Review Ended.
Recent Updates:
[Crunchyroll][Commie] – Inu x Boku SS
[sage] - Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou
[6 groups] – Black Rock Shooter
[gg][FFFpeeps] – Aquarion EVOL
[Commie][Underwater] – Rinne no Lagrange
Review info, help
Winter 2011 |
Difficulty 7 (/w puns 8), Review ended.
I thought this ONA was going to be a pilot/intro episode for a Winter series, but the quality of animation seems too high for a TV series… Someone already made the banner for me, so I’ll review these, but I will not be reviewing movie or OVA etc when it comes out. This is rather straightforward, but there are some slang/dialect lines in addition to a really messed up sequence with wordplay on “Kyoto” and “Koto”, which made this series harder to translate than most (tbh, this is probably not fully translatable without TL notes).
Commie = C- (D+), LS-6, Editing
Major errors: 12
Minor errors: Few
I really like the translation style here. It reads really smoothly and generally accurate, but I count 12 misheard/mistranslations. Most of these were not important enough to deter understanding of the story, but there were too many lines off despite the high quality in remaining lines.
EveTaku = B- (C+), LS-5, Editing
Major errors: 5
Minor errors: Few
Slightly more accurate than Commie and pretty smooth. I did like some of Commie’s terminology and phrasing better in terms of nuance, but this release is a easier to follow the story with.
Difficulty = 7 (No CC, No official subs), Technicals
Commie = B-, LS-6, Editing
Major errors: 5
Minor errors: Moderate
I really like the “Swan Song of the Valkyries: Symphogear” title translation. It sounds nice and swan is appropriate in context for female birds. In addition “swan song” can be versatile as seen later in the episode.
The accuracy is decent for a show with this difficulty. It reads very smoothly and meanings fully interpreted, but there were some over-/mis-interpretations. Overall, it’s quite watchable.
GetWet = B, LS-4, Editing (Dropped? I’ve heard about it from the staff too. Don’t know if they’re trolling. Looks like it was un-dropped)
Major errors: 3
Minor errors: Few
Excellent accuracy, but some lines were translated too literally to get the meaning across. I mean “I couldn’t even see her shadow” for “I couldn’t even get a glimpse of her” is just not acceptable. Others lines of that kind weren’t as severe though.
There were some text length issue as well, but overall more accurate than Commie release.
Can’t go too wrong with either releases so far. Pick according to LS-level tastes.
gg (Ep2)= B-, LS-7 (Dropped)
Major errors = 3
Minor errors = Moderate
I am very impressed with this release. It’s not easy to hit this grade on this kind of show with such high LS-level in speedsubs. Some lines were a bit too far from the intended meaning, but this is probably as good as you’re going to get within 6 hours of release.
Ayako (Ep2)= B+, LS-5, Editing
Major errors = 0
Minor errors = Moderate
Very uneven LS-level. There were some lines that were too literal while others were over-localized. They sure take their sweet time releasing it, but at least it has fewest errors of all groups so far. This is a very unexpected result just like Hadena’s Brave10. I’ll watch a few more episodes and see what happens.
Crunchyroll (HorribleSubs) = B+ (B-), LS-6, Technical, Editing
Major errors: 2
Minor errors: Moderate
I knew a certain former fansubber was going to be working on this, but I’m impressed. The quality of translation is extremely high. Ep1, at least, is easily better than any group that worked on Bakemonogatari.
General level of retention of meanings, smoothness of language, and text length are all in the “A” range.
There is still room for improvement, but in terms of overall quality (accuracy, smoothness, and nuance), it’s excellent. If they can keep this up, TLCed batch will not be necessary.
Commie (CR mod) = B+ (B-), LS-6, Technical, Editing
Major errors: 1
Minor errors: Moderate
I told them about the location of the major mistake I initially detected, and it was fixed appropriately. The subs are pretty much same as CR elsewhere. I did notice a few words edited for better nuance and they work very well. I think conservative editing for this series is a good idea.
I’m not very impressed about “Impostory” as mentioned few times before in this blog, and although I’m a supporter of no honorifics, I don’t know how they would handle both of them later without breaking consistency. On the hand, I really like their karaoke where the word “again” was rotating for “round and round” part. The font is a lot easier to read than HS and typesetting is obviously a lot better.
CMS (CR mod) (Ep3) = B+ (B-), LS-6, Editing
This is just CR script lightly edited as far as I can tell. None of the mistakes in CR script was fixed. Typesetting is not as good to me compared to Commie, and OP translation was all wrong.
Not really worth the wait.
Hadena = B+, LS-5, Technical, Editing
Major errors: 1
Minor errors: Moderate
This is hard to believe, but the translation here is actually good. I don’t know if they leaked CR subs or got a new translator Ep1 translation is credited as “anon” after ED. Accuracy is good and I didn’t see any blatant typos or grammar errors. There were some stiff lines left, but it’s in a comfortable LS-level as well. Timing, typesetting, and encode were all still shit, but good translation is good no matter what group it is. B+ grade here. I don’t know if this guy is permanent, so watch this release with caution.
Edit: Missed a major error earlier.
Doki = D-, LS-3, Technical, Editing
Major errors: 12
Minor errors: Many
Hadena failed me by having an uninteresting script, but trusty Doki never fails to give me a good laugh with their original “translations”! You can read the mistakes in their technical notes, these guys are just not very intelligent. Many mistakes, dumb TL notes, awkward phrasing, and excessive text length.
The funniest part was 11:21 where they rephrased Hadena subs, because that was a weird mistake that can’t possibly be repeated (he had a good upbringing)
Crunchyroll (HorribleSubs)= A-, LS-5, Technical
Major errors: 2
Minor errors: None
Extremely easy to read and nuance is perfect. There were couple of sloppy errors and few lines translated too literally, but this is an excellent release. Font and timing were pretty good as well. This release is definitely worth waiting for.
Difficulty = 6, Review ended, Technicals
Crunchyroll = B+, LS-4
Major errors: 2
Minor errors: Few
It’s a bit too stiff and has many awkward phrases, but this release is watchable.
Underwater (CR Mod) = B+, LS-4, Editing
Major errors: 2
Minor errors: Few
The script was a lot easier to read and still remains accurate. A lot more watchable than CR.
Difficulty = 6, Review ended, Technical
Viz/Hulu = B+, LS-4
Major errors: 1
Minor errors: Few
A bit awkward and some lines had serious text length per duration issues. There were a few literal errors that didn’t fully retain the meaning, but pretty watchable.
Commie (Hulu Mod)= A-, LS-5, Editing
Major errors: 1
Minor errors: Few
Their editing staff did pretty well and changed retarded mistakes like “Oparts” to “Ooparts” and fixed few minor errors in the original script. They did miss a major logic error and a few ambiguous lines remained. This is a lot smoother than Viz subs though.
Underwater (Hulu Mod)= A, LS-5, Editing
Major errors: 0
Minor errors: Few
This is a rigged review, but then again, I should not be doing fansub reviews if I can’t even TLC a “B+” translation to “A”. Our changes were very light and basically just fixed/smoothed poorly translated lines.
I would suggest our Underwater release for archiving, but you would have no problem using Commie release for immediate viewing.
Difficulty = 6, Technicals
CoalGuys = B-, LS-6, Editing
Major mistakes = 2
Minor mistakes = Moderate
I translated this release at a speed a bit faster than I’m used to, but I want the practice. There will may be some Woolseyed editing as well, so don’t even bother watching our release if you’re one of those weeaboos who prefer dictionary translation. I can guarantee its accuracy in the B-range throughout the series and overall best nuance for remaining lines though.
Commie = B-, LS-7, Editing
Major mistakes = 1
Minor mistakes = Many
Reads very smoothly and rather accurate. This is a very localized release as well, but creative editing is done to better explain the story in detail.
ESC-ShinBunBu = D+ to D, LS-2, Editing
Major mistakes = ~6+
Minor mistakes = Many
This is far too literal and has high amount of mistakes. This release isn’t outright horrible F-grade, but there’s no reason to choose this release in such an over-subbed series.
Hayaku = B, LS-5
Major mistakes = 1
Minor mistakes = Moderate
Pretty solid release. There are some hard-to-hear dialogue in this series, and they inevitably have to resort to ambiguous translations like everyone else, but otherwise excellent quality and proper research was done (like technical terms “high ISO films” for “high sensitivity films”). It does suffer from excessive text length to explain things in detail though.
Crunchyroll = B+, LS-4
Major mistakes = 0
Minor mistakes = Moderate
This is the official translation so they have access to the script and are less prone to mishearing. Their nuance is poorest of three B-ranged groups and suffers through mild text length issues, but probably the most reliable.
UTW = A-, LS-5, Technical
Major errors: 1
Minor errors: Few
It reads pretty smooth and accuracy is good. This is an easy series and it was nearly perfect other than a sloppy mistake. Pretty much what you would expect from UTW releases.
Chihiro = B+, LS-4, Technical
Major errors = 1
Minor errors: Few
There’s almost no denying that they used UTW script to at least TLC. The translation is extremely uneven (high LS-spread, varying phrasing skills), similar sentence structures, and the identical mishearing at 09:14 (UTW 10:43) is not something that occurs by chance for two upper-tier translators.
One can justify some creative “research” to spot TLC if they’re in a slowsub group, but what’s depressing is that they spent 4 more days to come up with an inferior script?????
There were couple of Engrish lines that stood out, fixed one ambiguity but added two more mistakes, and horrible typesetting… This is not worth waiting for.
Difficulty = 7, Technicals, Only half of full episode (part 1) were evaluated. Grading is a lot harsher compared to number of mistakes.
Nutbladder = B, LS-8
Major errors = 2
Minor errors = Moderate
Very liberal translation that even I was a bit uncomfortable at places, but most of those lines manage to stay in the “arguable” level, so this is very well done for ultra-high LS style.
WhyNot = B+, LS-5, Editing
Major errors = 0
Minor errors = Moderate
Zero major errors is excellent. Despite it being in comfortable LS-level, this is the most literal translation for this series. Some lines felt excessively long, but wording/phrasing is excellent.
gg = B+, LS-7, Editing
Major errors = 1
Minor errors = Few
I didn’t use CC because it’s less fun, but it looks like the competition is stiff and this series is harder to translate than I thought. I’ll have to start using it. “Marx” for a Roman character was a pretty retarded mistake. Looks like I have to step up my game.
Can’t go too wrong with any of these groups.
Difficulty = 7, Technicals
Crunchyroll = C-, LS-4
Major errors: 6
Minor Errors: Many
Phrasing and nuance for easy lines are professional quality, but makes a lot of misinterpretations. There were some text length issue as well, but characters speak very quickly so it may be difficult to shorten. This show appears to be too difficult for whoever translating it.
Commie = C, LS-4, Editing
Major Errors: 4
Minor Errors: Many
Good editing that removed or alleviated some translation errors, but it’s clearly not TLCed and it’s vulnerable to CR translation quality at the moment. Awkward sentences were rephrased and timing was improved, so it’s a lot more readable than CR.
Evetaku (Ep2) = A-, LS-7, Editing
Major Errors: 0
Minor errors: Few
Relatively high LS-level. It reads smoothly, and character nuance is excellent. There were a few minor over-interpretations IMO, but overall, it’s the best release here by far.
Difficulty = 7 (/w Technobabble, Audio Quality 10), Technicals
gg (double episode) = B (B-), LS-5, Editing
Major errors: 5
Minor errors: Moderate
This is a very difficult series to translate due to poor voice acting and audio, but the translation is still very accurate. Very good nuance minus few questionable interpretations. All the important lines are translated accurately, so there’s no problem understanding the story.
FFFpeeps (double episode) = F (F), LS-F, Editing
Major errors: ~30+
Minor errors: Many
I stopped after 10-minute mark because it was an obvious waste of time. Translation for this release is F-grade even without trolling, and I can’t give a LS-score because I have no idea what their staff was doing. The translator doesn’t even seem to know when sentences end, and so many important lines (initial explanations of the series setting) were translated wrong. Unwatchable, FFF-grade.
Difficulty =6, Technicals.
WhyNot = B, LS-5, Editing
Major errors: 1
Minor errors: Moderate
Decent accuracy for a speedsub. The script has a nice flow and it’s pretty easy to read.
Commie = C, LS-5, Editing
Major errors: 1
Minor errors: Many
There’s a lot of minor mistakes, and LS-level is very uneven. It’s still watchable, but not when it’s so oversubbed and not the first to release.
AsukaSubs-SubDESU = F, LS-3?, Editing
Major errors: 9~
Minor errors: Many
Whole bunch of mistakes just in the first 8 minutes. These guys have absolutely no idea what they’re doing and makes just about every kind of translation mistakes imaginable. Unwatchable other than for laughs.
Nishishi-subs = B+, LS-4, Editing
Major errors: 1
Minor errors: Few
This is an excellent release. I would say it’s very close to “A-” in my current grading scale, but there were a few borderline literal errors like 12:40 “Why’d she make that face?” (extremely poor nuance and almost logic error), and the minor mistake on what I would consider to be an important line brings it down to “B+”.
niconico = B+, LS-6
Major errors: 1
Minor errors: Few
I feel some lines went far enough to change the intended meanings on multiple occasions. On the other hand, some lines that needed extra interpretations were translated directly and didn’t mean what they were supposed to mean. Accuracy is still very good though.
CCS (niconico mod) = C-, LS-6
Major errors: 4
Minor errors: Moderate
How hard is it to get their monkeys to type out niconico subs or just OCR the hardsubs then check? Typos and missing lines for no reason when they’re the slowest group. The font is also ugly as hell too. Avoid and just rip niconico streams using monodl etc.
Difficulty = 6, Technicals
sage = B, LS-5, Editing
Major errors: 2
Only 4 major, eh? Better than I feared. Thanks for the review.
My curiosity (and perfectionism) refuse to bend. May I ask which 4?
Posted by lygerzero0zero | December 9, 2011, 1:18 am@lygerzero0zero
I actually found one more shared mistake while going through Commie’s release again ^^;
It seemed a lot harder to translate than I’d first imagined.
These are the main ones.
5:28 -> No biggie.
> Response to previous line.
7:57 -> If you want the right to babysit them,{If you want the right to serve them sweets}
> Seriously doubt there’s a valuable plate. I would imagine it’s “bringer of the plate”.
9:21 -> Someone puts on your adult clothes{undies} on instead.
> Context error.
11:11 -> You’re so selfish.
> Context error.
18:57 -> Serves you right, Princess
> Not talking about her appearance.
Doubtfuls: (not sure how you interpreted these, or original ones were ambiguous enough)
6:33 -> We’re just trying to make discoveries.
> or “hunting”. They’re searching for the rabbit.
8:31 -> Shouldn’t translate?
12:37 -> Palace? Temple? City hall?
> 会所
24:51 -> Receive => Bring you back
> Been waiting for escorts = someone to break her seal or call her to come back?
Posted by 8thSin | December 9, 2011, 2:43 amNo bugs yet! I love the short and simple url. Now that you have private hosting, you need a favicon!
Until someone writes you the php code, you could at least manually change the href’s to link to the post.
Posted by Trisha | December 9, 2011, 2:44 amI will try to make a favicon when I have time. Thanks for the suggestion
Posted by 8thSin | December 9, 2011, 10:09 pmCongrats with derailing the fate of your blog to a new place! DESTINY! ^_^
Posted by elle | December 9, 2011, 6:49 am@8th
I’m surprised not to see the line I was certain I had wrong (10:31). 7:57 had me scratching my head, but your interpretation definitely makes sense (especially since they were munching away in the previous scene). 9:21 I debated a bit. I wasn’t sure who the subject was, but I thought he might be referring to himself, since the profile on the official site says he doesn’t like doing things for himself (thus someone else would have to dress him).
