I don't know what happens when they do. I've only seen two instances of folk tales, and those were in My Neighbors the Yamadas (a Ghibli movie) and Yu Yu Hakusho manga. YYH was in SJ, so they had extra pages devoted to explaining the original myths. The first one I had actually heard before. It's about a boy... Urashima, I think, who saves a turtle. The turtle turns out to be a beautiful princess who takes him to her palace in the ocean. He has a fun time, and then she gives him a box and tells him never to open it. Either he leaves the palace and then opens it, or opening it makes the palace disappear, I forget which. But he winds up on land with the open box and when he goes home, 50 some years have passed.
Then there's peach boy. His parents cut down a tree and found him there inside a peach. When he grows up, he goes on some kind of adventure and meets a monkey, a dog, and a bird. I don't remember the rest. ^_^;; I'm not sure how they were handled in the YYH dub, so I can't go into much detail on those.
And finally, food. In bad dubs, like pretty much anything dubbed by 4kids, food usually tends to be "Americanized". The classic example of this is rice balls being turned into donuts, marshmallows, cookies (cough*OnePiece*cough), etc. Bento boxes are another thing that isn't usually changed, but are a part of Japanese culture and never explained. I guess they would be equivalent to a TV Dinner in America, since you can buy it at a convience store and it's a full meal, but they are often homemade and/or served at restaurants. Bento usually consists of rice, fish or meat, and a vegetable.
Other common Japanese foods and restaurant types are ramen, soba, and sushi.
Those are all the common translations issues I can think of at the moment. Next time, I'll start reviewing specific series.
