98 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [SubDESU] Senran Kagura (Episode 01)”

1. Not a failsub?? o.O

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   • I like to save such title changes for instances where they’re truly necessary. Bad as it is, this release doesn’t come close to matching some of Hadena’s shit last season.

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2. Worst thing is, there are plenty of official subs and dubs that have “you know” and such as a translation for idiosyncratic sentence endings in every fucking sentence.

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3. It’s been bugging me for a while: what’s wrong with sponsor screens?

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   • They’re 15 seconds of a generally terrible static image that doesn’t need to be there. Sometimes comedy anime play around with it, which makes the sponsor screens worth including, but there’s no value in having a terrible screencap up on the screen while sponsors are listed.

     Sponsor screens are both a waste of space and time and should be left in the past. (I would like to note that I don’t count them against groups, though. I just like bitching about it.)

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     • *10

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     • But how will I know where to buy my stuff to support my animus?

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   • I didn’t have problems with sponsor screens since K-ON! and Kimi ni Todoke.

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4. Putting a translation note for what a Shinobi dumb. Failure much?

   If they don’t think most people don’t know what a Shinobi is then they just should’ve went with Ninja.

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5. “but fact is you, you didn’t” ?

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   • Excuse me, I stuttered.

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     • No, you did it on purpose.

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6. —————————-
   In this sense, “kirei” means “nice”.
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   Why?

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   • Because the ojou-sama caught her when she was about to fall. It’s a standard translation for “kirei” anyway and it’s a common phrase (“Kirei na hito”).

     Edit, image: http://crymore.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/SubDESU-Senran-Kagura-01-1280×720-x264-AAC0D79041E.mkv_snapshot_20.52_2013.01.09_11.39.15.jpg

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     • That’s very interesting. So I assume you can cite Japanese sources that back up this usage?

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       • Really? Why are you asking an editor to find you Japanese sources? Oh, right, because if I don’t speak Japanese that means I’m not allowed to criticize scripts. I do so love your logic.

         I can only tell you what makes sense based on the context, and “beautiful” does not make sense.

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       • Think of it like this…

         Bob is a man of evil character. -> Bob is an evil bastard.

         Joe is a man of beautiful character. -> Joe is a nice guy.

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       • Are you irked because you know your knowledge is superficial here? Are you subconsciously afraid you might be wrong?

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         • What a piss poor rebuttal. With the target audience being native speakers of English, your scripts should make sense to them, and any line that doesn’t is suboptimal.

           I already gave you a clear example of why “beautiful” is the wrong choice, but if you can’t see it, you have considerable difficulty with interpreting meaning (as Dark_Sage has already pointed out).

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           • Have you even watched the scene in question or are you just mouthing off?

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             • The latter.

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               • Then cool story bro.

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       • My editing knowledge is only ever not useful when I can’t tell the meaning of a given line. And I certainly understood the meaning here.

         You made no argument for why “beautiful” is a better translation other than “I have a Japanese dictionary that tells me you’re wrong.” (Well, you didn’t actually say that. You just like to imply things in your arguments, which is a pretty pathetic way to operate.) That would be a decent excuse if translations were ciphers, but they aren’t.

         It appears you’re completely out of your element when it comes to interpreting meaning and understanding context, which is not exactly a good thing for someone who portrays himself as a TL.

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         • I agree with the whole rest of your review, but there’s no context in which “kirei na hito” means “a nice person”.

           The context of the scene is that Pink Haired McTits trips backwards and is caught by Evil Doll Ojousama McTits who says how cute she is. She pauses for a moment, turns left and stares at EDOM for a moment who then makes her leave, before breathing out ああ。。。きれいな人。。。

           She’s definitely admiring her looks, and her tone of voice matches that as well.

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           • Not to mention her blush.
             Shoujo-ai fanservice at its finest, in case the boobs weren’t enough.

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       • I rather like how you respond to danger; very aggressively. In and of itself that’s not very uncommon on the internet, but it makes these discussions less objectionable for me ethically.

         Let’s do it like this.

         I’m betting you 10€, or whatever that corresponds to across the pond these days, that five reputable translators, upon being asked whether this line refers to beauty or character, will answer “beauty”. I’ll /msg you my PayPal on rizon if you accept.

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       • If I didn’t respond to your ad hominem attacks with capitulation, why would I respond that way to argumentum ad populum? Frankly, I don’t care how many Commie devs you find that operate on your tier.

         About the only fansub TL whose opinion on this I would trust above my own would be lyger. So if you want him to be the tiebreaker here, I’m in.