The rest were a bit silly of me. Thanks for pointing them out.
Posted by lygerzero0zero | December 9, 2011, 3:39 pm10:31 – I gave the benefit of doubt for both group there. TBH, so I had no idea what the hell they were talking about because there’s not enough context.
I’m assuming they’re describing the battles as game (like they did later against the robot) so I would’ve probably translated as “Mifune-chan, the capital doctor{?} has been defeated.” or leave it ambiguous with “Mifune-chan stage was cleared.”
It’s impossible to translate without context though, so it would’ve been nothing more than a guess.
As for 9:21, it was a sarcastic comeback judging from his tone (it’s also phrased as a rhetorical question). I think he means “you’ve grown out of diapers, but you still can’t do anything by yourself”, which leads to “you boys are both equally childish” line.
Posted by 8thSin | December 9, 2011, 10:04 pmconsider changing the color of the links in the “Winter 2011″ box. They’re kind of hard to read imo.
Posted by alex | December 9, 2011, 8:18 pmThanks for the suggestion, changed.
Posted by 8thSin | December 9, 2011, 10:06 pmI liked the old theme a lot more as well. If it’s buggy though, I guess there’s nothing to be done but get used to it.
Posted by Kaidaten | December 9, 2011, 8:32 pmHow many of our 12 were the mistimed lines around the Crazy Capital etc etc part?
Posted by Vale | December 12, 2011, 12:42 am2 (first one as just “Capital” was fine IMO because it was the start of the sequence)
They should’ve matched TS.
Posted by 8thSin | December 12, 2011, 3:39 pmI notice that you don’t have all the shows in the upcoming season listed. Does that mean you plan to review translations for a select number of shows this winter?
Posted by Exkalamity | January 2, 2012, 9:22 pmI will only review for shows I can tolerate watching multiple episodes. Some of these listed won’t make it after the first review. Some series may actually be added.
Posted by 8thSin | January 3, 2012, 11:45 amPerhaps it’s not my place to comment, but even a cursory review of the first 5 minutes of translation can be quite helpful. I found your fall subtitle review to be most helpful because of how it covered almost every single series being aired to some degree. I understand your feelings for not wanting to be forced to watch episodes of shows that make you want to kill yourself, but it would be very helpful if you could bear with it for 10 minutes and put out a cursory translation guideline for those of us who want a quick look at which subs to use. There is no real need to do a full translation comparison for those shows, just a quick look at whether or not the translator knows what he/she is doing is fine. Just that is very helpful for those with no mastery of Japanese and vulnerable to sloppy guesslations from translators. Finally, if that still does not appeal to you, perhaps it would be good for you to find someone else fluent in Japanese who can help you review the translations for shows you don’t like.
Posted by Exkalamity | January 3, 2012, 12:50 pmI typically add a short comment to each release. Whether the TL knows what he’s doing can be reflected in grade given and LS-level.
As for getting another translator to review, there aren’t many translators I know who can be trusted to do these kind of reviews, and they are usually too busy to invest time on something like this (it’s like picking another series, and you’ll be turning all other fan translators against you). It might happen one day though.
Posted by 8thSin | January 3, 2012, 5:19 pmI don’t suppose there’s a way you could make it so that if I link something like
http://8ths.in/winter-2011-anime-subtitle-comparison/#kyousougiga
it’d scroll right down to the Kyousogiga results?
Posted by Dark_Sage | January 3, 2012, 11:08 amIt does already. You forgot to capitalize “K”.
Make sure you copy link address from table of contents because some of the titles are shortened too.
http://8ths.in/winter-2011-anime-subtitle-comparison/#Kyousougiga
Posted by 8thSin | January 3, 2012, 11:47 amSugoi. Thanks.
Posted by Dark_Sage | January 3, 2012, 5:36 pmI was wondering if you could please tell us who is the better sub group for Senki Zesshou Symphogear. Either Commie or GetWet (GotWoot, FFFPeeps and Underwater joint)
Posted by Arran | January 6, 2012, 11:28 pmCame here to comment about the same thing.
Posted by a | January 7, 2012, 12:23 amI watched it yesterday and the show looks pretty good. I’ll review them when I have time.
Posted by 8thSin | January 7, 2012, 10:38 amWow, sounds like the CR subs for Nisemonogatari are well done. What about sign translations? Oh well, will have to check it out.
A quick High School DxD would also be nice. I took a look at the release by Hadena and by SubDESU-Katana-subs and there were quite a lot differences.
Posted by boingman | January 7, 2012, 3:22 pmAll the important stuff (things that not repeated by characters or opening LN flash) were translated, but typesetting was sometimes same as dialogue (on HS at least), which was very poor.
I don’t have the time to watch DxD right now and the series doesn’t interest me at all. If history is any indicator, they both won’t be very good but SubDESU-Katana should be more accurate.
Posted by 8thSin | January 7, 2012, 3:28 pmGuess I’ll go with SubDESU-Katana then, thanks.
Posted by boingman | January 7, 2012, 3:30 pmI suggest Hiryuu. They may be a bit slower but their TL/Edit should be significantly better
Posted by Jukey | January 7, 2012, 4:59 pmThanks, I’ll keep that in mind.
Posted by boingman | January 7, 2012, 8:07 pmI’m impressed by the CR subs in Nisemonogatari, they did a really good job.
The only thing I hate is the typeset, is very ugly and they don’t translate the signs.
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2012, 3:31 pmKill Me Baby?
Posted by yeller | January 7, 2012, 6:06 pmI wasn’t involved with Ep1 because of RL stuff, but I will probably TLC UTW-Mazui release from now on.
There are so many groups for this series listed in fansubdb for some reason, and I don’t like this show enough for repeated viewing so I won’t even bother. Sorry.
Posted by 8thSin | January 7, 2012, 6:54 pmJust chiming in with a suggestion. Could you use pastebin instead of privatepaste? It’s my favorite paste site, and I’m all for it when you’re passing around information that’s actually private, but it has expiration dates on the pastes. I come to your blog to learn from the TL notes more than anything, and I’d like to be able to look them up in the future. I’m sure there are others who feel the same.
Posted by DJNotNice | January 7, 2012, 7:09 pmYeah, I was going to create an account but I was just too lazy to register now.
Everything will be updated later when I have time.
Posted by 8thSin | January 7, 2012, 7:27 pmIs it just me that feel GetWet translated it wrong around 00:18:40.39?
Posted by Random 01 | January 7, 2012, 11:17 pmThanks, I totally missed that.
Posted by 8thSin | January 7, 2012, 11:24 pmI wonder if you’re not up to checking Pirates
Posted by Uriziel | January 8, 2012, 8:46 amCan you compare CR’s and Oyatsu’s Area no Kishi? At least it’s done by different translators, so reviewing shouldn’t be boring.
Posted by Progeusz | January 8, 2012, 5:36 pmAs I lack any graphic skills apart from cutting and resizing, I searched with google and found banner on http://www.animenation.net/blog/
and slightly changed it – http://i.imgur.com/EiNaM.png
I’m not sure if you’ll accept this but at least it’s something.
Posted by Progeusz | January 8, 2012, 6:00 pmso Hadena’s Brave 10 isn’t so bad as their Horizon ?
Posted by bastek | January 8, 2012, 9:17 pmIt must have been done by an entirely different translator, possibly a new editor too.
I’m gonna watch a few more episode and see how it turns out.
Posted by 8thSin | January 8, 2012, 10:28 pmIIRC Brave 10 is on CR. Are you sure this is not CR-rip or CR-edit or something like that?
Posted by anon | January 8, 2012, 11:36 pmI went to CR and it said 2 more days. Fansubdb says 3-day delay as well…
Posted by 8thSin | January 8, 2012, 11:38 pmIs it true that your subbing Rinne no Lagrange for underwater?
Also thanks for the comparison between commie and GetWet for Senki Zesshou Symphogear.
Posted by bobv2.5 | January 8, 2012, 9:50 pmYes, although I’m only supposed to be TLC.
I only translated this week because Viz was late.
Posted by 8thSin | January 8, 2012, 11:34 pmDisappointed at the lack of Bodacious Space Pirates, considering how its the best show this season…
Posted by anon | January 9, 2012, 11:14 am>Space Pirates
>best show this season
NOPE.png
Posted by Peix | January 9, 2012, 11:24 amYou clearly haven’t seen Symphogear yet.
Posted by Progeusz | January 9, 2012, 11:32 amI have, the aliens are stupid and ruin its chances for show of the season.
Posted by anon | January 9, 2012, 12:45 pm“or got a new translator”<– No, it's still our arashi0 we love and hate. Looks like he either got a "more" proper editor, or he actually put effort into his translation to make them both accurate and understandable.
Posted by Hells_Finest | January 9, 2012, 3:17 pmThis can’t possibly be done by the same translator. The mistakes in Horizon and C3 were elementary and it’s not a matter of effort (they were clearly done by someone who didn’t speak JP).
Either they changed the translator or TLC was heavy enough to completely overwrite the original script.
Posted by 8thSin | January 9, 2012, 4:07 pmAs far as I know the language he doesn’t speak is English xD
From what I’ve heard he’s supposed to be a native japanese speaker.
Posted by OwaruSekai | January 9, 2012, 7:42 pmHe lives in Japan.
He’s native Japanese.
He put some effort in the episode.
Other than that 1 new editor working on that show didn’t change too much from what I remember.
Posted by GeNyaa | January 9, 2012, 8:40 pmWho the heck is the new editor?!
Guys, you all have very wrong idea about Arashi. His strong point is actually in Japanese speaking. His weakest point is in kanji reading and English writing.
Posted by Someone | January 10, 2012, 4:59 amHe’s a brazilian living in Japan, not a native Japanese.
Posted by Anonymous | January 11, 2012, 8:54 amMaybe he was trolling everybody. Nobody thought about that?
Posted by tergx | January 10, 2012, 1:47 amThe credit says the translator is anon and arashi0 is the TLC. That might explain the improved quality
Posted by that guy | January 10, 2012, 9:49 pm8thSin, are you not gonna be reviewing anybody for Zero no Tsukaima F?
Posted by Ichigo69 | January 9, 2012, 8:54 pmarashi0 is not native Japanese. He is winding you up.
Deal with it.
Posted by fnord | January 10, 2012, 11:02 amso I read Coalguys post for Ano Natsu, and saw another troll post, saying how CR sucks.
and so, I came here, only to find out you were translating for them. Not sure what to make of this lol.
Posted by 1Pantsu | January 10, 2012, 2:11 pmI had no hand in that post and some of the comparison were my own mistakes as well.
Like you said, it’s clearly a troll post lol
Posted by 8thSin | January 10, 2012, 2:23 pmYou are translating Ano Natsu for the entire show, and not just 1 episode?
If that so, I might as well watching CoalGuys’ release, coz I’m waiting for your review on that show.
Posted by nINJAkECIL | January 10, 2012, 4:06 pmShini-subs is doing Nisemonogatari with Crunchyroll and TLC. Might want to check them out.
Posted by jcons408 | January 10, 2012, 4:47 pmcan you post in your reviews if the group uses proper fansub tl (honorifics/name order…not tling words and phrases that shouldn’t be tled…tl notes…font appropiate to the show..easy font to read to)
a lot of real dedicated anime fans can’t stand the shitty localization r1/cr has
Posted by techguru | January 10, 2012, 5:44 pmWhat made you think Crunchyroll has shitty translation?
Their Brave 10 release is the best compared with other fansubs translation.
Posted by Melina | January 10, 2012, 8:39 pm<3 how much effort you put in this. tnx so much!
Posted by firebound12 | January 10, 2012, 9:30 pmso Hadena is getting better and Doki is just being Doki. . .
too bad for them LOL
Posted by osiris5/cm | January 11, 2012, 12:02 amApparently Hiryuu is fansubbing Brave 10. Might check it out.
Posted by Tharticus | January 11, 2012, 2:34 amYeah you should check it out. Also, Commie is fansubbing Another, please also check it out.
Posted by Zash | January 11, 2012, 8:37 pmQuestion about Brave 10:
According to the screenshots on ji-hi.net Hadena and Doki used singular for “…that fox/tanuki will not stop…” but Hiryuu and Crunchy used plural.
And some comments on Hadena’s page say that this is a reference to Tokugawa Ieyasu because his nickname was Tanuki.
So what’s the proper translation at this point, nickname/singular or plural (those guys)?
Posted by Marko | January 11, 2012, 6:27 amIt should be singular because yes, that’s the nickname and Ieyasu was definitely the one they were talking about.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 10:08 amActually, Ieyasu’s nick was “狸親父” which should be competently TL’ed as “sly old man”.
In Hiryuu’s, the “tanuki will not stop” part meant that Tokugawa’s underlings will not stop coming after them, so plural would be correct.
But another problem with Hadena/Doki’s is that tanuki=fox NOT.
Posted by kyonyUU | January 11, 2012, 9:38 pmThe fact that “tanuki” is Ieyasu’s nickname and not of a clan, and other guys are just his underlings (has no say in making decisions and act under his orders) suggest it to be singular, though this is somewhat arguable. “Smells like tanuki” singular would still work because Ieyasu their master.
That’s why I didn’t penalize anybody for it.
As for “tanuki” != “fox”, this is definitely true, but in terms of being “sly animal”, “fox” is the closest equavalent in Western culture without losing the “animal” reference. I would say it retains slightly more meaning despite confusion in them being different animals.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 10:34 pmAlso, how would u have a plural form of ‘tanuki’? ‘Tanukis’? NOOOOOOO~~~~~
Posted by kyonyUU | January 12, 2012, 10:06 amHi 8thsin. Chihiro’s episode was translated/tlced throughout the day on Thursday, and that line in question had been tled and tlced before UTW released.
In addition – it’s not surprising that the two scripts would have similar sentence structure. The show had CCs and the translators for both groups probably split according to these.
It’s fine if you want to give Chihiro a bad review. It’s to be expected from you. But we used our own staff for our own work, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t accuse us of cheating.
Posted by Kristen | January 11, 2012, 10:09 amI fully expect this to be the work of an editor or QC because TL/TLCer would’ve easily noticed it like me.
The facts don’t lie. This is such an elementary mistake on a line that wasn’t even that ambiguous to begin with. CC accurately lists “{\pos(420,898)\c&Hffff00&}基礎の問題集から さっさと解く\N”
I understand there can be similarities in translation styles, but 09:14 mistake is not a mistake that a slowsub B-grade translator would make. And chances of two translators messing up on that same line but nowhere else is astronomical. Your release felt unnatural far before I even watched the UTW release, but everything made sense after seeing that line in both groups.
BTW, I’m stricter on groups I’m in because I only join groups that I think are competent, and I expect more from them. I have graded both gg and UTW lower than others before, and like I said earlier in my reviews, good translations are good and it doesn’t matter where it’s coming from. All that matters is the final result.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 10:59 amReleased: Dialogue: 0,0:09:11.98,0:09:14.47,Default,Tsukasa,0000,0000,0000,,This is a sheet of basic exercises, so hurry up and solve them!
Original: Tsukasa: This is a basic exercise sheet, so hurry up and solve them!
So no, it’s not a work of an editor or QCer. It may be that the two made the same mistake. It may be that you’re the one making the mistake. I don’t know, but it certainly wasn’t cheating. If anything, it may have been that UTW was using the Chihiro scripts since we were working on piratepad (later -> piratenpad since piratepad went down), and it is well known that many things of Chihiro’s have been leaked in the past.
