59 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [Mezashite] Kyoukai no Kanata (Episode 03)”

1. I assume you mean “above” here:

   “Mezashite’s just a notch about UTW in both script and visuals.”

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2. Mezashite? More like Megashitty.

   :^)

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3. >…Well, that just reads all confusing-like. tl;dr: Mezashite mistook subjects here.

   Rewatched that, and yeah, looks like I misheard Scarf’s line. As for where she wore all those glasses, Kanbara says “heya ni futari kiri no toki de kakesaseta moratta”, the important part being 部屋(heya), which simply means “room”. Normally if he wanted to refer to the club room he’d say “この部屋” or “部室” (this room/clubroom respectively). Well, that was just a minor point.

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4. Those are called conjunctions. Did you even pass basic English class?

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   • “Anyway” isn’t a conjunction. If you want to be pedantic you could call it a conjuctive adverb, but I think that’s a bullshit designation. Nice try, though.

     Teaching terms is useless anyway. The only way to actually learn a language is to experience it. And for the record, I aced every English class I had. (No, I didn’t go to some podunk university.) Try harder, tryhard-kun.

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5. Jesus, with how long these reviews dragged out I’m almost starting to dislike this show.

   I bet it took more time to reply to the comments than it did to actually write the reviews.

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   • You’re right, it did.

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   • Well the show is pretty terrible; I’m surprised he doesn’t already dislike it.

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6. “Just avoid Commie and FFF.”
   You should just make a banner with this.

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7. >I still think this is shitty writing, though. I don’t care if the Japanese script sucks too.

   So Dark_Sage’s Advice of the Day™:

   “If the Japanese script sucks, just rewrite it until you think it doesn’t! Just remember, accuracy is not as important as my opinion!”

   Alternatively, you might want to consider Dark_Sage’s Advice of the Day™ from yesterday:

   “If a translation for a clearly well-defined thing that is easy to translate sounds shitty (according to me), you should rather leave it untranslated! With a TL note!”

   Remember, as long as you keep these fantastic pieces of subbing advice in mind, your subs are practically guaranteed to soar in terms of quality! Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for yet anutter piece of Dark_Sage’s Advice of the Day™!

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   • Bring back the TL notes, I say. They used to contain a lot of useful info, ESPECIALLY for the casual crowd.

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     • TL Note: Actually, no they didn’t. TL-notes aren’t bad but no one has ever previously used them for something not retarded.

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     • Agreed. It also seems ridiculous if groups say that they should translate everything into English while still using Japanese honorifics. And there are phrases that just sound better in their original language. There are things like “je ne sais quois”, for instance, which you can find in the Merriam-Webster English Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/je%20ne%20sais%20quoi

       “Some Japanese words have a je ne sais quois which direct English translations would lack.”

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       • Silly thing is, the French don’t use that phrase in the same way, so that’s where the analogy falls down a bit because the English have misappropriated in the same way Japanese anime characters say “CHANCE!” all the time.

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     • I hope you realize that in this particular scenario you would be advocating TL notes along the lines “You baka! (TL Note: Baka means stupid) (TL Note Note: We left baka untranslated because it sounds stupid translated / it sounds cooler untranslated!)”

       And TL notes should basically never be necessary for viewing something. TL notes are perfectly fine and well as separate extras, but they should not be a necessity in the main content.

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       • It’s a far jump from “TL notes can be useful” to “literally every Japanese word must remain untranslated and the English translations must go to the top omg translationpocalypse!!”

         Seriously, Daiz, you’re getting screwier and screwier with old age.

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   • Aww, aren’t you cute?

     I’ve always advocated for the translation of meaning rather than simply words. And I’ve always felt translation notes were acceptable so long as they didn’t negatively impact the user experience.

     If you want to debate me on these points, go ahead. Show me and my audience why I’m wrong. I can’t wait.

