This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

Guess I didn’t really post this Saturday morning, did I? Oh well.

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Results

Release Information

Episode details.

Release format: MKV (383 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: Honorifics.

English style: American English… sort of. They undoubtedly had someone more familiar with British English on the script though.

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/p8AAUUd8

Speed: Quick (<48 hours)

External links.

Group website: http://fffansubs.org/

IRC channel: #[email protected]

SubCompare screenshot comparisons: http://www.subcompare.com/sasami-san@Ganbaranai/

Visual Review

Karaoke.

Opening. I dug the color mixing. It’s stands out, but not in a bad sense and I’m pretty glad they didn’t go straight credit-matching here.

Rating: Good.

Insert/ED song. Again, nobody bothered to do this because the focus of the section was more on the dialogue. Actual ED next ep, I assume.

Typesetting.

Signs that I didn’t bother to comment on:

Spoiler for

This time I’m sure the typesetting moved along with the Japanese text. I like it.

Like Koku suggested, this should probably be “dead end” due to symbolism.

…

Where do I begin?

Okay, first off, your typesets don’t match your text. You should probably have someone check that before you release, cuz it kind of drags the viewer out of the experience. I guess you call such a person a checker of quality — a QC if you will.

The next issue (actually we’ll bundle all the other complaints into this as “one” issue) is that general sense of “what the fuck is going on?” when the average viewer gets to this point. If these are “Sasami-san’s anniversaries”, then it makes sense that you’d call them that. But half the time you left off the ‘s. Yes, it’s necessary, especially considering the other half of the time you had it on. Why is this so hard for you to handle?

Then we get to the translations themselves. What in the fuck is a “staggering anniversary”? Please fucking tell me, because as an English speaker I would like some English in my fucking subs, and this is the kinda shit that makes me think I missed a TL Note.

Koku was right, this does make more sense than “ribbit” -> “barf”. (Who else thinks koku should do TL Reviews here? What, everyone? koku, you’re on deck.)

FFF typeset most of these signs in this section, but a few didn’t get that treatment. I really don’t know why, but it stands out considering you have like two screens in the section that aren’t done while the others are.

attend -> attended

How fucking hard is it to get your tenses right?

Timing was off in the last section. Pretty noticeable. (Just for the record, I tend to consider timing mistakes as “script mistakes” rather than visual ones. But I have script comments in the TS section for the Sasa reviews because it’s easier to manage that way. Yeah, Shaft can eat a dick.)

Script Review

Karaoke.

Straight gib.

From a god’s fingertips
My seasons are created
A long dream that took me beyond the starry sky
Is disturbed by a song
I closed my ears and blended in with others
It made me feel like I vanished
Putting on a front would be tough
I’m not mature enough to handle the noise
I came across a wild flower
So scary but kind
The moment I touched it, even dioramas became reality
From a god’s frivolity
The course of my future is laid out
A million tones will resonate
Shattering the future coming after me
Under the bright starlight, we’re brought together
I caught sight of warmth
As I struggle, a relationship is born
The kind of relationship I want to keep

I copied it all for a reason — it’s complete shit. And yes, of course this affects the script grade negatively. Even if you skip OP/EDs, how can you have faith in a group that can’t put together a sensical song translation? I know it would worry me that maybe they weren’t able to translate the show accurately either.

Perhaps this wouldn’t be as big an issue if every group doing this show had such issues, but only FFF and gg did — Commie managed it just fine.

Main Script.

I already bitched enough about their decisions here, which, yes, I still disagree with. Anyway, “anniversary” should be capitalized for consistency.

“just” is useful, but don’t overuse it. Shit is obvious.

Except it was yours he “got” first. It was hers he ate first.

loli-hag? What in the what?

Then maybe you should quit. Here, I took the liberty of rephrasing the line for you into something that doesn’t seem out of place.

“I just can’t win, can I?”

He gives off a list of options of ONE topic to choose from. Therefore, it shouldn’t be “and” here, it should be “or”. Since we’re on this line, I’d change popular to “ever-popular” and scrap the god-awful naming scheme they went with.

