This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Commie-Commie’s release and WhyNot’s are so similar that I felt the only way to compare the two would be to do it directly.
Minor changes and style issues are going to be ignored. Instead, I’m going to focus on the more important lines in this comparison.
Useless information, but… Commie was more likely to start a new line and use ellipses than WhyNot. WhyNot was more likely to force line breaks. Commie tended to localize more (fencing vs. naginata fencing, rice ball vs. onigiri).
Commie
Release format: MKV (243 MB, 10-bit)
Japanesiness: No honorifics. “Ritsuko” instead of Ricchan.
English style: American English.
Group website: http://commiesubs.com/
Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/ZndngPYR
WhyNot
Release format: MKV (469 MB, 10-bit)
Japanesiness: No honorifics. “Ri” instead of Ricchan.
English style: American English.
Group website: http://whynotsubs.com/
Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/G80PiCGT
8thsin’s translation critique: N/A
Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: N/A
Table of Contents
Visual Quality
Karaoke.
Typesetting.
Other.
Script Quality
Karaoke.
I’m not going to compare the OP/ED line-by-line. Each line is fundamentally different across the releases and I don’t have the time for that after the main script review (I usually write this section last of all). I suppose if I had to choose which OP/ED TL I liked better, WhyNot’s version would be my choice.
Main Script.
Both groups dropped the ball on this one. “are” needs to be accented for the line to have any kind of flow. You could keep the line like this, but if you were to replicate it in real life, you’d need to say the line quite quickly to remove the awkwardness of no accent on the “are”. He doesn’t speak fast enough here to justify this.
“It was going smooth as could be, and then you blew it!”
I’m getting tired of all these fucking pictures (one of the reasons these reviews take so long to get done is WordPress’s shitty image upload system), so have a script comparison instead. (WhyNot first, Commie second)
Yeah. Do you like jazz, Yurika?
These two practice playing it together just about every day.
They play jazz?Do you like jazz, Yurika?
These two practice playing jazz music together just about every day.
They play jazz?
Whereas Commie repeats “jazz” in all three lines, WhyNot avoids this mouthy repetition by replacing “jazz music” with it. Good call, WhyNot.
More scripts (you guys have no idea how much I hate this image upload system). (WhyNot first, Commie second)
Shutting himself in the basement, not letting anyone near him…
Even I didn’t feel welcome in the basement.Shutting himself up in the basement, not letting anyone near him…
Even I didn’t feel welcome down there.
This time it was Commie that avoided needless repetition.
Timing Review
Incoming. When “Timing Critique” is added as a category, you’ll know this part is done.
Results.
Watchability: Quite watchable (both).
Timing Grade:
Visual grade: B- (Commie), B- (WhyNot)
Script grade: B+ (Commie), B+ (WhyNot)
Overall grade (timing results not factored in): B+ (both)
Commie and WhyNot both scored the same by my standards. CMS also scored the same on the script, so if you like honorifics in your shows, go with theirs. For the more localized option? Eh, it’s a toss-up. Even after this review, I still don’t know which group I’d prefer. I suppose I’d suggest WhyNot simply because they’re less likely to troll the viewer.
>You really are a fool!
In this case, the emphasis affects the meaning of the phrase. Compare: “You REALLY ARE a FOOL!”, proclaiming his foolishness in a disapproving tone, and “You really ARE a fool!”, confirming his suspicions of foolishness.
Certainly emphasis would help clarify, though the first possible interpretation would likely go unaccented. I suspect the phrase in question is the latter, however.
“I suppose I’d suggest WhyNot simply because they’re less likely to troll the viewer.”
inb4 DARK_SAGE Y U BIASED AGAINST COMMIE
But “try and” is wrong. Ours may be awkward because of repetition but at least it’s not an error.
“Context is glasses-fag is all “OMG you made my love interest sad because you’re sniffing this handkerchief like it’s a hot girl’s panties. I’m gonna take this handkerchief and run away like a little bitch.”
“I can’t bear to see Ritsu like that!”
See her like what? This doesn’t make any sense at all.
You’ve completely misunderstood the scene. He says he couldn’t bear seeing her pick it up because another girl gave it to the guy she likes. Not because Sentaro made her sad by sniffing it. She’s not even sad (visibly). Then he runs away to avoid any conflict and also because he’s probably feeling nauseous like was mentioned in the first episode. Both groups lines are perfectly fine.
Thanks!
So… it comes down to whoever releases first. Pretty nice for viewers.
Indeed, WordPress image uploading sucks.
Like janice said above, I think you’ve misunderstood the handkerchief scene. His thought was directed at Ritsuko, saying he didn’t want to watch her pick it up (which she did a couple of minutes later anyway).
I’d probably prefer Commie’s script slightly, but I’m going with WhyNot for the video quality. WhyNot’s keeps the grain effect that is smoothed out in Commie’s version, and the colours seem better too.
Thanks for the review.
Useful, entertaining article, as always. Thanks, Dark_Sage.
For the untypeset scene with the person writing on the chalkboard, could it be that it’s actually Chinese? Not having watched the show, I don’t know how plausible that is. I just know I can read it with my rudimentary Mandarin.
？木先生不在？？
Mr. [name ending in 木] is not [somewhere covered by head]
Usually you can tell Japanese by the weird Japanese-only characters they stick in everywhere for (I guess) particles and conjugation and stuff. But, this doesn’t have any.
Probably just a fluke, of course. But, if there’s an anime about people learning Chinese, goddamn I have to watch that.
>Commie’s font is better than WhyNot’s.
Linotype Finnegan is objectively the greatest font in the known universe.
I will give you that it is a good font, but comic sans makes a pretty good claim for the throne.
ｶﾞ━━(;ﾟДﾟ)━━ﾝ!!
The “Festival Beat” line was a trade-off for us…
The problem is that just saying “Festival Jazz”, most viewers wouldn’t get that he’s specifically referring to Japanese obon-dance beat “bam bam bam, babam babam”, which is the beat he was playing. They’d probably think of generic Jazz festival.
That’s why we expanded it out to “Festival dance beat” to make sure people understood it was specifically referring to the rhythm he was playing… Something obvious to any Japanese person but probably not so obvious otherwise.
Yeah, the line is too long for the time allotted but the alternative is a note and is that any better?
A very helpful review that tipped me in WhyNot subs’ favor. :)
Sort of a random question, but I was wondering which player you used to display this anime, because whenever I play it on my GOM Player, the font formating is completely ignored, which is a bit annoying.