Though I didn’t pick Commie as the winner of the Reactions post, I will say they came out on top by traditional comparison methods.

Table of Contents

Release Information

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Results

Release Information

Episode details.

Release format: MKV (388 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: No honorifics.

English style: American English.

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/KPfwc0yA

Speed: Slow (>48 hours)

 

External links.

Group website: http://commiesubs.com/

IRC channel: #[email protected]

SubCompare screenshot comparisons: http://www.subcompare.com/jojo%27s_bizarre_adventure/

Commie’s fansub reviews: http://notredrevie.ws/autumn-2012-reviews/#jojo

 

 

Visual Review

Karaoke.

Opening. The colors and font fit fine and I liked the increasing text effect that you can see in the first screenshot.

Rating: Good.

Ending. Doing the ending wasn’t necessary because it was in English, but it was appreciated.

 

 

Typesetting.

All that typesetting~ <3

 

Script Review

Main Script.

“My entire life has been consumed by my search.” would be closer to how someone would phrase this if they were actually speaking English.

No, he didn’t give him his “life’s energy”, he gave him his remaining life energy. “life energy” is all the energy he had at the point of transfer that kept him alive. “life’s energy” would be a composite of all the life energy he’s had throughout his entire life, even from birth.

Either he just carries Mr. Zeppeli’s Ripple or he carries Mr. Zeppeli’s Ripple of Life. MMM had “The Ripple of old man Zeppeli’s life force is flowing within him!” which indicates to me you could just go with “Ripple” and leave out the life part here.

That’s not threatening, that’s just silly.

“I can assure you that even your bones will turn to ash after I’m done with you.”

“lot in life” is generally used to refer to situations where you’re stuck in a certain position — or “lot”, one could say. But this dude’s about to die, so the idiom doesn’t make sense.

“I’m satisfied with how my life turned out.” would work much better, but if you want to get the whole “fate” angle in there, something like “I’m satisfied with the hand I was dealt.” would fit well, especially considering the dude’s dressed as a magician.

Close, but fundamentally incorrect.

“Are the people of Windknight’s Lot still alive?”

This doesn’t make much sense. MMM went with the kid asking about his sister and this guy saying she was so mad that she was gonna stick him in their cow shed after he gets back home. And THAT makes a whole lot more sense than the town banding together to do it.

By the logic of these lines, Dire and Zeppeli were friends for 20 years and then they trained together for however many years that took. But there’s no reason for him to phrase it like that if they really were childhood friends. When compared to MMM’s release (“We underwent the same hardships together, and have been friends for over 20 years.”), it seems that this was just a clumsy translation.

Also note how I’m often comparing this script to MMM’s translation — I’d be willing to bet in a side-by-side comparison, MMM’s comes out the clear victor from a TL accuracy standpoint.

 

Results

Watchability: Watchable.

Visual grade: A-

Script grade: B-

Overall grade: B

Commie’s typesetting brings its release above the others for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. If I were me, I’d go with Commie for this series.