“Sasami’s embarrassing incident”? What? Come on now.

People don’t really “lick” chocolate. I mean, you can, but that’s not the imagery typically associated with chocolate. Go with another pun, kthx.

Results

Watchability: Watchable.

Visual grade: A

Script grade: C+

Overall grade: B

So both Commie and FFF hit a B. Decent grade, decent releases. So coming down to which is best… I’d have to say I’m leaning toward Commie’s. Their main script was just more enjoyable in many respects. The humor flowed a lot more freely than FFF’s did, and that’s kind of important when it comes to a show like this. Now, I’m not talking about their “normalfags” line — I’m talking the way they handled the puns (that chocolate bit at the end) and most of the innuendo (the dude’s all over his sister — it’s not bad to get that across). I liked their characterization better too.

I was actually creating an entire post for script comparisons but then I realized I don’t have time to waste another two hours on it. You’ll get a TL Party sometime in the future, so you’ll get your chance then to see more specific script differences.

tl;dr: You’ll be fine with either as your go-to for this show, but I’m suggesting Commie’s version.
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16 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [FFF] Sasami-san@Ganbaranai (Episode 01)”

Eien’s stinx is so punny.

“attend -> attended
How fucking hard is it to get your tenses right?”

I haven’t seen the episode yet, but for the record, this is context-dependent. Consider the following setup–
A: Character is told about the condition by the informer.
B: When the meeting occurs.
C: When character is writing.

If the timeline is [A][C], then “attended” is indeed the proper form. Since the meeting is in the past relative to the writing, then it naturally follows that verbs concerning that point in time should be in the past tense.

However, if the timeline is [A][C], then “attend” is actually the correct form, as the meeting is occurring in the future for not only the informer but also the character

For fun, one could even imagine the timeline [A][C], where the informer is not aware of whether or not the character did attend the meetings. In this scenario, the pluperfect “had attended” would be the correct form.

As I said, I have yet to watch Sasami; the criticism could be entirely correct. However, it is impossible to come to that conclusion just by examining that out-of-context frame.

thecowgoesmoo

January 13, 2013 at 4:02 am

Damn BBCode ate my timelines. In order, they should be (A)(B)(C), (A)(C)(B), and (B)(A)(C).
Reply
flipr

January 13, 2013 at 10:29 am

Lies and blasphemy. He says “wouldn’t” which needs to be followed by “attended.” If he said “won’t” then he could say “attend.” The timing of events might impact the entire sentence structure, but as the sentence is written, the word needs to be “attended.”
Reply
- Nevreen
  
  January 13, 2013 at 1:19 pm
  
  This is correct.
  Reply

Dropped this show already, but you finally released their version. Hue hue.

> (Who else thinks koku should do TL Reviews here? >What, everyone? koku, you’re on deck.)

Well, just to warn you I don’t have as much free time as I had before thanks to my new real life job :(

D_S, you should have put the worst of the choco-puns. “Soft, like chocolate”, you know, cus regular chocolate is so soft.

“Opening. I dug the color mixing. It’s stands out, but not in a bad sense and I’m pretty glad they didn’t go straight credit-matching here.”
“It’s stands out”
Review credibility: lost.

I am new to this site and I have a question, how come the translations aren’t graded? I mean, I personally think the quality(/accuracy) of translations are far more important then the grammar and stuff….

Akatsukin

January 23, 2013 at 6:51 pm

D_S doesn’t understand nihongo, unfortunately. Well, not like any of us do either, so I guess it doesn’t matter much.
Reply
Dark_Sage

January 23, 2013 at 7:56 pm

Like Akatsukin said, I don’t understand enough Japanese to talk about the accuracy of word-word translations. However, I think I provide enough value when it comes to script reviews that you don’t need to ignore my results. So what DO I check when it comes to the scripts?

Visual quality (Is it easy to read the scripts? Are the colors right? Sentences spaced/broken up correctly? Is the timing accurate and does it at least attempt to reflect the Japanese script?))