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     • So now you’re pretending like this didn’t happen the other day?

       http://www.crymore.net/2013/10/20/fansub-review-commie-kyoukai-no-kanata-episode-03/comment-page-1/#comment-91082

       A translator tells you:
       >「檻」 in Japanese is just “cage”, “caged”, or nuances of “captured” or “trapped”. Nothing else.
       >Only you’re working with “cage/jail/trap” for “ori”.

       You respond with:
       >I’d be fine with “ori”. “Cage” is literally wrong, though.

       You’re saying that the actual translation for the word is “literally wrong”, and at the same time indirectly say that “but it’s totally ok to leave it untranslated because then I won’t be bothered by the (correct) translation”.

       You also argued about leaving youmu translated with a TL note here:
       http://www.crymore.net/2013/10/16/fansub-review-fff-kyoukai-no-kanata-episode-02/comment-page-1/#comment-89970

       So most likely you would recommend having a TL note here too (I mean, surely you wouldn’t expect people to just know what “ori” means or want to leave them in the dark of something that a Japanese viewer would without a doubt pick up?), in which case you’d pretty much literally end up with “I put up an Ori. (TL Note: “Ori” means “Cage”) (TL Note Note: We decided to leave “ori” untranslated because “cage” doesn’t sound good to me!)”

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       • I’m saying 1:1 is a bullshit argument. You still don’t seem to understand that, and I’m not sure you ever will. Can’t teach an old Daiz new tricks it seems.

         Listen, a translation is supposed to get across the meaning and intent of a work in an effective manner. Contextually irrelevant lines do not allow for this. Please, cut holes in my philosophy. I’d love to see you try.

         Le TL notes are le bad, huh? Sure.

         TL Note: Youmu is a portmanteau of Youkai, which is a catch-all term for supernatural Japanese creatures, and Mu, which means dream.
         I would not generally translate “youkai”, so no, I would not generally translate “youmu” either. Get mad all you want, but English doesn’t have any words that perfectly match “youkai”, let alone a spinoff of the word.

         TL Note: An “Ori” is a stronger version of barriers in this series.
         But I’d probably have it translated as something like fold. Just saying an untranslated script reads better than what you guys had.

         Check your blood pressure there, Daiz. Wouldn’t want you to have a heart attack. I’d have to find another jester.

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         • This isn’t 2007 anymore; TL notes aren’t acceptable.

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           • TL notes are acceptable when the information you need to convey cannot be done cleanly in the dialog and when the TL note itself is not intrusive. Having a three sentence TL note for a line that last three seconds is not okay. Having a TL note when you can adequately convey meaning in the dialog is not okay. But if a TL note can do the job better and is easily readable in the situation, it’s acceptable to use them. There aren’t many situations where their use is required, but they aren’t inherently bad.

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           • >TL notes are unacceptable because once upon a time it was used to troll.
             And I do find it hilarious how Daiz and Xythar are saying it’s a bad idea to make some minor alterations to the original script in order to improve it when Commie, Underwater and Vivid are well known for changing scripts and rewriting jokes when those rely on honorifics to make sense.

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         • >I’m saying 1:1 is a bullshit argument.
           >I would not generally translate “youkai” […] English doesn’t have any words that perfectly match “youkai”

           So let me get this straight: You say that we shouldn’t translate things directly when a direct and perfectly fitting translation exist and come up with something else instead, solely because you don’t like the actual translation for it. At the same time, you’re also saying that we shouldn’t translate something else because it doesn’t have a perfectly matching equivalent (unlike the word in the previous case) in English.

           Sorry, D_S, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Especially when the “translation isn’t just about 1:1 word replacement” argument is specifically about the latter kind of scenario, not the former where a direct replacement that has all the meaning of the original word does exist.

           >TL Note: An “Ori” is a stronger version of barriers in this series.

           And you seriously would not tell the viewer what the word actually is because you don’t like what it means? That’s really… something else.

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           • Daiz, You’re treading into “wap vs. unwap” territory. Putting stuff like honorifics, youkai, and youmu into subs are preferences. You can’t possibly argue that one way is more correct than another.

