Figured I’d get this out of the way before Sagemonogatari.

Table of Contents

Release Information

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Results

Release Information

Episode details.

Release format: MKV (626 MB, 8-bit), LQ MKV (282 MB, 8-bit)

Japanesiness: No honorifics.

English style: American English.

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/dQxgy5xM

Speed: Quick (<48 hours)

Note: This release is hardsubbed because Funimation sucks.

 

External links.

N/A.

 

Visual Review

Karaoke.

N/A. Official subs don’t translate songs because they can’t afford it and fansubbers can.

 

 

Typesetting.

Funimation put in the effort you’d expect from a company of their renown.

They went out of their way to make the show nigh-unwatchable, with their visuals creating a confused jumble of crap. All about dat user experience, huh Funi? There’s a reason I haven’t bought a damn release of yours this year. (NISA’s making bank off me, though.)

 

Other.

Funi seems to think their viewers require visual AIDS.

This was acceptable in the 90s, but it’s not the 90s anymore.

Em-dashes and en-dashes are accepted characters, and it’s ridiculously simple to have multiple colored lines on the same screen. I don’t understand why Funimation is so fucking behind.

 

 

 

Script Review

Main Script.

Conversations can be stilted in the script.

Anyone with eyes can see that! -> Anyone with eyes could see that! {Tense was wrong in the original.}

No, this is very important. -> This is actually very important. {These imply different things. Funi had it wrong.}

Yeah? -> How so? {Come on. “Yeah”? Really?}

There are so many lines at your fingertips that could actually be said by people, and you choose this artificial piece? Come on.

“That don’t change a thing. Naegi’s still obviously the killer.”

It would be “What is the point of that question?” since the questioner is asking Kirigiri about Kirigiri’s line.

Protip, Funimation: Having staff who speak English natively helps.

Wanna tell me how the fuck a finish is going to prevent lock picking? What, was finish poured into the locks’ key slots?

Naegi is quoting himself here. If only there were punctuation marks one could use to indicate this…

Oh my god, they actually went with the “super high school level” translation.

Background: there are two accepted translations for the high school students’ titles: “Super Duper High School ___” and “Super High School Level ___”. The fan translation of the game and UTW’s release went with the former, and Funimation/a SomethingAwful Let’s Play translator went with the latter.

One of the translations is English and thematically sound, and the other is what Funimation went with.

Take a protractor to your wrists; that’s not how you handle degrees. The phrasing would be “180 degrees”. Why the fuck would you hyphenate it?

 

 

Results

Watchability: Watchable.

Visual grade: F

Script grade: B

Overall grade: I dunno. Wanna just average it to a C-?

The script is acceptable, but the visuals aren’t. For people who are experiencing the series for the first time, I highly recommend going with the UTW version. For those who’ve already played the game and are just easy-modeing it through the anime, you can probably just go with whatever release comes out first.

Unless you care about the quality of what you’re watching, that is.

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