This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
I do like this show. Oh, and I’ll put a poll up later today. Until then my reviews will be mostly picked at random, regardless of how much you want to read them or not.
Table of Contents
Release Information
Episode details.
Release format: MKV (546 MB, 10-bit)
Japanesiness: Honorifics.
English style: American English.
Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/CAmznBki
Speed: Quick (<48 hours)
External links.
Group website: http://utw.me/
IRC channel: #[email protected]
SubCompare screenshot comparisons: http://www.subcompare.com/shinsekai_yori/
Commie’s fansub reviews: http://notredreviews.wordpress.com/autumn-2012-reviews/#shinsekai
Visual Review
Karaoke.
Ending. Only the ED aired this episode.
The color/font choice worked excellently in some scenes (like the first one here) and worse in others (you already know what I’m going to put here), but ultimately the choice to keep it consistent was a decent one. There weren’t any particularly lows in the ED so I’d say it worked out all right.
Rating: Good.
Typesetting.
Script Review
Karaoke.
“wets my eyes” is not really a phrase that carries much value in this line. “brings tears to my eyes” gets the point across much better.
You somehow understood how to use quotation marks for the Japanese part but it completely slipped your mind when it came to the English?
“Blow stronger”, they scream
Or if you want to use the shitty way of quotation marking, you could go with:
“Blow stronger,” they scream
Main Script.
The subs often interfere with the credits because text placement is too difficult a concept for UTW to understand apparently.
Beyond that, they need to work on their capitalization. Titles and honorifics should be capitalized and “My Emperor” is certainly one of those.
“punish” is a better word to use here because in this game it does not appear there are any penalties. The referee is just there to call the game one way or another.
The punishment would come in with an air ball being disadvantageous because a “protector” could easily redirect it off the field.
Why the fuck are people so deadset on making retarded comma splices? Is it so hard to learn what the fuck a semicolon is?
Either “Let the final round begin.” or “Let the finals begin.” would suffice.
This does not.
“Tone River”
You do capitalize the names of rivers, but the “river” part is generally included in the name.
This comes out of nowhere. I have no clue what he means by “topics”. What, are they going to write an essay on their experience, or is this just to brainstorm ideas for a debate class?
Not clear at all, and that’s no good when the entire fucking point of subtitles is to clearly relay what’s being said.
This is pretty awesome. In this scene, the queerat is mumbling in its own language, so UTW “subbed” it.
Nice touch.
“feeling” is completely unnecessary here. “I think it’s cold.” is closer to human speech.
Special Note:
Have to admit, I was a bit thrown off by this one. The script here is stilted; it has a bit of rough edge to the flow. However, I’m going to say this is acceptable because the show is a bit off-kilter with its depiction of a rural Japanese town.
What am I talking about when I say rough? Well, here are a few examples:
First-word repetition of adjacent lines. (16:00 and 16:04). This is not a hard-and-set rule, of course. But ordinarily in this context it would be seen as preferable to avoid this.
Weird phrase use. (4:09). “until the clock runs out” is pretty much never used except by boy band Allstar Weekend and I sincerely doubt anyone in UTW is popular with the ladies.
Lengthy lines that could easily be rephrased. (5:28). “However, only the one piece declared as the pusher is safe from attack.” could easily be “However, only the pusher is safe from attack.”
But like I said before, these weren’t particularly so offensive in this context that I’m going to consider them errors (bringing up all the lines that contributed to my sense of the flow would result in a much longer list here). However, I wanted to discuss this anyway.
Results
Watchability: Watchable.
Visual grade: B+
Script grade: B
Overall grade: B
Not too shabby a release. Compared to Aidoru and Hadena, UTW are practically gods of English. But Commie is also subbing this show and I’m interested in seeing how they’ll do in comparison.
I’m surprised no one is on this website yet, you should the word Dark Sage?
Ah, yeah, guess I should.
“I fall over yet pretend to be strong” and the version with the comma are both acceptable. Including a comma here interrupts the flow, so I’d say it’s better to leave it out since it’s a song.
At the beginning of this episode, are you criticizing the subs or the anime with respect to “Five Hundred Years Later”? The Japanese doesn’t seem to say anything other than that as far as the text is concerned.
“Yet” is a coordinating conjunction in this context and not placing a comma is an error – and not even close to acceptable no matter what grammar rules and/or style guide you follow.
Not quite. If they used “I fall over yet I pretend to be strong”, then that would be incorrect. However, since the pronoun isn’t used in the second part, the comma is not needed.
Here’s a source if you still don’t agree: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm#yet
Hmm. Fair enough; review updated.
“Five hundred years later” is what the kanji translate into. Can’t fault them for accurately translating what is being show on screen.
agreed. I suspect DS has little knowledge about kanji.
You’d be correct.
When they’re discussing the rules to the game, they’re not saying that floating their pieces would be disadvantageous– it’s strictly against the rules. All pieces must stay in contact with the ground at all times. Instead of “penalize” it might have been more accurate to just say “would be a rule violation” or something, but it -is- a matter of rules, not strategy.
And as others have mentioned, “500 years later” is about as much context as the Japanese gives too. And yes, they’re going to be turning in papers about their camping experiences; it’ll probably be elaborated on next week. The point of subtitles is to translate what’s there, not to overclarify and dumb down the storytelling.
This is a dilemma that I face in subbing too — whether to clarify implied statements or leave it as part of the story’s mystery.
Like you say, “overclarifying” might dumb down storytelling, or even spoil climactic moments.
are*
Need more lulz! Do more rage reviews!
I’m glad UTW have done a decent version, as Aidoru called it a ‘2-cour’ adaptation, which made me feel slightly nauseous. Now I don’t have to check theirs out.
We called it a 2-cour adaptation because that’s exactly what the show is. It’s an adaptation of a novel that will run for 2 cours (25 episodes, to be exact).
As Miss Piggy used to say: ‘Pretentious? Moi?’