Ask John: Why Was the English Translation of Bastard! Censored?

Question:
I have been a fan of Bastard! since seeing a fansub of it a few years ago, and was thrilled that it finally came out domestically on DVD. On my fansub copy, the fansubbers realized that there is a running gag where names of people and places are derivatives of American heavy metal bands (the Kingdom of Metallicana, the evil god Anthraxax). Watching the subtitles on the DVD, it looks like the translators went out of their way to remove all traces of these names from the series, and thus destroy a bit of the humor that made the show so much fun. To make this more confusing, we Americans would be even more likely to pick up on this than Japanese viewers, so why go to all the trouble of removing the puns?

Answer:
The only explanation for this I can give is the unfortunate downside to licensed subtitled translations. While fansubs can present a very accurate literal translation of the Japanese dialogue because a fansub doesn’t have to worry about viewer demographics or marketability, a licensed domestic subtitled translation has to balance concerns of translation accuracy with sales potential. Virtually as a matter of policy, domestic subtitled translations remove or loosely translate Japanese “honorifics” like “-san” and “-chan,” arguably mis-translate terms like “sensei” and “ganbatte!” rather than try to explain their proper Japanese usage and meaning, and invert spoken Japanese names in subtitled translations from the proper Japanese family name first to the “improper” Western given name first. All of this is done to make subtitled translations more accessible to and easier to understand for English speaking viewers that aren’t familiar with Japanese language and culture. It could be argued that footnotes, liner notes or other textual translation notes or explanations could eliminate the need for these “loose, mainstream” translations, but the addition of such copious amounts of additional text or the merest suggestion of “educational” material being included with entertainment has the potential of distracting or confusing potential customers and hurting sales. Therefore, mainstream subtitled translations naturally compromise a certain degree of the Japanese cultural references inherent in anime in order to not hurt sales. I can only guess that, along the same lines, rather than add the additional text necessary to explain all of the puns in Bastard!, the mainstream translation simply attempted to ignore or obscure them. It could be argued that there was a legal basis for this alteration, but not being totally familiar with copyright law, I can only surmise that simply making pun reference to names like Metallica (Metallicana), Anthrax (Anthraxax), Twisted Sister (Dark Schneider/Dee Schneider) and Bon Jovi (Bon Jovina), among others, could be no more “illegal” than Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back making a parody reference to Star Wars. In other words, the idea that the mainstream translation was obscured to avoid copyright infringement seems unnecessary and unlikely, but never the less, is still a possibility. Furthermore it may be possible that the original Japanese licensor mandated certain requirements for the English language translation, but this likewise would seem to be an illogical and remote possibility. The most likely explanation is that the mainstream translation simply tried to be “mainstream” by obscuring the puns rather than explaining them.