Posted by Kristen | January 11, 2012, 11:27 amThere’s nothing wrong with that line. What both groups put makes far more sense than “Start solving the fundamental practices{easiest ones} first!”
Posted by Soichiro | January 11, 2012, 11:45 amTranslation is not about guessing a line that makes most sense.
Even liberal translation has to mean what the original line meant or it’s wrong.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 12:08 pmYou will need to link me the pad or this isn’t getting anywhere. Also, claiming a group that released 4 days faster stole your script is quite absurd.
By the way, that line is 100% off. It doesn’t really matter because it’s so clearly wrong, but UTW translator already said it was a sloppy error too. The whole point of the line was telling the MC to start from the easiest ones, implying there are hard ones as well and he has to learn from scratch and do them all.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 12:07 pmhttp://piratenpad.de/ep/pad/view/DKFXhoQ6GT/latest
Unfortunately, the TLC of that line occurred at UTC 15:42 1/6 (Revisions 4218-4247), and UTW released at UTC 11:21 1/6, meaning that it cannot prove that the TLCer was not using UTW. However, revisions 2990 and prior were made before 11:21 UTC and had notable TLC changes.
But this was investigated, and here’s what we found. The translation we wrote is a correct translation of the CC’s. There have been 4 people who wrote it as that – including UTW. However, it was discovered, after you pointing it out, that there was a sort of inflection in it that was not quite right for the TL. Elementary mistake? Quite the contrary – 4 TLs made the same error.
Again, I ask you to stop accusing us of foul play. You are essentially using 1 line that multiple translators made the same mistake on as a basis, and it is clearly not enough.
Posted by Kristen | January 11, 2012, 1:01 pmResponse below. “@Kristen”
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 8:05 pmHi 8th,
Please consider also reviewing EveTaku, Ahodomo, and Anxious-He’s joint release of Ano Natsu.
Thanks for your reviews.
Posted by L | January 11, 2012, 11:04 amI will.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 11:10 amAh yeah and horrible subs released crunchy roll’s version of Ano Natsu de Matteru as well now.
Posted by Bob2.5 | January 11, 2012, 12:18 pmCommie for example only TLC the simulcasts and don’t translate themselves, right? Would be nice if you could also add that information (own translation or based on simulcast), unless I misssed it and you’re already providing that.
Posted by boingman | January 11, 2012, 3:09 pmOh, I completely forgot about that. I’ll change it like the last season.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 8:06 pmThanks for adding it.
Posted by boingman | January 14, 2012, 11:57 amCould you take a look at Commie’s version of Another and Hiryuu’s version of Brave 10? Cheers.
Posted by Ryukai | January 11, 2012, 6:59 pmI will review Hiryuu in one of the future episodes. I don’t plan to follow Another so I doubt I’ll review Commie, but CR translation was solid so I would expect their release to be very similar in quality.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 8:08 pmOkay man, thanks for all your hard work.
Posted by Ryukai | January 12, 2012, 6:59 amlol! holy shit @ “We need to have ten highly talented fingers on our hands.”
That’s great.
Posted by Andromeda | January 11, 2012, 7:26 pmHaha, yeah. It’s funny how they didn’t even bother to BS to something that makes sense when they didn’t understand the line.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 8:09 pm@Kristen
There’s no arguing that was an easy line even within this very episode, and what you had is an incorrect translation of the CC. 「から」means “from” and it has nothing to do with 「だから」(“so”), which would’ve changed the meaning of this entire line anyway. No matter how you reinterpret the line, it wouldn’t be what you had. If your translators still think it’s right after I pointed out, then I’m going to have to doubt their Japanese comprehension skills.
What your original translator had was “Hurry up and answer the questions from yesterday’s workbook!” This was not even close to “This is a basic exercise sheet, so hurry up and solve them!” change, which was made 3 hours after UTW release. With the pad you provided, it’s even more likely that you used UTW script to TLC because it’s changed to a completely wrong careless mistake with no resemblance to the original.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 8:23 pmRevisions 2565-2598 also made the same change. 2655-2679 show another major change in translation, and this one was made at 10:13, a full hour before the UTW release.
Original – As usual, leadership is left behind
TLCed – Junichi: {\i1}As usual, she continues to take the initiative.{\i0}
We have a different style of TL/TLC than UTW might, where many changes to actual meanings are made during TLC rather than just checking for errors. So for that line to have its meaning completely altered means nothing, as it is not alone, and it’s not unusual in our TLC process.
I’m going to have to ask you for more examples. I’ll ignore you’re whole “this was an easy line, I doubt the competence of your translators~” bit since you’re not a God and are prone to make mistakes yourself.
Posted by Kristen | January 11, 2012, 8:49 pmI see the “TLC” started making revisions before the release, but it doesn’t mean anything since that particular line was made after. As I’ve been repeating myself, that line is not even close to the actual meaning of the line, and any conceivable misinterpretations. The UTW translator says he probably made the error as a result of rushing things through and mishearing to 「だから」, which still doesn’t result to the line you originally had.
Yeah, I make mistakes myself but I can figure out why I made the mistake if someone pointed it out, as any half-decent translator would. The fact that none of your 3 translators who worked on it didn’t admit the mistake yet is enough proof that you didn’t translate on your own, since someone who can’t even understand that one single line after given the correct translation can’t possibly get through this Amagami episode without making less than 10 mistakes.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 9:30 pmNo, I already said that one of them acknowledged it. As he said, there was an inflection that made it impossible to be the interpretation created from the CC’s. However, given that 3 different translators from Chihiro AND the translator from UTW all read and translated it as that, I find it quite unlikely that this is something to point to as “Oh, they cheated!”
I’ve asked you before and I’ll ask again. Please provide more examples. If you fail to do so, then it just shows to be true what your initial comments made me believe – that these reviews are not objective and is simply made to boost your friends’ releases while downplaying any other comparable release.
Posted by Kristen | January 11, 2012, 9:54 pm
Posted by jdp | January 11, 2012, 11:29 pmWhat does bolding a subgroup’s name means?
Posted by Progeusz | January 11, 2012, 8:39 pmBolds are speedsubs (within 24 hours of broadcast). These are in spoilered link http://8ths.in/fansub-review-grading-scales/ because of too much cluster.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 9:13 pmSpeaking of which, for Hayaku (haha) the last changes to the script were made within the speedsub timeframe; a failed encode held us up. Assuming we release on schedule from now on, could we gain bold status?
Posted by lygerzero0zero | January 11, 2012, 9:39 pmI would have to re-review your subs after a few weeks when you consistently make it within 24 hours.
This is a team effort after all, and it wouldn’t be fair to other slowsub groups that might have had the script ready in time.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 10:23 pmMm, fair enough.
Posted by lygerzero0zero | January 11, 2012, 10:49 pmthanks, ctrl+f somehow failed me
Posted by Progeusz | January 11, 2012, 11:07 pm@Kristen:
“But this was investigated, and here’s what we found. The translation we wrote is a correct translation of the CC’s. There have been 4 people who wrote it as that – including UTW. However, it was discovered, after you pointing it out, that there was a sort of inflection in it that was not quite right for the TL. Elementary mistake? Quite the contrary – 4 TLs made the same error.”
These are your own words. You apparently don’t speak Japanese so you can’t see there is absolutely no instance where that translation is accurate.
The reason I stress over that line is because it’s an undeniable evidence. I can list as many similarities as I can find, but those can be discounted by “it’s the right line, so we just so happened to get the identical meaning phrased similarly”. Whereas this line isn’t because it’s a wrong translation that shouldn’t even happened in the first place.
I obviously can’t find another mistake like that, because that was the last mistake UTW made.
Posted by 8thSin | January 11, 2012, 10:19 pmYes, and I stand by that. I don’t think it’s an elementary mistake if that many people make the same error. I think it’s a nitpicky error that many people would make, and you’re reading way too far into it.
Your “evidence” falls flat due to lack of justifiable quantity and falls into the “coincidence” category. And I am quite unhappy with your assumption of “Guilty until proven innocent”. Witch hunting much?
Anyways, when you feel like actually giving a review and not make some witch-hunting accusations with shaky backing, feel free to give me a holler.
Posted by Kristen | January 11, 2012, 10:29 pmYour maniacal delusions are causing a riot in the staff channel, so I figured I’d chip in my two cents.
I find it highly offensive that you think I’d even consider referring to Chihiro subs to check my work, but I digress.
For the record, I only had 3-4 hours in total after airing before I had to leave for work. I translated the entire script, signs and OP/ED included, in approximately 90-something minutes, so the rest of my staff could start doing their thing. All of my staff present at the time can attest to this. While I did have the CCs handy on the FTP, I didn’t actually use them for this episode; fyi, they slow you down when you translate at high speeds. I couldn’t even remember the relevant line when 8thsin pointed out the error to me.
Like 8thsin said, the mistake I made was sloppy and really quite elementary. Thus, only two possibilities remain: that 1) your staff are incompetent, because you had three translators and four days and you still couldn’t fix the error, or 2) you referred to our script and figured I was right. Pick one.
Ultimately, the outcome of this debate doesn’t matter. Nobody else will care either because they’re all watching our version anyway. Enjoy wasting your time.
Posted by Raze | January 11, 2012, 11:10 pm“I find it highly offensive that you think I’d even consider referring to Chihiro subs to check my work, but I digress.”
“Your maniacal delusions are causing a riot in the staff channel,”
Raze, if you find it highly offensive that I’d think that you copied off Chihiro, then you should believe the opposite too. It’s highly offensive for anybody to accuse anybody of copying off someone. And that is what I want settled here – that Chihiro did not copy off anyone and that it was just a similar mistake that we made.
As I explained, the translation was way off. The TLC for that line took 2 minutes – 1.3 for thinking or being distracted, the rest for typing. The other 2 checks were done after 8thsin had pointed it out, and they both agreed with what we had, until our TLC recognized the inflection. Whether it is wrong or not is not the question, and I know you know this (you just wanted to get in a shot at calling our staff incompetent). The question is if it is SO wrong that the only way we could have made that error was by copying. And quite obviously, it’s not, as it’s the only example provided, and the mistake had been made by multiple people.
Posted by Kristen | January 12, 2012, 6:52 amDo you have any plans on reviewing Natsume Yuujinchou Shi?
Posted by MyName | January 12, 2012, 4:46 amExcuse me for interfering but why is encoder arguing with two translators about translation difficulty?
B+ means job really well done, losing slightly to UTW is not the end of the world.
Copying one line isn’t a crime either when most of the groups rip CR’s script or at least use it for double-check >.>
I fail to see the point of this drama but w/e.
Posted by Progeusz | January 12, 2012, 8:42 amExcept we didn’t copy anything.
Posted by Kristen | January 12, 2012, 9:04 amTo elaborate – I don’t care that 8thsin prefers UTW. If you prefer a group, fine. What I have a problem with is the accusation of script stealing.
Posted by Kristen | January 12, 2012, 9:05 aminb4 S0uten is Raze!!!!
Posted by kyonyUU | January 12, 2012, 10:07 amSeriously, how do you even know what your TLC did? Were you sitting beside him? Because he told you so?
What happened here is like an encoder coming up with an encode that had another group’s hardsubbed sign on it by accident.
“As I explained, the translation was way off. The TLC for that line took 2 minutes – 1.3 for thinking or being distracted, the rest for typing.”
Let me tell you something, spending over a minute per line for TLC is fucking ridiculous. Your “TLC” took about 10 hours to check 350 lines.
This is an easy series, and a translator who speaks Japanese should take absolutely no more than 3.5 hours to translate that amount. Less than half that amount for TLC. So how did your TLC take over 10 hours to do less than 2 hours of work?
Taking the absurd mistake and similarity of script into account, the obvious answer is: he wasted time checking it against another release. The only other possibility is that he doesn’t really speak Japanese and had to flip dictionary for every line.
What you should be doing is question yourself just wtf your translators were doing rather than blind denial without knowing anything about translation.
Posted by 8thSin | January 12, 2012, 10:17 amFirst, I was watching the TLC go on live, yes. He was discussing stuff with it, we were watching it go up, etc.
Second, I have no reason to doubt what our TLC’s say. If he says he didn’t do it and there’s such a feeble argument against it, then I have no reason to doubt him.
Third, this is similar to the first frame in Nichijou 14 after the commercial break where both U-C and CGi had an interlacing error. Unimportant in the scheme of things, but it’s possible we copied each other’s scripts. But the logical sense in it is blank, especially since we had done our own encodes prior. The hardsubbed frame would be like if a winmerge showed 4 lines changed.
Fourth, it certainly was not 10 hours straight. And multiplying 2 * 350 is also unfair, as tlcing “Hai” certainly doesn’t take that long.
So no. Please provide more examples to back your case.
Posted by Kristen | January 12, 2012, 10:47 am“First, I was watching the TLC go on live, yes. He was discussing stuff with it, we were watching it go up, etc.”
He could’ve had the UTW release in his computer and do the exact same thing. You would have to type it anyway, I’m not saying he copy/pasted .ass in.
Second, I just gave you the reason to.
Third, do you not understand the concept of analogy? I’m only using encoding as an analogy because you don’t understand anything about translation.
I’m just saying that’s the quality of the evidence: same as having another group’s HARDSUB TYPESETTING on your encode. It’s undeniable. I seriously don’t need any more examples. Your pad clearly shows change made 4 hours after UTW release, so it’s not like it’s done “prior” to release.
Fourth, he made changes about 9 hours straight from about 08:45 to 18:00 other than 1hr break in the middle to do a majority portion of it with 1hr break in the middle. then more before and after that segment. Taking any more than 2 hours is absurd in any case.
Trying to explain things to you is apparently waste of time because you can’t read and you refuse to accept the facts.
Posted by 8thSin | January 12, 2012, 11:07 am8thsin, you have given facts.
1. You showed that the two groups made the same error in one line.
2. You said that the TLC took 10 hours.
Outside of that, you’re making this far-fetched conclusion that a TLC who has done multiple shows in the past without a single reason of a doubt of copying, who’s translated shows before another group released, and who outright says he did not use UTW, is a liar, is a cheater, and is stupid. You are using the witch-hunt mentality of “Guilty until proven innocent”, and are refusing to back up your point any further than saying that 1 line an episode makes.
I tire of this. If you wish to discuss this further with me, you know where to find me. Bring more examples to justify your delusions and maybe it’ll warrant some belief.
A few last words.
1. And I’m using encoding as a counter-analogy to show that it is a mistake that may be common, but not a causation of suspicion.
2. It is quite deniable that we used another group’s script. TLC made the same error, and is slow. NOT VERY HARD. If you want to make it undeniable, show that it isn’t possible for the common errors/trends to be coincidence. 1 line won’t cut it.
Posted by Kristen | January 12, 2012, 11:22 amMe: “it’s same as having another group’s HARDSUB TYPESETTING on your encode”
Kristen: “it is a mistake that may be common, but not a causation of suspicion… made the same error”
I give up.
Posted by 8thSin | January 12, 2012, 11:34 am@Kristen
> Third, this is similar to the first frame in Nichijou 14 after the commercial break where both U-C and CGi had an interlacing error.
Nope. You both most likely just made the same trims and used tfm().tdecimate() and called it a day.
Unless you’re a complete fuck-up, trims will be identical or within a frame or 2 of every other encoder, and automagic IVTC’ing with tfm/tdecimate will produce identical results if using the same options with the same trims in the same order. This is just pot luck, and has nothing to do with ability like translation.
Your analogy is stupid for a translation discussion, and even you should recognise this.