         One condition though: the money doesn’t go to either one of us; loser donates to the winner’s charity. Keeping with theme of this site, we could make it anime-related or literacy-related.

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         • I accept.

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         • Ehhh why me…

           I’ve never heard “kirei” used to mean “nice” as in personality. If the dictionary said “nice”, it probably meant “nice” as in “this is a nice place” or “what a nice view.” J-E dictionaries can be misleading like that.

           I checked a Japanese dictionary just now, and of the seven definitions provided, none mentioned personality. It’s either “beautiful”, “pure”, “clean”, or, when used in adverbial form, “completely”.

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         • Wait, you’re here? Oh, that’s easy. Could you check the scene’s context then?

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           • I’ve clipped the scene for easy reference.
             http://puu.sh/1LG1C

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             • Sounds like “beautiful” to me. Nuance would be more the refined/mature/elegant type of beautiful as opposed to sexy or cute– you could say it’s more about her “aura” than about her literal physical appearance– but “beautiful” would be a valid translation, and she’s certainly not talking about her personality.

               Well, Hiryuu should have theirs out eventually so you can see what convexity had to say on the matter.

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               • Then I’ll accept your interpretation. Who gets my money, fnord?

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                 • http://plan-international.org/what-you-can-do/make-a-donation

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                 • Is it me or did your message actually say “Then I was wrong” before you edited it?

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                   • Haha, you must be joking. I’d never admit I was wrong. (You’ve seen too much.)

                 • I swear to god if this gets me put on a charity mailing list, I’ll come to Germany and glare at you until we both get uncomfortable.

                   http://crymore.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/savorit.jpg

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                   • Isn’t it nice to know that, if not with their translations, SubDesu did something for the community?

                   • They’re regular angels on earth.

               • Not to throw a spanner into the works, but wouldn’t it correspond to “a beautiful human being” which generally suggests nice-ness or that other quality, affability. Or is it purely her looks? In which case, it’s hard in English to use “beautiful” without it sounding like she wants to lady-bone her. I’ll attempt to think of a suitable word/phrase though – there must be one.

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                 • She does want to lady-bone her, so it’s all good.

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7. I never knew that the word “kirei” could mean ‘nice’ as well in certain cases. Or is it just that you’re advising them to use the word “nice” since it suits the context more?

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   • I’ve seen “kirei na hito” translated as “What a nice person” more times than I can count. It appears to be a standard translation for “kirei” as well. http://crymore.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/kirei.jpg

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     • Gotcha.

       So, are you gonna do Commie as well?

       (Btw they translated that sentence the same way, lol.)

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       • As “beautiful”? Oh god no. Well, might as well do Commie’s then just so we have that SubDesu/Commie contrast.

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         • Are you going to review Hiryuu’s sub of it?

           I don’t know if Hiryuu’s is any better but compared to SubDesu’s Engrish and Commie’s localization I think Hiryuu’s has a better chance at being good.

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           • What did we localise, exactly? Shinobi to ninja? Substitution technique instead of moonspeak no jutsu?

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             • This is exactly what annoys me as how you don’t consider Ninja as localizing when Shinobi is what is being said. After watching a lot of anime that Commie subs and then compare it to others or even having a basic understanding of Japanese its easy to see that a lot of the subs are off or just plain wrong. The most recent example I could think of is Busou Shinki where somehow both Pochi and Tatmami speaks in puns when with a basic understanding of Japanese you can clearly hear that is not what is being said.

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               • Yes, it doesn’t match what is being said. Just like all the other Japanese words that we translate.

                 You know, that thing that subtitles are supposed to do?

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                 • There is a big difference between translating the Japanese word to its closest English counterpart and just changing so the subs hardly even match the dialogue. My example using Busou Shinki is exactly proves my point that the subs and what is being said is just too far off and that isn’t how subbing should be done.

                   If the character isn’t talking in puns then why bother subbing it like that when you can just sub it normally. For example if the closest Japanese translation is “This is making my very mad -nya” then why does it become “This is making be berry mad”?

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                   • Ask the translator. I had nothing to do with Busou Shinki.

                   • >-nya
                     >translation

                     u wot m8?

                   • Verbal tic =/= pun speak.

                   • “nya” =/= English

                     it’s still Japanese, therefore not a translation

               • Also, to pre-empt any further hurfdurfing about “translating Japanese to Japanese” or whatever:
                 http://i.imgur.com/mYREf.png

                 Localisation can mean changing the setting of the work to appear more “local” to the viewer, or replacing specific cultural references with different ones that are culturally equivalent to the target audience. It does not, however, refer to translating a word that you happen to know the meaning of.