             Though I would certainly say that ori is going too far. It’s impossible to know for sure whether “cage” or a different word would be better because I don’t know the source material inside out. But because I don’t, best practices would probably be to have the default subtitles track using “cage” and another with something else. It’ll be interesting to find out if “cage” holds any significant meaning by the end of the season. Dark_Sage’s gamble only has to last long enough to get through one cour because BD preorders are doing poorly enough to guarantee that there’ll never be a second season.

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             • >Daiz, You’re treading into “wap vs. unwap” territory. Putting stuff like honorifics, youkai, and youmu into subs are preferences. You can’t possibly argue that one way is more correct than another.

               From the point of actually translating shit, actually translating shit is very much more correct, but I do also realize that there are people who like their subs with some untranslated Japanese flavoring, and that a translator could pander to them by leaving shit untranslated.

               But that’s not what this is about. This is about D_S going on about “1:1 translations being bullshit” on a case where the argument doesn’t really come into play (because there is a direct equivalent English term that captures all the meaning of the original), and then in the same breath says that he’d leave something untranslated and justifying it with the lack of a 1:1 equivalent. As I said, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

               >It’s impossible to know for sure whether “cage” or a different word would be better

               It’s not. The original word is the equivalent of “cage” in Japanese. There is not really any ifs or buts about it, it’s the term the author used in the original and it has an exact English equivalent, so there’s really no reason not to use it. And if you’d change it because you don’t like the word, well, that’s going to be scriptwriting. Adding a second subtitle track for “cage” would make about as much sense as adding a second track that untranslates “stupid” to “baka”.

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               • Dark_Sage isn’t trying to translate one word into a completely different word. Rather he’s translating the word into something else with a similar meaning. If ori as “cage” holds no significance in the source material, where’s the harm in using a translation that gets the meaning across better?

                 Where do you even get the idea that Dark_Sage is trying to rewrite the script?

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                 • Because “cage” is a series-specific terminology that the author chose to use over hundreds of other terms for a reason, whether it’s clearly related a theme in the series or simply for style. It’s irrelevant if it makes sense or whether you agree with it. On the other hand, if they’re talking about everyday objects that appear in the series, then you should be changing it to whatever the word with closest meaning instead, or your script wouldn’t make sense.

                   It’s like arguing “Lightsaber” in Star Wars makes no sense because it looks exactly like the beams that spaceships in the same movie fire, so I’ll change it to “Beamsword” instead.

                   Or “the Matrix” would be confusing because it only means an rectangular array in Japanese, so I’ll change it to “Dream World” or “Cyberspace” instead.

                   It would just be awful scriptwriting. You are changing the script where the author had purposefully chosen misleading name to refer to a fictional object or concept, instead of translating.

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                   • I’d accept beamsword as a translation for lightsaber. I wouldn’t necessarily say that beamsword is the better translation but it does work.

                     (btw, in Super Smash Bros, the lightsabers are called beamswords)

                   • Of course it “works”… it’s a way of calling it that makes more sense than what it’s actually called in the movie.
                     But then if you said then it wouldn’t be Star Wars, you see?

                     If you wrote a fanfic about Star Wars, and you wrote “beamsword”, someone who never watched the original movie would think it’s bland. It wouldn’t “feel” the same way as if the same person read “lightsaber” even if it’s less accurate.

                     But if Luke Skywalker said “that’s a big ship” in the movie, and you wrote “that’s a huge spacecraft” for a complete setting, then no one would mind. They might even think it’s better interpretation of what he would say.

                     It’s pretty much the same thing in translation.

                   • If you wrote a fanfic about Star Wars, and you wrote “beamsword”, someone who never watched the original movie would think it’s bland. It wouldn’t “feel” the same way as if the same person read “lightsaber” even if it’s less accurate.

                     Arguable. This can be neither proven nor disproven. Although I suppose blandness could result from seeing the word “beamsword” in other forms of entertainment.

