Fansub Review: [FFF] Date A Live (Episode 07)

June 29, 2013 by Dark_Sage

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

Let me make this clear so we’re all on the same page: Tell me which episodes you don’t want reviewed BEFORE I start reviewing them. I’m not going to cancel reviews I’m nearly done with anymore.

This has little to do with FFF’s release (and that intro wasn’t directed at FFF either), but it affects Date A Live, so I’m gonna put it here:

I was reviewing Anime-Koi’s 07 in tandem with FFF’s. But as I was putting the final touches on the review, I got a message from Layton letting me know he didn’t want 07 reviewed. Great.

Long IRC convo short, the review is scrapped and now Anime-Koi’s Date A Live reviews have been put in the “will review if I have time” pile (and you all know exactly what that means).

Slightly related: I have de-canonized WhyNot’s Yahari review. Wouldn’t be fair to skip Anime-Koi’s review if I left WhyNot’s review as canon since the situation is very similar. (Canon reviews appear in the Review Summary, non-canon reviews do not… in case you were wondering the difference.) But in the future, let’s try to avoid this situation by telling me which episodes are no-gos before I write the reviews.

Release Information

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Results

Release Information

Episode details.

Release format: MKV (352 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: Honorifics. “Onii-sama” used.

English style: American English.

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/M3dAT2hn

Speed: Quick (<48 hours)

External links.

Group website: http://fffansubs.org/

IRC channel: #[email protected]

Fansub.co screenshot comparisons: N/A

Subbusu screenshot comparisons: N/A

Visual Review

Karaoke.

Opening. Color-matching, sensible KFX, quality font. What more could you expect?

Rating: Good.

Ending. There’s not much to expect from an ED where the exact same goddamn thing keeps repeating (fourth-best girl running, in this case). FFF did pretty well under the circumstances.

Rating: Good.

Typesetting.

FFF is very consistent with typesetting placement.

Another example of said consistency. Now, they’re not perfectly consistent through this release…

…as you can see here. But they generally handle it pretty well.

Signs were typeset everywhere they appeared to matter (except the school’s placard). Though they weren’t typeset every time the perspective changed, they were provided often enough that it wasn’t much of an issue.

Other.

This wasn’t particularly a great encode. (Anime-Koi had similar issues.)

Script Review

Main Script.

Weird capitalization practices there, FFF.

What in the what?

I heard you have killed a Spirit.
I want you to tell me about it.
About me killing a Spirit?
As for that one,
you should consider that case differently than other Spirits.
Well, I think it won’t be long before you come across it yourself.

The problem here is that the last four lines don’t segue together at all. The flow is incredibly disjointed.

Yes, the that’s general idea behind something being popular.

Unless I’m missing out on some hip, new trend, that’s not how it works.

That’s not a question; it’s a statement.

I had to stop the video and pause it to read this properly. Surround the idiom in quotation marks so people know how to word the line in their heads without interrupting the show.

natural-born

“Kinds of rice, maybe?”

Is this a cannibalism joke? If not, I don’t get it.

But that’s an example of why blood relationships matter. What are you trying to say, FFF?

Oh come on, you guys.

Results

Watchability: Watchable.

Visual grade: A-

Script grade: B-

Overall grade: B

I didn’t get into this in the review, but one of my favorite things about FFF’s Date A Live releases (I watched up to this episode with their subs) is the clever dialogue. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room to get into that with all the mistakes I was obliged to show in the Main Script portion, but the clever dialogue floated the overall script above C-tier.

All right, Doki up next. Let’s see how they handled this show.

