This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Just a heads up, but my typesetting section is going to be a lot longer than usual. Nisemonogatari is a very visual show and the typesetting deserves an elevated status for it.
Note: They didn’t actually drop this show. My mistake. They’re still on for it.
Release format: MKV (265 MB, 10-bit)
Japanesiness: Honorifics. This is one of those shows where I’d insist on honorifics. They really fucking work here. “Onii-chan” used (which I wouldn’t necessarily insist on).
Group website: http://colormesubbed.com/
8thsin’s translation critique: http://8ths.in/winter-2011-anime-subtitle-comparison/#Nisemonogatari
Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: N/A
Karaoke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7qjmXFp0yE
I spent hours trying to figure out why this wouldn’t encode until I realized nothing fucking works with 10-bit. Had to drop this shit back to 8-bit to get it to work. Anyway, here’s the kara CMS did. Yes, I’ll be doing this for each Nise review.
Did I like the kara? Why yes, I fucking did.
Typesetting.
Ooh, I like.
Naisu. This appeared for only a couple frames. Actually, tons of the upcoming screenshots only appeared in a few frames. That’s just how Nisemonogatari rolls.
I really, really like this eye shit.
I’m a little disappointed the entire bookshelf wasn’t typeset. Come on guys, I bet it’d only take five minutes.
These scenes are repeated throughout the series.
The books fall like dominoes and there are a lot of them. They make up for it with…
Quite a few there.
For my armchair TLs (I fucking love y’all btw), this is just the “ni” part of “tonikaku sa”, so the typesetting’s right.
Overall, was I impressed? Yes. I was fucking impressed. Exceptional work. The typesetting itself is an A+
Script.
“We’re going to Sengoku’s, so of course you’re coming.”
Er, a harem is considered “creepy”? You sure that’s what he’s saying?
Like, you know…
tense issue.
“that if I stood on my hands,” “I could see your panties from this angle.”
Another tense issue.
“If I’m ever in really bad trouble again,” “will you help me?”
or
“If I were ever in bad trouble again,” “would you help me?”
You can’t mix and match this shit.
Watchability: So watchable it’s hard to not watch it.
Overall grade: A
As ex-Koharubi staff, I know how hard this -gatari shit is. It’s not easy to do (we went through countless translators and typesetters on the project). But with an excellent CR base translation, CMS builds an extremely good release.
The only thing keeping this from an A+ is the script — it could’ve used a bit more QC to bring it up to the quality of the rest of the release. With CR’s base translation, I expect the other groups to hit A-tier status fairly easily. Will CMS prevail as the top fansub for this show? Hell, I don’t know. I haven’t seen the other group’s releases. I’d be surprised if they hit this tier of typesetting, though. Their reviews’re coming up (after I get some sleep).
Honestly, I was surprised at how good the base CR script was. Compared to their usual releases, they really hit the ball out of the park with this one in terms of accuracy and fluency. But perhaps it was because I went in with super-low expectations…
Also, if you did work on Koharubi’s Bakemonogatari releases, thanks for the stellar release.
Regarding the honorifics, I have to ask what your rationale is for insisting their inclusion in such a show. It would be interesting to hear your views.
Honorifics and use of some untranslated Japanese terms works best when the work is heavily ingrained into Japanese culture. This is the sequel to the show which had a giant fucking crab made out of kanji.
Now, I usually would say it’s best to cut out the honorifics. I really feel that making the show feel as natural to viewing audience as possible is an ideal that should be striven for. But the sheer amount of wordplay they’ve got in this show that revolves around the Japanese language means it’s almost certain they’ll be dragging that shit into conversations and I don’t want to see “Call me Ms. Hachikuji; not Lil’ Hachikuji.” in my fucking Nise. Some shit really just is impossible to properly translate without leaving in a little bit of the Japanese language, and Nise is as close to that as it gets. Most shows have so few of these instances that it doesn’t matter. Nise? Good fucking luck.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to have a great release without honorifics, but I don’t think any of the groups that are doing this have staff capable of knocking this out of the park.
I don’t understand why so many typesetters don’t know how to blur or tweak alpha levels.
IMO, good typesetting blends into the original video. Ideally, they should be impossible to tell if they were added by producers or subbers, and CMS typesetting stand out like a sore thumb.
Also, it seems they forgot to set episode font.
The only option you have here then is to pretty much cover up all the Japanese text (for everything) and write over it. I’ve seen what happens when groups do that — qiiq for Bakemonogatari, for example — and it doesn’t look good at all.
He’s not talking about that, he’s saying that crearly CMD didn’t use {be}, nor {blur}, {a} or {alpha}. And that’d make the sign look closer to the original japanese text.
Ah, all right. My typesetting skills are… non-existent at best, so I was a bit confused then.
These guys use blur just fine, look at the very last sign DS put up.Some groups get too carried away using that tag and kills the video experience.That tag is the leading cause of those ugly blocky scenes you see after a sign does not work, when watching on a slow machine.I feel it should be used sparingly because lets face it, not all of us have i7’s. I thought they did a fine job balancing it.