This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Okay, we’re getting into the category of watchable now.
Unlike U-C and Mazui, this group has the marked status of actually being understandable. This release makes sense, even if the English isn’t all that great.
OP/ED
That line with that picture would imply he is unable to tell the difference between the man in the picture and the female. The real idea is closer to “How am I supposed to know who you are?” or something similar. Leaving it intentionally vague like that means the reader will undoubtedly connect it to the most logical possibility – that he doesn’t know if she’ll look different from how she does in the picture.
soil-filled countryside,
We got some tense issues, a line in need of a TL note, and a confusing premise… “It’s a description for if someone like me” <- ?!
bush, so
I’d be very, very wary of this line. I’d ask for a TL clarification, because based on what I’ve seen, this doesn’t appear to be the meaning behind the line.
Take out “that of”. It serves no purpose.
No need for “just” here.
try, I’d
The tenses don’t match. Go with “try, I”.
When I try my best to buy super-discounted items on sale at the supermarket, I get such weird looks.
“no?” Hmmm… is this commonly used in British English or something? I’m not inclined to mark it wrong, as I’m a bit confused, but this is not used at all over here.
This line sucks for everyone.
More like mother-daughter.
Replace “the next day” with “tomorrow”
The cosmos is
“The cosmos” is singular.
supposed
“points of speech”? Eh?
Not everyone watches Crayon Shin-chan. How about a TL note if you’re gonna leave the joke?
No. He ate her pizza, so she’s not allowed dinner. That’s what she just fucking said. Logic fail.
Yeah “Cousin” is being used properly here. My problem is with “proper developed assessment abilities”. It should be “properly-developed assessment abilities”.
If I run […] I will be taken […]
It’d be more like bow to, but I don’t like this line. How about “Is that so? I admire your professionalism.” ?
I am… I am…!
… an alien!
It doesn’t need to be styled like that, but there is an interruption and she does finish her sentence, so I think this styling is valid.
Keep alien in lowercase.
in order to create
Also, you can probably drop “on Earth”. I think that’s already implied.
Overall grade: B-
Yes, there were a lot of errors, but their subs didn’t confuse me when I watched them. That’s what really matters in the end. U-C and Mazui both failed in that regard. Therefore, I recommend Doki over the other two.
I’d say these guys are the release to get for the show, but I’m in GotWoot and we have a naisu release coming out for the show.
Need some help here.
“try, I’d
The tenses don’t match. Go with “try, I”.”
Don’t really understand your meaning for this part, mind explain it further?
Sure. It’s essentially a tense issue. I added a bit more to my description to hopefully make it more clear. Basically, “try” is in the present tense and “I’d” is in the past tense. You wanna make the tenses match up here, so I’m suggesting that both be in the present tense.
I see, thanks for breaking it down to simpler terms for me.
Hmm when you say you have a nice release coming out, you don’t mean that GotWoot are ALSO doing this show? They said that they were going to do Deadman Wonderland so… huh?
So many tough choices. Why does this season have so many good fansubbers doing the same shows…
Yeah, GotWoot’s doing it. I think all that’s left is KFX. As for Deadman Wonderland, I just did a QC of it, so that’s where our status is on that. Apparently, GotWoot is always slow on the first episode, but if you followed us on Oniichan, we actually went at a decent clip.
And I know exactly what you mean. There are so many shows I’ve watched where I could honestly go either way with the subtitles.
BTW I think it’s a good idea to also include how much a release makes sense rather than solely focusing on the English. It’ll also help out when choosing the best group to follow.
Most viewers won’t even notice the English errors. So long as a release makes sense, most grammar errors are negligible.
“Not everyone watches Crayon Shin-chan. How about a TL note if you’re gonna leave the joke?”
No, no, no, no no. Is there a TL-note in Japanese? Will every Japanese person get it? NO! Obscure references do NOT need TL notes unless they are vital to the show. If you do not get the joke, then guess what? YOU DIDN’T GET THE JOKE!
1. Is there a TL-note in Japanese?
Are there English subtitles in Japanese releases? No? Oh fuck, I guess we fansubbers should just stop what we’re doing. Guys, guys! Pack up, show’s over. It’s time we let anime go back to being pure Japanese, like it was meant to be.
2. Obscure references do NOT need TL notes unless they are vital to the show. If you do not get the joke, then guess what? YOU DIDN’T GET THE JOKE!
You know what I consider vital to the show? Subtitles that make sense. If you avoid explaining the jokes, then the only people who will understand what’s going on are the people who:
A. Don’t really need to watch subtitles in the first place.
B. Are so wapanese, they absorbed Japanese culture for ten years just so they could understand obscure Japanese references.
If a group makes a decision not to localize a joke, then the people who don’t understand the joke are going to be as confused as fuck. Do you know all the Japanse heavyweight boxers? And that gets me to something else – Japanese wordplay.
“Marriage? Oh you mean Hyacinths?”
^ I’m sure the most wapanese of us would think “Oh yeah, when something doesn’t make sense, it’s those wacky Japanese just playing off kanji.”