Posted by ar | January 12, 2012, 11:42 amIn “Another” of Underwater, I’m confusing about the second line of OP “nagaki koe wo osoreru nakare”.
One of my friend and I think “koe” is wrong. It’s “kobe”, though it sounds very similar to “kole” or “kode”.
After a small test, I figured that if the singer pronounces “kobe” at that speed, it will be like “kole” as she can’t tap her lips and her tong will be out a bit.
Moreover, in films, zombies, shikis or bala balah usually re-live when it rains with a lot of thunders -> voice of god. This can make the translator think about god’s voice -> “koe”.
Really possible.
Please confirm whether this is right or wrong. We are having some arguments here.
Sorry about my engrish.
Posted by dreamer2908 | January 12, 2012, 12:28 pmThat line was actually one of the suggested change I made when their editor who asked me to TLC before it aired (off YouTube PV). They originally had “kabe” (wall), but “don’t fear the long wall” is a weird lyric and the only realistic alternatives were “koe”(voice) and “kore”(this).
As for “Kobe”, it’s a nice coincidence that Sakakibara incident occurred in Kobe, but I would be very disappointed in Ali Project if they had the lyric “Don’t fear the long Kobe.”
Maybe audio quality is a bit higher in the actual episode, but arguing about this is pretty pointless because it’s not very clearly sang at all. Wait for the official lyrics.
Posted by 8thSin | January 12, 2012, 1:03 pmI’m so late to the party, but I would just like to say that I’m in the floor of my GameStop literally almost crying at how hilariously funny that whole exchange was. Thank you 8th, Kristen, and Raze for making my day.
Posted by kliqIMB | January 12, 2012, 5:14 pmAnother glorious conversation in which Kristen proves himself an idiot. Beautifullllll
Posted by Clam | January 16, 2012, 4:41 pmStill waiting for Aquarion EVOL review of gg and FFFpeeps version.
Thanks in advance.
Posted by Melina | January 12, 2012, 7:35 pmOh, it was low priority because there was only one group.
I’ll get to it soon.
Posted by 8thSin | January 12, 2012, 7:52 pmWill you be reviewing Thermae Romae?
I know gg, Whynot and Nutbladder sub it.
Posted by Takatin | January 12, 2012, 9:56 pmYes. I wasn’t expecting 3 groups would do it.
Posted by 8thSin | January 12, 2012, 10:24 pmFor the first minor error in WhyNot’s release, the lines I see in the script are:
Dialogue: 0,0:00:32.65,0:00:35.42,thermae main,,0000,0000,0000,,A-And that’s what I’m trying to achieve
Dialogue: 0,0:00:35.42,0:00:38.35,thermae main,,0000,0000,0000,,by showing our society the style of the good ole days,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:38.35,0:00:40.60,thermae main,,0000,0000,0000,,which have already been long forgotten.
Posted by Anon | January 13, 2012, 1:58 pmWow. I thought only WhyNot was courageous enough to sub it. Now I have to do a handstand.
Waiting for the reviews then~
Posted by Progeusz | January 12, 2012, 11:13 pmSay 8ths, have you seen Jaka(nigga) comment on AnimeTake:
http://www.animetake.com/brave-10-episode-1/
Thats his quote
“nigga Says:
January 10th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
8thSin = what? some nobody who just came around recently perhaps? This show’s difficulty is nowhere near an 8… this is elementary level if anything, 5 out of 10 on a difficulty scale at most… that aside, if Doki ever gets stalled because of translation I’ll help them out. This show seems interesting so far.”
Posted by ThatcoolguyX | January 13, 2012, 2:16 amHow does Jaka live in Okinawa?
Even if it was him, you should know by now that he’s trolling and I wouldn’t take it seriously lol
Posted by 8thSin | January 13, 2012, 3:07 amWill you be reviewing Kill Me Baby? UTW-Mazui and Muteki are subbing them.
Posted by JustWondering | January 13, 2012, 5:39 pmNo, I don’t have plans to review anything that’s not on the list right now.
Posted by 8thSin | January 13, 2012, 5:53 pmSorry, I didn’t notice that there were older comments lol.
Posted by JustWondering | January 13, 2012, 5:56 pmHoping for an InuBoku review… I wasn’t impressed by CR’s translation but I tend to be very picky about shows I like. On the fence about whether it’s worth translating myself.
Posted by lygerzero0zero | January 13, 2012, 6:39 pmI’m downloading Commie release right now, but CR is getting a C-.
I personally really liked some of their lines, but the translator’s Japanese/story comprehension skills are too low for a show of this difficulty. It’s probably better to TLC CR script than do your own from scratch.
BTW, I might have been a bit more strict on this series than usual because MC is exactly like Alice, and of course, we both subbed Kamimemo. Maybe we really dislike CR’s TL due to preferential/nuance issues too.
Posted by 8thSin | January 14, 2012, 2:01 pmGood lord, C- is worse than even I was expecting.
Well, that settles it. I’m translating from scratch. Don’t feel like TLCing the CR script because I’m too hard-headed about my translation style and I’d probably rewrite most of the script anyway. First episode translation is inevitably going to be influenced by CR’s script since I’ve seen it, but starting episode two I won’t be watching their’s at all.
Slowsubs ahoy! Onwards!
Posted by lygerzero0zero | January 14, 2012, 3:24 pmMany lines seemed sort of right, but not really. I guess it just felt off overall.
This is the type of translation I hate the most.
Anyway, good luck
Posted by 8thSin | January 14, 2012, 6:59 pmYay a release for Inu x Boku from EveTaku. Can’t wait.
Posted by Blah | January 14, 2012, 7:13 pmThanks lygerzero0zero!
I haven’t watched episode one yet and I’m definitely waiting for EveTaku’s release.
Posted by majorax | January 14, 2012, 8:01 pmSame with me, I was waiting for EveTaku’s decision.
Posted by Progeusz | January 15, 2012, 12:46 pmCMS (Colormesubbed) released Nisemonogatari, will you do a review of their release? Just asking. Thanks for the reviews, they help a lot ^^
Posted by DuroDeMatar | January 14, 2012, 1:21 amNo, does not meet minimal requirements listed in spoiler.
Posted by 8thSin | January 14, 2012, 1:56 pmThanks for the reply ^^
Posted by DuroDeMatar | January 15, 2012, 3:17 pmYou have no plan on reviewing Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai?
Posted by Random 01 | January 14, 2012, 4:49 amNo.
Posted by 8thSin | January 14, 2012, 1:56 pmIt’s pretty bad but probably not as awful as you think it is (the first ep anyway). Now H-S DxD on the other hand…
Posted by Dem | January 14, 2012, 3:13 pmWill you be reviewing the groups doing Natsume Yuujinchou Shi?
Posted by Bob2.5 | January 14, 2012, 5:42 pm> No, I don’t have plans to review anything that’s not on the list right now.
Is it that hard to read the comment that is like, 4cm above?
Posted by Sutai | January 14, 2012, 6:47 pmIn CR’s Another, when Sakakibara asked Mei how to write her name, wasn’t it pretty obvious that she said: Cry: 鳴くって, Resonance: 共鳴, Scream: 悲鳴? They all are sounds and have the kanji 鳴 (mei).
I can’t believe that that way too much annoying CR script is B+
(IIRC, CR TLed them to: sing, sympathy and scream)
Posted by pengit | January 14, 2012, 11:30 pm「鳴く」is usually about animal sounds and they were talking about kanji, so I thought bird=sing was appropriate, but I guess “Cry” and “Resonance” work a lot better in context since it’s supposed be horror themed. Thanks for pointing this one out.
I think my review grading system needs a complete revision to something like Hanasaku Iroha one that adds subjective ratings… The grades are getting too high with only “accuracy” this season.
Posted by 8thSin | January 15, 2012, 1:51 amMy comment concerns Hayaku’s 「あの夏で待ってる」 release.
First off, I did not specifically search for mistakes, but there were two lines where I just had to shake my head when simply watching the episode. One of them is on the borderline between major error and minor mistake imho.
First one around 9:44
「もう叩きたい」
Reply: 「叩いてんじゃ」
First line obviously no issues, second line was translated with “It hurts”
Frankly free, it doesn’t matter at all for understanding and plot, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is not correct.
She says she wants to hit him and he replies something like “You ARE hitting me!”
That’s clearly an error since the phrasing is intended.
She says she wants to do it while she’s actually already doing it and he points that contradiction out with a complaint so to speak.
Next one’s at 14:00
「余計なことをしたか？」
「何が」
「まっ、切っ掛けは多いほうがいいだろう、頑張んな」
Since she has an obvious crush on the protagonist, plus taking her reaction to that line into account, I’d choose a different translation. The japanese here is pretty ambigous but to me there is more than enough evidence that it’s supposed to imply something different.
A very liberal TL would go into the direction “Well, the more competition the better, good luck.”
Before he asks
“Did I do something unnecessary?”
The only thing he did was invite that girl to participate. So he’s obviously referring to that.
The gist of the line is that she should use the opportunity to get closer to him, confess or whatever.
“There is more in it for all of us this way” doesn’t fit at all imho.
Posted by KurisuKun | January 15, 2012, 7:02 amI deleted this release already. I’ll double check them after download completes.
Posted by 8thSin | January 15, 2012, 11:16 am9:44, I was thinking maybe it was a negligible liberal error, but now that think about it, that’s probably a mishearing for 「痛いじゃん」. In any case, I guess it doesn’t represent the original line.
14:00, 「きっかけ」 here clearly mean “chance for romance”, “event that triggers love”. He means what he did gave her an excuse to be with Kaito. I personally translated this to “The more opportunities, the better” and Hayaku line seemed pretty similar, so I must have missed it.
Now that I think of it, “There is more in it for you” would’ve somewhat worked as a liberal TL, but “There is more in it for all of us this way” doesn’t reflect that line at all.
Thanks for the input. I updated the scores.
Posted by 8thSin | January 16, 2012, 1:27 amI’ve yet to watch this series, but following what is written above, for 14:00 line, the third line seems to me to be “The more the merrier, I guess”
Posted by Ryu | January 18, 2012, 3:54 amThe Aufwachenpochen that appeared in the second episode of Symphogear but was traslated as “Alpha Trasformation” in the first one is not considered an error?
Posted by CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST | January 15, 2012, 10:45 amI have no idea wtf “Aufwachenpochen” is.
Google translate gives me “wake up rap”, and “Alpha Transformation” is acceptable IMO in context.
The series terminology takes a few episodes to settle down, and I consider mistakes for made-up words to be “negligible” unless they’re blatant.
Posted by 8thSin | January 15, 2012, 11:21 amI think Aufwachenpochen means “The Beat of Awakening”.
http://www.wordreference.com/deen/Aufwachen
http://www.wordreference.com/deen/pochen
The fact is that the scientist says it in the audio and I don’t really know how the “Trasformation Alpha” or w.e. it was pop out.
Posted by CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST | January 15, 2012, 11:37 amIt’s some stupid made-up word based vaguely on German which we can’t be sure of because they suck.
It doesn’t matter the slightest bit what kind of bullshit anybody puts there as long as it’s consistent.
You can put “Moon Landing” for all I care.
Posted by fnord | January 15, 2012, 11:57 amI am half japense, half german. “Aufwachen” means “to wake up”
“pochen” is something like “to thump”, as in “ones heart thumps loudly”…
“Aufwachenpochen” does not exist as a word and the composition of both words in this manner is idiomatically wrong.
Didn’t watch the anime, but I’d say it means something like “the thumping of one’s heart after waking up” or something…
Never understand why they english and german sucks in most animes, shouldn’t be that hard to employ ONE person that is capable of both english and german.
Fate/Zero is the first anime that managed to produce correct german, plus voiced by a mother-tongue german.
Posted by KurisuKun | January 15, 2012, 1:46 pmSora no Woto had decent German.
Posted by fnord | January 15, 2012, 1:59 pmWhich makes me wonder why Japanese ever bother to make an anime with German or anything non-Japanese (except English) catch-phrase/chant.
It’s not like the viewers in Japan would understand anyway. And let’s not forget the Japanese tongue in dealing with foreign language. It’d more cool to make it all-Japanese. But that’s just me tho.
Posted by nINJAkECIL | January 15, 2012, 2:40 pmThey use german for incantations, spells etc.
The japanese guys I know all share the same opinion about this as I have.
For japanese people, german has I somewhat mysterious sound, it’s sort of difficult to explain.
Syllables are basically pronounced very similiar. The composition of syllables is completeley different though.
So to them, there is something familiar in german, though it sounds completeley different at the same time.
Because of that, they like to use it for magic stuff, because it fits the vibe magic has.
Americans and European tend to create their own “magic language” in fantasy literature, japanese usually don’t. At least I ain’t familiar with a japanese novel that invents a “new” language, and I’ve read a lot^^
Posted by KurisuKun | January 15, 2012, 3:11 pmar tonelico?
Posted by fnord | January 15, 2012, 6:33 pmLikewise, it shouldn’t be hard for English anime dubbers to employ one person who knows how to pronounce Japanese so they don’t just make up bullshit pronunciations of all names and terms.
Doesn’t mean it happens particularly often.
Posted by Mario | January 17, 2012, 11:13 amWill you review Brave 10 released by Hiryuu? I wanna know which if it better than Hadena’s…
Posted by SGX | January 16, 2012, 10:29 amI’ll do Ep2 later.
Posted by 8thSin | January 16, 2012, 4:01 pmI’d definitely pick Hiryuu any day. Not only their line were smooth but I believe their TL were pretty accurate and they (almost) always search for any references related to the series/event. Not to mention the grammar, typesetting etc were great.
For other than translation, you can check out Whiners.pro review on Hiryuu’s Highschool DxD.
http://www.whiners.pro/2012/01/fansub-review-hiryuu-high-school-dxd-episode-01/
Posted by nINJAkECIL | January 18, 2012, 2:12 pmOk, thx a lot
Posted by SGX | January 19, 2012, 12:08 pmI’m still unsure about Hiryuu Brave 10 since it seems the TL is the same person who does Aquarion EVOL on FFFpeeps..
CR also seems to make a mistake by translating Marishiten to Marici.
Posted by Melina | January 28, 2012, 12:41 amNo review for Zero no Tsukaima? I checked CR’s release of ep2 yesterday and I gotta say… Either I am obsessed over details
(like subjunctive conjugated verbs being translated with indicative mode), or their release is actually shit, since it is supposed to be on professional level.
A lot of small errors and missed nuance accumalate throughout the episode… totally felt like a raw translation without proper TL.
Posted by KurisuKun | January 17, 2012, 11:02 amI would also like to see the ZnT script reviewed… :/
Posted by yeller | January 18, 2012, 4:13 amJudging by the fansubs list for ZnT on anidb, all english groups are using CR subs… So there probably isn’t much use reviewing it.
At the very least the subs are watchable. But they are certainly not good and what they should be like when done by supposedly professionals.
Posted by KurisuKun | January 18, 2012, 2:05 pmDid commie fix any of the stuff you noticed?
Posted by yeller | January 18, 2012, 5:11 pmWell, I am pretty sure that Commie’s version’s gotta be slightly better.
I did not yet watch their release, but I checked a few specific scenes that made pretty obvious that the tl accuracy improvements are scarce.
なれた (nareta) and なった (natta) for instance. To me there was no reason to use natta instead of nareta.
I don’t have a problem with liberal tl, in fact it is necessary to tl liberal here and there, here more, there less.
But to me liberal tl where it is clearly not demanded is simply wrong.
