Script thievery! (Part 1)

This is a long post, so if you just want the tl;dr: Hatsuyuki jointed with AFFTW to get a translator for To Love-ru. But the “translator” (ElyasRay) only took scripts from Commie and Pomf and pretended they were his own. Hatsu’s leader found out, handled the situation appropriately, and then Elyas killed himself.

A heinous plot uncovered!

Originally for To Love-ru Darkness I was just gonna run a TL Party to save myself some time (I reallly didn’t wanna watch more episodes of this show than I had to).

But as I was comparing the groups’ scripts, I noticed that Commie’s and AFFTW-Hatsuyuki’s were fairly similar.

This would make sense if there was a simulcast from the show and neither group bothered to edit it, but this series didn’t have a simulcast after episode 1. So I popped on over to Tosho, saw that Commie released first for this episode and figured out who copied from whom. Then I hopped onto IRC to see what Hatsuyuki had to say for themselves.

Note: Due to the repetition of many of the links across these logs (and with hyperlinks looking like shit), I’ll only hyperlink the URLs if their images aren’t used in this post or if they’re appearing for the first time.

 

 

Hey Hatsuyuki~ (#hatsuyuki)

<+Dark_Sage> Naruto’s not here?
<+Dark_Sage> Tch
<+HeavenlyArmed> oh, reviewing their TLR?
<+Dark_Sage> Their “TL” just copied Commie’s script.
<+Dark_Sage> and passed it off as an original TL
<+HeavenlyArmed> lol
<+Kaitou[Kid]> what?
<+HeavenlyArmed> I think something similar went on with Highschool DxD
<+Kaitou[Kid]> o_O
<+HeavenlyArmed> except it was taken from SubDesu
<+Kaitou[Kid]> o.o
<+Kaitou[Kid]> …

That’s Kaitou, leader of, you guessed it, Kaitou. He’s often very… confused.

<+Dark_Sage> http://hatsuyuki-fansubs.com/to-love-ru-darkness/to-love-ru-darkness-05  <- You can see in staff credits the TL is listed as ElyasRay
<+Dark_Sage> But I’m comparing scripts right now, and it’s very obvious they’re the same thing
<+Dark_Sage> http://i.imgur.com/hFvJ8.jpg
<@Chippo> Those certainly do look very similar
<+Kaitou[Kid]> LOL
<+HeavenlyArmed> same TL as DxD
<+HeavenlyArmed> and…
<+HeavenlyArmed> same TL as BRS
<+HeavenlyArmed> remember that?
<+Dark_Sage> I don’t but I’ll take your word for it
<+Dark_Sage> SleepSub[NL], you there?
<+Kaitou[Kid]> Sleepy
<+HeavenlyArmed> http://crymore.net/2012/02/15/fansub-review-afftw-hatsuyuki-black-rock-shooter-episode-02/
<+HeavenlyArmed> to refresh your memory
<+Dark_Sage> hahaha
<+Dark_Sage> oh wow
<+HeavenlyArmed> so anyway, was stealing a better idea than risking that?
<+Dark_Sage> Yes

Yeah, I don’t really remember all the reviews I’ve done. I blame my wild partying lifestyle.

<&SleepSub[NL]> I don’t have highlight and since I’m in 100+ channels with 2 clients… but ‘sup?
<+Kaitou[Kid]> scroll up und read
<+HeavenlyArmed> forget all the above stuff
<+HeavenlyArmed> Tari Tari 13

Dammit, Heavenly, this is Fansub Drama. Don’t distract from the issue at hand!

<&SleepSub[NL]> lol HA, don’t worry
<&SleepSub[NL]> dore dore…
* &SleepSub[NL] scrolls
<&SleepSub[NL]> Since the drama, I’m not actually involved with the scripts anymore but what I see if I  look at that image is almost a 95%~97% copy (The lines in the image that is)
<&SleepSub[NL]> >.>
<+Dark_Sage> Yeah, it’s the same across the rest of the scripts too.
<+Dark_Sage> Apparently AFFTW does this with everything they do
<+Kaitou[Kid]> oh
<+Dark_Sage> You should probably look into NOT jointing with them
<+HeavenlyArmed> well, not everything
<+HeavenlyArmed> but it certainly isn’t the first case
<&SleepSub[NL]> True…
<&SleepSub[NL]> iirc a same case like this one

Wait, if this happened before and they knew about it… shouldn’t that have been a red flag for this joint? ~_~

<&SleepSub[NL]> Well, I can check
<&SleepSub[NL]> since I see a 8 TLRD script at the FTP
<&SleepSub[NL]> and can run a difference check between scripts
<+Dark_Sage> Go for it. I think you’ll find similar results
<&SleepSub[NL]> Commie isn’t out yet, Pomf is though
<+HeavenlyArmed> oh a Pomf rip for ep 8?

