Fansub Review: [Commie] Senran Kagura (Episode 01)

January 11, 2013January 10, 2013 by Dark_Sage

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

They’re not SubDesu.

Release Information

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Results

Release Information

Episode details.

Release format: MKV (409 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: No honorifics. Shinobi translated into “ninja”.

English style: American English.

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/KkRtwv94

Speed: Quick (<48 hours)

External links.

Group website: http://commiesubs.com/

IRC channel: #[email protected]

SubCompare screenshot comparisons: http://www.subcompare.com/senran_kagura (not up yet)

Visual Review

Karaoke.

As you can see in these screens (well I don’t have them .gif’d, so just pretend), the OP’s colors frequently changed based on the scene. I don’t know if the font was the best choice, but the colors generally do it for me. Pretty dece.

Rating: Okay+.

Opening. I get that you probably avoided pink to ensure that the screen wouldn’t be too cluttered with that bright shit. Fair enough. But when you’re not font and color matching, the font and color you choose has to stand for something — there has to be a reason for it — and I felt that you just chose something that wasn’t matched to the credits.

(herkz-kun-chan pointed out there’s a typo here. Damn italicized fowards.)

Rating: Okay.

Typesetting.

It worked well before and after that rainbow thing came through. Glad they didn’t attempt a rainbow on the sign cuz it would look terrible.

Those are some weird fucking s’es.

Senran Kagura had a lot more signs than I was expecting (and I caught a lot more signs that I thought were important in my Commie run than my SubDesu run, probably because I didn’t need to worry about English mistakes in Commie’s as much).

I’m curious as to the logic behind some of the sign decisions, though. For example, it would make sense to typeset the “Ninja Transformation Jutsu” sign, but they didn’t. And they typeset the “Welcome Back” sign at the theme park, which seems like a sign you’d prioritize less than, say, the training room’s symbol. A lot of the signs scrolled by quickly so I can see the logic behind not putting much effort into those. But overall I was a bit confused at where the priorities were with the typesetting.

Script Review

Main Script.

As opposed to “I don’t have time for you!” or “I don’t have time to deal with you!” ? This isn’t going to be a bad script, is it, Commie?

Generally that’s a phrase you’d use for someone(s) standing in your, y’know, way. They’re “getting in” her way, but that’s something else entirely, regardless of the similar phrasing.

“Get off my back!” would be much better here.

You mean “student body”? You use “student population” when referring to universities; not high schools.

Not through, from. There’s a big difference.

As you can see here, with a starting position of outside the gates, running through the gates would last from the very instant before she crossed the gates to the very instant after she left them. She traveled through them then, and the “through” as a word is finished there. With “from”, the meaning is that she traveled, starting at the gates, to the secret ninja location.

Basic fucking English here.

How does that follow?

Yagyuu says “Don’t worry about Naruto’s test results. Focus on yourself.”

Pink Clover says “Okay, I agree with you.”

Then Pink Clover says “I’m happy with others’ test results even if they’re not my own.”

Please tell me in what godforsaken universe those last two match up at all.

I’m sure this is an accurate translation in the sense that it matches what’s being said in Japanese. But as an English viewer, it didn’t seem “right”. You wouldn’t use “weird” in this context. Fuck, lemme just rewrite this.

My, now this is interesting.

You somehow managed to score the minimum passing grade.

That would be impossible to do on purpose. I’m impressed.

Don’t be impressed by something like that!

Fixed.

These… don’t make much sense.

“N-No I’m not sore loser!” is how the second line reads with the first taken into consider.

“You’re a sore loser.” // “N-No I’m not!” {Now interpretable as “N-No I’m not a sore loser!”}

It’s like you’re trying to translate a joke that was in Japanese into English by just… italicizing a word. It doesn’t work that way.

They’re not really your seniors if they’ve already graduated. Like I said in the SubDesu review, go with “predecessors”.

My fellow native speakers, would you ever use this sentence in a conversation? If the answer is “yes”, that means we’ve found you, Hidalgo. La migra, book his ass.

More like on the ferry.