I’d say there is not much point in waiting for commie’s release, there won’t be a difference that is reason enough to wait 3-4 days. So I’d just roll with a CR rip here.
Posted by KurisuKun | January 19, 2012, 1:03 am>>>Judging by the fansubs list for ZnT on anidb, all english groups are using CR subs… So there probably isn’t much use reviewing it.
Not all! Every group except 1 uses Crunchyroll subs. I am not vouching for this particular group, but they do have their own translations.
Posted by alchemist11 | January 21, 2012, 1:43 amIt should be noted that one form of speech in Japanese may not always translate into an identical form in English.
The goal of translation is to retain as much meaning as possible, and that doesn’t always result in literal translations.
Posted by 8thSin | January 19, 2012, 1:17 amThat’s why I said that liberal translations are wrong to my mind, when it is clearly not necessary to translate liberal.
There are obviously a lot of instances where it makes sense to translate passive structures in active voice or to replace subjunctive with indicative mode.
However, there are cases in which accuracy will suffer from it. And in other cases it is valid to make a liberal tl, but translators use a “wrong” liberal line.
In the end all that matters is conveying the meaning of what’s said as close as possible.
When translating novels, this becomes even more obvious. I spent hours pondering over one single line once in a while, because it contains linguistic devices such as Wordplay, intended Kanji-repition (different words), Kanji-reference to previous line(s)…
Of course you can ignore all of that, but everytime you do, you lose something.
And unfortunately, there are lines where you have no choice but to use some sort of get-around without reflecting the original line completely.
I get a feeling I wrote too much again. Don’t bother ;p
Posted by KurisuKun | January 19, 2012, 10:08 amNovels are translated way too literally by literally everyone.
Posted by fnord | January 19, 2012, 10:43 amLight novel translations are pretty fail, at the very least the ones I had a glance on. Even if the story’s good, it’s almost impossible to read due to the stiff language. Even the official Shakugan no Shana light novel translation of Volume 1 + 2 was well… Let’s just it gave me a laugh compared to the original novel.
However, there are pretty decent visual novel translations available. One of the translators I know and worked with is certainly the best fan-translator I know.
Posted by KurisuKun | January 19, 2012, 2:13 pmOkay… there’s CR and two different groups doing their own TLs of papa no iukoto wo kikinasai!
I know you said before you wouldn’t be reviewing anything not already on the list… but I’d really like to see some smackdown of groups doing their own TL if the CR subs are superior…
Pettanko claims to be doing their own TL and I’m assuming doki is too and rori is editing the CR script.
Please at least take a quick look at the scripts even if you don’t check the whole episode… I’d really appreciate it.
Posted by yeller | January 18, 2012, 4:13 amWithout even checking I can assure you that Doki is using CR subs as a basis.
If they aren’t, the subs are shit (that is if they didn’t miraculously get a guy for TL who’s actually capable of japanese)
Posted by KurisuKun | January 18, 2012, 8:42 amHello 8thsin!
Can you re-review the FFFpeeps version of aquarion? Yes, the first release was a troll sub, but it seems they fixed the trolling with the v2 version.
Posted by firebound12 | January 21, 2012, 11:21 pmOnly one line was trolling in first 10 minutes. 8 Major errors in 10 minutes is still F-grade.
Posted by 8thSin | January 21, 2012, 11:31 pm8 major errors in 10 minutes even in the v2? DDD:
Posted by firebound12 | January 22, 2012, 1:01 ambtw, where do you mark that it’s v2?
Posted by firebound12 | January 22, 2012, 2:19 amIt seems the FFFpeeps Aquarion EVOL TL is the same person who TL Hiryuu Brave 10.
I wonder if I can expect same result for the Hiryuu Brave 10 translation grade? :/
Posted by Melina | January 22, 2012, 5:06 amIt was written on FFFpeeps’ website comments that it was the QC who put his own bad translations over the original translation.
Posted by firebound12 | January 22, 2012, 5:26 amDoesn’t the QC only put trolling lines?
There are some lines in FFFpeeps version that is clearly mistranslated even in v2.
Posted by Melina | January 22, 2012, 6:06 amFFFpeeps’ QCer reporting in. Nowhere in the EVOL releases have I ever changed the translation of anything when I was trolling. Most of trolls were puns on penis jokes. Donar -> Bonar; Combination -> Cumbination. Broski instead of “sir”; etc. etc. I will outright tell you I don’t have the slightest fucking clue what 99% of any Japanese in any given episode of any given anime means. I can only make the English I’m given not sound like shit. Which is exactly what I did in this release and every release I’ve worked on FFFpeeps for (read: a lot).
Posted by kliqIMB | January 22, 2012, 11:44 pmQCs changing the script? Sounds like megafail.
Posted by FalseDawn | January 23, 2012, 8:00 amWell, kliqIMB, adding in your own trolls because you wanted to sex-up the show’s dialog is not the job of the QC. Now if you think your job is to ruin any good reputation that FFFpeeps had, you succeeded. Though the errors mentioned were there, they would have been bearable compared to your attempt at humor.
Oh, and changing ejection to “ejaculation”, sir to Broski, Donar to Bonar, etc. is actually changing the translation, you dimwit.
I switched to gg thanks to you. They actually aren’t trolling it. I know you say it won’t happen anymore, but you lose. I’ll avoid FFFpeeps in the future. Who knows what you’ll screw up next.
Posted by NOTkliqIMBfan | January 29, 2012, 12:17 pmSo you’re telling me that over 30+ major translation errors would have been bearable, but having the word ejaculation in the script made you switch? [...].
I’ve been with FFFpeeps since past summer and have QC’d / Edited several of their series’. So if you watched BakaTest S2 or Nekogami then guess what dipshit, you watched something I worked on that was completely troll free.
This show is shit and I was having fun. Get over yourself. And no, none of those examples are changing translation. One is someone’s fucking name, aka something that is universal across all languages and therefore not something you translate. [...].
Posted by kliqIMB | February 4, 2012, 11:57 am[...] Can’t stand to be criticized for being a complete failure as a QC. You job as a QC isn’t change anything except what is wrong. If you don’t like a show, don’t work on it.
The translation errors would have been bearable because I usually notice them and just let them pass. But when a failure of a QC comes in and trolls the show – sorry you still lose. FFFpeeps would be better off without you as a QC. They probably secretly are now looking VERY closely at anything you do. Oh, and you lost them a lot of fans with your trolling. I guess you won your troll war. You can jump for joy now.
Now quit trying to justify how great you are. One “Aw shit” ruins all the greatness you may have thought you achieved. Enjoy your continuing mega failure as a QC.
Um, btw: Ejection and Ejaculation are completely different in Japanese so you fail yet again. And anytime you change a name that was spoken in Japanese to something you think is funny is also changing the translation. You still lose.
Posted by NOTkliqIMBfan | February 4, 2012, 12:29 pmTry to keep it clean guys
This is fansubbing for free and we’re free to do whatever we like. We’re not really obligated to anyone, including the viewers who don’t like certain lines.
That said, I do think fansubbers have certain responsibilities and we should try to maintain the intended meanings in script. Trolling on lines like “Instructor Bonar” doesn’t really matter, but when you completely change the meaning of important lines (especially in Ep1) that explain the plot or setting, you’re basically ruining the original work since viewers won’t be able to understand the story (and later episodes).
I know kliqIMB probably didn’t know the quality of translation when he was QCing, but personally I think trolling is a luxury of groups that can still provide better quality and speed than other groups. Otherwise, there’s no point in watching your release unless the show is absolutely horrible and the entire script is lulz like Hidan no Aria or that Black Rock Shooter trollsub.
Posted by 8thSin | February 4, 2012, 1:12 pmAgreed. Fansubbers can do what they want.
I just come from the ancient era(20 years ago) of fansubbing where you wanted the best translation possible. We’d maybe spice up the language without losing the meaning or feel of the scene or the person who spoke the line. Groups wouldn’t go for the cheap laugh unless the cheap laugh was actually there. Trolling was almost unheard of back then. No one would want your releases if you did. There were actual joke subs – but they were advertised as such.
A QC’s job was just to catch dumb errors and maybe come up with alternate wording for a line. And of course they’d run anything that changed the wording past the leader of our group.(me)
I’m still doing fansubbing today and am quite passionate about it. I time, edit, and typeset everything. I have my QCs go over my work and we fix any errors. I leave my translations to my fluent speakers – they know Japanese much better than I do. I just ask them of alternate ways of wording a line that seems awkward.
Anyway, sorry for messing up the “cleanliness” of the blog.
Posted by NOTkliqIMBfan | February 4, 2012, 2:27 pmI couldn’t give two shits less if you criticize me for being a “failure of a QC” because I know I’m amazing at it. Your opinions matter as little to me as my trolling did in the episode. (Read: Very little) I just find it hilarious how mad people get over subtitles in cartoons. Vehemently swearing off FFFpeeps releases forever because of one derp trolling episode? Absolutely laughable. Have fun in your ivory tower, brah.
Posted by kliqIMB | February 5, 2012, 3:11 pmApparently you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be acting like such a child in your responses.
Posted by NOTkliqIMBfan | February 5, 2012, 4:54 pmAnd I might add, if you were so amazing FFFpeeps wouldn’t have had to release a version 2 due to your actions.
Posted by NOTkliqIMBfan | February 5, 2012, 4:58 pmHi.
FFF’s “trolls” weren’t technically out of place in Aquarion, but it does wildly change the atmosphere. The comedy of Aquarion – the base Aquarion, and what I’ve tried to preserve – comes from the farce, how everything is clearly a metaphor for horny teenagers but no one will come out and say it. It’s the strained metaphors and the Fudo proverbs and getting all bothered about “mixed sex Unions”.
Slipping in dick jokes rips the farce apart and makes the whole thing merely sophomoric in a bad way. Instead of what amounts to a series of innuendos and puns to the point where you can’t help but giggle, you turn the series into “Ha! Penises! Boobs! It’s funny!” That’s not Aquarion, and it’s not funny either. And you keep Aquarion from being serious when it wants to try to be, which isn’t fair to it.
tl;dr Aquarion is one big dick joke. It doesn’t need your help, and you’re just cramping its style.
Posted by Caphi | February 6, 2012, 1:14 amWell, we and another group (Zenyaku) have released our own translations for InuBoku. Dunno if Zenyaku meets your download requirements, but our release barely qualifies. I’m curious to see how I did against the official version.
Posted by lygerzero0zero | January 22, 2012, 1:04 amI’d like to second this. The CR Translation for this is meh so I’d love to see if our TL and EveTaku’s can do better.
Posted by DTryPleX | January 24, 2012, 4:45 amThirding this as commie are now TLCing this show (apparently)
Posted by hurfadurfadurf | January 27, 2012, 9:50 pmI have faith. Hoping a review is coming soon.
Posted by dae-kun | January 30, 2012, 10:31 amFrom Hadena’s Brave 10 Ep3 entry on TokyoTosho – “Comment: Sp Thx to blakbunnie27 for his helpful tips and the other guys who worked on the script.”
Well, that explains everything.
Posted by Peix | January 22, 2012, 4:34 pmThat’s a deliberately misleading info for advertisement purposes. He probably just mentioned a recurring error in shoutbox or something, because flow/nuance were still far below top fan translators in Ep1 despite its relatively accurate script.
EDIT: They probably just made it up lol, a mod at NT removed torrent info.
Posted by 8thSin | January 22, 2012, 5:18 pmHe didn’t translate the show, but for episode 3 he did offer TLC assistance.
Posted by Dark_Sage | January 22, 2012, 7:46 pmThat explain why it looks different from ep1.
Posted by tba | January 22, 2012, 10:57 pmThere were also two guest editors on the script after Sapphy threw up her arms in disgust and left. It should at least be watchable now.
Posted by Dark_Sage | January 22, 2012, 11:59 pmBlakbunnie27 TLC’d a few lines at the end. In fact, the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” was blak’s genius brainstorm. Sapphy did a good job of editing arashi0′s script (yes, Virginia, arashi0 DID translate it). I did a QC run after and Dark_Sage fixed a few lines, as well. This was just for Ep 3, though.
Anyhoo… Hopefully the rumours will now cease regarding this. Please feel free to yell/threaten/cajole/praise/etc. me on Rizon if you wanna know any more. ^__^
Posted by Rika-chama | January 24, 2012, 4:03 pmHi 8thSin!
I loved your work at Kamisama no Memo-chou in UTW.
About Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai!, which one is better?
Doki, Oyatsu, Pettanko…
Posted by Diogo4D | January 22, 2012, 5:11 pmI might eventually try that show, but I haven’t watched it yet.
All groups other than Pettanko use CR subs iirc and I doubt any of the rip groups have the resources for TLC, so they’ll probably be all the same.
You’re probably safe going with rori, which scored A- at Whiners.
Posted by 8thSin | January 22, 2012, 5:28 pmPapaKiki is surprisingly good, worth a try.
Can you compare CR’s and Oyatsu’s Area no Kishi? (probably after confirming that sage’s High School Gintama is the only choice)
Posted by Progeusz | January 22, 2012, 9:24 pmI intended to watch Area no Kishi, so I might load both subs and give it a quick run whenever I have free time (this will be at least 2 weeks in the future. I’m stalling so many things)
Posted by 8thSin | January 22, 2012, 11:10 pmI’m from rori, and we’re tlcing.
Posted by Sutai | January 23, 2012, 10:23 amI’m still a bit cautious and wonder if Hadena’s Brave 10 ep 1 was a fluke and if ep 3 will be maintaining that high level of quality for them. Any chance you could take a look at ep 3 or 4 when you have a moment and perhaps add a small update saying they seem to be serious?
Posted by anonymous | January 22, 2012, 9:03 pmSomeone told me they were using lines from manga (which was a licensed release), so that may be why they were able to score well. They can probably maintain the accuracy level if they continue to do that same.
I’ll probably review it again in the near future (I’m thinking of a mid-season review for all major releases after I finish a bunch of stalled projects).
Also, I need a new grading system because their nuance/flow were pretty bad, but I couldn’t reduce their scores without being biased.
Posted by 8thSin | January 22, 2012, 11:06 pmI think we have the case solved.
http://www.whiners.pro/2012/01/the-horrors-of-helping-hadena/#comment-11131
Posted by TBA | January 25, 2012, 3:51 pmplease don’t start grading based on english grammar and things like that.. that’s what whiners.pro is for. yours is for translation acuracy. something might get an A+ on here but an F on whiners.pro, but that’s okay because you guys are grading 2 different things. i like that you guys don’t just have the same grading system. just my two cents.
Posted by anon | January 23, 2012, 5:46 pm> This is a very unexpected result just like Hadena’s Brave10.
Hey! Shall I be happy that we’re associated with Hadena’s result?
Ayako, being an old group, stopped caring for a long time. We may have a reputation for releasing unfinished works for speeds, but this time we like the show. So, we do care. Actually, I want to do better, but this is probably more or less what our current staffs can do.
The uneven LS scale is an interesting observation. It’s probably the result of “teamwork”, or a lack of experience.
I have to mention that I’m aware that other teams have talents that do better in some areas, and hella fast, too! Too bad that we have real life issues and can’t be competitive.
- A late post from TBA @ ayako
Posted by TBA | January 24, 2012, 7:34 amOhai. Are you ever going to “re-review” Chihiro’s Amagami SS+ and not be so paranoid this time?
Posted by Switch-kun | January 24, 2012, 3:03 pm8th, you really should.
Or else Switch-kun will stab you and erase you from the fansubbin’ world.
Posted by Rollface | January 25, 2012, 6:20 pmI’m not gonna review every single episodes of every group.
