Hey guys,
I was randomly thinking my thoughts and remembered this little joke from spongebob. I connected translated the words I know in my head for fun, and those random knowledge checks. But I got to the punchline and…how does that translate to? Is that possible to make the same joke in Japanese?
In case the link doesnt work or something its like this:
Patrick is leading navigation with SpongeBob and Mr.Krabs to where treasure is supposed to be, but isnt there afterall.
Mr. Krabs: “Where’s the x? Its supposed to be right here, 10,000 paces to east!”
Patrick: “ohhh East? I thought you said weast.”
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Pun translation is very hard 
This is one case when localization (aka the thing that turns rice balls into doughnuts) might be justified.
I’m not sure it’s possible to make the exact same pun in Japanese, but it certainly is possible to make some other pun there and use it instead.
Like for example:
あっ、東ですか？ 僕は干菓子だと思いましたけど・・・
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You might consider purchasing the Japanese dub.
I attempted to find a Japanese subtitle file for the episode on the internet somewhere, but after pretty much exhausting my patience for it, I only managed to find a file for episode one. And season three, for some reason.
(If anyone’s got better search fu, it’s S01 E17 “Arrgh! / Rock Bottom”)
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It seems they altered the entire interaction to get rid of the pun.
The answer for a lot of “how does XYZ wordplay work in foreign language” is “it doesn’t”
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This makes me think of the Pokemon
When the original Japanese was actually just
こんなときは、フライパンの傘がわりに．．．ならないな？
Any translation takes liberties to either make it funnier for the local audience or something recognizable.
I also think about how back in the day Adult Swim did the Bobobo-bo-bobobo English dub because when I tried watching an episode with Japanese audio and English subtitles it did not make any sense at all with what I was hearing. They worked hard to make many jokes work but not many things in a pun heavy satirical show would come out the other end unedited
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Japanese dub of Boondocks is peak
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Azumanga Daioh has some pretty interesting localization. There are multiple different translations of the manga, and of course, a dub of the anime.
One of the characters speaks with an Osaka dialect, which was changed to a New York accent in the first English publication. My personal favorite bit of localization the classic なんでやねん being translated as “Ah, fuhgeddaboudit!”. The anime translates it more literally as “Why in the heck?”, and later publications of the manga translate it as “Whut yew mean?”
I’ve probably watched the anime like 10 times in both English and Japanese, and I always love thinking about the way they translate these things. It’s also fun to see how other shows do things differently, and how translation and localization practices have changed over the decades.
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