In my thesis, I will be focusing on Shinkai Makoto's Japanese animated film Your Name, analyzing the plot and the subtitles to determine how effective they are at conveying information to an English-speaking audience.
As different forms of media and pop culture spread worldwide, translation is required to adapt them to new languages and cultures. However, a continuing debate among translators is what method of translation is the best: domestication or foreignization. The domestication method of translation focuses on making the text close to the culture of the language it is being translated to, while the foreignization method of translation focuses on preserving the culture and information of the source text. I argue that a mixture of these two translation methods is needed to best convey information and pay respect to both cultures and languages. My analyses of the scenes in Your Name support this argument, as I highlight areas where this balance is not achieved and how that affects an English-speaking audience's perception of the film. Additionally, this thesis touches on the relationship between language and culture, as I discuss how the culturally specific plot is conveyed to a non-Japanese audience.