But you know what? Sometimes the people watching subtitles haven’t been watching them for 5+ years. Sometimes the people watching subtitles are new. When you leave things unexplained, the hell are they supposed to think?
1. Your response makes no sense. A translation is exactly that, a translation. Its not there to fill you in on cultural knowledge but to translate things in a way that you will understand.
2. In your inexplicable rage you’ve obviously missed a huge part of my rant – “Will every Japanese person get it?”. Hence your example has been made invalid as every average Japanese viewer would get the wordplay jokes. TL notes are signs that you suck as an editor and should only be used in the rarest of times.
Rewording and westernising (not Americanising) the script is the way to translate cultural idioms that can’t be translated. “TL Note: Shenlong means spirit dragon” is the stupidest thing you can do.
Okay, okay. So you want:
Jokes to be untranslated and left as they are, with no TL notes. (Source: “Obscure references do NOT need TL notes unless they are vital to the show. If you do not get the joke, then guess what? YOU DIDN’T GET THE JOKE!”
Jokes to be westernised (using your shitty British English terminology) (source: Rewording and westernising (not Americanising) the script is the way to translate cultural idioms that can’t be translated.)
Could you pick an argument and stick with it? I can’t help you understand how to edit until you have a non-contradictory position on the issue.
You know, every Japanese person may not get it, but if you can provide a quick note on the reference, it will enhance the viewing experience for non-Japanese viewers. Keep in mind that this is not JUST a translation; this is a fansub. People are allowed to improve on the source if they choose e.g. encoding, typesetting, karaoke.
Building on that point, most Japanese may actually get the reference because the source material is so pervasive in their culture (Crayon Shin-chan is actually very popular in Japan, and the average Japanese viewer is more likely than not to get the reference. All the more reason to include the TL note). But will the non-Japanese viewer? Probably not. Well, guess what then? That’s where the TL note comes in.
Jokes need to be translated, they do not need to be explained unless they are important. Jokes are supposed to be funny and someone telling you why it’s funny ruins the entire purpose. Rarely is there any reason to explain a joke. Now moving on to other things that aren’t jokes, but would inspire someone to use a TL-note.
These are things that are often important to the scenario, but cannot be properly translated into English. Here the editor can a) leave it alone or preferably b) Westernise the script. Sorry if I seem anti-American, it’s just that some terms are used exclusively in America so using those terms tends to not solve the problem. A good example of how to do it right IMO is gg’s Star Driver 19 (12.17). Here we have a person who uses boku, now switch to ore. You would have them put a TL-note explaining stuff that doesn’t need explaining, whereas a good editor would westernise the speech to an equivalent, even if it isn’t an accurate translation of what it said.
P.S Are you really telling me “TL Note: Shenlong means spirit dragon” is good editing?
“P.S Are you really telling me “TL Note: Shenlong means spirit dragon” is good editing?”
I’m pretty sure he was suggesting replacing “Shenlong” with “spirit dragon” instead since it doesn’t require an explanation. The Crayon Shin-chan reference can not be inserted into the line itself, so it would need a TL note if you were to add one.
@Dark_Sage: I don’t know about the mythology behind “spiritual dragons”, so I thought the “Shenlong” line was a reference to the Shenlong from DBZ. If that’s the case, then it would be more understandable for people to leave “Shenlong” in the subs.
I thought I’d just point out two flaws in your argument. Jokes must be translated, so that the viewer has a favorable chance of understanding the dialog’s aim. Otherwise, we’d have zero chance of knowing what some of the more skewed Eastern aphorisms, and jokes mean(Tl notes are necessary for these). Lastly, since a large portion(understatement)of the viewers are American, using an American “term”, is a safer bet, than using a British or International English term.
Like anon9 said, I meant that Shenlong should be TL’d into spirit dragon. However, I was informed that it was a DBZ reference, so our TL told me to leave it.
What if the TL Notes were not in the subs, but rather at the end of the show, much like older groups used to do it? That way, everyone wins.
I just imagined watching Dark_Sage’s subs for Lucky Star.
I simply can’t think of anything as fail as that.
If you want to see an example of my liberal editing, watch [Ayako-Nishishi]’s Softenni.
oh, liberal editing on softenni. time to go search for another group.
“That’d be because of your bloodshot eyes, no?”
Well firstly, I don’t think that “that’d” is grammatically correct. As far as the ‘no’ at the end is concerned, that’s commonly used here in India to emphasise a particular point, but I would say that it’s grammatically incorrect as I haven’t seen it being used in British English.
Great article though. I consider myself to be a Grammar Nazi, so this is a wonderful delight for me. There’s just one more thing that I’d like to add. Mazui may have bungled on this occasion, but don’t write them off. The translations that they did for the Haruhi series were the best I’ve seen till date, so I’m still going to place my trust in them.
That’d is a contraction of “that would”. How is it not grammatically correct?
Oh, and their releases for Haruhi season 2? They were so bad I had to switch back to afk’s LQ release. ._.