Natsuko Toda: The World of a Movie Subtitles Translator

Let's make history by avoiding daily news coverage today and peek into the exclusive world of movie subtitles translation - a profession none can stand comparison with Natsuko Toda.

Dubbing is preferred to subtitles in the rest of the world but not in Japan. Here, movie goers mind little tracking the subtitles so long as they can follow the story "live" - live in the sense that the actors and actresses carry on as in the original. That's where Natsuko Toda comes in.

Natsuko Toda, born in Tokyo in 1936, was handpicked by Francis Ford Coppola to do his "Apocalypse Now", and that encounter turned out to be Toda's debut into the world of subtitles translation. 

Carol Reed's "The Third Man" was a can-opener for her interest in subtitles, she says. "As I kept on watching that film, I discovered translation was not necessarily faithful to the original scripts but a subtle job of transplanting A to B. That was a can-opener to me".

Asked why the Japanese people prefer subtitles to dubbing, Toda says it is because they go for the "real thing". "They come to the theater to meet Tom Cruise, to hear him talk in his own voice". "What is more," she continues, "Kanji, the Chinese characters, are descriptive. A word of kanji conveys certain meaning just by glancing at it. Japanese is fit for subtitles translation."

Natsuko Toda has been more than often the target of criticism on account of her "mistranslations" in certain type films, e.g. science fictions. In "Full Metal Jacket" by Stanley Kubrick, her work was re-translated for comparison with the original and so forth. 

Pushing nearly 80, Toda is still eager to work if and when commissioned but adds, "Look, I have done over 1,500 and I have no reason to be work-hungry anymore. Give me a break, won't you dear?"