What happened there was like two students getting 95% on a test, and they happened to get identical wrong answers on the same question. And the answer wasn’t anything remotely close to the right answer. There’s no need really.
Not to mention they’re a slow group that barely met the requirement in the first place. Even if I re-review stuff, I’d choose releases that more people are going to watch.
Posted by 8thSin | January 25, 2012, 8:14 pmUgh… didn’t Kristen already tell you we didn’t cheat in anyway…
Even though we’re slow, it’s mainly anyone that are not in the “TL/editing range” that are slow. Anyways, if you don’t want to re-review it, then I guess it’s alright. Thanks for replying back.
Posted by Switch-kun | January 28, 2012, 6:07 pmHow good is ColorMeSubbed for Nisemonogatari?
Posted by Anonymous | January 25, 2012, 8:47 pmI think it was a bad idea to leave review requirements in the spoiler. It’s on the top now =_=;
Posted by 8thSin | January 25, 2012, 9:38 pmSomehow the way both gg and FFF translate the title of Aquarion EVOL ep 1+2 feels wrong.
I kind of prefer the title translation found on the ANN page.
“The Mythical Forbidden Union that Embraces the End”
Watched a few minutes of gg and what I read and see are different (like Daeva without Neo and the four leg thing) then I switched to FFF’s and found that they are about the same.
Both are their v2 subs.
Just my thoughts.
Posted by iron2000 | January 26, 2012, 1:41 amThat title translation sounds cooler, but it’s actually a very bad translation (it was probably translated before the episode came out).
「神話的」here refers to a myth in the sense of Greek myth etc “story that is based on a myth”, so it would’ve been fine if you’re just given the title. The problem is, the guy in crystal says something like “The legend of the end is about to begin.” You can’t plug in “myth” for “legend” in that line because it’s something that’s about to happen. For title-story consistency’s sake, it should’ve been “Legendary”.
Although, “embrace” in the title was used figuratively in Japanese for “legend will accept you” line by the same guy before, so that didn’t need reinterpretation.
Posted by 8thSin | January 27, 2012, 9:25 pmWas hoping to get an opinion on Symphogear when nico starts streaming it, but I guess they don’t count as major. Honestly I don’t get how they manage to break even with half their series getting only a couple hundred views.
Posted by Embok | January 27, 2012, 12:54 pmI usually would automatically count official translations as major, but I don’t know what their release schedules are going to be like. I’ll review it if it gets below 1-week delay.
Thanks for letting me know.
Posted by 8thSin | January 27, 2012, 9:28 pmWill you review Mouretsu Pirates? I’m curious to see how good is the translation by CR.
Posted by Takatin | January 29, 2012, 11:35 amfor brave 10, which one is better ? Crunchyroll/HorribleSubs, hadena or hiryuu ??
Posted by x-drake | January 31, 2012, 7:40 amYou ignored ColorMeSubbed’s Nisemonogatari because it doesn’t meet the requirements?
It seems it (barely) does to me:
http://www.nyaa.eu/?page=search&cats=0_0&filter=0&term=cms+nise
Posted by LazYSlackeR | February 1, 2012, 7:55 amI just ran a diff on HS subs, and I only see a couple of editing changes. The major error in Ep3 was still present and OP was translated all wrong (only the final 3 lines in OP were poetic enough to have difference in interpretation, other parts are mistakes).
Overall, it doesn’t seem to be TLCed, or their TLC simply didn’t do his/her job.
Posted by 8thSin | February 1, 2012, 2:29 pmOk, I thought it might be interesting as Dark_Sage deemed their script better than Commie’s, I guess I was wrong…
Posted by LazYSlackeR | February 1, 2012, 2:38 pmNope, he just has an irrational hateboner for us.
Posted by herkz | February 2, 2012, 2:54 amYou’re kidding, right? I’ve never even heard of your group before this release.
In fact, I’m probably harshest on Commie, because I don’t trust groups where editors have the final say in script, which is clearly the way they work.
Posted by 8thSin | February 2, 2012, 3:32 am8th: herkz is with Commie, actually. Also, don’t mind him.
Posted by KKRais | February 3, 2012, 6:24 amProtip: I’m in Commie.
Also I’m not sure who else would have the final say in our group. CR? Funimation? Viz?
Posted by herkz | February 5, 2012, 5:42 amhey 8thSin, how good is hiryuu for Brave 10 ? is it worth watching ??
thanks
Posted by shin | February 1, 2012, 7:20 pmOh my god, can someone explain to me why Crunchyroll has very good releases of difficult shows every once in a while and at the same time they deliver shit with easy shows or have fluctuating TL quality between episodes and even within one single episode?
I don’t know what their problem is, but considering they’ve got the official script on their tables, I kinda fail to understand how this is even possible for an official translation.
I mean I am pretty sure every decent fansubber would produce at least A- quality using an official script, at the very least I would.
So when I see cruncyhroll’s Area no kishi, which is probably one of the easiest to translate animes you can get nowadays and a little girl says to the protagonist 「ありがとう、お兄ちゃん」 and they translate it with “Thank you, brother!” I begin to wonder whether the whole team working on it rolled with some weed…
Posted by KurisuKun | February 2, 2012, 8:52 amThey have many translators of varying skill and care given. Best ones are hired for stuff like Nise while worst ones do random sport shounen. Sad reality. At least there’s Oyatsu.
Posted by Progeusz | February 2, 2012, 9:12 pmYeah it’s pretty sad that they actually employ translators that can’t properly translate a show that anyone with JLPT level 4 could probably translate…
Posted by KurisuKun | February 3, 2012, 3:19 amObviously translation quality differs depending on different shows and different translators. It’s not like they use a single translator for each and every show nor is each show the same difficulty as the next.
Posted by Izuchi | February 3, 2012, 3:11 amMy point was that Area no Kishi is an incredibly easy to translate show. Translation errors in that kind of show are unaccaptable and I am not capable of understanding why they employ translators who yet fail to translate that kind of show.
Posted by KurisuKun | February 3, 2012, 3:22 amWaitin’ for your reviews of B★RS!
Posted by Chipp12 | February 4, 2012, 12:02 amSame here. I have watched Commie|WhyNot|Nishinshi and at some parts they all say something different. When can we expect the BRS reviews? I need to know which one to pick for German subs. Thank you.
Posted by Atmoz | February 5, 2012, 12:16 pmSup 8thsin,
I really appreciate your job with those reviews (specially the in-depth ones, hehehe). Thanks!
Also, I look forward to the one for Zero no Tsukaima F. I’ve pretty much kicked Hadena away after I saw their hilarious “Zero no Tsukiama” review by Dark_Sage (still laughing at that btw), but choices still exist, assuming not everyone is just a CR remux.
Posted by Blargh | February 5, 2012, 1:27 amEditor/Transcheck for the niconico subs (which were translated by someone else but I had a strong hand in it)
Let me answer you point by point:
0:46 – Error(arguable) / “sky of blue” -> “blue sky.” Not talking about the color yet.
“sky of blue” is more poetic than “blue sky” and means the exact same thing. “sky blue” is a color, “sky of blue” is a sky that’s colored blue. I swapped blue sky for sky of blue mainly for poetic rhythm concerns and to create parallelism between “sky of blue” and “blue of sky”.
3:34 – Context(minor) / “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” OR “I don’t talk to freaks.” Does not work in the scene.
Our translation was “I’m sorry I even asked!”… Both your suggestions are out of character for Yu who teases Mato but would never be as harsh as your lines.
Furthermore both your lines has a “global” implication that implies she does’t want to talk to Mato _at all_ any more, but the line “kuchi kikitaku natta!” is a “local” response that implies reluctance to continue this specific conversation.
Your renderings just don’t portray that or the playfullness at all.
5:51 – Literal(minor) / “Are you going to join any clubs?”
Our translation “Have you decided already?”… Maybe better would be “Have you already made up your mind?” but there’s no reason to change Mato’s question. Rather, her assuming that Yomi would join a club and simply asking which one it was is in character for her.
7:18 – Scriptwriting(minor) / Unnecessary scriptwriting.
That line was an adaptation which I felt worked quite well.
The original is “one lap around Toukaidou”… This is an expression that essentially means “a really long distance”, literally it’s referring to the Toukai road of Japanese history…
It’s important for her character to give a sense that she’s making a huge, exaggerating statement, but putting a note to explain it here would be distracting and defeat the purpose. My translation “To Mt. Fuji and back again!” is almost the exact same as the literal expression in terms of “feel” but uses a landmark that everyone reading would understand. I.e. it expresses the meaning AND the feel sacrificing only the literal sentence, which is a fair trade-off.
7:20 – Error(minor) / “Charge!” 飛び出せ != 飛べ
I agree that tabidasu is usually “charge”, but we said “Let’s fly!” which is also != fly. “Let’s fly” means “let’s go really fast” in english idiom usage, and that’s what’s meant here. “Charge” is closer to “tobikomu”, and usually you “charge” towards a goal. However they’re running laps. You don’t “charge around the track” you “fly around the track”.
Hence, Let’s fly is more correct.
20:25 – Literal(arguable) / “colors?” “All kinds of / colorful colors” would be 3x “iro”, also redundant.
I added in an extra clause to clarify the double meaning of the picture book title.
My rendition of the title “Li’l Bird Li’l Bird Colorful Colors” loses a bit of meaning from the “iroiro” part.
This line is a callback to the picturebook’s name, but the meaning of “all kinds of” is also important. So I put BOTH in the line to make the connection.
not a literal translation but a translation of the linking metaphor.
20:32 – Error(minor, important line) / Why drop “colors” here?
Okay, this was an error. Probably better to put “Worlds of Different Colors”
Posted by Quarkboy | February 7, 2012, 3:23 amThanks for the feedback. I wasn’t expecting someone commenting on behalf of an official release, and I’m glad it’s a constructive one.
0:46 – While I do believe the opening narration was poetic, it follows a clear format (Sky -> Sky+Sea -> Sea+Fantasy -> Fantasy+Tears -> Tears+Birds) and very carefully phrased lines (1st: 青の空, 2nd: 空の青 etc). As much as I like the poetic sound of that, I think this kind of situation calls for a translation that is as faithful to the original source language as possible, and “sky of blue” was an unnecessary ambiguity in my opinion. Of course, I agree that both are basically the same thing, and that’s why it’s labled as “(arguable)”. This is very much preferential.
3:34 – I reviewed this release first and didn’t recognize their voices (thought the other character was the one who asked). Please disregard this one. Although, I think both those suggestions are still obvious enough as a joke, but admittedly nowhere as good as what you had.
5:51 – I found “Takanashi-san, what are you going to do about a club?” to be extremely confusing. I guess this is an editing problem (“[...] about clubs”).
7:18 – I am a strong proponent of free translation for anime, and to be honest, I probably would have come up with a similar line. The problem is, there were so many other lines where your script went literal/faithful/safe like:
3:28 -> 「ふらふら風船みたく…」 = “wave it around like it’s a balloon”(should be “float” = “fly” because a bird instead of “wave”, though “wave” is more animal cruelty). This is highly unlikely to be an effect of active waving, but swaying as a result of wind or walking motion.
3:47 -> 「日本語で頼む」 = “Please talk to me in Japanese” (subtitle is in English, so it should be “please talk to me in English” if you’re trying to achieve same the effect on viewers, like the Mt. Fuji example)
7:15 (immediately before the line in question) -> 「中学クオリティー」 = “middle school quality” (if I was being picky, I would say this doesn’t even make sense in context when said in English. Should be “middle school level” or “middle school training”.)
and general use of honorifics.
It just feel like a slap in the face after all those safe lines in your script, because you absolutely compromised the fidelity of the translation in this line to achieve a similar effect to SL, while keeping others pretty straightforward.
This is what I mean by “uneven script”, and it usually happens when translators/editors of different translation styles make significant changes to the script from what I’ve seen. I’m relatively certain those 3 lines were mostly original translator’s work, while lines like this one and “What planet is she from?” were completely edited.
I feel this is “unnecessary” because it could’ve easily been “East Coast” as one group translated and still achieve similar (though slightly less relatable) effect and still keep the general tone of the translation. I understand most viewers won’t be able to catch things like this, but I think translations should ideally have this kind of consistency.
7:20 – I thought you had “Let’s fly” because of the “Little Bird” theme, which wasn’t appropriate here at all. My suggestion “Charge!” was because the main character was complaining about the toughness of middle school (almost army-like). Personally, “let’s fly” is still a bit awkward there since 「飛び出してけ」 only implies a fast start (Let’s rush out of this building).
20:25 – Okay, I guess that makes sense too. BTW, I think 「とりとり」 isn’t just there to rhyme with “iroiro”, but short for 「（色）とりどり」. All the more mess though ^^;
I appreciate you posting your reasoning behind your translations, because I could only guess what other translators have done for certain lines (like 7:20). However, I still can’t agree to every single one of them. I guess some of these are pretty subjective and the difference in translator’s styles would always result in arguments like that. Personally, I think that’s what makes translation fun
Posted by 8thSin | February 7, 2012, 7:22 amWell, when I’m put into an editing role I very much tend to change things toward the less literal side if at all (unless I’m just correcting an error).
I think you have a somewhat different concept of what makes a script a “literal” translation and what makes it more adapted.
For example, two of your examples of where I left things literal:
“Japanese, please” and “Middle School Quality”…
I would never consider changing that to “speak in english” unless I was making a dub script. Why? BECAUSE SHE’S SPEAKING Japanese.
Subtitles do not displace the original langauge, they augment it and clarify it for viewers who do not understand the speech directly themselves.
So, “Speak English, damn you” simply wouldn’t make any sense as a subtitle.
Secondly, “Middle School Quality” was left quality because “quality” was in the original Japanese, and is clearly audible as such.
Sometimes it’s best to change the english word in Japanese to a different word because of usage differences, but especially in cases like this that are borderline, I favor keeping the original Japanese english usage even if it’s a tad un-natural, due to it minimizing “Aural-Visual Dissonance”.
On the other hand, the Mt. Fuji line is not something 99% of the viewers would see anything wrong with from simply listening to the dialog and reading the line.
I guess you could say that depending on the nature of the line and the context in which it is given, there is a different amount of breathing room a subtitler has for adaptation when necessary.
In Sket Dance, for example, there are many situations where jokes can be replaced or slightly modified to keep the humor. However there are also many other times when they cannot be and notes or other tricks are required to _explain_ the jokes, due to visual cues in the animation or other restraints (like importance to the plot).
Posted by Quarkboy | February 7, 2012, 7:35 amI was thinking “Japanese please” in terms of the effects on the viewers. Japanese viewer of the anime would hear “Speak in Japanese” and think, “Speak in terms I understand” or just “make sense”.
For subtitle viewers (English speakers), I guess the equivalent phrase would be “In plain English, please”.
I see that causes a logic problem since viewers heard Japanese and it sounds like making the other person actually speak English, but the true meaning wasn’t just “speak in Japanese” either.
Personally, I would’ve just avoided the whole thing with something like “I don’t understand you at all.” Which is pretty much same as “You’re not speaking my language” = “Please speak Japanese/in plain English”. Either way, the relatability of the script seems pretty inconsistent to me.
The “Middle school quality” probably is more restricted than “toukaidou” since it’s an imported English word (and it was not possible to keep “toukaidou” either way). You got me there.
I’m gonna completely change the topic and make another criticism: It took me about 3 minutes to find your stream (I had to click through a tiny link in a third-party article to find it the first time).