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                 • It still doesn’t change that they refer to themself in the anime as “shinobi” and not “ninja”. The only other ninja anime I watched was 2×2=Shinobuden and in there they were referred to as ninja and was translated as so. Accuracy and sentence flow is what makes a good sub not being as liberal as you can just because you couldn’t get the sentence flowing in the first place.

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                   • They also refer to themselves as “watashi” but we translate that to “I”. I know, it’s like some nonstop spectacle of localisation.

                   • You fiends (TL Note: “fiends” means baka oni tengu).

                   • There is a difference in that. As you can translate normal speech but if someone is referred to as something that must remain the same. If they called themself “ninja” then there would be no objection to using ninja but they don’t and use “shinobi” as a term that describes them so a better way would’ve been either to leave it alone or use a TL and say it means ninja in this sense rather than just change it so the subs aren’t matching up to the spoken dialogue.

                     Wouldn’t oni and tengu have a better translation as demons instead of fiends?

                   • I agree with you. I think it should remain “shinobi”. But I also think it’s more translation style than error so I didn’t count it against Commie.

                     My baka oni tengu shit was just me having fun with no actual point behind it.

                   • Again, just because shinobi is a word you recognise, doesn’t mean that it should be left in. Like I’ve already said, plenty of people don’t make the shinobi>ninja connection.

                     Besides, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shinobi?s=t vs http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ninja?s=ts

                     Furthermore – surprising as it may be – the entire show is, in fact, in Japanese. They don’t speak a lick of English, nor refer to anything in English at all. They go “temaki oishii” as opposed to “yummy sushi roll” etc. You don’t seem to have a problem when there’re other English words in the subs though. Why’s that? Don’t know the Jap and need English instead so that you understand it right? Figured as much.

                   • I do have a good basic understanding of Japanese and that is why I make my point. Some things can be translated well like your example while some can’t and the whole shinobi vs ninja is one of them and I did say earlier that it can be fixed early on with a TL Note rather than fully changing the subs to not match the dialogue.

                     I have my own complaints with Hiryuu’s sub as well and that they use weird american terms instead of first-year or third-year which is easier to understand for those that hasn’t been americanized.

                     @Dark_Sage – I’m aware that its more of a translation style and that is why i’m criticizing it because after watching several different anime subbed by Commie, it usually is the same so called “translation style” that makes up for a lot of the scripting errors.

                   • I don’t want to waste my time here arguing with you, but this is the dumbest fucking complaint that’s been made on this site in a long time.

                     Shinobi and ninja are the same goddamn thing, but the former isn’t an actual English word. While the case could be made that shinobi doesn’t necessarily need to be translated, saying Commie is /wrong/ for doing so is absolutely retarded. Going on to propose the use of a TL note instead is mind-boggling and suggests the existence of people dumber than I ever believed possible.

                   • SubDesu’s TL note is the worst possible approach. It’s almost “KEIKAKU MEANS PLAN” level stupid.

                     Either you figure your audience knows what “shinobi” means and you leave it in (as Hiryuu did) or you figure they don’t and translate it to something more recognisable. If you think the word is confusing enough to require a TL note, don’t use it in the first place.

                   • Why didn’t you translate it to assassin if you were gonna translate it?

                     I think personally I would have left it as shinobi (not sure how this word hasn’t caught on after the game – I’m guessing because we’d already taken ninja and didn’t need another word for it) but I understand the reasons to change. It just seems… an odd localisation.

                   • Because ninja is an English word already and means exactly what we want it to.

               • TBH, I’d expect gripes about stuff like sushi roll (food always seems to be contentious) and in-universe terminology instead. Shinobi to ninja’s a pretty straightforward case.

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                 • “fried noodles-flavored bread”

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                   • That was herkz being herkz. It obviously should be Noodle Hotdog.

             • Why would you need to change shinobi to ninja or note it anyway? Surely anyone who’s anyone remembers the Sega game they made called Shinobi back in the 90s? So what’s the issue?

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               • Ironically, most people who’d complain probably aren’t old enough to remember the 90s.

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                 • Wow, sucks to be them. The 90s were fun. Also, fun fact: wiki-ing Shinobi takes you to the game series before the page for ninja :D

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                   • That, in fact, was why ninja was opted for instead. Also because after extensive questioning around on IRC not a single person made the shinobi > ninja link (though a few did mention the game).

