This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
New poll up.
Release format: MKV (324 MB, 10-bit), AVI (196 MB)
Japanesiness: Dual subtitle tracks. No honorifics OR honorifics. The no-honorifics track was reviewed.
English style: American English.
Group website: http://utw.me/ http://underwater.nyaatorrents.org/?nav=blog
Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/pPdN1Y96
8thsin’s translation critique: http://8ths.in/spring-2012-fansub-comparison-reviews#Tasogare
Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: N/A
Table of Contents
Visual Quality
Karaoke.
Opening. The colors fit in fairly well, though they obviously didn’t mesh too well with the Japanese credits. Still, I liked it well enough.
Ending. It fits. Next season I’m going to raise holy hell over every time a group plans out their karaoke regardless of the credits. Expect some rightfully docked visual grades then. But for now, I’m keeping with how I’ve reviewed for this season, so I’m just gonna say the karaoke here is decent enough.
Typesetting.
Lots of typesetting.
Other.
Line differentiation should be a standard across all groups, so why people continue to fuck it up in fucking 2012 just confuses the hell outta me.
Script Quality
Karaoke.
OP/ED scripts were fine.
Main Script.
I think they tried for a pun here… and then failed.
And this didn’t really work well as a follow-up to the joke either.
Commie’s line (“We’ve switched roles, huh?”) made more sense here with Kirie’s surprised, slightly embarrassed reaction to what Okonogi said. U-U’s version didn’t give her a reason to have that reaction.
But UTW-Underwater also had lines that were better than Commie’s. Here, Commie put “Still, you wouldn’t say that you’re in love with a ghost, right?” which doesn’t fit well in the context of the entire scenario where glasses-fag admits he wants Yuuko’s girl-dick.
…what? Who?
“but love has nothing to do with one person being a ghost or not.”
The line still sucks, but fuck it, I’m going to sleep.
Timing Review
Incoming. When “Timing Critique” is added as a category, you’ll know this part is done.
Results.
Watchability: Definitely watchable.
Timing Grade:
Visual grade: A-
Script grade: A
Overall grade (timing results not factored in): A
I’m gonna call this version as the one to get. The karaoke’s the tie-breaker here because the scripts are functionally equivalent. But that’s not to say the scripts are the same. Rather, both groups had lines and exchanges they handled better than the other group. However, there wasn’t a significant difference in the amount of times this happened for each group to base my decision on that.
Whether you choose Commie or UTW-Underwater, you’ll be getting a decent Tasogare experience. Just avoid Hadena’s and WhyNot’s versions if possible.
Just gonna nip this in the bud. Yes, I’m still doing Accel World/Medaka reviews. Check the review queue. http://www.crymore.net/review-queue/
I’m already looking forward to checking this in a few weeks to tally up the number of comments at the bottom asking about that.
Time to start placing bets as to whether Sage will get through the queue before the summer season starts!
Spoiler: He won’t.
(we love you Great_Seiji)
A Commie editor is working on this version too. What will our haters do now?!
nobody really hates commie you have some great subs and sometimes you fail it depends on how hard you work on the project~ it takes effort to get a good quality anime subbed i know as a translator~ so keep doing your best commie~
Keep downloading U-U’s version just to piss you off.
yeah i will still be getting utw and underwater as i have done from the start~
A Commie editor who has also been with UTW for quite a long time, so pretty sure that doesn’t count herkz~
Moshi, fnord & Raze work on the script side of things iirc (pretty sure that’s the case since I’m not usually around for Tasogare).
I think his point was that if fnord edits for Commie or gg people will hate on it just because it’s Commie/gg, but if he edits for UTW their opinion ends up being completely different. Or something.
Ar’s just an old grouch.
But that’s what you get when your group has built up its own reputation like that. I mean, even though you handle some series pretty well, there are some others (past ones, especially) that have really unbearable trolling. gg’s no different. So that’s why a lot of people hate on you that much.
It’s not like I care what people think or whatever, as I myself follow some of your series, but at least you should understand that you’re basically reaping what you’ve sewn.
I haven’t sown anything. We have a full list of who works on what available right there on the staff page, so if people choose to be ignorant instead and prejudge future works based on some localisation they might have disagreed with in the past, that’s their loss. I just think it’s funny that the same exact people can work on something but leechers’ opinions will be totally different based on whatever group name is attached.
What exactly are you referring to when you say “really unbearable trolling”, anyway? I assume it’s all before my time, but I don’t remember all that much outright trolling from Commie.
Heh Xyth, don’t take that kinda stuff personally. Commie has how can I say quite a “colourful” history (see what I did there!). I can admit that you guys have improved since recruiting 9001 new staff, and yeah aren’t releasing v2’s or v3’s for every other episode.