Logic in context (Sometimes the Japanese scripts throw curveballs at me where the “accurate” translation is something that doesn’t make sense in English, but often I can tell whether or not something is right based on the context. To me, this is of incredible importance to prevent viewers from being drawn-out of the experience.)

Script flow (If the subtitles allow you to follow the show without being distracted by English failings, then that’s ideal. You want to follow the show, not be taken out of the experience by disjointed English.)

Basic English quality (You know, your basic grammar/spelling shit here.)

Consistency (If people change up terms and names in the middle of the episode, that can’t be good for the viewer experience.)

Characterization (If a prim-and-proper character is talking with slang, either Japan’s being silly or something’s wrong. And if scripts don’t convey a character’s speech mannerisms, they’re negatively affecting the viewer experience.)

I don’t really feel like going over everything I can bring up in these reviews since I don’t have a checklist — you just get whatever thoughts I had while watching an episode. But I do feel like I provide more analysis than you’d get from a spellchecker.

If you’re super set on the idea of 1:1 translation accuracy being the most important factor as to whether or not you’ll go with a given group or not, you can check out Vale’s reviews on notredrevie.ws.
Reply
- P32L
  
  January 23, 2013 at 8:21 pm
  
  Looks like the comments section is broken as ever…
  Reply
  - Dark_Sage
    
    January 23, 2013 at 8:59 pm
    
    Just the way I like it.
    Reply

So… depending on the show, weird show specific terms and names might be introduced. Terms that are bizarre in Japanese as well. Is it a translator’s job to make such terms sensible? Can’t a viewer use his or her interpretation skills? I mean, this technically wouldn’t be a fault of the translator but the show.

FalseDawn

January 25, 2013 at 7:54 am

It still has to follow the rules of English. Yes, words and terms can be made up to match the Japanese, but they have to be phrased in a way that’d seem natural, otherwise it’s hard to guess at the meaning.

In a show I’m doing at the moment, there was an episode where one of the characters talks in acronyms and shorthand, but to such an extent, that even natives didn’t understand him (that was the gag) – so we had to express that in a way that made sense, largely by making up acronyms but by using them in a sentence in such a way that it *seemed* like English even if it wasn’t understandable.
Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

PolynAzn

January 13, 2013 at 3:41 am

Eien’s stinx is so punny.
thecowgoesmoo

January 13, 2013 at 4:00 am

“attend -> attended
How fucking hard is it to get your tenses right?”

I haven’t seen the episode yet, but for the record, this is context-dependent. Consider the following setup–
A: Character is told about the condition by the informer.
B: When the meeting occurs.
C: When character is writing.

If the timeline is [A][C], then “attended” is indeed the proper form. Since the meeting is in the past relative to the writing, then it naturally follows that verbs concerning that point in time should be in the past tense.

However, if the timeline is [A][C], then “attend” is actually the correct form, as the meeting is occurring in the future for not only the informer but also the character

For fun, one could even imagine the timeline [A][C], where the informer is not aware of whether or not the character did attend the meetings. In this scenario, the pluperfect “had attended” would be the correct form.

As I said, I have yet to watch Sasami; the criticism could be entirely correct. However, it is impossible to come to that conclusion just by examining that out-of-context frame.
- thecowgoesmoo
  
  January 13, 2013 at 4:02 am
  
  Damn BBCode ate my timelines. In order, they should be (A)(B)(C), (A)(C)(B), and (B)(A)(C).
- flipr
  
  January 13, 2013 at 10:29 am
  
  Lies and blasphemy. He says “wouldn’t” which needs to be followed by “attended.” If he said “won’t” then he could say “attend.” The timing of events might impact the entire sentence structure, but as the sentence is written, the word needs to be “attended.”
  - Nevreen
    
    January 13, 2013 at 1:19 pm
    
    This is correct.
Solaristics

January 13, 2013 at 4:36 am

Dropped this show already, but you finally released their version. Hue hue.
kokujin-kun

January 13, 2013 at 4:09 pm

> (Who else thinks koku should do TL Reviews here? >What, everyone? koku, you’re on deck.)

