I think LH has been getting lax in their translations lately. Instead of capturing the meaning and feeling of what's being said, they've opted for a transliteration approach. They take the words said in Japanese and put them straight into literal English equivalents. That would be why it feels mechanical, and people think it's MTL. It could be, but the machines don't put the words in the bubbles. This approach sucks the life out of a story, and makes it feel like incomprehensible word salad. Literal meaning is still there, but all of the heart is gone.