I don’t know if you know people who market the website at all (do they even exist?), but it wasn’t linked from the anime channel, and google search for the keywords [niconico black rock shooter] lists “ch.nicovideo.jp/channel/blackrockshooter” at the rock bottom. This is probably because the website title+description is in Japanese, so it’s getting a pathetic click-through-rate from English speakers who would search such terms in the first place. Google and other search engines heavily favor legitimate businesses, and [company name] + [unique product name] not ranking the business (or Wikipedia) first is nearly unheard of. niconico would get at least 5 times as much traffic if they made a few simple tweaks.
TBH, I would’ve easily given up had I not been doing this review. I don’t know what kind of internal politics is making it display Japanese in SERP right now, but and no matter how good your subs are, people won’t watch them unless they’re easily accessible.
Posted by 8thSin | February 7, 2012, 8:37 amI actually looked for the stream yesterday then gave up and assumed it hadn’t aired yet, until someone else found it for me. That’s how hard to find it is.
Posted by Xythar | February 7, 2012, 8:46 amHaven’t seen the episode, but on the “In Japanese, please” matter…
I’ve seen subtitles before that claimed the characters were speaking English and, as a viewer, I frankly felt like it was insulting my intelligence. I know I’m watching a subtitle; does the translator really think I’d believe they’re speaking English? If you’re talking about the translation ideally having the “same effect on viewers” as the original, then I don’t think pausing the video to facepalm was an intended effect of the original…
Just a thought.
Posted by lygerzero0zero | February 7, 2012, 9:10 amYeah, there is that problem, but saying “Japanese please” doesn’t mean the other person wasn’t speaking in the first place, so the viewers weren’t supposed to interpret it literally either way. I hope that makes sense.
When characters say “Japanese please”, it’s always in response to a line that didn’t make sense before, too. Those lines are shown in English subtitles, so saying “speak in plain English, please” isn’t exactly totally off the mark (maybe remove “speak” lol).
I don’t know… like I said, I prefer to just interpret it for the viewers in subs to avoid confusion and ambiguity altogether. There’s no need for ambiguity for lines that weren’t meant to be ambiguous or mysterious etc, and this one certainly wasn’t. It was sarcastic at best.
Posted by 8thSin | February 7, 2012, 9:33 amWell, in Black Lagoon, Rock is speaking in “English” to his coworkers. And in the Yakuza episodes they do a transition of Revy speaking English to one guy who understands it and they switch to Japanese part way through. Probably to help the voice actors. So I can see a translator trying to make that point.
Posted by NOTkliqIMBfan | February 7, 2012, 9:22 amI’m just a lowly subcontractor who does not control things like the site design or PR.
That being said I am not one to keep my opinions to myself, even to clients. The problem is not that they are not aware of the problem…
Posted by Quarkboy | February 7, 2012, 9:46 amI wouldn’t see “Japanese, please” as being unclear or confusing at all, but maybe that’s just me. I’ve seen plenty of instances in English-language fiction where a character goes on a long exposition involving technical terms, and at the end another character responds, “…and in English that means?” or something along those lines. That’s why I’d assume viewers would understand “In Japanese, please” in context.
Clarifying things for the viewer is all well and good, but I’d rather not hold the viewer’s hand.
Posted by lygerzero0zero | February 7, 2012, 10:34 amI don’t really like it because for non-Japanese speakers, it may sound like the other character was originally talking in Chinese or something. How would they know it was supposed to be a sarcastic remark when phrased that way?
It’s not a mistake in itself (and that’s why it wasn’t even counted as an “arguable” error). The problem is when you take that style and change lines like “Toukaidou” to “Mt. Fuji”, which is Location A to Location B for the sake of relatability with the audience, I expect similar lines and less restrictive lines to be changed for the same purpose. Changing “Japanese” into “English” would be changing from Language A to Language B for the sake of relatability too (“in plain English, please” is a common phrase, “talk to me in Japanese” is not), at the cost of changing the actual language name.
If you choose not to “hold the viewer’s hand” on that line, that’s fine, but then I would not expect you to blatantly change actual location names like “Toukaidou” either for relatability.
In context 「日本語」 did not refer to “the Japanese language”, but “a language I understand”. “Toukaidou” did not refer to the actual route, but “ridiculously long distance”. These two should be handled the same way by translators IMO. Either keep both, or change both to be less ambiguous (that they don’t refer actual language or location names).
Posted by 8thSin | February 7, 2012, 1:54 pmI’m pretty sure that if someone has made their way to NicoNico and are watching these subs, they are well aware of what language the characters are speaking.
Subtitles should not assume the viewers are abject morons.
Posted by ReinWeiss | February 7, 2012, 8:25 pm??? I’m not saying anime viewers don’t know Japanese is spoken in anime.
Japanese anime characters speak in foreign languages all the time. I seriously doubt most viewers would recognize hard-to-differentiate languages like Korean or Chinese if they suddenly spoke them. Heck, even a lot of fansubbers can’t tell if parts of songs are Japanese or English (just look at SS-Eclipse’s Shana OP).
In any case, there’s no need for the translation to be banking on the audience’s ability to recognize the dialogue or terminology. If making a viewer-friendly sub is assuming “viewers are morons” to you, then so be it. Trying to make use of “clear and concise” language is the basics in subtitling.
Posted by 8thSin | February 7, 2012, 9:18 pm(Sorry for the wall of text. Been a while since I debated translation at length, and I had a bit too much fun)
The “what if the characters were speaking Chinese” argument seems a little weak and contrived to me. You could come up with all sorts of hypothetical situations in which any given translation would become unclear or confusing, but that doesn’t make it a bad translation in -this- context.
Besides, if the characters really did switch languages, the subtitles should acknowledge that some other way, either by not translating the line, putting the translation , or something else. Otherwise, the viewer has absolutely no reason to think that the characters were speaking anything other than Japanese. Honestly, do characters speak in foreign languages -that- often in anime? When they do, attention is usually drawn to it–which makes your point moot.
I’m assuming that in context, the previous character had said something technical, cryptic, or confusing, which is what prompted the “in Japanese please” response. If the translated version was equally technical, cryptic, or confusing, it should be pretty clear from context what the sarcastic response means. Presented with that, I can’t imagine anyone who would jump to the conclusion, “I’ll bet she was speaking Chinese!” instead of the more reasonable, “She probably wants a clarification of the previous line of dialogue, since it was hard to understand.”
If you ask me, in that context the line, “In plain English please” would prompt the viewer to think, “Why does she want her to translate what she said into English?” i.e. this version of the line would actually be -more- confusing, and -less- viewer-friendly.
Of course, it’s sadly impossible to dive into the minds of the audience and figure out what they’re really thinking, so we can only speculate. As someone who started writing subtitles only after years of viewing them, that’s my perception of how a viewer would react. In the end this is all rhetoric, and if you insist a viewer would react differently, then there’s honestly nothing I can say to disprove you.
As for this “consistency of translation style,” I don’t see why the methods used to handle one line should have any effect on another completely unrelated line. Consistency is important, but that’s because certain inconsistencies will confuse viewers: thus flashbacks should have matching dialogue, nicknames and catchphrases should not change, and so on. But the two lines you mentioned have no connection, and a viewer with minimal Japanese knowledge would have no clue that one was localized more than the other.
I believe in matching your methods to the situation at hand. If the first line required more localization to be clear, then localize it more. That doesn’t mean the next line has to follow suit. So long as all the decisions are made with the viewer in mind, and the viewer does not notice any discrepancies, then why must the translator maintain a rigid, inflexible style? What does localizing Toukaidou (to something that’s still Japanese, so is it even “local”izing at all?) have to do with acknowledging that the characters are speaking Japanese?
(Incidentally, considering the amalgam of varied and flexible localization rules I used for InuBoku, you’re going to have a field day when you get to that.)
Posted by lygerzero0zero | February 7, 2012, 10:32 pm“I favor keeping the original Japanese english usage even if it’s a tad un-natural, due to it minimizing ‘Aural-Visual Dissonance’.”
I totally agree. If the Japanese VA says an English word, in many cases it should be in the subs even if it makes the line a bit unnatural. Otherwise it breaks my focus, because I *know* I heard an English word, but didn’t read it. Also, I’ve been wondering for such a long time what to call this “dissonance” concept. I’d use the same justification for preserving JP name order.
Posted by MotsuCQ | February 7, 2012, 9:43 pmI invented that term ~3 years ago in order to best describe my subtitling philosophy.
Posted by Quarkboy | February 7, 2012, 11:15 pmI can’t agree with that. For one thing, there are many English loanwords in Japanese that actually have a completely different meaning to the original word they are based on (ie mansion -> apartment).
For that matter, the same thing applies to simple Japanese words as well – people tend to want every word they can actually understand to always be translated in the same way, whereas anything they can’t understand is fair game. On top of that, your viewers will all know varying amounts of Japanese and it’s impossible to anticipate what everyone will and won’t recognise in the audio.
I don’t mind Japanese name order and wouldn’t really be in support of the phrase “Speak English, please” but that’s more because I don’t see any point in pretending that the shows in question aren’t very obviously set in Japan. However, beyond that I prefer it if the script flows as natural as possible without any regard for what the viewer can or can’t understand, because that is a slippery slope that just leads to awkward phrasing. Dubtitles all the way.
Posted by Xythar | February 8, 2012, 12:22 amHence my using the word “a tad”.
There’s plenty of cases of english words used in Japanese that must be translated to other english words to maintain meaning (Like “Baby Car”, “pose”, “ice” for example…)
But when the case is borderline that consideration should come into play. Take, for example, the common Japanese exclamation “Lucky!” While it’s true that no english speaker will use the word in that manner, it’s probably best not to subtitle it in any way other than “Lucky!” (Or maybe “How lucky!” etc…) because it’s so incredibly obvious she’s saying “Lucky” and the meaning isn’t jumbled. (You could consider subtitling it other ways… “Awesome!” or “What luck!” etc etc, but they would be less immersive to the viewer IMO.)
Posted by Quarkboy | February 8, 2012, 12:35 amIn my opinion all loaned English words in Japanese should be changed unless it is impossible to change them. Languages work differently and the people who speak them employ them differently. The ‘Lucky!’ that a Japanese says isn’t the same ‘lucky’ that an English native speaker uses. It should always be changed. The quality of the translation and its ability to transplant meaning is by far more important than what the audience perceives to be the source.
This brings me to another topic. A script should make sense without video and audio as long as the reader has a little imagination. Lines like ‘this is middle school quality’ do not make sense. The viewer is left to guess based on context, which is not what I consider an accurate translation. Viewers are not meant to learn Japanese, they are not meant to understand Japan, and they are not supposed to consciously listen to the dialogue. It’s a backdrop, nothing else. If the viewer really cares about Japan and is truly interested in the language, he will learn about all that on his own without having to be bombarded by half-translated sentences.
I thought some lines in the nico script were fine while others were painfully literal.
Let’s make this a tl;dr post.
Narration: Little bird flies in sky of blue.
Narration: Sea reflects blue of sky.
Narration: Sea sky of blue fantasy.
Narration: Sky’s tears in blue fantasy.
Narration: Little bird flies in sky’s tears.
@ Quarkboy: You are right in claiming that ‘sky of blue’ is poetic English, but this narration is so literal it hurts. There is no flow and no elegance in the English. Words follow staccato and some sentences aren’t even grammatical English.
This is what I find disturbing when I watch. Not localization. Subs like these would make me close Firefox. The dialogue isn’t as catastrophic, but I have honestly no idea what possessed you to put in a TL note about her name.
Posted by fnord | February 8, 2012, 2:24 amI purposefully went overly literal in the initial poem because I felt the original Japanese was also staccato and ill-defined, and a literal translation best presented the flow of the original.
It seems like, in fact, my translation had precisely the right effect on you, and you simply assumed it was poor writing instead of an accurate portrayal of the original.
Saying the subs must read like natural english without the audio or video is ignoring the medium you are working in. Subtitle translation is != prose translation is != ADR script writing.
Subtitles should be seen, and not heard, so to speak.
Posted by Quarkboy | February 8, 2012, 2:35 amThe Japanese for these lines is minimalistic, but it’s not inelegant, vague or primitive. I vehemently disagree that your translation works. You could have at least made it grammatical English.
Narration: Sea sky of blue fantasy.
Narration: Sky’s tears in blue fantasy.
These two lines in particular mean nothing. Literally nothing. They have words, but nothing connects them. There is no meaning in them in English, but there is in Japanese. While I find most of the points raised by 8ths about the script to be arguable one way or another, the opening narration is a disaster.
Posted by fnord | February 8, 2012, 2:45 amDid you know that the poem is exactly 7 characters, then a comma, then 5 characters for each line?
And written in only in hiragana?
I’m not sure what deep meaning you find in: “esora no ao no, sora no umi” and “esora no ao ni, sora no namida”
There are no verbs at all, just nouns and prepositions, which is exactly how I rendered it.
Posted by Quarkboy | February 8, 2012, 3:07 amI didn’t think I’d have to get down to this, but okay.
First the whole thing for reference:
「ことり とぶのは あおの そら」
「うみに うつるは そらの あお」
「えそらの あおの そらの うみ」
「えそらの あおに そらの なみだ」
「なみだの あおに ことり とぶ」
Now:
「えそらの あおの そらの うみ」
「えそらの あおに そらの なみだ」
First of all, as can be seen, the second line breaks the proposed syllable count. Secondly, poetry works differently. If you look at tanka, for instance, you can see how the strategic omission of particles and verbs can serve to make a line more poetic in Japanese. Modern lyrics are not entirely dissimilar unless we are talking about the most generic J-Pop. Omission of words does not make English more poetic, it robs it of meaning. Even if you wish to refrain from inserting verbs because you feel that extent of interpretation to be excessive, simply fixing the structure would be enough.
The Japanese is not even hard to understand. What little birds fly in is the blue of the sky. The ocean receives its color from the reflection of the same. In a fantasy world, where all is different, the blue of the sky would be like an ocean. That ocean would be made of the tears of the sky*. The birds that fly in a blue sky in our world fly in a sky of tears in the Otherworld. This poem or whatever you choose to call it makes perfect sense when read in the context of the episode, and it doesn’t even take a lot of interpretation. In the same way that the two birds behave, Mato and BRS see different worlds. The whole anime is a clumsy metaphor.
*as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, 空 is a common allegory for the general state of things. There are numerous lyrics and poems that use ~な空の下で or somesuch in place of ~な世界で. 空の涙 -> 切なさ.
Posted by fnord | February 8, 2012, 3:41 amThere’s really little point in arguing over poetry translation styles.
I’m sorry mine is not to your liking, but I prefer leaving things up to people’s interpretations in cases like this.
Posted by Quarkboy | February 8, 2012, 4:34 amI’m not saying you should have interpreted all that and put it into the subs. English, whether poetic or plain, would have been enough and better than this guguru’d stuff.
But I sense you don’t wish to discuss this, and I don’t mind, so let’s drop it.
Posted by fnord | February 8, 2012, 4:38 amFrom Commie’s BRS:
5:49 – Error(minor) / “W-Wow, that’s such a clever name!”
11:36 – Error / “I’m not saying anything.”
The orginal lines for these (“Wow, that’s a name for smart people!” and “Kagari’s not home”) mean pretty much the same thing as your corrections – the original lines are just liberal editing. The rest of the stuff I agree with though, especially after comparing with other subs.
Posted by Xythar | February 7, 2012, 6:58 am“name for smart people” sounds like if you have that name, then you must be smart or maybe she’s given the name because she’s smart. She’s just saying it’s a “clever-sounding name”, and you can at best stretch that to “your parents who gave you that name is smart”.