                   • Well, it’s kinda hard to explain this to someone who never fansubbed before and using analogy with only one language (and I guess my example wasn’t that good lol), but you can kind of see it wouldn’t exactly result in the same effect that author wanted it to be.
                     And to those who have seen the original work, it would look outright ridiculous, because it’s a terminology specific to the story. It would also look ridiculous to someone who speak Japanese and saw “ori” translated as “barricade” for this series.

                     I have no idea why the author of this series chose “ori”, but a Japanese viewer would understand this word as a cube that traps animals inside being used to describe a spell more powerful than “kekkai = barriers”.
                     The translated product should convey the same effect. Maybe there’s a reason for confusing the audience, maybe the author was just lazy. Either way, it’s not up for a translator to change it to something that makes more sense, because it didn’t make sense in the original language, at least not yet.

           • When the fuck did I say you couldn’t translate youmu? And where did I knock any points off groups for doing so? It’s a personal preference and I gave you mine, which you’d realize if you were literate. Are the cataracts finally getting to you or something?

             I care about the viewer experience, so I’m not going to hand in a subpar script, shrug my shoulders, and say “Well it can’t be helped”. You can cry about it all you want, but I care about the viewers more than your misinformed opinions.

             And Daiz, please don’t talk about cake anymore. It’s hard to explain to my coworkers why I’m laughing so hard. (For those of you who don’t know, Daiz is an honest-to-god hambeast.)

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             • So now you’re going all out with ad hominems, eh? This certainly doesn’t remind me of someone else whose name starts with Kris and ends with ten at all!

               >It’s a personal preference and I gave you mine

               Sure, it’s a “personal preference”… Except that you justified it with the same argument that you were calling “bullshit” in the exact same post earlier. Not to mention that you were calling the actual translation of a word “literally wrong” earlier. That’s hardly what I’d call expressing “personal preference”.

               >I’m not going to hand in a subpar script

               As we have established, you clearly have a problem with the original script here. With that being the case, what you should have done from the start is to accept it and move on, but instead what you did is start calling clear and correct translations incorrect and kept shouting that even when it was clear that multiple actual translators clearly disagreed with you and some even telling it straight to your face.

               Anyway, in a hypothetical scenario where you were subbing this show, I do hope that you’d either drop it or actually sub it how the show actually is instead of resorting to scriptwriting (or as they say, “making shit up”) because you feel the original script isn’t up to par, which is exactly what you’re advocating here.

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               • You sure are obsessed with Kristen. He may be the closest thing to a girlfriend you’ve ever had but it’s getting kind of creepy. Wanna tone it back a bit?

                 Yes, I did call it wrong until someone came up with a good enough argument to convince me to change my mind. That’s the difference between us — if I ever get into a situation where I’m wrong, I’ll admit it, change my views, and walk out of it a better person. You, you’ll just eat your way out of it. (I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll stop with the fat jokes.)

                 And Daiz, that’s a little harsh there. I should hypothetically drop a series because I’d improve the script? Beautiful. Hey, while we’re on hypotheticals maybe you should stop eating. Oh wow, I’m sorry. That one just slipped out. Please forgive me, old chum.

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                 • >Wanna tone it back a bit?

                   That’s funny coming from someone who can’t seem to make replies without ad hominems anymore.

                   >if I ever get into a situation where I’m wrong, I’ll admit it, change my views, and walk out of it a better person.

                   You sure seem to be having a hard time admitting things and “walking out of it a better person” considering it took dozens of comments, many flat-out telling that you were wrong, just to get to this point and even then you feel grumpy enough about the issue to include “I still think this is shitty writing, though. I don’t care if the Japanese script sucks too” in this very review.

                   >I should hypothetically drop a series because I’d improve the script?

