This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
gg’s Jormungand. It’s an anime release by a fansub group.
Table of Contents
Release Information
Episode details.
Release format: MKV (234 MB, 10-bit)
Japanesiness: No honorifics.
English style: American-Australian English.
Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/cZiK7RQg
Speed: Quick (<48 hours)
External links.
Group website: http://ggkthx.org/
IRC channel: #[email protected]
SubCompare screenshot comparisons: http://www.subcompare.com/jormungand_perfect_order/
Commie’s fansub reviews: N/a
Visual Review
Karaoke.
Opening. Black is a good color for the OP and the shadow sufficiently mimics the credits. Sub placement was such that it avoided the credits entirely. But the OP lacked any “wow” factor. In general, it was sufficient but unimpressive.
Oh, and I’m not really sure why the “five, four, etc.” line at 1:36 was lacked a corresponding romaji line, though. All the other Engrish parts had romaji associated with them.
Rating: Okay.
Ending. On that one screen I don’t think the colors matched very well. Perhaps the colors could have changed solely for its duration. Other than that, I did enjoy the goldish colored subs. I thought they contrasted well with the black and white in the rest of the OP and they matched the gold-colored bullets well.
Rating: Okay+.
Typesetting.
Other
Again, screenshot comparison indicating the difference between gg’s 234 MB release and Asenshi’s 1.36 GB one.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/161247
Script Review
Karaoke.
How can vision “stiffen”? If you want to use a similar word, go with “hardening”.
Main Script.
Much like the Eureka Tower Carpark, this is the name of a specific location and deserves proper noun status.
Again, proper noun status. I don’t like proper nouns either but Lady English does
“The SR Squad’s atttacking!” {They use this term a lot in the show, so you may as well try to get it right.}
I guess you could say there isn’t much of a difference! Cuz, like, I mean you know… Right, fellas? I mean, right? …right?
Okay, I’ll stick to the subtitle critiques. :(
The “was” in the second screenshot should be accented, which means it should not be italicized when the rest of the line is. When a line is formatted in a certain manner and one word or phrase breaks that formatting, it calls attention to it and generally calls for an emphasis to be placed on that non-standard piece of text.
So on regular lines in fansubs, this is generally represented through italics, but when entire lines are italicized (generally through flashbacks or the like), you call attention to what you want by removing the italics from that part.
The More You Know~ {It should be noted that Xythar already knew this, having used the technique 20 seconds after this screenshot. I’m just telling y’all for the FYI fun.}
the exact opposite
Too long for the time allotted. Cut it down to one pause instead of two.
We have a saying ’round these parts: “Birds leave the nest spotless.”
They sure do change. Just like names, huh?
Direct Comparison (Where gg did better than Asenshi)
While I can see the reasons one would argue that matching the Japanese script pause for pause can be a good thing, ultimately it limits what an editor can do with a script. When you compare the two scripts for this scene, it’s pretty obvious which is more likely to be seen as a professional translation. gg does not sacrifice good English on the altar of mimicry, which makes their release better when it comes to these sections.
Results
Watchability: Quite watchable.
Visual grade: B-
Script grade: B+
Overall grade: B+
I wouldn’t call you an idiot for choosing Asenshi’s release, but I will say that in general I preferred gg’s release. The gg script was a notch above Asenshi’s and that combined with gg’s speed and manageable filesize (I’m not big on encode differences, so when one release is 1.4 GB and another is 200 MB, it definitely impacts my personal decision) means I’m gonna call theirs as the release to get.
Wow, gg’s doing really good this season, what’s next?
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
Ew, how come you don’t finish Magi or are you just going by the “temporary review list”?
Even if gg did worse on the script, I’d still watch it over Asenshi. I’m pretty much out of space as it is, and 1.4 GB an episode for an okay show is not something I’m particularly excited about. That and the fact that since I already put up with gg’s quirks through the first season, I might as well stick with ’em through the next one. I believe they mixed up Kasper’s name last season too, but I could be wrong on that. All I remember is watching the show and having to look up the name to see what it really was. I don’t know how they do it, but gg and Commie always manage to mess up in the ways that irritate me the most.