Back to top

33 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [FFF] Date A Live (Episode 07)”

stgmefly

June 29, 2013 at 3:30 pm

I’ve been watching Doki’s because their animu is the kawaiiest
Reply
Solaristics

June 29, 2013 at 8:09 pm

Personally, I don’t think a group should have the right to say which episode they want reviewed or not. They should always be keeping the same effort for each and every episode.
Reply
- Solaristics
  
  June 29, 2013 at 8:13 pm
  
  Unless it had MAJOR naming errors and the works.
  Reply
- kokujin-kun
  
  June 29, 2013 at 8:47 pm
  
  Well, if they put in their best effort and they STILL failed, I’ll get a good laugh out of it.
  Reply
- Ryuk
  
  June 29, 2013 at 9:34 pm
  
  Agreed. And Layton should really stop releasing unedited episodes if he cares about reviews.
  Reply
- Pelfmiester
  
  June 29, 2013 at 9:51 pm
  
  Agreed. Any ep should be free game. If quality drops that much because of a substitute translator or editor it says something about the group, as does skipping editing or q/c in a rush.
  Reply
- Dark_Sage
  
  June 29, 2013 at 11:30 pm
  
  They don’t. I let them request episodes to NOT be reviewed so long as they have a good excuse for it (as long as they can argue that one episode out of 12 is not going to be representative, I’ll avoid reviewing the one non-representative episode).
  
  This policy allows life to happen for groups (like, having an editor be gone for a weekend) and not have them penalized for it. Yes, it will suck for the average viewer when they view that one episode, but I’m trying to find a representative sample in my reviews, so by picking a “bad episode” I’m probably not giving the full picture in the review.
  
  That said, it gets really fucking annoying when I have to scrap reviews that I’ve already started writing. (Looking at my “canceled” review count, I’m at about 30 that had enough content I deemed worth saving. Not all are due to delayed “don’t review” requests, but a significant number are.)
  Reply
  - Anon
    
    June 29, 2013 at 11:59 pm
    
    A significant number? If those requests are all from the same few groups, please name names.
    Reply
    - Dark_Sage
      
      June 30, 2013 at 12:11 am
      
      It’s really spread out. I’d have to go through logs and remember even my deleted reviews to have enough data to make an accurate statement on the subject.
      
      What I can tell you off the top of my head is that there aren’t any groups in particular I’m having trouble with. It’s often a combination of bad timing and confusion. For example, I was given the go-ahead to review Anime-Koi’s 07 for Date A Live and then two hours later asked to not review it. Similar events happen often regardless of groups contacting me, such as v2s being released as I review the v1s.
      Reply
      - sangofe
        
        June 30, 2013 at 12:57 am
        
        If a group can’t keep consistent quality, then too bad for them, I’d say.
        Reply
  - Hairy
    
    June 30, 2013 at 1:32 am
    
    Don’t you find it strange how you struck that one “bad ep” for two shows A-K subbed this season? Hmm, must just be bad luck, I guess…
    Reply
  - corocoro
    
    June 30, 2013 at 1:40 pm
    
    If they want to have a life, they can delay the release or put out a v0. If they value release time over release quality and have no intention to redo the episode, it’s their own fault. ~_~
    Reply
    - sleepy920
      
      June 30, 2013 at 6:03 pm
      
      Sadly enough, they do release v0 with the webrip that airs a week before the tv airing.
      Reply
      - corocoro
        
        June 30, 2013 at 6:56 pm
        
        Anime-Koi does?
        Reply
mahay

June 30, 2013 at 1:33 am

The v2 they’ve just released apparently only changes character names. In any case, I don’t get why these groups release those episodes when even they know that it’s not the best they could do. If they care about the viewer’s experience, then they shouldn’t do a half-assed work in the first place. If they care about their image, then they shouldn’t release something that would misrepresent it. I’m sure the fans would rather wait for a decent release than watch something that’s inferior. If most people watched an episode before it was v2’d, then shouldn’t you review it in the same way the viewer experienced it? And if the v2 changed the quality drastically, then why on earth did they release the original release knowing that it can be improved significantly?
Reply
- Dark_Sage
  
  June 30, 2013 at 2:07 am
  
  That’s it? Character names were the least of their worries in that episode.
  
  http://www.crymore.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Anime-Koi-DATE-A-LIVE-07-h264-720p0F9C1567.mkv_snapshot_10.44_2013.06.29_13.30.38.jpg
  Reply
  - Solaristics
    
    June 30, 2013 at 2:23 am
    
    Well, I heard that the editor took the script, edited it and then said he was done 3 hours earlier but it wasn’t even “edited.” Idk how the QC missed all the errors, prob tired but still…
    Reply
    - No
      
