Fansub Review: [Asenshi] Black Rock Shooter (Episode 02v2)

Asenshi as in, “the Asenshi that does all those fucking xvid re-encodes”? Why is this release so good, then? This is most definitely a conspiracy.

Release format: MKV (371 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: Honorifics.

Chapters: None. (Seriously, who the fuck is too stupid to figure out chapters these days?)

Group website: http://subs.animesenshi.com/

8thsin’s translation critique: http://8ths.in/2011/12/02/winter-2012-anime-subtitle-comparison/#Black

Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: http://www.ji-hi.net/wi11/brs11/

 

Karaoke.

Opening. Very suitable karaoke. The colors in the second screen are the result of various screen changes where different colors were featured.

Ending. When the font popped up, I was like “Just wait a fucking minute. How is this so fucking perfect?” This was a damn good choice on their part. You’ll see what I mean if you watch it.

 

Typesetting.

… Oh wow. “Envelops” is not the same as “Envelopes”. This is a silly mistake that just screams “Newfag editor assumes he’s always right, fucks up script in progress.”

“Dawn Envelops the Sky”

… wow.

So yeah, the typesetting was pretty shitty/non-existent.

 

Script.

This is one of the more common mistakes to miss when QCing. But based on some later mistakes, I don’t think they even had a QC. So I’ll just blame the editor like usual.

Untranslated line. From the three previous releases I watched, it’s something stupid like “Hey! Let’s go up there to watch the fireworks!” And yes, it is important because it sets up the time at which the scene occurs.

As the screen fades away, so does the line. Nice touch as a one-off thing, but if they did this with every fucking scene, I’d kill someone.

This looks very stupid, but the entire exchange is handled well, mostly because unlike the other groups, they didn’t try to bluff their way through it with messy, messy English.

Mistimed line.

Ah, the infamous “referring to another person in the second person while they refer to themselves in the third person.”

Please never do this.

“She said she feels sorry for me!”

yourself, you mean ~_~

“Don’t shut yourself up at home!”

 

Watchability: Watchable.

Overall grade: B

Shitty typesetting and a lack of a QC don’t do much to harm the quality of the release. Compared to Nishishi’s, Asenshi had better karaoke, but slightly worse error management. Both groups’ typesetting sucked.

The big differentiator between the two groups was Asenshi’s phrasing, which was surprisingly good (the kotoriasobi/takanashi exchange sealed the deal for me). I’d give you more examples, but I don’t really care enough to compare Nishi’s 02 with Asenshi’s 02.

I’m gonna recommend the Asenshi release for BRS.