                   Oh my, right after you said you’d admit to being wrong, you keep insisting that your scriptwriting would somehow not be scriptwriting because it’d “improve” the script. You know, it’s a rather bad habit to keep contradicting yourself in the span of a single post. I’ll just quote 8thSin from http://www.crymore.net/2013/10/20/fansub-review-commie-kyoukai-no-kanata-episode-03/comment-page-1/#comment-91082

                   “It’s not a translator’s job to improve or change the script, especially for unique terminology. You don’t fuck with it because you never know what’ll happen and why the author chose this word instead of something else that sound nicer.”

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                   • Reality isn’t a democracy. If people want to change my mind, they better provide evidence. And only one person of all five autists who disagreed with me provided anything of value. The others just served to waste my time. And what a time waste it was~

                     Listen, chublord, editors are supposed to improve scripts. If that means I’m a scriptwriter (as you seem to think is a bad thing), then put me in the WGA.

                     >That’s funny coming from someone who can’t seem to make replies without ad hominems anymore.

                     You know, the funny thing is insults aren’t ad hominem unless they construct the entirety of an argument. And you’ll find that’s never the case with my comments. Any fat jokes I’m throwing in are just bonuses for my dear readers. After all, who doesn’t like to see a pig squirm?

                   • Poor Daiz is too fat to understand what ad hominem even means.
                     ^This was ad hominem btw

                   • Well, even if your insults weren’t ad hominems, they’d still be libel. Hardly what I’d call an improvement.

                     >If people want to change my mind, they better provide evidence.

                     Like multiple people did? At least four people provided you with the kanji 檻 for “cage”. I guess four is the new one?

                     >editors are supposed to improve scripts.

                     Sure, they’re supposed to improve the form of the script. That is not the same as “improving” the actual content of the script, which falls strictly into the domain of scriptwriting and is still what you are advocating with your insistence of “cage” being a somehow “literally wrong” translation for 檻 and such.

                     But since you refuse to admit that your beef is with the content and not merely with the form and instead spend your time insulting me in all your wonderful maturity, I guess we’re not really going to get anywhere with this.

                   • It’s not libel if it’s true. Or have you slimmed down?

                     My problem was with how it didn’t fit the context of the scene due to “imprisonment” being a necessary function of “cage”. ONE person gave me a scenario that indicated the use of the term cage was acceptable, so I changed my position.

                     Sorry, but I refuse to turn in subpar scripts just because a gaggle of Japanese purists can’t handle the idea of making scripts enjoyable. Also, I’m not sorry.

                   • >It’s not libel if it’s true.

                     Sadly, saying something doesn’t make it true, no matter how hard you wish it did. But if you feel like you need to keep splicing your comments with your amazingly mature insults, then I guess 仕方が無い。

                     >My problem was with how it didn’t fit the context of the scene due to “imprisonment” being a necessary function of “cage”.

                     As I’ve said multiple times, that’s all about you having a problem with the content. The author of the original work chose to use 檻, the Japanese word for cage, and that’s it. Changing it to something else just because you don’t like it would be scriptwriting, plain and simple. Same goes for the youmu stone issue.

                     And to the surprise of no-one, we’re still not getting anywhere.

                   • No memories of Connichi 2011 then? Or did you eat those too?

                     Odds of me google translating your insult: 0%
                     Odds of you realizing you’re arguing for 1:1 TLs: 1% (I have a little faith in you)

                   • >editors are supposed to improve scripts

                     Wrong! Editors are supposed to improve translations, not scripts. Editing != Scriptwriting.

                     If you’re changing the meaning of a translation, then it’s not editing, it’s called making it up as you go along.

                     If you wanna go scriptwriting, why not just go and write your own script entirely? You shouldn’t limit yourself to the visuals that are onscreen. They are mere shackles to your overflowing imagination :D

                   • Daiz, stop wasting your time “arguing” with D_S and release the Chuu2 OVA already.

         • > TL Note: An “Ori” is a stronger version of barriers in this series.
           > But I’d probably have it translated as something like fold.

