Fansub Re-Review: [EveTaku] Kamisama no Memochou (Episode 02v3)

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

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Is EveTaku’s version 3 better than UTW’s version 1? Well, yes. And I liked their translation better too because I could actually understand wtf was going on (Sorry, 8th).

But it’s also a version 3. Which means I’ll be going into more detail on this than my other reviews. Enjoy.

File size: 187 MB (AVI), 278 MB (Mkv)

Japanesiness: Honorifics. Japanese name order.

Version: Version 3. Did I mention that before?

Karaoke. Yes, that’s cursive you see in the OP. Never a good choice. Why? Cuz no one will ever read that shit, and when they try… they’ll get eyefucked by the goddamn squiggly lines. There’s a reason why cursive is dead.

Typesetting. One thing I liked is that they did typesetting for the weird-fonted God’s Notebook part, which I don’t believe I saw in UTW’s. Otherwise, it was pretty damn good. About the same level as UTW’s (the email part was great).

I don’t usually point this out, but this is a v3, so…

Obviously, the text is hard to read here. Groups that try to fix this either move the text to the top or right above the scrolling line.

Also, assuming you’re using American English, it’s “afterward”, not “afterwards”.

Nobody says this. I get that the bitch is some haughty loli, but you can’t fucking explain away bad English just with that. Oh, believe me, I know. TLs always try that shit and then their low-tier editors are like “hurr durr, just keeping that Japanese flavor!” Well, I have a flavor right here for you. It’s called fuck you.

Assuming you must have “inspect” in there, add a fucking subject.

“Honestly, you should inspect them more carefully next time.” (The “them” refers to the Dokupe soda cans, of which Main Character-kun opened a shaken can of.)

What? How does this flow from the previous screen?

“How exactly am I supposed to do that?” (Here, he responds perfectly, wondering how he’s supposed to tell the difference between a shaken can and an unshaken can.)

Am I going insane! Am I possibly wrong! What’s going on.

Don’t questions use question marks. Why do so many groups leave
out the question mark from questions. What exactly am I missing!

Get your tenses right. Here, try one of these two options I’ve gracefully provided you:

Dad said that he’ll give me Mom’s old one once I grow up.

Dad said that he’d give me Mom’s old one once I grew up.

“No”? Unless you’re trying to force a French accent on this girl, you should never, never, never, never, never end your sentence in “no?”. Use “right” instead.

“That’s what your father said, right?” (More like that’s what your mother said. Ohsnap)

Really. Honestly. Who says this? Japanese transliteration sucks.

If you don’t need to use ellipses, don’t fucking use them. They ain’t a goddamn fashion accessory. Unless, of course, you’re a woman. In which case, wear your periods on your wrist.

I like tsunderes, after all.

Unless we are to assume that Main Character-kun is gay (perhaps not too bold of an assumption considering that sexy, sexy Thai girl is just asking for it), the word should not be “Let”, but rather “Make”.

Let your girlfriend do it! -> Allow your girlfriend to do it! -> I want to rub myself against your body, but I think that it would be better for your girlfriend to do it because I have a headache tonight.

Make your girlfriend do it! -> Your girlfriend should do this instead. -> I’m not much into rubbing lotion all up and down over another dude. Sorry, bro.

Oh god. Why would you ever put “around” in this sentence? It transforms something readable into a garbled mess of Engrish. Remove that post haste.

Fail.

Double fail.

Triple fai–

Oh, well I guess this one isn’t that bad. Dammit. Remind me to use that combo in a future review. Gotta get a five-hitter going at least.

A better line would be “Narumi, you’re always useless when I need you the most.” or something that doesn’t read “useless at the worst times”.

 

Watchability: Quite watchable. Most people probably aren’t going to notice the errors in this review and I was very nitpicky for this since it’s a v3.

Overall grade: B

“Wait, Dark_Sage, you gave it that high of a score? You spent this entire goddamn review savaging it!”

Yes, I enjoyed this v3 more than UTW’s release. However, I also watched EveTaku’s v1 (I didn’t release that review because I was told to wait for the v2, which transformed into the v3) and that was worse than UTW’s release.

I think the v3 illustrates something important. Eve’s willing to do it until they get it right, unlike most groups. It’s a bold strategy that favors the people who care about quality subtitles the most in exchange for alienating the audience who thinks “v3? They must be shit. Let’s go with the guys who never have any other versions.”

 

tl;dr: If you can handle waiting as long as it takes for quality, Eve’s proven that they’re willing to sacrifice a stable reputation to give you guys the best release they can, no matter what. With this v3, Eve has the best release on the market right now. That’s just how it is.

0 thoughts on “Fansub Re-Review: [EveTaku] Kamisama no Memochou (Episode 02v3)”

  1. I suppose it’s my fault for not making the conversation clear in translation but the MILF line is correct as I understand it, since the girl in question was Min-san, the person whom Hiro referred to as his “mother figure”. Ayaka then proceeds to mention that Hiro must have been talking about Min-san when he said there was one woman on earth whom he couldn’t seduce. Now knowing that Hiro tried to hit on his supposed “mother figure,” Fujishima wonders if Hiro is a “mothercon” (which UTW rendered as “Oedipus complex,” which admittedly is a better choice).

    While I think your suggestion for the inspection line deviates too far from the Japanese dialogue, I’ll admit that “inspect” needs an object. Perhaps I should have worded it, “You should have performed a closer inspection.” “Inspection of what?” I’m not deviating farther than that, because he’s not asking “How would I perform such an inspection?” he’s asking “The hell do you mean ‘inspection’, girl?”

    Reply
    • Legit @ mother point. Removing that critique.