Oh come on, at least have enough class to steal from the same place.

<+Kaitou[Kid]> :>
<+Kaitou[Kid]> let’s go for it
<&SleepSub[NL]> I’m checking it now
<&SleepSub[NL]> Guess I could’ve run the compare plugin right after I got the episode
<&SleepSub[NL]> since 98% of the timings are accurate to Pomf’s
<+Dark_Sage> lol
<&SleepSub[NL]> There are parts where it is heavily edited, but there are parts that just look the same
<&SleepSub[NL]> lemme screen it

<&SleepSub[NL]> I take that back…
<+Kaitou[Kid]> wooh
<TennoujiNae> DUNDUNDUN
<+HeavenlyArmed> which part?
<+Kaitou[Kid]> and what happened?
<TennoujiNae> there was 

Spoiler for

no edited part

<+Kaitou[Kid]> (╯°□°）╯︵ ɥʇıq ɐ
<&SleepSub[NL]> http://www.sleepsub.com/images/cCeP.jpg
<&SleepSub[NL]> http://www.sleepsub.com/images/XVkFz.jpg

Tenn’s a fucking sage.

<+Dark_Sage> Dang.
<+Dark_Sage> Since it was AFFTW staff who stole the scripts and pretended they TL’d them, what are y’all gonna do about this?
<&SleepSub[NL]> Me nothing~ I’m a dog who’s waiting for orders~ Wan~
<TennoujiNae> >Wait, yesterday to >Now that I’ve remember, yesterday
<&SleepSub[NL]> Well, it has to be QC’d and all
<+Dark_Sage> So I should talk to Naruto, then?
<TennoujiNae> ara ara
<&SleepSub[NL]> Yeah
<&SleepSub[NL]> He’s the ONLY one who has command over here and knows what happens…
<&SleepSub[NL]> if he knows about this though will be a surprise, lol
<TennoujiNae> when kanade showed up spitting fire over elyasray’s korezombie, I think what happened was Holo had him quietly replaced
<&SleepSub[NL]> Well, in any case… I’m doing nothing atm for Hatsu, but I srsly want to see this solved.
<+HeavenlyArmed> yeah, if you take another group’s script, you should at least credit them

And thus began the waiting game for Naruto. I decided to check in on the #whine-subs channel to see what my homies thought of all this.

 

Home base (#whine-subs)

<&Dark_Sage> http://i.imgur.com/hFvJ8.jpg
<Minami_> it’s a simulcast, right
<+Xythar> that’s not even the first time afftw have done that
<+Xythar> and no
<+Xythar> we translated every ep from 2 onwards
<Minami_> really
<Minami_> lmao
<zanon> haha oh wow
<HeavenlyArmed> because the simulcast status was “oh shit, we released way too early and now they hate us”
<HeavenlyArmed> Xythar: what other releases do you know of where they did that?
<+Xythar> zombie s2
<+Xythar> doki-afftw
<Minami_> oh yeah
<Minami_> they copied hadena, didn’t they
<HeavenlyArmed> oh right
<+Xythar> yep
<HeavenlyArmed> it’s very possible they did it for Highschool DxD too
<Minami_> it doesn’t even matter now
<HeavenlyArmed> but that had an editing overhaul, so it wasn’t as noticable
<+Xythar> http://i.imgur.com/hcRTN.jpg

<+Xythar> >TL: ElyasRay
<+Xythar> same guy who “TL’d” for doki-afftw
<HeavenlyArmed> if afftw is involved, ElyasRay “TLed” it
<HeavenlyArmed> in almost every case
<zanon> At least their taste in who to rip has improved. Progress!

\o/

After this, the conversation turned to Shirt being incredulous that someone would just take a script from another group

<Shirt> Tbh the anime script is almost identical to that of the manga, and if there haven’t been previous instances of AFFTW supposedly ripping TL scripts, I’d say that it wouldn’t be a coincidence to have similar looking scripts

and… Jormungrain.

<Voldenet> it’s called gausian blur, convolution blur filter
<Voldenet> or median filter.

So I decided to check out what was going on in Hatsuyuki, and if Naruto was back yet.

But while I was checking back, Kaitou asked a question that led to a bit of fun.

<+Kaitou[Kid]> who is in afftw?
<&SleepSub[NL]> Elyas
<+HeavenlyArmed> #afftwsubs

#afftwsubs, huh? Well, let’s check out this Elyas character.

 

To part 2!