Uhh, like “defenders of the peace”? I’ve never heard that Japlation you used in a sentence before.

Results

Watchability: Watchable.

Visual grade: B-

Script grade: C+

Overall grade: C+

This is a much better choice for the show than SubDesu was. I’m not sure whether or not it’ll be a better choice than Hiryuu’s though, so we’ll see when my next Senran review rolls around. If all you care about is getting your Senran fast, though, Commie will be a suitable pick.
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23 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [Commie] Senran Kagura (Episode 01)”

herkz

January 11, 2013 at 12:58 am

i like how you took a screenshot of a typo in the ED and didn’t mention it
Reply
- Dark_Sage
  
  January 11, 2013 at 1:04 am
  
  That was totally… not intentional. I blame italics.
  Reply
AnotherJRPGFan

January 11, 2013 at 1:15 am

I got more hope with Hiryuu’s slightly more accurate subs but if all else fails then Commie would be my second choice. SubDesu is hardly accurate anyway and I would really question their translator.
Reply
mini-ezo

January 11, 2013 at 1:47 am

Actually, “Senior” can refer to people older than someone, so both SubDesu and Commie are right here.
http://goo.gl/sPfsr
Reply
- Dark_Sage
  
  January 11, 2013 at 1:59 am
  
  I know that sense of the word but it doesn’t really work here because it’s often come to retain some of the “aged” meaning from its use to describer elders. Otherwise it tends to be formalized — “He’s the senior officer in charge of the investigation.”
  
  “They’re our seniors.” is not really something I’ve heard in English, especially not being used when people refer to those who graduated before them.
  Reply
  - Shirt
    
    January 11, 2013 at 2:03 am
    
    How do you refer to your upperclassmen in school or college who’ve graduated then? They were your seniors when they were a year above you, they’ll still be your seniors after they’ve graduated.
    Reply
    - Dark_Sage
      
      January 11, 2013 at 2:06 am
      
      It’s not really that rigid a structure in English. I could refer to the “senior graduating class” that way, but if I were to pick out someone and talk about them, I wouldn’t say “My senior, Jim, is now a smack addict who eats his own shit to entertain people.” I’d say “Jim is now a smack addict who eats his own shit to entertain people.”
      Reply
      - Shirt
        
        January 11, 2013 at 2:12 am
        
        “Wasn’t Jim in your class?”
        “Oh no, he was my senior.” or “Oh, he’s two years my senior.”
        
        And what about when you’re talking about the whole class in general like in that particular scene?
        
        “How can they ask a bunch of high school students to do this?”
        “Yeah, it’s something more suitable for our seniors in college.”
        
        Like you said too, it’s not that rigid a structure in English, meaning that it’s flexible enough for said structure to be there in the first place. For all we know, there could well be a strict senior-junior ninja structure.
        Reply
        
        Dark_Sage
        
        January 11, 2013 at 2:17 am
        
        Maybe I just come from bumfuck nowhere, but nobody speaks like that here. Our society’s more merit-based than seniority-based, so people don’t tend to apply that kinda “respect” willy-nilly like in Japan. “Oh no, he was in the year before me.” “Oh no, he graduated two years before me.”
        
        “Seniors” works when you’re still all in college, but to refer to people when they’re out of it? No, that’s just weird.
        Reply
        
        Dark_Sage
        
        January 11, 2013 at 2:31 am
        
        If anyone wants to chime in with another perspective, that’s fine. I can only speak to general speech patterns of the midwest United States, but I think it’s similar across the country.
        Reply
        
        Kenshin_sama
        
        January 11, 2013 at 2:41 am
        
        I might be wrong on this, but my guess is that one wouldn’t address someone like that anywhere in the United States. However, I can say that it is the same in regards to where I live in the southeast.
        Reply
        
        njd09
        
        January 11, 2013 at 2:44 am
        
        I have never (New York here) addressed anyone in my class as my senior, even when I was in high school. Everyone always said, “He/she is a grade above me” or “a year older than me” or something to that effect. That being said, I have no problem with it in the subs, because the show is taking place in Japan, not New York.
        Reply
        