      And yes, “You should have performed a closer inspection.” would have been just fine like that.

      Reply
      • Oh, also forgot to mention that we’ll try to get it right the first time from now on. Episode 1 needed a v2 because it was double-length and we were all sleep deprived by the end. Episode 2 needed a v2 and then v3 because I was on vacation and wasn’t there to fix all the TL errors. While we’ll do a v2 if it comes to light that we made a huge screw-up, we’re going to aim for this quality or better for our initial releases from now on.

        … though bets are off for my second family vacation later this summer. >> Hopefully we’ll have a reliable TLC and editor by then.

        Reply
  2. I don’t watch this anime, but I just had to see it after reading this review.

    This release is pretty good if you’re just watching it casually, and you’re not a grammar nazi or a reviewer :P

    Reply
  3. “I liked their translation better too because I could actually understand wtf was going on (Sorry, 8th).”

    Well, I didn’t think for a second you would rate this lower than UTW, simply because, as you said, it’s v3 (you may have noticed that Denpa01 script you edited for me was “TLv3”). The amount of time spent is directly proportional to quality if TLer knows what he’s doing. lyger is one of very few fansub TLers that I actually respect, and I do think some lines were more understandable than our release.

    With that said, I still don’t see how
    “Why do all girls insist on treating me like a plaything as soon as they see me?”
    is more understandable than
    “Why do women and children always try to pet me when they see me?”
    Notice how my line is considerably shorter while providing more detail to a line that means the same thing, if not more understandable since Alice is a living thing.

    …or how the “amass so much money” or “TL Note” lines were any less understandable, especially since we’re going for more of a literal subbing style. (“vow” for “pledge” was a pathetic word choice on my part though)

    There are still at least 3 TL mistakes in this EveTaku release, and it’s a lot better than Doki-level 17+ errors in v2. Still, I have to admit their subs are very good, and which one being a better overall release is somewhat arguable, unlike for Penguindrum lol…

    I’m sorry, but your evaluation for that series was a joke / blatant bias against gg.

    Reply
    • Out of curiosity, which 3? I know two of the discrepancies between our release from ji-hi; I stand by our version of the last line in the episode (since “seija” there mirrors her use of the word in episode 1). As for the other one, I admit I left it in while revising half because it made me chuckle, but I did watch the episode 3 times and each time I heard “ore no tama” and at least from what I know, there are only so many alternate interpretations for that.

      I think I spent around 8 hours on this (though I was working on more than just the translation) but keep in mind the v1 and v2 script were not mine this week; I was away when the episode came out. My only contributions were the OP/ED TL and the v3 revisions.

      Reply
      • Honestly, I don’t remember, but I know I’ve seen them. I do like the episode, and I can TLC review your sub if you want. This will result in a full TLC report like AnoHana 7 on anidb though. Are you sure you want me to do this?

        Also, “tama” is one of those mistakes. I’ve watched enough yakuza films to know for certain it means “life” in slang in this case, instead of “ball”. You can find multiple sources to confirm this by yahoo/google: タマ+命

        Reply
        • I believe this is a shortened word for 魂, which sometimes is uttered as tama.

          Though, it’d be hella funny if it was literally translated. ore no tama >> MY BALLS! www

          Reply
        • Fair enough. I guess I didn’t go in-depth enough when I tried looking for alternate/slang definitions of “tama” (more accurately, I didn’t look at all until after the v3 was released), and in hindsight it really should have triggered my “this sounds weird enough to be a mistranslation” sensors.

          I’d certainly be interested in what you’d have to say in a review. If it’s not too much trouble for you, I’m sure I can take the criticism. I’m still very much a newbie (at both translation and the Japanese language) so I’d like to know how I can improve.

          Btw, I didn’t mention it in my last comment but I was quite flattered that you said you respected me. ^^ お互い様~

          Reply
          • Don’t be so modest @_@;
            Experience aside, I can tell your language skill > 80%+ of fanTLers around + takes criticism = I don’t want to ever face off against you again after this year :p

            It’s too long, so follow the link. tl;dr there were 4 major ones IMO.
            http://privatepaste.com/52324185c5

            Yeah, “seija” was a mistake on my part. I may steal this and other two minor ones found while giving you free TLC for our batch edits lol.

            @Ryu
            That’s what I thought all along too lol, but the search sources say it’s short for “atama” = head, which also makes a lot of sense.

            Reply
        • That line was actually something we discussed quite extensively in the v2 (although we didn’t realise it had another meaning altogether). We came to the decision that it was still understandable, and if for some reason it wasn’t or it was completely wrong, at least it was funny enough when read that most people would pass over it anyway, or get a good laugh out of it :P

          Reply
    • Your line is shorter, but I didn’t see a petting motion in the release. It’s like saying “Why do all girls try to fingerfuck me when they see me?” and having me be like “Wait, I didn’t see any fingerfucking…” and then you replying with “Well, it’s close enough to what they’re doing.”

      If I see ‘pet’, I’m going to need something to back it up. It’s a much stronger and specific phrase you’re using than “treating her like a plaything”. Sometimes a more general treatement is better for lines and I felt that was the case here, though I do now understand that UTW’s style is more literal than liberal.

      I know it’s tempting to claim bias against gg (though I guess you know as well as I do that I’d rather hang out on #subdesu than #gg), but every error I found is backed-up by the screenshots with timestamps. I honestly thought Nutbladder’s release was better. Mostly because unlike you, I can’t see their TL errors.

      I make it a goal to never go easy on groups. Were there grievous English errors in theirs I missed or something? My process is pretty open to peer-review and if I fucked up somehow, it’s in my best interest and the sites’ for you to call me out.

      Reply

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