The lack of QC has mystical effects.
I still don’t get the reasoning behind skipping QC. It’s supposedly to release faster, but QCing a 22-minute episode takes at most like 35 minutes. Surely the leechers will survive if they have to wait an extra half hour for their weekly animu.
Here’s a hint: no one wants to QC it.
Lack of QC is always fail. NO EXCEPTIONS.
batch kudasai!
That’s like 35 minutes of sleep, man! You don’t get a chance like that every day when you’re a fansubber…
I wish I could get an extra 35 minutes of sleep most mornings :(
It’s more like an hour, but considering that this show is sometimes stuck at timing for ~6 hours that’s not really the issue. The answer is more as herkz described it.
I only have time to give the script a quick reread before I head for work, and sometimes I miss things. I did QC Binbougami but only because that got released the following night when I had all the time I needed to work on it.
I guess that’s reasonable, although I find it somewhat hard to believe that /nobody/ is around that could give it a quick QC (especially in groups with a lot of staff like Commie).
Obviously, you can have a good release even without QC (and if the release is shitty by the time it gets to QC, there’s probably something wrong elsewhere in the group), but a good QC will definitely be noticeable over the course of a series.
I don’t think anyone at gg likes Jormungand except the three people who work on it, and there aren’t that many active staff in gg besides. Stuff gets QC’d sometimes in Commie if there is someone who wants to do it and they can be trusted not to add errors along the way. I’d say about half the shows, at a guess.
In the end though, the errors listed are of course my fault because as an editor I shouldn’t be making them in the first place. That being said, I don’t think I do too badly, though missing that one instance of “Kaspar” was really dumb.
Sure they’re your fault, but it’s a bit unreasonable to expect your editor never to make those kinds of mistakes. Two or three typos in a ~300-line script is perfectly normal, even for a top-tier editor.
I don’t think of QC as a position designed to /correct/ the editor when he’s wrong, but to catch silly mistakes that slipped past the editor, timer, typesetter or encoder. People make mistakes. That doesn’t mean they’re incompetent, but having a QC to catch those mistakes can significantly improve the viewing experience.
Anyway, that’s my opinion on the subject. I watch and enjoy a lot of gg and Commie releases, so I can’t say it’s /wrong/ to skip QC, but I do think it’s a position that brings noticeable value to a release.
In this workflow they’d have to fix it too because I’m out the door once I’m done editing and it’d be unreasonable to delay the release ~10 hours just so I can get home from work, go over a QC report and fix a few minor errors.
But yeah, I don’t disagree that QC is worth doing, and I do it myself whenever I have the chance.
If they can’t fix the errors, how do you know they even noticed them in the first place? If the QC doesn’t know anything about timing or typesetting, they might miss errors that aren’t obvious. There may be issues with changing lines, but I think you have bigger problems if the QC has to completely rewrite lines.
Actually, even if the error is obvious, they still can’t fix it and they may have to ask someone who just went to sleep or something.
tl;dr It’s way easier to have the QC fix it themselves unless you’re a slower group who can take their time
Don’t get me wrong: I’m all in favor of the QC fixing the script directly. I just don’t think the QC is there to redo the editor’s job; he’s there to catch obvious mistakes that the editor or someone else might have let slip past.
When I, as a casual viewer, spot 2-3 mistakes per episode, a QC, who should be paying closer attention, would definitely have been beneficial (E7:AO had a lot of obvious derps that the most casual QC pass would have caught).
You put the grade as B+, but says B- on the overview on homepage.
Screenshot? I see where it says “B-Tier” but I was unaware grades were visible without actually opening up the article.
Oops my bad You used the hyphen to separate the Grade with the “tier” part. Fail on my part.