Fansub Review: [Chibiki] The Idolm@ster (Episode 01)

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This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

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UTW + Underwater = Random joint name. You coulda had something awesome like UnderWut or even UnderWuter. Get it? Cuz UTW anagrammed is Wut, and…

…

Okay, on with the review.

File size: 316 MB (HQ MKV), 177 MB (LQ MKV)

Japanesiness: Depends if you want it like that or not. Two subtitle tracks let you choose. I ended up reviewing the Japanese track, BTW. Mostly cuz I didn’t know I had a choice.

Karaoke. Insert/ED. The insert was so short that I would not fault a group for not doing kara on it. But they did, so kudos are in order. Kara wasn’t great, but it was passable.

  

Typesetting. Good job on translating everything. They had a lot more, but I think you can see that they did a pretty good job with these.

I’m not a fan of arbitrary length extensions. I say “arbitrary” because that’s what it is. Characters often extend various parts of words, and these parts were not any more important than words in other lines.

Kusion keeps giving me shit about my comma splicing when I edit. I don’t think he edited this episode, but I wish he did. Revenge is a dish best served with a hint of Sage. ^_~

Whoopsies~

Rewatched this entire exchange just to make sure I wasn’t misreading things. There was no question asked, nor was there one implied.

“Top secret” is not a noun; it’s an adjective. Drop the “a” here and make it “It’s terribly regrettable, but that is top secret.”

Since I have to touch up this line anyway, I’d suggest this in its stead, “It’s regrettable, but that is classified information.”

 

Overall grade: A-

I think the English itself is closer to a B+, but all the other stuff – the kara, the sheer amount of translations provided – helps bump the release up higher.

0 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [Chibiki] The Idolm@ster (Episode 01)”

  1. From UTW’s Comments
    “Daiz says:
    July 8, 2011 at 10:50 pm
    You can blame the A-1 Pictures for that – the English names are part of the original video and not something added by us. We would’ve made them bigger if they hadn’t been typeset into the video already.”

    That should answer your question about the typesetting.

    Reply

  2. Yeah the typesetting of the girl’s names were NOT done by them, they were part of the video and it’s kinda obvious as the names use western name order as for some reason, when Japanese people write names in English, they all seem to use western name order. I find that strange.

    I only had one problem with this release, is the use of N on quite a few lines. Makes it look like a HorribleSub’s release. Overall good though.

    Reply

  3. Duly noted, Spinarakk, derp. The review has been fixed to reflect that info. I apologize for needing to be corrected in the first place. I usually have enough time to check these things out on my own… >_<

    Reply

  5. If I had one more thing to complain about the English in this release, it’d be the second typeset in the episode. “They are to what girls will eternally aspire.” makes almost no sense.

    Reply

    • Actually, I think that English is correct, albeit flowery. I do agree, however, that it reads like the TL jotted that line down in a coffee shop before finishing a LiveJournal blog post on his iPad.

      They are idols.
      Girls will eternally aspire to be idols.
      {They are what girls eternally aspire to be.} <- In plain-speak. {They are to what girls will eternally aspire.} <- Same thing, but far more pretentious.

      Reply

  7. This was pretty good. Thanks for the tip about the dual subtitle tracks, by the way, because I had no idea and that pretty much eliminates the one aspect of these I didn’t like.

    Reply

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