      June 30, 2013 at 8:01 am
      
      I can imagine the script is not edited if he was done 3 hours before he got the script.
      Reply
      - Solaristics
        
        June 30, 2013 at 8:36 am
        
        Later.* l0l.
        Reply
  - an6
    
    June 30, 2013 at 2:38 am
    
    Not really, don’t mind that guys, I just checked it… more than 100 changes I see in my notepad++
    http://i41.tinypic.com/m7x455.jpg
    Reply
  - Pereira
    
    June 30, 2013 at 8:15 am
    
    mahay might be blind or smth, I just downloaded their v2 and I see they changed a lot, especially at the first 10 min. Oh their typsetting seems a lot more nice than FFF, they used clips to cover the Japanese text which is plus. I know that from first hand experience because doing clips is timing consuming yet they release first ^^
    Reply
  - Hairy
    
    June 30, 2013 at 11:05 am
    
    And here’s the v2.
    
    http://i.imgur.com/umUFwE7.jpg
    Reply
    - brotherhood19
      
      June 30, 2013 at 11:44 am
      
      Come again? This is the one I downloaded from irc#news:
      http://i40.tinypic.com/xgbrdt.jpg
      Reply
      - Hairy
        
        June 30, 2013 at 12:04 pm
        
        Seriously, I got this one: http://www.nyaa.eu/?page=view&tid=447643
        
        And it still has errors in it. That’s the v2, right? I mean, it says v2…
        Reply
Hairy

June 30, 2013 at 1:44 am

>I’m sure the fans would rather wait for a decent release than watch something that’s inferior.

I doubt that.

The reason why they try to rush and get it out quickly is because they want the downloads and notoriety that comes with being first out. Plenty of leechers will just grab whichever release comes out first.
Reply
- kokujin-kun
  
  June 30, 2013 at 12:42 pm
  
  Hadena proved that.
  Reply
- corocoro
  
  June 30, 2013 at 1:42 pm
  
  No reason to encourage such kind of sad behavior.
  Reply
robert

June 30, 2013 at 5:43 am

i have to agree with hairy if they don’t want they subs reviewed. they shouldn’t sub at all. the movie industry isn’t allowed this benefit of the doubt. why are they different. you aren’t bound by their slacking and you should let the fans know what is trash and what is not. if they do not have their shit together that is their problem not yours. i come to you to learn who is trying to help the anime industry or who is another american tool try to make money… you should release those 30 reviews its their fault for being incompetent. hard work that amounts to nothing is worthless. i get marked down in my japanese classes for messing shit up so should they. let the subbers cry about it. they should be ashamed… idk man someone needs to voice their slacking because in the end they are doing it wrong just for money. i don’t respond this way just for the anime industry i would get equally annoyed if they did it in the american media…

but in the end its your choice if you want to be put down by the man. you should do this for the people not the tools who want hits and coins….
Reply
- Anon
  
  June 30, 2013 at 10:59 am
  
  But the movie industry pays people to give them good reviews. Maybe DS should do the same!
  Reply
  - Dark_Sage
    
    June 30, 2013 at 11:17 am
    
    Well I *have* had money offered for re-reviews before…
    Reply
    - sangofe
      
      June 30, 2013 at 12:57 pm
      
      Hahahahaha… Do people really live on your reviews and fagsubban’?
      Reply
- Dark_Sage
  
  June 30, 2013 at 11:30 am
  
  If all you want to know is which groups are in it for the money, you should start paying more attention to fansub donation drives.
  
  http://www.crymore.net/2013/01/31/how-to-starve-the-fansub-beast/comment-page-1/#comment-24027
  
  It doesn’t cost very much to fansub.
  Reply
brotherhood19

June 30, 2013 at 8:46 am

Um I don’t see anything wrong with their later eps, in fact fff had many tl errors, I am tler myself, I translate for Indonesia’s fansub groups. But yeah I watch Arata, Karneval and Date a live from A-K… I like their josei shows, yeah I know I am fujoshi (婦女子) but who cares.
Reply