But unfortunately no matter how much you improve, there are some things that can’t be escaped, and one of those is your past, whether you were there for it or not.
It’s one of those unfortunate facts of like, that people judge you for what you’ve done previously more so than what you do now.
Most complaints I see made against Commie are about things that we’re doing in the here and now, or at most from a couple of seasons ago. If it was based on reputation I would think there’d be a lot more examples from the past.
And generally, it’s more about translation practices than actual trolling.
Anyway, though, I don’t particularly care about it – it’s just kind of funny to see. We all edit in the style that we’d like to see in fansubs ourselves, so if other people enjoy that as well it’s a bonus.
You have. Pure fact of joining Commie and deciding on defending this group proves it. Thinking that presenting list of people working on different shows will be enough enough is pretty naive.
Truth to be told, vast majority of people don’t know who’s working on specific anime and don’t really care abut it. Even if whole UTW staff would release something with gg/Commie name, they would get bashed, regardless of actual quality. That’s how it rolls. You can’t expect more than “avoid Hadena and HS, gg and Commie too if they aren’t first, always choose UTW/Mazui/Eclipse” mindset for next few seasons. UTW releases things on par/better all the time too…
Also, people who come here probably know everything to some extent, so arguing seems kind of moot, but feel free to do whatever you want.
>everything to some extent
Buh?
To not decide purely on group name, treat every release individually and stuff like that, but there are probably some prejudices which tend to be more important than D-S’ recommendations in some cases.
Anyone who would put HS (ie, Crunchyroll’s professional translations) on the lowest tier doesn’t have a clue regarding what is and isn’t good quality anyway. These people deserve what they watch.
Isn’t fansubbing all about e-peen though? CR was pretty bad some time ago and people still remember it…
“always choose Mazui/Eclipse”
I lol’d.
Eclipse aiz teh beist!
I would watch more gg/Commie/Coalguys subs if they actually edited like that.
Exactly.
>both releases are good
>get this one because it has “better” karaoke ^___________^
We all like stuff we skip every episode to be flashy, nee? ^^
I disagree on that last line. It’s a perfectly valid sentence structure, just a little… wordy, maybe.
I’d go with “Love means never having to say you’re a ghost”.
Ha. I’d try and parody a song title. “What’s ghosts gotta do with it, gotta do with it?”
“How can you say you love her if you can’t even eat her poop?” was my original suggestion.
P.S. I’m bored at work. ;_;
Join the club. I’m pretty sure I’m going to wear out my F5 key before any other on this keyboard.
For this show, especially, I think a quick screenshot comparison up at the top next to encode details would be good to have. Anyone possessing eyes will watch this release.
They look pretty much the same to me – not everyone is super picky about encoding details. I’m watching the Commie one at the moment because CR + brainchild + unanimated is a really good combination, but I might go back and watch this one through afterwards because fnord is a great editor as well.
As D_S said, you can’t go too wrong either way.
Seriously, I even made one to check:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127333
then I realised jpgs from the review might not be the best idea and made another using pngs from episode 7:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127334
I’m really not seeing much of a difference in those still frames let alone in motion, but then I’m not an encoder.
Both frames don’t look all that good, to be honest. Commie looses details because it’s too dark (not to mention the horrible banding) and UTW-Underwater is macroblicking (or whatever you call it) like no tomorrow. Basically, the whole lower third of both frames is less-than-pristine. ~_~
In short: I’m definitely going to wait for the BD rips. There’s just so much you can do with HDTV streams and with this show it’s not going to be much.
While we’re talking about BDs: How’s Sacred Seven going, tormaid? ;)
Meh. Is fnord editing for both UTW-Underwater and Commie? Silly Germans. I’m going with Hadena.
No, brainchild is editing for Commie.
Even worse.
It’s all about branding my friend. A Gucci shirt will still be worth $100 even if it’s made in China (so long as people think it’s ‘legitimate’). UTW subs will still sell to the mass, so long as there’s nothing major that causes people to think otherwise (e.g. typo).
Commie made some major errors in the past, so people are more skeptical when buying/downloading their brand.
Was “Accel World” subbed in China?
Your subs were apparently encoded there.
http://www.crymore.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Commie-Accel-World-07-7A23166C.mkv_snapshot_00.05_2012.06.01_00.49.40.jpg
Didn’t UTW’s have similar issues? I think it’s a pretty poor quality source.
Probably. Yours was the only 07 I watched, though.
I hope you didn’t really watch 7 episodes of “Accel World.”
Last night was a terrible night.
MPEG-2 is awesome like that.