[Saizen] Shigurui – 01

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This post was written by Calyrica. She is not Dark_Sage.


One of Saizen’s staff asked me to look at some of their old stuff. I grabbed this for some reason.

Fuck. This series is so bad.

Filesize: 140mbEnglish: American, honorifics

Karaoke

Both the OP and the ED are instrumentals, so there’s nothing to kara. Goddamn it, anyway.

Typesetting

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So when it comes to oldsubs, a lot of us remember shitty typesetting. But what we forget is that there are actually some groups that could do decent typesetting. Here’s a perfect example.

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All of the staff credits are placed in the OP like many older groups did. I didn’t recognize any of the names.

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The font is a bit too plain here, but there’s quite a bit of text. However, some of it could be shortened.

> 8 people died in defeat? Why not just 8 people were defeated?
> 6 people died while killing each other? Why not just 6 people killed each other?

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There is a lot of vertical text in this release. While they did a good job matching the heights, it would have been easier to read if aligned normally.

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No complaints.

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This one does bug me, though. The Japanese text in the second column (right to left) has a “no da” added onto it. Whether or not it actually adds anything to the meaning, it makes the identical typesetting look odd at first glance.

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The shadow changes as this sign continues to show on the screen, and the typeset reflects that.

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Cool. I’m happy with this.

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The way they did the TL notes is pretty damned cool, with a scroll unrolling across the top of the screen. However, in some places, it’s kind of unnecessary. Here’s an example.

 

Script

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This is how they did the dates. While I have and will continue to complain about some of the TL notes, here’s where a TL note would have worked better than the parenthesis.

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Since seppuku implies suicide, it’s not necessary to be this elaborate. Also, I’m pretty sure everyone understands what it means.

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This is like one of the first lines of a scene. There’s no indication to what “it” is. He’s actually asking the lord of the area to listen to him, so instead of “it”, he should use “this”. Or if you want to use a less awkward line, “Please listen to what I have to say.”

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Here’s an example of margins and line splitting. As you can also see, many lines are written to be longer than necessary.

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This needs a comma, not an ellipses.

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I sat here with the video paused on this line for awhile, trying to figure out how much land this was, exactly. While I’m sure this is accurate, it doesn’t actually help me understand this line.

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This line was two syllables in Japanese. I’m a quick reader, but the line disappeared before I read the whole thing. Come on, now.

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If you can translate this to “Tiger Eye Style”, then use it.

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on –> upon

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This is how they do stutters. While many people don’t like alpha timing, I think this is brilliant. When someone’s stuttering, you don’t know what they’re saying, so why put the whole line on the screen?

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Again, if you can translate it, why not put it right in the line?

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Comma splice.

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You can’t be “on” a year.

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Missing a comma before the quotation marks. Also, look at the stupid quotation marks. Pick a font that doesn’t do that, please.

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As far as I know, the afterlife is a place. What she means to say is, “It will hurt your treatment in the afterlife.”

tl;dr: Some oldsubs aren’t bad. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean anything about the quality of the actual show.

19 thoughts on “[Saizen] Shigurui – 01”

  1. —————————————-
    I sat here with the video paused on this line for awhile, trying to figure out how much land this was, exactly. While I’m sure this is accurate, it doesn’t actually help me understand this line.
    —————————————-

    I don’t really see how the line can be improved in this regard. A koku can be a small tract of land in a fertile, level coastal region or a vast stretch of inhospitable mountainside. It’s not defined by its size, like the TL note explains.

    Reply

    • You’re completely right, and I did mention that in the review. I also have no idea on how this could be improved or even if it would be possible, but it doesn’t change the fact that I really don’t know what I’m supposed to be visualizing.

      Reply

      • Given the context (payment/compensation), I think you’re supposed to think of it as an amount of wealth, rather than as a physical tract of land.

        In that case, measuring land by how many people it can feed makes perfect sense. More sense than than physical area, even, since it’s more reflective of how much the land is actually worth.

        Reply

      • Well, imagine medieval Japan. The country probably held something in the vicinity of 30 million people then. Being given something like 1/60 of the entire population and somewhat less in territory (Suruga was rather fertile) is an incredible boon.

        I’m normally really open to all sorts of free renditions, but some measure of learning process must be assumed. I’m not saying you have to look anything up; that’s absurd. But if the character says, “Yo nigger, you got enough land to feed half a million”, then I think it’s reasonable to expect watchers to estimate for themselves whether this is considerable or not.

        Reply

      • I doubt most people could properly visualise that much land. As long as the idea of “a lot” gets across (and it does) the line works as best it can.

        The TL note may not be necessary though, something like my suggestion could work just as well, or better since the viewer doesn’t have to pause.

        Reply

  2. Hey, it was 2007. TL notes were all the rage back then! And Shigurui was fine if you like morally wayward samurai dramas that are too black to see anything in any real detail. Which apparently I do :D

    Though, not to put too fine a point on it, but I think the person asking for a Saizen review was looking for stuff we sub now maybe? Like, old series but subbed using shiny modern subbing standards :)

    But even so, I think this review gives a good counterpoint to the oldsub reviews D_S did a while ago – proving that there were some of us who did know what we doing back then ;)

    Reply

  4. > > 8 people died in defeat? Why not just 8 people were defeated?
    While I can’t speak for the group (or TL), I’d read it as “8 people succumbed to their wounds/were killed after the battle”. That’s different than just being defeated (and taken prisoner, like it would happen nowadays).

    > Since seppuku implies suicide, it’s not necessary to be this elaborate. Also, I’m pretty sure everyone understands what it means.
    Fully agree on the first part, but since I wasn’t active in the fansub scene in 2004, I can’t say whether the word was widely understood then. For all I know it might’ve been the period of time when all the weaboos learned their weaboo words.

    > When someone’s stuttering, you don’t know what they’re saying, so why put the whole line on the screen?
    By the same argument, you don’t know what people are saying with their first word, so you’d have to alpha-time everything. ;)

    > Comma splice.
    Not really, no. “These sword techniques” is not a complete sentence, so it’s not a comma splice – the comma is still wrong, though. It should either be “These sword techniques… They’re not normal” or “These sword techniques aren’t normal.”

    Reply

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