There is a pun in Japanese that doesn’t exist in English, and it’s related to the word “chinchin”.
This word has two meanings. The first is related to the action of a dog begging (“his chinchin is very cute”). The second is a rather childish word for a male reproductive part (probably an abbreviation of “chinpo”).
This is a pun that doesn’t translate well.
It’s because there aren’t very good word choices that fit both meanings.
There are two anime which use this pun that I know of. The first is “Love is War”, S1E7, where one of the characters is reduced to peals of laughter by this word when another is talking about her dog begging. The other is “In the Land of Leadale”, where the MC makes a white dragon beg.
And in all cases it was not translated very well.
In the case of “Love is War”, I saw two different translations. The one on Crunchyroll translated the word as “wiener”, which kind of got the point across, but ended up being somewhat awkward and “You should see my dog’s wiener” kind of made sense out of context but that’s not a good word for a begging dog. Another fan translation rendered it as “erect”, which actually made a bit more sense – dogs do stand erect when they beg, and it is also a descriptive word for a turgid male member. But it still wasn’t optimal. And in “Leadale”, they didn’t even bother trying to explain it. They just translated directly and let the chips fall where they may.
But, to me, this really does highlight the difficulty of correct translation. Often it’s not even the fault of the translator – they are dealt a really shitty hand like this and they just have to find a way to make it work. But no matter whose fault it is, if it’s anyone’s fault at all, it’s still impossible to get it quite right.
That’s why I think, if you want to appreciate anime and Japanese media, you really just have to know Japanese.
So… in the sub/dub debate.. I think it’s the wrong question. I choose none. If I can get away with it.
As I learn more Japanese I found more and more often I’m hearing things in the Japanese that just don’t fit the subtitle I’m seeing. It’s actually a little disconcerting and I wish I could just get rid of the subs entirely. But my Japanese isn’t good enough yet.