Translation Review: [Saizen] Attack on Titan – 01

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This post was written by kokujin-kun. He is not Dark_Sage.


Full disclosure: I’m part of Saizen so this will not be a fair review.

Table of Contents

Release Information

Translation

Other Observations

Final Grade

Release Information

Episode details.

Release format: MKV (489MB, 10-bit)

Wap Level: Don’t recall anything that would allow for any wap.

English style: American English.

Speed: Slow (>48 hours)

 

External links.

Group website: http://www.saizen-fansubs.com/

IRC channel: #[email protected]

Fansub.co screenshot comparisons: http://fansub.co/shingeki-no-kyojin/  (first time I added any of these links)

Subbusu screenshot comparisons:  http://www.subbusu.com/view.php?id=8

 

Translation

Karaoke.

[Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_02.46_[2013.07.28_19.34.30]

OP. Messed up this faintly Orwell-esque line in the song. Supposed to be something like, “The complacency of the livestock and a false peace.”

[Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_02.55_[2013.07.28_19.35.13]

One part of the OP where you probably should have added a Germanic word (jäger).

Edit: Also, as pointed out by Rekyu,  the official lyrics says it’s supposed to be hofuru (to slaughter) not houru. This of course means they can’t mimicopy for shit. 

[Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_23.29_[2013.07.30_22.00.18]

No ED in this episode.

Main Script.

[Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_07.51_[2013.07.28_19.51.15]

I see what they’re trying to do here, but I would have had these guys be sarcastic and say, “That was a stirring speech, kid!” since the guy said isamashii.

[Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_10.34_[2013.07.28_19.56.30]

Not sure if I like this phrasing. Yes, she does say yaku ni tatsu (be useful), but I feel there must be something better, like “served his purpose” or “fought the good fight.”

[Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_15.40_[2013.07.28_20.32.04]

They say kamo ni shite yaru which means something along the lines of “treating someone like an easy mark” or “treating someone like a sitting duck.” Eren is making himself an easy prey for these guys by trying to engage them. I probably would have went with “I guess he wants a beatdown!”/”Then let’s give it to him!”  But I guess this works too.

[Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_16.38_[2013.07.28_20.31.36]

He didn’t actually say anything about “non-military interests,” (the only thing closest is the phrase heta ni soto ni deyou to shite or “go outside carelessly”) but if they omit that element from the translation, viewers might be confused at to why the Recons get to go outside the walls if doing that was prohibited by the King’s Council.

 

Other Observations

[Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_01.20_[2013.07.28_19.26.32][Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_04.16_[2013.07.28_19.42.33][Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_05.57_[2013.07.28_19.46.15][Saizen]_Attack_on_Titan_-_01_[B61B71D5].mkv_snapshot_14.41_[2013.07.28_20.06.13]

Every one of these lines was over my (arbitrary) limit of 20 characters per second. In case I’m Doing It Wrong™, what I do is c/p the lines from the script onto Word, use the wordcount feature, and divide the characters (without spaces) by the line duration to determine whether or not a line is over the limit. They say the new Aegisub builds have built-in calculators that do that shit for you, but it appears they count the characters including spaces.

Final Grade: A

The script has almost no mistakes and it doesn’t read like it’s been translated from Japanese. It’s pretty much all I could hope for. Someone asked me to review this episode, even though Saizen released only one episode due to licensing. At first I said hell no, but then changed my mind for no good reason. Actually, based on the fact someone from my group wanted me to review a dropped project, I should have acted like one of those football coaches whose son is on his team. If the kid wants to make first string, he has to run those 50 extra laps, do 80 extra pushups, and do a bunch of 40s under 4.5 before he can even think about first string.  But, admittedly, they didn’t really leave me a lot of room to get harsh with my grading, as it should be since apparently this was released a week after the episode originally aired.

 

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19 thoughts on “Translation Review: [Saizen] Attack on Titan – 01”

  1. I imagine it feels weird to critique lines you wrote or approved yourself. Every suggestion for improvement begs the question “why didn’t you do it like that in the first place?”

    What was your role in this one?

    Reply

  3. Spoiler alert: The script side of things didn’t take a week – it was the awesome typesetting/kara that took the time (and then the kara didn’t render properly for the final release orz).

    And yeah, the “non-military” bit was specifically added because of a potential logic trapfall in that the Recons could still venture beyond the walls. We also didn’t have the official lyrics (it was ep 1, remember, and they don’t usually surface till ep 6 or later for most series), though that might be a fail argument because we translated it correctly, so maybe we just typo’d ^__^

    Nice to see we got an A for translation, but man, sangofe, stop asking everyone to review things we’ve dropped! :P

    Reply

      • Yeah, but something went wrong in the final render of the kara. It was supposed to have the orange swoosh across the kara lines – it looked pretty snazzy too. Shame we missed the error before releasing.

        Reply

    • Yeah, I was kidding about the “can’t mimicopy for shit” line because whatever errors there are in the OP (if there are any others) weren’t even that noticeable, and of course whatever issues you had with the OP factored very little in the final grade, if at all.

      The only times I start taking away points based on song lyrics are if the official lyrics are out, or if the Japanese and English lyrics are so utterly nonsensical that the meaning of the song gets lost entirely.

      Reply

  4. “Let’s teach him a lesson” guys look like gaijin yonkoma. They’re probably reacting to Armin’s gender identity.

    Reply

  6. i usually watch subs that aren’t speed through and lazy. i don’t trust crunchyroll. usually they use too much swears. i’m not concerned of that, but i usually want subs that tone it down. too many swears just makes me think: BULLSHIT THIS SUB ISN’T ACCURATE AT ALL!

    Reply

    • My trollometer has gone off the scale on this one. It mildly amused me, but I do have to wonder what prompted you to comment on this particular show review…

      Reply

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