[Coalgirls] Elfen Lied – 01 (BD)

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


I want to ride this Monogatari fever with an oldsub review! Also, am I the only person who thinks this show is totally overrated?

Before jumping into the review, let me say that I believe the source subtitles are from the official English release. I say this simply because there’s way too much stupidness happening in here for it to be any other way.

Filesize: 827mb
English: American, no honorifics

Karaoke

[Coalgirls]_Elfen_Lied_01_(1280x720_Blu-ray_FLAC)_[5BC74BC6].mkv_snapshot_00.06_[2013.07.25_15.17.48]

Kinda lame styling here when you think about how artsy-looking the animation is…

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I want to say this nice framing on the bottom was an accident, because there’s no way these subs could do something so advanced.

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And this could be fixed easily by aligning everything to the left. And maybe fancy-ing up the font.

Typesetting

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So I think my eyes are seeing things.

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Is this supposed to be typesetting?

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Is it?

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Because I’m just really lost right now.

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I mean, if this is typesetting, then what have I been doing?

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*sigh*

Script

 

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This is poorly phrased.

> But if I keep making mistakes all the time, I must not be very useful.

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This is a nitpick, but:

> Oh, didn’t it also say, “Don’t drop things on the floor”?
> Oh, didn’t it also say to not drop things on the floor?

Either is better than this.

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I can’t remember why I took this screenshot. I think I actually meant to capture the next line, which was “Uhm” to show weird-ass spelling. But anyway, most fansubs nowadays would use the romanization “Kouta”. The “oh” thing seems to have faded away with the years.

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“shoot her dead”. Really? I mean, I know what he’s saying and why he’s saying it that way, but it just sucks so bad.

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First of all, if you did wish to say this, it’d be “clean-up”.

Second of all, this sucks.

> I cleaned the house a bit for you.

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Because people actually talk like this, big brother. I get that they want to translate the honorific, but fucking hell.

Also, she’s calling him that, so it’d actually be Big Brother.

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take –> bring

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Lovely alt stlying, isn’t it?

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There are two things wrong with this line.

First, you can replace the second usage of Kanae with “her” to make this line not sound so stiff.

Also, Kanae’s dead. She can’t do anything now or in the future. Therefore, using “will” is wrong. Use “would”. In fact, this is standard with “if”. If ____, then __ would ____. (the ‘then’ is optional depending on formality of the speaker.)

 

tl;dr: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA OH GOD MY SIDES. Okay, so it’s not a complete failure, but you’re not going to enjoy the series this way.

40 thoughts on “[Coalgirls] Elfen Lied – 01 (BD)”

  1. >Also, am I the only person who thinks this show is totally overrated?
    No. Okay, I only read the manga and didn’t watch the anime, but it really wasn’t all that good.

    Reply

  4. First time I watched it, I thought the show was the greatest thing since sliced cunt.

    Now I realize that the drama is cheap and over the top, and Mamiko Noto’s character was a huge bitch in every sense of the word.

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    It’s still on my watch list.

    Reply

  6. I saw part of it in say… 2006 when a friend in the dorms was starting to watch it. Does it get better or worse after the first episode (or was it two)? Any less contrived or cliched? I dropped after that.

    Oh yeah, the Klimt reference / defilement is truly something else. WTF, Japan?!

    Reply

  7. My memory’s hazy but I recall it being little more than a sub-par source of gore and tits.

    The manga’s supposedly better but I can’t tolerate the art long enough to read it.

    Reply

  9. I’ll never stop saying that it’s not only overrated, it just doesn’t deserve the attention it gets.

    Kind of like Madoka, except I do like Madoka because I’m a sucker for drama.

    Reply

  10. I was actually gonna rewatch this, but now I think I’ll just leave it as a treasured memory…

    It might be worth mentioning next to the (pretty damn huge) filesize, that the release has 3x 5.1 audio tracks.

    Reply

  11. > Also, am I the only person who thinks this show is totally overrated?

    Dropped it in the middle of the first episode because it bored me, so no.

    > Before jumping into the review, let me say that I believe the source subtitles are from the official English release.
    >> Subs: Retail – English (modified)
    >> anime-mx – English (OVA, modified)

    Yep, they are.

