Tsumiki’s now.

Release format: MKV (312 MB, 10-bit), MKV (348 MB, 8-bit)

Japanesiness: Honorifics.

English style: American English.

Group website: http://tsumikisubs.wordpress.com/

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/2jx3T3xh

8thsin’s translation critique: http://8ths.in/spring-2012-fansub-comparison-reviews#Acchi

Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: http://www.ji-hi.net/sp12/acchi/

 

Table of Contents

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Timing

Results

Visual Quality

Karaoke.

Opening. Cheery and k-timed. It definitely fit with the peppy music.

Ending. I dunno. I didn’t really feel this one. Perhaps it was the orange-pink color they used, but it didn’t really rub me the right way. The script also got in the way of the credits a lot.

 

Typesetting.

When I mentioned that Tsumiki typeset nearly everything in the show, I meant it. You wouldn’t normally expect half a kanji to get typeset, but here it is. The sheer amount of effort they put into typesetting for the show was impressive.

The “chop” here goes all chippy-choppy back and forth. Super, super cute. If I could hug typesetting, I’d hug the fuck outta this.

So… why isn’t the red text here on the left side?

 

I chose 20 screenshots for the typesetting, but I had close to 60 screenshots saved for this release that highlighted the typesetting. Tsumiki really went out of their way to get this shit done.

Other.

It’s not that hard to prevent your script from running into the Japanese text.

You guys had an A+ until I got to this point. This entire preview is handled terribly. I had to pause every second to read this shit.

Having the main script run into the Japanese while the English scrolls above that trainwreck is an awful way to present the next episode to viewers. Fucking shit job here.

Script Quality

Karaoke.

Is there a reason why the second “to” is there?

What the fucking fuck? “jolly”? Really? It’s a word, true. But it’s not a word that makes any sense in this context.

And then you have

“I just want you to hold my hand”

“And grasp them tightly”

which only makes sense if that first line had “hands”.

 

Main Script.

This exchange isn’t super amazing, but at least it fits and makes sense, more than I got from Commie’s who had to split this long string of jokes into two parts to have it make sense.

“Yeah, me too is really cold.” ? lolol. How the fuck did this pass through 4 TLs, 2 TLCs, 3 editors, and 3 QCs?

“I’m really cold.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“You could do that to warm up a bit.”

She’s saying that it’s possible to warm up by following her example earlier. It’s more a suggestion than a “Oh, let me just rattle off random possibilities”, so the “could” is necessary to indicate this.

“What for?!” ? Really?

“Don’t push me back in! Why did you do that?!”

Snowball-Generating

In case you’re wondering, these super minor issues don’t really affect the final grade at all unless there are a large number of them. I’m mostly just including this shit to show how fucking great I am at spotting errors that don’t matter.

So at least one group knows what an accent is. Good job, Tsumiki.

This isn’t really how a native speaker would phrase the sentence. When you’re directing a question toward two people, shit gets kinda awkward. The best way to handle this is to place the two names in the middle.

“By the way, Hime-chan and Mayoi-san, how good are you at cooking?” {Because fuck “how are your skills?” as a question. It doesn’t make any sense at all.}

What does being a lady have to do with cracking eggs? If there’s a joke here, make it fucking relevant to your English-speaking audience.

“I’m a lady, but I keep breaking eggs.” {Implying she’s handling them too forcefully and is manly as a result}

I could make it work in this context, but I really don’t want to.

“What do you girls think about eating a guy’s homemade cooking?”

“That sounds great!”

Actually, I’m not particularly pleased with my phrasing here, but this review took way longer to write than I thought it would, so I’m moving on.

They’re playing with words here. “Moe” means… well, you’re otaku. You fucking know. But it’s also a homonym for “burning”. Tsumiki expertly combined moe with burning to get “Smoking Hot”. Commie went with “turn on” as in “turn on the gas”. Lame.

“If you knew, then you should’ve ignored it!”

Fun fact: “omelet” is the preferred American spelling whereas “omelette” is the preferred British spelling.

Okay, that wasn’t all that fun. Fuck me, I’m trying here.

Oh, and it should be “half-cooked”, not “half cooked”.

extra what? extra eggs? Then pluralize it.

“Since we cracked too many eggs, I cooked the extras too!” {You don’t need to remove the comma before “too” here, but I did cuz it’s my Sagey style.}

I don’t think I’ve really ever seen “as expected” used in this context in English outside of fansubs.

“I knew you’d do a good job, Tsumiki.”

TL noting jokes? Interesting. Have you ever tried translating them? You know, so the joke would make sense to an English-speaking audience? Even with this TL Note, I didn’t find it funny at all. The only thing I got from this was “Oh, maybe this would be funny to Japanese people, but it’s not funny to me at all.”

Timing Review

Incoming. When “Timing Critique” is added as a category, you’ll know this part is done.

Results.

Watchability: Watchable.

Timing Grade: 

Visual grade: A

Script grade: C+

Overall grade (timing results not factored in): B

Though both Commie and Tsumiki got an A for their visuals, I would say that Tsumiki did a better job, simply because of the sheer number of signs they typeset. I did give both Tsumiki and Hatsuyuki a C+ on the script, but Tsumiki’s script was better than Hatsuyuki’s. These things aren’t quite reflected in the grading system that I have set up (a high C+ is different from a low C+, for example), but that’s why I have this fucking section at the end.

Overall, I think Tsumiki has the best release for the show, both in visuals and script.