           Fold?! Like a livestock pen? I’m surprised “ward,” a magical spell cast enclosing a space to bar entry or exit, basically a cage, hasn’t been suggested ’til now. Still, the “cage” is good for a gamble. ;-)

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8. I don’t like the font and the color of the main script but guess I can live with it.

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9. pls stop bullying

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10. > Listen, chublord, editors are supposed to improve scripts. If that means I’m a scriptwriter (as you seem to think is a bad thing), then put me in the WGA.

    If you think the original Japanese script is totally awfully written and just plain retarded – then the English version better damn well be every bit as horrible.
    Because that’s the job of a translator – accurately portraying the source material. And the editor’s job is assisting him with that.
    If you want to improve the actual original scriptwriting, that’s the job of an editor for the original work in the original language.
    Well, it’s only an issue when the translator doesn’t check the script again after the editor is done, though.

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    • I expect you to defend “it can’t be helped” to your last breath then.

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      • Let’s be serious.

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      • I think I’ve seen a few cases where that actually was the best possible translation, but it generally isn’t.
        It very much depends on the context, but as an example, “oh well” can work just fine.
        I did say the translated version should be horrible if the original is, but the same way it shouldn’t sound awkward if the original doesn’t. And overly literal translations like the example you gave tend to sound very awkward.

        In the same vein, it can be perfectly acceptable to translate, say, an insult that’s repeated multiple times in a row in the JP original with a different insult each time in English.
        You need to take the peculiarities of the source language into account.

        In short, you need to think of why the author phrased it the way he did. If the answer is “that’s just the way you’d say it in Japanese”, then you “just” need to find the closest similarly natural approximation in English.

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    • Have you ever played a localized video game? It’s the goal of the translators to make the script even better than it was originally was in Japanese. Because if all your’re aiming for is the minimal effort required to get the basic meaning across, it’ll result in a unfunny script 99% of the time.

      It’s only ever appropriate to retain a bad joke if it’s a defining character trait.

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      • You’re conflating ‘localizing’ with ‘translating’. The two do overlap sometimes, but they’re completely different things.

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    • djkdjashdkhsa
      Who the hell are you?

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11. I’ve never been clear: at what point is a post too old to comment on? Is this such a post? Anyway:

    > I view formal language study as being worthless

    Why?

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    • You can post anywhere on this site and I’ll read it. Can’t guarantee I’ll respond though.

      As to the point… you will never gain a native-understanding of any language from educational text alone. Never. The way people speak is just as important as what’s being said. I mean, just think of how you learned your native language. Did you honestly learn a damn thing from middle school and beyond? Cuz I didn’t. Deep immersion and rabid consumption of literature is the way to go.

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12. Dark_Sage your argument would be more viable if you didn’t attempt to include needles insults each. The insults makes it seem like you are trying too hard. It is also a sign of immaturity. Just an observation.

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    • Yeah? Well, I think you’re a faggotface.

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      • hueihueamhueahuefathuefuck

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13. >Nothing, I just heard that you defeated another shade.
    >That has nothing to do with you.
    >Mitsuki gave it to me, so I exchanged it for money at Ayaka’s for you.
    Dark_Sage: You know what, fuck it….

    Still mad about youmu? In (crypto)zoology, metamorphic creatures (e.g. vampire, butterfly) are often referred to by their common name, irrespective of the phenotype (e.g. vamp-face, pupa) manifested, unless distinguishing the form is necessary to avoid confusion. “It,” referring to the youmu (shade) in defeated form, is fine.

    The middle line does, however, sound off. The MC had been Mirai’s practice dummy after all and he hadn’t as yet told of his meddling, so “that” has had something to do with him. “That has nothing to do with you anymore” works, though not snappily like UTW’s “Mind your own business.”

    More importantly, with all your retractions the KnK reviews have become a bit too sparse to make an informed choice. My solution was to retake the Ep 1 TL party, assigning 0-3 rating, for my tiebreaker. Mezashite shadowed UTW on the Essentials, but got left in the dust on the Expanded stretch.

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