This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Chu2 reviews done. And I think we have a clear winner.
Table of Contents
Release Information
Episode details.
Release format: MKV (345 MB, 10-bit)
Japanesiness: No honorifics.
English style: American English.
Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/iQdyxsfH
Speed: Quick (<48 hours)
External links.
Group website: http://ggkthx.org/
IRC channel: #[email protected]
SubCompare screenshot comparisons: http://www.subcompare.com/chuunibyou_demo_koi_ga_shitai!/
Commie’s fansub reviews: http://notredreviews.wordpress.com/autumn-2012-reviews/#chuuni
Visual Review
Karaoke.
The opening starts off bad and…
continues to suck. Wow. The only positive thing about this is that it’s actually readable compared to URW’s. But I’m not about to praise ugliness just because the OP is readable.
The bland, half-colored karaoke makes sense at first. However, as the kara goes on, the colors don’t change one bit. Why not color code it based on which character is being highlighted? Or perhaps, gasp, you could even try something other than this half-colored shit when the tone of the OP changes.
But nope, gg sticks to its guns here. And what rusted guns they are.
Rating: Bad.
Sufficient is the best word to describe the ED. The lines get in the way of the credits quite often and the color doesn’t match very much, but it gets away with it for having a suitable color on a darker background.
Rating: Okay.
Typesetting.
There wasn’t much to typeset, but gg still managed to miss half of it.
Other.
Encode was cut worse than a bad circumcision. Note the pixel’d border. You’ll see it throughout the release.
Script Review
Karaoke.
Tenses don’t really make sense here.
I’d like to note that I did really enjoy the ED translation.
Main Script.
They missed the stutter here. Not a big issue, but seriously. The only legitimate reason for skipping this is if the translator couldn’t find the dash key on his keyboard.
Is anyone in gg aware of what the word “competent” means?
It’s like a fail sandwich. I don’t think you can pack anymore in there.
I don’t think I’d even have to have watched URW’s first to know this is pretty much made up.
I like this translation better than URW’s (which is eighth-grade syndrome). Makes more sense logically.
Comparisons to URW are going to be numerous in this review because they’re the only other group subbing it and I already watched their 02.
I didn’t feel this as much as I felt URW’s (“And I caught her!”). Reason being that although gg’s is shorter, it’s more formal and impersonal (choosing “it” over “her”). The “And” is great because it follows the “story” that she was going on about in her head. While there’s nothing wrong with gg’s line, it’s just not as good as URW’s.
A better line than URW’s “As creatures that dwell in the Dark Realm, chimaeras should hold the power to detect the Unseen Horizon.”, which highlights a clear strength gg has over URW here: the ability to pick excellent translations for names and concepts.
I fangasmed enough over this line in URW’s release. To reiterate, this is an excellent translation. Can’t get enough of it.
Nice line. Simple and to the point.
Stale.
Lemme address editor-kun here: A lack of specificity in subs is problematic and a recurring issue in this release. Be conscious of words like “stuff” and “things”. Overuse of imprecise, generic words can lead to confusion and a dull script. Take a scene where someone wants to point out a guy juggling knives.
“Look at that!”
“Look at him!”
“Look at him go!”
All provide what’s required here — bringing the viewer’s attention to the scene. But I think it’s obvious which of options is better.
The more specific you get (while keeping in mind length limitations and intelligent phrasing practices), the more the subs accentuate the scene rather than relying on the visuals and scenario to carry them.
Keep this in the back of your mind and your editing will improve substantially, I promise.
I’m not sure whether to chalk this up to the script just trying to avoid name brand references (you know, how things like “Gundam” are often bleeped in subs) or if this is a joke.
Well fucking phrased.
An improvement over URW’s death line, but it’s still a bit off.
“There’s no way!” would be a better line for how the script has been written up until this point.
I liked this two-line sequence more than anyone should. I don’t see how this could be phrased any better.
The combination of the alliteration and the applied idiom here… fucking delicious.
The joke would go over better if she used his words against him here. The point is that she’s intentionally misinterpreting his words, so by repeating what he said in this pose, it allows the viewer to get the joke.
As-is, the line is not much of an issue. But it’s still off from what it should be.
“How bold of you. Telling me to take it all off…”
The joke here is that One-Eye is trying to work the cat having wings into the conversation. But it has to flow right, and this does not.
“The cat’s about this wide and this long.” (Grabbed that line from URW.)
“Yeah, my cat’s about that big too.”
“Including its wingspan?”
And there you go. It naturally follows the previous lines now.
Yeah, I get it’s a kanji reading joke, but this didn’t work for me. URW didn’t really handle it amazingly either, mostly because they turned it into a non-joke. Credit to gg for at least trying.
Except she’s not unlocking a magic code. She’s unlocking the door. So it’s more “Magic code entered.” than anything.