Well, just to warn you I don’t have as much free time as I had before thanks to my new real life job :(
Matroshyka

January 14, 2013 at 10:54 am

D_S, you should have put the worst of the choco-puns. “Soft, like chocolate”, you know, cus regular chocolate is so soft.
Kannrad

January 18, 2013 at 5:47 pm

“Opening. I dug the color mixing. It’s stands out, but not in a bad sense and I’m pretty glad they didn’t go straight credit-matching here.”
“It’s stands out”
Review credibility: lost.
akihime

January 23, 2013 at 6:15 pm

I am new to this site and I have a question, how come the translations aren’t graded? I mean, I personally think the quality(/accuracy) of translations are far more important then the grammar and stuff….
- Akatsukin
  
  January 23, 2013 at 6:51 pm
  
  D_S doesn’t understand nihongo, unfortunately. Well, not like any of us do either, so I guess it doesn’t matter much.
- Dark_Sage
  
  January 23, 2013 at 7:56 pm
  
  Like Akatsukin said, I don’t understand enough Japanese to talk about the accuracy of word-word translations. However, I think I provide enough value when it comes to script reviews that you don’t need to ignore my results. So what DO I check when it comes to the scripts?
  
  Visual quality (Is it easy to read the scripts? Are the colors right? Sentences spaced/broken up correctly? Is the timing accurate and does it at least attempt to reflect the Japanese script?))
  
  Logic in context (Sometimes the Japanese scripts throw curveballs at me where the “accurate” translation is something that doesn’t make sense in English, but often I can tell whether or not something is right based on the context. To me, this is of incredible importance to prevent viewers from being drawn-out of the experience.)
  
  Script flow (If the subtitles allow you to follow the show without being distracted by English failings, then that’s ideal. You want to follow the show, not be taken out of the experience by disjointed English.)
  
  Basic English quality (You know, your basic grammar/spelling shit here.)
  
  Consistency (If people change up terms and names in the middle of the episode, that can’t be good for the viewer experience.)
  
  Characterization (If a prim-and-proper character is talking with slang, either Japan’s being silly or something’s wrong. And if scripts don’t convey a character’s speech mannerisms, they’re negatively affecting the viewer experience.)
  
  I don’t really feel like going over everything I can bring up in these reviews since I don’t have a checklist — you just get whatever thoughts I had while watching an episode. But I do feel like I provide more analysis than you’d get from a spellchecker.
  
  If you’re super set on the idea of 1:1 translation accuracy being the most important factor as to whether or not you’ll go with a given group or not, you can check out Vale’s reviews on notredrevie.ws.
  - P32L
    
    January 23, 2013 at 8:21 pm
    
    Looks like the comments section is broken as ever…
    - Dark_Sage
      
      January 23, 2013 at 8:59 pm
      
      Just the way I like it.
Actar

January 25, 2013 at 7:29 am

So… depending on the show, weird show specific terms and names might be introduced. Terms that are bizarre in Japanese as well. Is it a translator’s job to make such terms sensible? Can’t a viewer use his or her interpretation skills? I mean, this technically wouldn’t be a fault of the translator but the show.
- FalseDawn
  
  January 25, 2013 at 7:54 am
  
  It still has to follow the rules of English. Yes, words and terms can be made up to match the Japanese, but they have to be phrased in a way that’d seem natural, otherwise it’s hard to guess at the meaning.
  
  In a show I’m doing at the moment, there was an episode where one of the characters talks in acronyms and shorthand, but to such an extent, that even natives didn’t understand him (that was the gag) – so we had to express that in a way that made sense, largely by making up acronyms but by using them in a sentence in such a way that it *seemed* like English even if it wasn’t understandable.

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Table of Contents

Release Information

Episode details.

External links.

Visual Review

Karaoke.

Typesetting.

Script Review

Karaoke.

Main Script.

Results

16 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [FFF] Sasami-san@Ganbaranai (Episode 01)”

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