Kaguya-sama: Love is War Addresses Translation Error in Recent Episode

A recent episode of Kaguya-sama: Love is War has had a line changed following a error fix from Aniplex of America! Although many of the anime during the Spring 2020 season have been impacted by the effects of COVID-19, Kaguya-sama: Love is War continues to air new episodes of the second season. With new episodes continuing in Japan, their English language releases are still being overseen by Aniplex of America and are streaming with Funimation. The fifth episode of the series has actually seen a small change following an error in one of the subtitles.

As announced through their official Twitter account, Aniplex of America stated the following about a recent change to the subtitles in Episode 5 of the series, “Aniplex of America has been notified of an error in the subtitles in Episode 5 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War? and have implemented a revision. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.”

The change in question involves a line that invokes the current effects of COVID-19. In the original version, one of Chika Fujiwara’s lines appeared as “What’s the deal with social distancing?” in the English subtitles. It has since been changed to “Why are you so far away from me?” English translations for anime is a balancing act in general, but it’s not too hard to discern why the change was made.

English language releases are based on translations, which involve staying as close to the intent of the original Japanese phrase while adapting it to English language conventions. It’s not a direct 1:1, and both the English subbed and dubbed releases feature what is essentially an English adaptation of that original script. There are several channels it goes through before this process it over, and each licensing company then decides on how much flavor text (the playful, referential tone of the first line is potentially flavor text) is allowed for any given work.

But what do you think? Did you notice this error in Kaguya-sama: Love is War‘s fifth episode of the latest season? What do you think of the change? Which of the two versions of the line do you prefer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!