One of the benefits of this inconsistent script is that the highs are really high. Compare it to “I must ensure no distortions are present in my room.” and you can see how it goes to just the next level.
She’s a girl too? In comparison to what? Yes, I get that the sentiment is “Girls have idiosyncracies, one of which is caring about heavily about the appearance of their rooms.” (even though guys do too, but this is a trope so deal with it), but if that’s the case… just fucking out and say it. This reads as some subpar lit-translation.
“Girls have their secrets.” would be so much better.
Fucking hell, gg. You have put me on a rollercoaster of feels. I just got finished bitching about something you did and then you go and follow it up with something fantastic like this.
My heart can’t take this.
No! Just take the easy route. “You realize you’re being redundant, right?”
I’m going to flip my fucking monitor one of these days. Holy shit is this line bad.
“cooler than I thought you could ever be” refers to her, but the subject of this sentence is her gun. This does not fucking match.
“I didn’t think you’d have something as awesome as this baby.”
“You’re really into guns, aren’t you?”
FUCKING EASY. FUCK.
No she fucking can see. The issue is she can’t see the fucking cat. PLEASE STOP RELYING ON THE SCENE TO CONVEY WHAT YOUR SUBS SHOULD. RAGE.
“You can’t see her? Well I wouldn’t expect normal people to be able to.”
“obstacle” would better fit how she’s describing her sister.
Aww yeah, dichotomy.
I love the top line, but the bottom line is a miss. Comedy websites? Like what? Just translate this as Youtube or say “video-sharing” or “video-uploading” sites to leave it more vague.
Damn good phrasing in this scene.
This came outta nowhere and… doesn’t make much sense.
Results
Watchability: Watchable.
Visual grade: C
Script grade: C
Overall grade: C
The gg script’s high points are indeed worth the price of admission if you can deal with its many, many lows. You can rest assured that this release has sufficient
But in the face of an absurdly well-polished script from URW (compare what I talked about in that release to what I talked about here), it’s really not the best choice by any measure. There’s little to stop you from choosing URW as the go-to group for this anime.
The kara styling is her eyepatch and eye color, although the sides the colors are on should be reversed, in my opinion.
I knew URW was the correct group, I hope your able to pop out Psycho-Pass tonight…
I have a couple of questions.
Are you of the opinion that subtitles should spoon-feed the viewer everything that is conveyed by the context of the scene, the character, the tone of voice, the body language, so on and so forth?
I ask this because in English, using the same word(s) in different contexts with different tones of voice can mean/imply different things.
So, when that occurs in Japanese, are we supposed to spell it out for the viewer by translating the same word differently depending on said context, tone of voice, etc…?
darksage loves spoon-fed subs.
I don’t see conveying the context of a scene in the subtitles to be a negative thing, so I wouldn’t use the term “spoon-feed”. But yes, subtitles should accurately reflect the context of the scene. Match the INTENT, not the direct translation.
So if a character says “Hai” in Japanese, but they’re using it sarcastically, don’t translate it “Yes.” Translate the sarcasm across. Maybe “Sure.” or “Yes, Your Highness.” instead.
>“Hai”
>“Yes”, “Sure”
Good example.
>“Hai”
>“Yes, Your Highness.”
Bad example.
Depends on the context.
might as well just go read a book or manga instead of watching. this is anime, where you can SEE and HEAR (the tone and so forth) what’s going on. we don’t need subs to “over-clarify and dumb down the storytelling.” we can do that on our own.
If you really want to dig into this it’s a terrifically complicated issue, but in practice I would draw a fine line between “a bit of clarification” and “spoon-feeding” (there are people who would argue that even a bit of clarification is bad, but that again is a terrifically complicated issue). Rule of thumb: don’t imply things more strongly than the original.
That means reflecting sarcasm is fine, but “the butler seems suspicious” does not translate to “the butler is the killer.” Obviously, I chose an extreme example, but trying to be too specific means it’s easy to cross into the realm of over-explication and dumbing-down.
What I’ve found in my years of editing translations is that Japanese is a very context-based language and that the same line can mean different things depending on when it’s said, who to and who about. I remember when Bleach was first airing that there was some confusion about the cat’s gender (Yoruichi) which became pivotal later on but was unguessable due to the fact that there were no gender-specific his/her/him/hers lines to tip anyone off, whereas English is much more specific in these cases. I often find myself adding small qualifying words (like “it” or “them” or “over there”) just so that scenes make sense in English.
As said above, there’s a very real difference between spoon-feeding and qualifying an action, which is why overly literal translations are quite often gobbledygook.
I’m not denying that Japanese is context-based. “I” and “you” are rarely said in Japanese dialogue compared to English, yet they’re completely understood by the speakers and listeners and are a grammatical necessity in translation to English. To use technical terms, adding pronouns is a matter of semiotics and not meaning. Of course, the inherent rules of a language often force the addition of information (such as gender) that was not in the original, but that’s a topic that has books and essays written on it, so I’ll leave it aside for now.