                   • When I hear ‘shinobi’ I think of Naruto. I’m going to assume that most people here have seen at least one episode of Naruto in English and after that it’s kind of hard not to make the connection between ninja and shinobi. However, with my very little knowledge about anything, I feel that both translations (or romanizations) could work. What would be better? I don’t know. The biggest thing would be to stay consistent throughout the release.

8. I downloaded SubDESU because I could easily copy-paste the romaji and pass them to my translator because he is lazy like that. I didn’t look at any translation, though.

   Does that count as an excuse?

   Oh, and I *did* download a RAW to watch this show, except it wasn’t this one.

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   • If you trust their transcription abilities, sure. But what kind of translator translates from romaji in the first place?

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     • It’s still less work when I just have to compare their transcription with what I hear than hearing myself. At least that’s what I think.

       Dunno, I’m not a translator.

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9. Well, at least they didn’t hard sub it.

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10. I know you like you change up the review style when you get bored, and this format actually worked pretty well. Would be nice to see it again for releases that repeat the same types of errors throughout the episode for those mistakes where there’s just not much to say other than it’s wrong (like bad punctuation).

    It might even save you a bit of time, since you wouldn’t have to screen-cap every instance of a comma splice or spacing issues.

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11. It was great fun to watch a group of westerners discuss about the possible usage of a mild Japanese word.
    In the island, perhaps not only limited to that place, it’s jokingly considered a beautiful person also owns a heart of gold. Thus an ungrounded formula lifts its head: 綺麗な人＝良い人
    Maybe D_S was trying to hint at that kind of preconceived notions people tend to have.

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12. I’ll just make a copy of Hiryuu’s subs and re-edit it to my personal standard of quality. Solves any problem I have with TL.

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    • I watched through Hiryuu’s sub and to be honest it only has a few mistakes like using freshman instead of first year which if you aren’t from america you would have no idea what it means, cause I certainly don’t until google answered my question.

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      • Using Freshman isn’t wrong it’s just a different localization. Just like British English uses ‘petrol’ and American English uses ‘gas.’

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        • While it’s not wrong, per se, it is often considered undesirable as it is unintuitive and specific to one form of English. “First-year” and such, while not used in English speaking countries as far as I know, can be seen to logically refer to the first year of a school. Contrast with terms such as “sophomore”, whose meaning I neither know nor care.

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          • It may just be my ignorant opinion since English is my 2nd language, but isn’t “sophomore” only used when it’s a 4-year school while a 3-year school would have used: Freshman->Junior->Senior instead?

            Given how two 3rd-year characters are 17&18 years old respectively, can Hanzo Academy really be a 4-year school?

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            • I’ve never heard of ‘3-year schools.’

              Onward to the ages, the 18 year old could have been held back a year.

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              • Japanese high (and middle) schools all have three years.
                In those cases sophomore and junior are both correct – and since I don’t like the term “junior”, it gets dropped.

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              • This is the whole problem that this entire comment thread is predicated on… compulsory education is different in every nation, so therefore schools in each country split students differently by age. Japan has 3-year high-schools… America has 4-year schools. We also use those terms to refer to our college education. Think globally, translate locally? =P

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13. ….
    And thats why the fansubbing community goes to shit.
    Too much nagging, too much bullshit.
    People themselfs will figure out what to download and what not.

    Yah, I encode for SubDesu, but I don’t give a crap about translation/typesetting.
    As long as I kinda understand what the fuck is up at a scene, then it should be fine.

    Reviews are nice to read, but not if you can only finger your way into the nasty stuff, sofar you didn’t said anything about the encoding quality either, but eitherway, if it’s a BluRay rip, mostly I am responsible for the encoding quality, which, by far is the best compared to most fansub groups who fuck the shit up with compression on dark stuff which make it look like shit and such.

    Anyway, take this review not too uptight, since I didn’t either, but anyway, I got this URL given by a friend of mine ^^.

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    • Cool story, bro.

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    • Encoding quality? Like putting h264 into avi?

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    • Welcome to Crymore!

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    • SubDesu has encoders now? I thought they just stuck to remuxing random raws. To think someone is actually responsible for their shitty video quality.

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      • >I thought they just stuck to remuxing random raws.

        I bet that’s what they think an encoder’s job is.

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        • lel

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    • Welcome to Crymore!

      Dark_Sage! I think you picked the right name for the site. I think someone is crying already.

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    • Holy shit your English is horrible, I’m glad you’re not involved with the script in any form.

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14. this forum is for niggers

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