FUNimation, why have you sunk so low?

Table of Contents

Release Information

Translation

Other Observations

Final Grade

Release Information

Episode details.

Release format: MKV (447MB, 8-bit)

Wap Level: Try-but-fail localization

English style: American English.

Speed: Latecast

 

External links.

Group website: http://www.funimation.com/shows/no-rin   http://horriblesubs.info/

IRC channel: #[email protected]

 

Translation

Karaoke.

Obviously, no karaoke or translated lyrics for the plebes who paid for this service.

Main Script.

Not translating the sign for the staff office, minus one point.

Like I said before, if your “localization” make the lines sound more awkward than just lazily adding honorifics, then you’re doing it wrong.

Kudos to Funimation for actually fixing this line. But as it stood before, if a typo very well leads people to get the wrong impression, then it counts as a translation error.

I almost counted this as a TL error because nourin koukou just means “agricultural and forestry high school” of which there are several around the country. They actually go to the Gifu Prefectural Tamo Senior High School for Agriculture and Forestry, so it would sound like he’s saying “Why did you come to agriculture high school?” But apparently they do just call the school “No-rin” for short in-story.

This line is missing too much detail for my tastes. The line is supposed to be “Ringo Kinoshita used to be a pop star who went by the name of Yuka Kusakabe.” I have a feeling this will come up as an issue later in the series.

Try maji nehan or “I’m in heaven!”

I really wished they played with this line a little bit, since Kousaku was obviously trying to sound like an Australian or something. Maybe have him say “Wacker Danner.”

Forgot the hajimemashite part, which they added later.

This line is correct (translation-wise), unfortunately they were unable to reflect stilted and uselessly verbose Japanese Kousaku was saying in all the other lines.

Blind Translator Syndrome, since it’s obviously buildings.

If they ever bothered to turn this lazy transliteration into a translation that (sort of) makes sense, they would have named this place “Green Shop Tamo Ag” since “Tamo” is the name of the school and the “no” came from “no-rin” (agriculture/forestry).

“Free-range chicken.”

What’s an “Okumino Koc”? I thought it was “Okumino Free Range.”

They hear itadakimasu, and automatically decide they are preparing to eat. Note, the literal translation of that word I like to use from time to time is “I humbly accept.”

She was speaking directly to Kousaku, so it should be “Do you really call yourself a failed ag school student?”

Once again, this Reverse Elmo.

This is where I nearly stopped watching this release and just gave it an F for all intensive purposes. Really? An unfertilized egg is an egg with a fucking condom on it? They read that line and thought it made sense and was good to go? She said gomu wo tsuketa toki no tamago or “Condom-wear-time-egg.” Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she’s saying “The eggs they make when the cock wears a rubber!”

“Her and her damn Hindenburgs!” (ano oppai bakudan me)

“I’m talking about red balls that men can get!”  Then the next line would have her saying some shit about how red balls are the opposite of blue balls since your balls turn red if you fuck too many STD baits chicks.

Better translators would ecchi up this line way more than this.

“Mimicking a F*rby doll.”

He was speaking F*rbish, specifically “morusa,” which is apparently the sound a F*rby makes when you do a karate chop on the side of its neck.

Or maybe Funimation had to deal with similar copyright issues.

Once again, this is what passes for translating at Funimation.

Posting this again for good measure (and, no, they still haven’t fixed it).

“So how are you going to wash your clothes?”

They actually misheard omutsu (diaper) for obustu (dirty article). And how the hell did she take off those panties?

“These panties—or rather this conflict—will be handled by me.”

They can have “Yukatan” but not “Koutan,” apparently.

Wow, blatant guesslating in an official stream. First of all they censored her words here, and for a good reason, so there’s no need to put up any kind of subtitles. Second, if one were to make an educated guess at what she said, then judging from what she said in the novel and the mouth flaps, the line would be kono inbai or “you dirty hoo-wuh.”

 

Other Observations

Nothing more needs to be said, except this release deserves its own meme.

Final Grade: C-

Of course, because of the shit editing, this effort put out by Funimation wouldn’t have gotten any higher than a B- grade, even if the actual translation was totally accurate in the most generous sense of the term. But it turns out that the release was done so sloppily that even the translation accuracy was affected. Some people (like me) might complain that this is too high a grade for this script, but unfortunately I’m only following the guidelines I set in the beginning for grading scripts. Several lines may be wrong, but none of them I felt injuriously affected the overall understanding of the story.

Dark Sage mentioned how these subs were made with slave labor, and sadly I believe he’s not that far off the mark. I recently watched a Digital Manga Guild webcast where our boss Crayon reported, with no hint of irony, how only 259 people will get paid for their work (out of 726 people who “generated revenue”). Guess how much the top earner got for her work during that six-month period (which is reportedly the most money DGM ever had to give up)?

$1800.

Apparently that’s all she got for doing work that is equivalent to completing about one volume a month.  Who knows, maybe she’ll get an even bigger royalty check if she does more books, but for now that doesn’t even cover rent in half the apartment listings. This is simply the logical extreme of the problem that was pointed out by Matt Thorn: translators used to be paid about $6 a page (in 1990’s money), now they’re being paid $3 a page and falling. Obviously with shit wages you’re going to get shit products, because any translator worth a shit would either get into business translating/interpreting, or finally wise the fuck up and get another day job altogether.  Now we have Exhibit A that this effect has taken over the supposed big leagues of the manga and anime industry. I guess the real reason why Funimation doesn’t hire fansubbers or anyone is because they already have their own reserves of shit-tier translators and editors.

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