    Reply

    • The question is: Why didn’t coalgirls improve on the typesetting? Seems pointless to release a BD with such bad typesetting, which might be an issue with the file format on the end of the licensing company, but which Coalgirls could easily have improved upon.

      Also, I’m guessing the official release was around 2006 so the romanisation of Kohta is neither here nor there as it was pretty common practice to use that romanisation style, even among fansubbers.

      Reply

      • a) Kristen cannot typeset for his (sorry, “her”) life.
        b) Kristen refuses to source help for such fansubbing fundamentals as typesetting or karaoke fx, because at least in the past, (s)he couldn’t risk “blowing his/her cover”. I’m not too clear what the current excuse for this continuing sorry state of affairs is, though.

        Reply

  12. Good thing I suggested reviewing this before watching it myself. Otherwise I might’ve ended up cutting my wrists.
    Thanks for the review.

    Reply

  13. “[…]am I the only person who thinks[…]”

    Yes, you are, because you’re a unique individual who doesn’t think like everyone else… oh, and you can become the president of your country when you grow up.
    Sorry for the rant, but I just abhor the “am I the only one” phrase -_-

    The typesetting made me lol when I skimmed through the 1st ep. Well, back in the day when I watched the German dubbed DVDs, there wasn’t any typesetting, I believe… “ou”>”oh”, I agree with.
    Concerning your last screenshot. IIRC, Nyu says that, and she has the retarded mind of a child, so the redundancy should be appropriate. If I’m mistaken that it’s not Nyu talking, I take it back and approve of your version.

    Reply

    • Oh, and Coalgirls really went lazy-mode with this release. Styling could be better, typesetting is meh, script wasn’t edited, 3 audio tracks (or were it 4?).
      In general CG has good releases and despite their file sizes, I don’t really complain… but for some time they’ve gotten worse and lazy, not to mention how far behind some projects are. Even Tenshi appears to be comatose, and he was the most active member lol

      Reply

    • False! I know I’m the only person who likes the rain. I mean, it’s fairly obvious no one is as dark and deep as me. Even my LiveJournal knows that.

      Reply

    • Use of the rhetorical form “also, am I the only person who thinks x?” is one of the most obvious hints that something is being written by a woman. Sometimes identifying a writer’s gender by what she or he produces in impossible, but other times…

      Reply

  15. I’m currently watching the Evangelion series and if you feel like having some fun tearing fansubs apart, I recommend Asuka Subs’ version.

    Reply

  16. I also thought this was the best shit ever when I watched it as a teenager. I haven’t gone back to check, but clearly I knew what I was talking about amongst the rage of hormones.

    …

    I’d still recommend it to other people who are currently that young. Despite all its shortcomings, I thought it did an alright job of showing the cruelty of humans (dyclonius or whatever included), especially children. I’d give it to my hypothetical 14 year old son any day of the week, along with School Days and Evangelion.

    Reply

  17. The Elfen Lied anime did pretty damn well with what it did adapt (up until the anime original ending at least), but the problem was that it didn’t adapt the second half of the manga. As compared to what’s shown in the anime, the plot in the later volumes of Elfen Lied is really good and the ending is significantly deep. It’s one of the most unique works I’ve ever come to know.

    Reply

    • Exactly my thoughts after seeing anime — well, not exactly tbh. Since i’ve read manga before watching anime my first thought after seing last episode was “how could you screw up so much!”

      I liked artwork and music in anime, but i don’t like how they ended it — better just read manga.

      Reply

  19. “Also, am I the only person who thinks this show is totally overrated?”

    No. It does have good art, excellent sound/music, and a good atmosphere, but that’s about it, the writing is bottom-shelf junk. Most of the characters are just a source of flat melodrama with no connection to the plot, and none of them have a recognizable personality at all. That on top of the fact that the show itself seems to be just a really long, roundabout way of saying “WAHHHHHHH PEOPLE R SO MEAN.” The target audience is people in their early teens who will mistake the contrived angst for depth.

    I think it’s at least a noteworthy show, though, if only because, for many, it was a first “real” anime series, and a lot of people have serious nostalgia goggles on for it.

    Reply

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