What concerns me is, for example, making foreshadowing too explicit in translation when it was a lot more subtle originally. Or replacing unique, series-specific terminology with simple, descriptive, self-explanatory phrases (or worse, pretending it’s not terminology at all and just melding the term into an explanation). Or if a character has a strange speaking style or is speaking cryptically, yet the translator excises all of that in the name of “clarity” or “smoothness”.
I consider those all bad practice, but that’s just the camp I’m in. Editors and publishers have long insisted on effacing any unusual features of a text to make it palatable for a domestic audience. But this is starting to go on a tangent now.
Also D_S, paragraph spacing in comments is broken again.
Dammit. Now I have to remember how we fixed this last time.
Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I find the problem with foreshadowing in anime is that it’s super vague, and because it’s way, way more vague than it needs to be in the original language, the translation comes out as “But that time, that thing happened.” or something equally as unnatural. Unfortunately, this leads to translators and editors plumping for something a little more specific because the only way to keep it subtle is by knowing the ending already, which is unlikely if you’re doing a series as it airs.
I think it’s also sometimes difficult to know what’s going to be series-specific and what’s going to recur when you’re translating/editing a first episode, so liberalisation does happen in these instances before potentially being reverted later on.
Of course, the way you translate something can make or break a scene. I remember Eclipse making a complete hash of a punchline to a misunderstanding joke in the first episode of Hayate the Combat Butler – and what’s worse, that scene was pivotal to the rest of the series and was repeatedly brought up. But the translation itself could have been considered accurate (they translated the words that were said) but it was the *nuance* they’d missed out on, ruining it for an English-speaking audience. So yeah, I think sometimes, nuance can be very important and in that way, it’s better to spell things out a bit more where the situation necessitates it.
In addition to this, I read a novel translated from Japanese where each Japan-specific term that wasn’t widely recognised was explained in the text (which I can imagine wasn’t in the original). Obviously we can’t exactly do that in subtitle form (hence why TL notes exist, I guess), but yeah, sometimes just straight translation isn’t enough.
Buzzwords.
So now that the fansubs reviews for this show are over, will the Sage continue watching it?
No. I gave up on watching anime to completion after the fansub reviews blew up in popularity. It’s unfortunate, but that’s how it is. :/
A C is honestly better than my usual expectation from a gg release. Still gonna stick with URW though.
Although gg’s release contains more basic mistakes, it also contains much more great lines (going by your review of URW’s release), so I think I’m going to stick with them. For a lighthearted comedy like this, I’m more forgiving of relatively minor mistakes if the subs themselves make me crack a smile.
might as well go read a troll sub. they’ll make you crack more :P
What? I’m saying gg’s editing for this show is clever and entertaining despite a number of mistakes. There’s nothing of any value in “troll subs”.
Good to know someone else shares my thoughts after reading both reviews.
Of course, UTW has the advantage that most of their staff have been wearing eye-patches for years already. Don’t know why…
The Lite mini-sodes should be factored into the review as well.
I watched 2 episodes (& minis) by URW, but felt that they underperformed. I can’t speak to gg’s Eps. 1 & 2, but their Ep. 3 Lite was witty and natural. URW’s was stiff and weaboo (e.g. “Onii-chan”, “Yu-Hel-something card game” and “Rin Pyou Tou Sha Kai Jin Let’s Go!”).
gg under-typset the full Episode 3, but it was fairly well written and their OP/ED didn’t give me a migraine. URW’s dialogue often fell flat, although their “Tryant’s Eye” >> gg’s “Wicked Eye”.
E.g. in the first 30 seconds of Episode 3, URW has these lines:
> While everyone else is busy discovering where they fit in and how much personal space their classmates want…
> Takanashi has fallen to the dark side of eighth-grade syndrome.
whereas gg has these:
> Everyone found their comfort zone in the class and opened up to each other.
> Except for a certain someone, lost in the dark, far-flung reaches of her eighth-grader syndrome.
URW’s scripts are arguably more polished, but for a silly show like this, I like it rough.
You’re certainly not alone in preferring gg’s release over URW’s, though I still would rather have subs where I know I can expect quality line in and line out, and that’s what I based my final recommendation on.
I didn’t factor in the lites because I didn’t think they were anything other than 5-minute pre-airs of the upcoming episodes. I guess I was wrong?
Uhhh… at least several of the things you pointed out as mistakes were actually strong points of the script. For example…
>No she fucking can see. The issue is she can’t see the fucking cat. PLEASE STOP RELYING ON THE SCENE TO CONVEY WHAT YOUR SUBS SHOULD. RAGE.
The way gg did it sounds more chuuni. That is to say, you are raging over gg actually adding the needed context. Same with the obstacle-barrier, and so on.
If Engrish is Chuuni, then by all means gg is your go-to group for the show.