11:36, okay I get what you mean, but that’s REALLY confusing to use that phrase when she’s been saying “go home” the whole time. Reducing to a “minor” for now though.
Posted by 8thSin | February 7, 2012, 7:35 amContinuing in that vein: http://privatepaste.com/c7de907f1e
Relevant log from Sunday with some information about the thought process behind how I chose to handle これが。。。 ヨミがやったの。 ヨミがやったの。
I could have done a far better job handling that sequence. As it stands, the way I chose to word it is more confusing than anything else and definitely doesn’t come across how I’d intended. I’m also the one responsible for “Kagari isn’t home” (intended as creative editing but I didn’t fully think it through).
Posted by KKRais | February 7, 2012, 9:43 am“Wow, that’s a name for smart people!” – This is actually an untouched line from the TL; it wasn’t edited after the fact. 8th’s line is also much better.
Posted by KKRais | February 7, 2012, 11:23 amI liked “that’s a name for smart people”. It was quirky
I also felt like the meaning was more like “that’s a name you’d need to be smart to understand” rather than “that’s a name you’d need to be smart to have”. That’s how I interpreted it while watching, anyway.
Posted by Xythar | February 7, 2012, 7:05 pm>still no review on Evetaku’s Inu x Boku SS
Posted by what | February 7, 2012, 3:26 pmIt will not happen before I get the Madoka batch out, and review [sage] Danshi Koukousei.
Priorities!
Posted by 8thSin | February 7, 2012, 4:10 pmAre you going to do Smile Precure?
Posted by mwo | February 7, 2012, 8:43 pmThe Ji-Hi comparison isn’t promising.
From the CC:
あかん オチないやん！
Doremi:
http://ji-hi.net/wi11/smile/Doremi/05-dialog2.png
Aesir:
http://ji-hi.net/wi11/smile/Aesir/05-dialog2.png
Chihiro:
http://ji-hi.net/wi11/smile/Chihiro/05-dialog2.png
Cure-Anxious:
http://ji-hi.net/wi11/smile/Cure-Anxious/05-dialog2.png
Posted by Nemui | February 22, 2012, 5:58 amMan, the comment section is turning into a huge mess ^^;
@lygerzero0zero
I was just listing all the possible problems with that line. Not all of them might be valid, but all the conceivable problems should be avoided as much as possible.
“Talk in Japanese” was followed by the MC saying she met a girl who “red fits well, because white” (color is a main theme in the anime, and probably in her head as well). It was not “technical, cryptic, or confusing”, so I said the audience may confuse the language because that section was not translated as nonsense (with context added). Another problem is that MC’s friend said “Talk in Japanese” BECAUSE there was no context and she had no idea what MC meant, but saying “Japanese, please”, a low-context language to English-speaking (high-context language) viewer, is an oxymoron.
I’m not being THAT picky on my review yet, so I didn’t mark that as a logic error, but because the previous line made sense, I think it may call for the audience to think of another explanation, which is that she spoke in a foreign language. “In plain English, please” may have been a bad suggestion, but something like “I don’t get what you mean” (with better tone, I don’t have the time to come up with one right now) would solve this problem entirely.
The reason I find “In plain English, please”, to be acceptable is very subjective though. Maybe it’s because I translate a lot of documents, but I believe the ideal translation should be indistinguishable from one that would’ve been written in the target language by the same author if he spoke the target language. This may be a lot harder to achieve when there’s source language audio playing along the subs, but that’s the ideal I pursue and I try to reach a point where the audience is absorbed enough to forget they’re listening to a foreign audio. I always try to retain the original wording for borrowed terms as much as possible too, but I have no hesitation to change when necessary for this very reason. “Speak English, please” like Commie chose may have not been worded very well, but it follows the same principle, and depending on the audience’s immersion level, it can totally work. Of course, I understand professional subs shouldn’t be banking on that and take the safe route.
Keeping “Japanese” is totally acceptable (that’s why I didn’t mark it as an error).
As for localization of “Toukaidou”, this is an extreme localization (or a half-assed one, depending on how you look at it, because it sticks to the literal structure in using a specific but different location, instead of translating the meaning). It was basically determined that the audience wouldn’t recognize it (rightfully so), and switched from one landmark to another one that they would understand. This is the very definition of localization.
It’s still a Japanese landmark, so it’s tastefully done, but that doesn’t change the fact that a part of the script was deliberately changed to use another place for exaggeration, for localization purposes.
I think I’m kind of notorious for localizing the script, but even I don’t go this far (my localization style translates the inherent meanings, or simplify “Toukaidou” to “the highway” or “to Kyoto”(the end of the route)). Frankly, I don’t find changing specific location(s) name(s) to another, more famous name, to be acceptable, but it’s a legitimate method in extreme localization translation styles. This kind of localization is blatant declaration that it wouldn’t stay faithful to the source material, but every single other line, even the poems were overall kept literal. This line does not belong in this script because if you’re assuming your audience wouldn’t be immersed into the script and pays attention to the audio, then they can hear “Fuji” not actually being said, and it gives them an illusion that this line was not translated accurately (because they heard other things like “quality” despite being awkward, and things staying absolutely true to the original like “Japanese”).
I can’t argue that some ordinary viewers may not recognize things like this, but I’m the one reviewing this and it disturbs the heck out of me. I’m not saying every line should be localized. In fact, I strategically localize things myself (and I have never felt your script have ever been uneven like that), but I would never have two such extremes in my script. It tells me that two translators of conflicting translators worked on the same script, yet the final person to touch it did not fully change the script to a consistent style, and it simply does not read well to me. I’m going to use my “LS” to say, the original translator should be translating to the desired LS-level rather than a second person tweaking into it. If that’s the case, the original translator did not do a passable work, and the proofreader should have translated in the first place.
Posted by 8thSin | February 8, 2012, 2:15 pmWell, like I said, I hadn’t seen the episode, so I just assumed the most likely context for that line. If you say it was unclear, then I suppose I’ll have to watch the episode myself to judge, but I’ll take your word for it for now. If that was the case, perhaps it would have been better to dodge the issue and write, “So I can understand, please,” as you suggested.
For documents or plain text I wouldn’t object nearly as much to saying “English,” and as Quarkboy mentioned if this was a dub script, then by all means. I agree with your ideal of “what the author would have written if he spoke English [or whatever the target language is]” but I also feel that other considerations such as the medium of presentation would complicate this and can’t be ignored. But as you said, it’s subjective; you find it acceptable, I don’t, and I guess that’s about it.
You have a point about assuming the audience’s immersion level, though again it’s impossible to know which parts of the audio an audience member can parse and which they can’t. Short sentences (like the above “lucky” example) would definitely be obvious, while a word embedded in a longer sentence might just sound like syllable soup to someone who doesn’t know Japanese. But then there’s this big gray area where some people might notice she didn’t say “Fuji” and some people might not. You have a point though; if the translation assumes viewers will hear “quality” then I suppose “Fuji” is a bit of a stretch.
(On a related note, I need to watch this episode. Anyone have a link to the allegedly difficult-to-find Nico stream?)
Posted by lygerzero0zero | February 8, 2012, 5:58 pmI don’t have one handy, but if you just want to compare scripts then knock yourself out:
http://notesmash.org/stuff/brs1-nico.txt
http://notesmash.org/stuff/brs1-whynot.ass
http://notesmash.org/stuff/brs1-commie.ass
http://notesmash.org/stuff/brs1-nishishi.ass
http://notesmash.org/stuff/brs1-hatsuyuki.ass
I didn’t get around to ripping SubDESU or CCS.
Posted by Xythar | February 8, 2012, 7:25 pmIt was in an earlier post but I didn’t link it.
http://ch.nicovideo.jp/channel/blackrockshooter
Posted by 8thSin | February 8, 2012, 7:35 pmI apologize for a late (and therefore possibly irrelevant) comment, but I just read the whole “speak in Japanese/in plain English” thing, and wanted to know if simply using “in layman’s terms, please” would have sufficed. That way, the issue of language doesn’t even come up. And even though nothing technical was being said (as might be indicated when using that idiom), I think it still works due to how the line was delivered.
Just my two cents.
Posted by Kordosa | February 17, 2012, 2:45 amThat kind of works too. I prefer dodging that line as well ^^;
Keeping “Japanese” is totally fine though, but when you’re localizing hard everywhere else, these things stick out like a sore thumb.
Posted by 8thSin | February 18, 2012, 12:02 amWe had “You’re not making any sense” originally, but a certain someone changed it.
Posted by Xythar | February 19, 2012, 9:20 pmaaaaaaaannd…
Nishishi it is.
thanks for the batch of reviews for BRS ^^
Posted by firebound12 | February 8, 2012, 9:34 pmNo Pirates?
Posted by jrdp_18 | February 17, 2012, 9:44 pmI hear that series is actually good, but I didn’t think it would be interesting before the season started…
It’s CR simulcast though, is any group even translating or TLCing?
Posted by 8thSin | February 18, 2012, 12:05 amThere’s WhyNot, Commie, and Enigma Collective. Oh, and HorribleSubs if I need to mention that.
Thanks.
Posted by jrdp_18 | February 19, 2012, 3:12 amI believe EC are the only group that are translating it themselves, and they’re about 2 weeks behind.
Posted by Xythar | February 19, 2012, 9:18 pmThanks for your insights!
Just a quick question: What does “LS-[number]” means?
Posted by ofislacker | February 19, 2012, 10:53 amIt’s in the spoiler.
Posted by 8thSin | February 20, 2012, 4:30 pmIn Defense for Asuka-subs, the first translator was one from SubDESU because Death (the current translator) didn’t turn up, and Maddog (the owner) F***s up the timing of just about everything in the final release, cause he adjusts the timing to what he believes is acceptable.
~just sayin
Posted by Vong | February 23, 2012, 4:49 amI would take you seriously, but then three things occurred to me.
1) you’re trying to defend asuka-subs.
2) your “website” is an anime streaming site.
3) you’re still trying to defend asuka-subs.
Posted by puddizzle | March 2, 2012, 1:42 amThere are multiple groups doing ZnT F… any chance of you reviewing them? One is CR edit, the other two seem to be doing from scratch… one of the groups is Satic Subs… the other Shin-GX I think… Commie doing CR edits.
Posted by yeller | February 26, 2012, 6:59 amWhat happened to the GetWet trio? Did they finally drop Senki?
Posted by jrdp_18 | February 26, 2012, 9:15 pmJust wondering, but do you plan to finish the reviews for this season? I think out of the shows on your list there’s three releases left… might be more but I dunno how many meet the major release criteria.
Posted by lygerzero0zero | March 12, 2012, 1:21 pmWhat lyger’s saying here is that he wants you to review EveTaku’s Inuboku
Posted by Xythar | March 13, 2012, 8:42 pmhehe
I will probably finish it up later this week. Madoka TLC (which pretty much turned into TL then another TLC run) is done.
Posted by 8thSin | March 13, 2012, 8:59 pmThat’s only part of it!
…
Well all right, yes. >>
Posted by lygerzero0zero | March 13, 2012, 10:00 pm>you will never see 8thsin review Daily Lives of High School Boys
Posted by blah | March 17, 2012, 1:15 pmNever say never~
Although I’m not gonna bother with FFFpeeps Aquarion EVOL re-review, because it seems to be stalled.
Posted by 8thSin | March 17, 2012, 2:49 pmAh, thanks for the review. ^^
I know I was arguably over-interpreting the “immortal” line but it’s made clear in the manga that pure youkai are immortal. They never die, only disappear temporarily. Though perhaps I should have left it vague because the anime doesn’t say so explicitly.
Oh yeah, and I made a silly typo/mishearing at 7:22 (“Onee-chan” instead of “Onee-san”).
I was also thinking the flashback at 8:15 (and the corresponding scene in episode 1 of course) might need to be reworked (one of my editors pointed out that having Soushi say, “it does not matter who you are” is a bit misleading, since he cares about her fundamental identity, but not her superficial identity. See: http://puu.sh/lcBJ ).
I also revised my word choice at 11:46 (“to be considerate of” -> “to understand”). The original put too much of a stretch on 気付く for the sake of flow, but when I reread the manga chapter that next week’s episode will cover I realized my word choice didn’t work. “Understand” isn’t perfect either, but I can at least make it work.
Posted by lygerzero0zero | March 17, 2012, 3:06 pmThanks for the justification and self-reporting lol
I was too distracted by the butt-shaking at 7:22, and I don’t have time to check manga for every review. I guess that line should’ve been “…what you are.”
Background research is definitely useful, and it should affect lines like 8:15, but I don’t think extra info found in source materials should be added to the subtitles unless absolutely necessary for understanding of the line. I would like to think certain lines were cut off for a reason by the producers, but well, you should stick to whatever style you’re comfortable with.
The final line was within reasonable range of freedom of interpretation IMO, but “to understand” certainly works better in context.
Good work
Posted by 8thSin | March 17, 2012, 6:38 pmI see you have Usagi Drop live action as an upcoming project!
In case you’re unaware, custom subs have been made for it, unsure of quality as I haven’t watched it yet.
Any upcoming movies that you’re excited about?
Posted by Raku | March 17, 2012, 8:17 pmYeah, I found it a few days ago through OurHour, though it hasn’t circulated all that much yet. I still have some backburner projects that I have to finish first, so I’ll decide what to do later.
I haven’t been keeping up with the movies lately, but I searched for upcoming releases last week and that new Nagasawa Masami movie “Moteki” seems interesting.
Is there any 2010/2010 J-films that you recommend?
Posted by 8thSin | March 17, 2012, 10:07 pmThe Moteki TV show was good so I have high hopes for the movie.
Here’s a quick list of 2010 / 2011 movies I put together, I’m sure there’s more that I’ve missed.
2010
13 Assassins
Boys on the Run
Confessions
Sawako Decides
Yuriko’s Aroma
The Hero Show (w/o subs got a good buzz)
Abraxas (no release yet I don’t think, I watched at a film festival)
Vengeance Can Wait (w/o subs looks interesting to me)
2011
A Man With Style (no release yet I don’t think, I watched at a film festival)
Cold Fish
A Liar and a Broken Girl (w/o subs got a good buzz)
Tada’s Do-It-All House (w/o subs looks interesting to me)
Here are some upcoming releases I’m looking forward to in 2012
Himizu (Heard good things)
Hard Romanticker (no release getting a good buzz)
Monsters Club
Yume Uru Futari
Tokyo Playboy Club (Heard good things)
Fish on Land (Heard good things)
River
The Warped Forest
Ikiterumono wa Inainoka
I’m Flash!
RENT-A-CAT
Kueki Ressha
Bakugyaku Family
This list got a bit out of hand, sorry about that :p
Also I add “Ringing in Their Ears” to my want to see list….looks good, no release yet I don’t think.
Also (for the last time) I just read that Tada’s Do-It-All House is getting a TV drama sequel which will air next year.
Posted by Raku | March 17, 2012, 11:39 pmThanks. I’ve seen 3 of those movies in 2010/2011, and they were all excellent. I’ll check out the others
Posted by 8thSin | March 18, 2012, 8:43 amWhich did you see? I expect one of those was Confessions?……Maybe also 13 Assassins?
Posted by Raku | March 18, 2012, 10:18 amConfessions, 13 Assassins, and Cold Fish at film festivals.
I really liked Himizu too, but Monsters Club wasn’t my type of movie ^^;
Posted by 8thSin | March 18, 2012, 11:39 amAhh you’ve seen Hamizu and Monsters Club?
Seeing them next month along with The Woodsman and the Rain.
Posted by Raku | March 18, 2012, 1:48 pm