This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
They don’t have any competition on Medaka Box, but their release would probably be the best anyway.
Release format: MKV (334 MB, 10-bit), MKV (348 MB, 8-bit)
Japanesiness: Honorifics. Japanese name order.
English style: American English.
Group website: http://fffansubs.org/
Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/Dv8JC8yN
8thsin’s translation critique: http://8ths.in/spring-2012-fansub-comparison-reviews#Medaka
Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: http://www.ji-hi.net/sp12/medaka/
Table of Contents
Visual Quality
Karaoke.
Opening. Generic font with generic k-timing with generic rotating colors. No, this is not the best way to impress your viewers.
Ending. The karaoke could have been put on the bottom of the screen for the first half so as not to interfere with the people scrolling by up top. Not great, but not bad.
Typesetting.
Lots of typesetting.
Script Quality
Karaoke.
This was the only real error I noticed. Tense mismatch.
“When I open that door, I imagine an endless blue sky stretches out before”
Main Script.
“An all-rounder who really can do it all.”
This doesn’t make any fucking sense. Maybe they meant to say “The modern high school is focused on the individual!”
The phrase is “costly blunder”, but nice try.
The what?
This would be a good line were it not for the 30 Japanese syllables it’s meant to replace. Way, way too fucking short for the time allotted.
Timing Review
Incoming. When “Timing Critique” is added as a category, you’ll know this part is done.
Results.
Watchability: Quite watchable.
Timing Grade:
Visual grade: B+
Script grade: B+
Overall grade (timing results not factored in): B+
I watched the first few episodes of this show with Crunchyroll, but they obviously didn’t put their A-team on it. …or their B-team. It’s good to see that FFF is putting out a good version of the show.
If the show gets a second season, I can promise y’all it gets better, though I’m sure anyone who would like what’s coming up has already dropped it. :/
That is some pretty lackluster TS, though I’ll give FFF the benefit of the doubt and assume that none of the colors match because the typesetting is being displayed in Rec. 709 with MPC internal renderer. D_S if you’re going to bother “reviewing” TS, at least use a setup that will display it the way that the typesetters intended.
If the typesetters can’t manage to make their signs display on most systems, that’s their own damn fault. My philosophy is that I’m going to review what the majority of the viewers are going to see. If a group needs a specific renderer to make their subs display properly, I’m not going to get it. Nor am I going to get a v2 that a group solely releases on their site. And if a group requires me to install fonts on my computer because they don’t include them in their release, I’m not going to do it.
I use CCCP as my default viewing experience because that’s what we fansubbers have been telling our viewers to use for ages now, so it makes sense to use it as the base for my reviews.
I’m fairly sure he uses default CCCP which means FFFpeeps fucked it up.
I actually thought CR’s ep 1 script was really, really good when I watched it (there were about two lines I’d change, neither very important, and a whole lot of stuff that was phrased incredibly well) , but I haven’t seen any episodes past that one yet. It looks like FFF are doing a pretty good job on enhancing CR’s script with extensive typesetting.
I watched a couple episodes past that yesterday and they had numerous typos, poor phrasing, and typesetting that messed with the main script. I’m paying for their damn service, so I expect something approaching professionalism, but that’s not what I got.
So Xythar thought a script riddled with errors was fantastic? I guess we know why Commie releases have been so bad recently! But hold on, Dark_Sage, aren’t you in cahoots with commie? Dammmnnnn I just don’t know anymore.
They paid me for that B- average. Dirty, dirty money.
I read that line as “the modern high school student only cares about themselves.” but I might be wrong. Probably a quick tug on a translator’s ear might be needed there. I agree with Xythar that it looks like there’s some good phrasing there too.
My only concern is Team Special. Seriously? I mean, it’s not very subtle. Might as well just call them Team Retard and have done with it.
Hey Dark Sage, you should start reviewing a group everyday, as in 1 day everyday
With the “Kikaijima the same-year” line, I thought they were trying to get across the awkwardness of what she says, as doukyuusei being used like an honorific is certainly weird.