        Xythar
        
        January 11, 2013 at 2:47 am
        
        I tend to use “senior” just because I hate “upperclassman”.
        Reply
        
        Dark_Sage
        
        January 11, 2013 at 2:50 am
        
        I don’t mind it in educational settings either, but they’re referring to people who’ve already graduated, which is where I take issue with it.
        Reply
        
        FalseDawn
        
        January 11, 2013 at 5:56 am
        
        Here in Britland, we also use the year above/below. I’ve heard the phrase “two years my senior” but that’s not used so much in conventional dialogue and it wouldn’t equate to “he is my senior” anyway – but at the same time, that’s one of those tricky words that doesn’t translate well into English, regardless of what you end up using.
        
        As mass says below, someone who has graduated is an alumnus, but I think that’s mostly used for universities – similarly, you only really use graduates to describe people who have been through university. You wouldn’t necessarily say someone has “graduated” from high school or whatever here (or at least, I’ve only heard it once or twice in my whole lifetime).
        
        kokujin-kun
        
        January 11, 2013 at 2:55 pm
        
        11th graders, 12th graders, older kids, graduates, (depending on what grade you’re in) juniors and/or seniors. Don’t really remember actually using the word “upperclassmen” in a conversation before, and literally the only time I heard of people using the term “my seniors” is when I watch shitty fansubs.
        Reply
        
        Novles
        
        January 11, 2013 at 4:23 pm
        
        I’m a junior and when referring or introducing a classmate regardless of them being upper or lower classmen I would say, “This is Bob, he’s a senior/junior/(also a)sophomore/freshman.”
        
        If someone has already graduated then I would say, “This is Bob.”
        OR
        If I wanted to be more specific I’d say, “This is Bob he’s was in the class of 2012” (this probably wouldn’t work well in a show unless dates were known).
        
        If someone has just graduated I would say, “This is Bob, he just graduated.”
        
        If it’s college that someone graduated from I would say, “This is Bob, he’s an alumn from University of Florida.”
        
        Upper/lowerclassmen aren’t used too often, usually only when the actual grade is not known. For example,
        ‘Who are they?’
        ‘They’re seniors.’
        OR (if their grade is unknown)
        ‘They’re upperclassmen.’
        
        To use Shirt’s narrative (Billy is a sophomore);
        ‘Billy, wasn’t Jim in your class?’
        ‘No, he’s a senior.’
        OR
        ‘No, he’s a junior.’
        OR
        ‘No, he’s a freshman.’
        OR
        ‘No, he graduated last year.’
        
        I live in Florida..
        Reply
        
        Beckett
        
        January 12, 2013 at 4:50 pm
        
        California here and no one refers to people who graduated before them as their “seniors”. most of the people I know would say upperclassmen on the rare occasion where we need to pin it down to a single word, but in general you would just say something like “Bob was 1 year ahead of me in school” or something similar.
        Reply
    - mass
      
      January 11, 2013 at 3:16 am
      
      I think the word you’re looking for is ‘alumni’.
      Reply
aoihakurei

January 11, 2013 at 1:49 am

So is this anything like Naruto, except with tits?
Reply
- Dark_Sage
  
  January 11, 2013 at 1:57 am
  
  I wish.
  Reply
mass

January 11, 2013 at 2:11 am

Lol, I only know a semester’s worth of Japanese (plus a bit acquired passively through watching subbed anime), and I know EXACTLY why the ‘HEARTfelt gratitude’ thing happened, and facepalmed pretty hard at it.

I can tell they got the joke/double meaning, but didn’t really know how to handle it.

If you want to keep the joke and go out there a bit, maybe put: “O my BOSOM swells with gratitude for thee!”
Reply
- Anon
  
  January 11, 2013 at 8:51 pm
  
  Lol :D, sounds pretty funny! I’ve watched a lot of subbed anime too, so I guess I’m practically Japanese at this point! BTWBBQ, you should check this site out
  http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/
  or this
  http://www.reddit.com/
  Haha, they called themselves the front page of the internet! See you there!!! ;)
  Reply