Yup, all the US Disney DVD editions had 2 English subtitle options. I emailed DVDBeaver about the issue and Gary Tooze is looking into it.

The only other comment I've found about the new Disney Blu-ray also fails to mention two English sub files but I can clearly see two English options on the menu in the Beaver caps so there's a big disconnect here.

Castle in the Sky isn't a big priority for me right now (not a top favorite and I do have the 2003 DVD) but I do want the Whisper of the Heart Blu-ray and am eager to know if Disney's going to keep up these mistakes with their BD line.

The 2003 Castle in the Sky has "proper" literal translation subtitles; the 2010 re-release has "dubtitles." I believe the 2010 Disney release is based in the R2 DVD UK version, which was also dubtitled. It doesn't matter which subtitle track you use--the literal translation subtitle track doesn't exist in the 2010 DVD. The only difference is that the close captioned one has the description of sound effects as you would expect from it.

I own the 2003 Castle in the Sky and I can confirm it has a proper literal subtitle track. But the subtitles have timing issues in this version.

Either way, there has never been a "perfect" edition of Castle in the Sky released in North America to date. The Blu-ray appears to continue this trend.

This is so strange. I've seen a few of the 35mm prints for the new touring retrospective of Miyazaki's films, and each one come with a full subtitle translation with the original Japanese title cards and a separate print of the dubbed version with the American titles. It just seems so strange to me than when Disney is happy enough to cough up the money for these, that they go ahead and forget about the effort spent when it comes to their home releases.

I'm very excited about the upcoming Japanese Blu-Ray of My Neighbor Totoro which is suppose to come with English subtitles, but I'm expecting it to be, like all Japanese Blu-Rays, in the realm of $80 dollars.

Is this the only US Disney release with only dubtitles?

I am not sure about Kiki. I do not own any of the US DVD editions of that one. I still have the VHS, waiting on BD version.

But I own or have rented all the other ones, and none of the others seem to have dubtitles.

jojo -- good to hear.

Kiki with dubtitles would be a disaster!

I had the 2003 US DVDs and "Castle", "Kiki", "Spirited" all had 2 options: English literal translations, and English SDH dubtitles. Also they all had English or Japanese credit sequences.
(The Japanese Kiki DVD had dubtitles only, as I recall.)

The UK Optimum "Castle In The Sky" DVD had both English literal and English dubtitles, although the Blu-ray only has English literal subtitles.

DVDBeaver says that the US Disney Blu-ray has 2 English subtitle tracks, but they are both identical, except the SDH track has [sound effects] captioned. Also there is only English credits....

Ah...well, if Whisper of the Heart doesn't turn out any better, looks like I'm going for the Optimum Blu-rays from here on out.

Thanks all for setting the facts straight about the 2010 DVD and the BD of Laputa!

The Japanese KIki DVD has lightly modified dubtitles -- to the pre-Disney dub (and apparently the Disney dubbers operated under the assumption that these dubtitles were a more or less literal translation -- and they worked off these as a baseline, making lots of changes (all of which took the script even further from the original Japanese script).

;~{

It isn't Disney (and after this conversation I am glad I still have the 2003 US DVD of Castle In The Sky!) but I can add that the Alliance Atlantis/Miramax Canadian Region 1 DVD of Princess Mononoke from 2000 also has the option of both subtitles and dubtitles.

Perhaps we should clarify something here. Just because a DVD offers two english subtitle tracks does not necessarily mean it will have a true "literal" subtitle translation track. All it means is that one of them won't have captions for sound effects.



In the first UK DVD release of Castle in the Sky (by Buena Vista HE), it was definitely dubtitled. It seems as if Optimum fixed this. Like I said above, I would assume that the situation was similar to what you described in the upcoming US Castle in the Sky blu-ray, in which the "literal" subtitle track was in fact based on the dub script, and the only difference between the two offered subtitle tracks was that one of them had captions for sound effects.

In short, it's people being lazy, and yes, this shit actually happens more often than you'd like.

The only way to check these things for sure is to run the film with the dub and literal subtitle track on. If both of them are identical word-for-word, then your "literal" subtitle track is still a dubtitle, just minus sound effects captions.

I'm pretty sure most or all of the Disney Ghibli releases have had both subtitles and dubtitles.

FWIW, I distinctly remember avoiding these recent releases of Kiki and Totoro because of reports that they only included dubtitles. Though those "reports" may have only been suspicions, I can't recall.

Mononoke's two subtitle tracks are quite different as well - that was my first introduction to this subject, as I popped the subtitle track over the dubbed version, got the wrong one and wondered for a while why there was subtitles when there was no dialogue or alternatively lots of speech with no subtitles! (the early marketplace scene in Mononoke is a good place to see this effect in action).

Whether the subtitles for the Japanese version are truly 'literal' or not, I'm not in a position to say!

Here is a scrupulously accurate translated version of the Japanese script:

http://www.mv.com/users/ctwilkes/MH-tex ... e%20script

So -- now you can compare away to your heart's delight. ;~}

The Disney re-release of Castle in the Sky definitely only includes dubtitles. I owned the 2003 edition, but my DVD just stopped playing one day (no idea why, but it wouldn't work on any of my players). When the reissue came out, I bought it, but I noticed right away that there was "phantom" dialogue. I checked, and neither subtitle track on the reissue is the original subtitle track; they are definitely transcribed from the dub. I ended up buying another copy of the 2003 edition from Amazon while they were still in stock and before prices went up.

They were only suspicions based on the Castle reissue - I can state that Totoro 2010 definitely has both the legit subtitles and the dubtitles. Others say Kiki 2010 is also fine.

The test for Kiki subs -- Is "mainichi, mainichi " (day after day or EVERY day) translated as "fat, fat, fat"?

At which point does "Fat Fat Fat" happen in Kiki? I don't remember anything like that....

Arrietty Blu-ray (Disney) review at bluraydefinition

Kiki is at the bakery counter, it's a slow moment, she's talking to hHerself (and her cat). As I recall, she's resting her elbows on the counter, with her head in her hands when she says this.

I've just heard that US The Cat Returns DVD was also dubtitled. I'll check my copy tonight to see; that's a movie I tend to always watch with friends and family members in dubbed form. (I'm not much of a purist when it comes to this film.)

This is where you'll get endless debates about what is "good" translation or not.

The bottom line is that there should always be a subtitle track available that is not identical to the dub script.

Ah, OK. She was talking about eating pancakes forever, and although she doesn't say the word 'fat' in Japanese, she certainly implies it. Not a problem there. At least the DVD includes both literal subtitles and captions as well.

Not how we understood it -- we just saw it as indicating it was monotonous (which went along with her general air of boredom).