Fansub Review: [Commie] Black Rock Shooter (Episode 01)
C-Tier, Fansub Review — By Dark_Sage on February 6, 2012 5:07 am
This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Another BRS entrant.
Release format: MKV (326 MB, 10-bit)
Japanesiness: No honorifics.
Group website: http://commiesubs.com/
8thsin’s translation critique: http://8ths.in/2011/12/02/winter-2011-anime-subtitle-comparison/#Black
Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: N/A
Karaoke.
The insert song was not subbed.
Ending. Only the ending aired this episode.
The colors changed depending on the screen. They look a bit hard to read in the screenshots but they were all right in motion.
Typesetting.
Amazing, pro-tier typesetting. Truly fantastic.
Okay, hold on. Gratz to whoever came up with this name. Well, half gratz since the album and the song both suck, but still. The other groups (Nishi/WhyNot) had pretty lame names like Dawn Consultation. This actually has significance (even if it’s totally inaccurate).
At least one group had the balls to cover up the Japanese.
Finally, a group that was able to translate this title.
Script.
Though I thought Commie might have been able to play this off well by leaving Kotori Asobi as Kotori Asobi instead of “Little Bird Game”, they dropped the ball here with this gibberish. Nobody is gonna understand what this means unles
s they watched two other releases and had people explain the translations in the comments section on their fansub review website. They attempted to do something with explaining this shit later on, but it still didn’t fit right.
And also, lol punctuation.
many, many
They fuck this up many, many times.
Oh, I get it. That’s the color, so the subs match it. Awesome. Amazing. Groundbreaking!
And this here had an effect for the line — the text just kept increasing in size.
Wow… color changes and effects in the main script. This is basically…
Commie’s future.
Now, it’s fine to try new things out. But is this kinda shit necessary or even good? I’m not seeing any reason for doing it.
H-sHey
There’s nothing else I need to say.
Much like WhyNot, they fucked this up and left out the “You put me in this wheelchair” bit I got from Nishishi’s. Forgive me for expecting accurate character backstories from my subs.
macaron, actually.
That’s an interesting way to phrase it. And by “interesting”, I mean “stupid”.
I thought the “Have this messed-up one.” line from one of the previous groups’ subs made more sense.
There’s nothing wrong with this at all. Just wanted to point out that this group clearly had the most fun with their subs. Wordplaytastic. Not that it resulted in a better release, but still.
Watchability: Watchable.
Overall grade: C+
The karaoke’s fine and the typesetting works… sometimes. The script’s also good as long as you ignore the stupidity. Like WhyNot, they fucked up wheelchair-chan’s entrance (which is kind of important) and similar to all groups thus far, they weren’t able to handle Takanashi/Kotori Asobi. Is this show really that difficult? Its fight scenes don’t even have any dialogue and they take up like 1/3 of the show.
Of WhyNot/Commie/Nishishi, Nishishi’s is the best so far.
Okay, review over. Go to Commie’s site and listen to Horizon music. http://commiesubs.com/horizon-batch/
Tags: Black Rock Shooter, Commie, Fansub Review, Winter 2012
KKRais 
Xythar 
Dark_Sage 
Progeusz 
FalseDawn 
Ogawa 
Ran-ran 
Jukey 
Hyura` 
TBA 
ar 
Anon 
blargh 
herkz 
Rubedo 
ThumperZ1 
Anon 
Revy-chan 
Disclaimer: I didn’t work on this show.
I actually thought the script for this one was the only one so far to make the whole “because little birds can play when there are no hawks around” exchange at all coherent. Yeah, you still lose out on the whole Kotori Asobi -> Little Birds Play connection, but beyond that it makes sense. See the “lol punctuation” screenshot for what I mean, I thought that was a good way to get the meanings across without resorting to TL notes.
The second line of the wheelchair part (after “You brought this on yourself”) was “It’s all Yomi’s fault” or something, wasn’t it? I don’t remember the exact wording, but that’s basically what Nishishi had except that the line wasn’t repeated twice. I’m still not even entirely sure what she is trying to say in that scene, but I’d withhold judgment until we know for sure. Maybe 8th can weigh in?
Hopefully he does. If I’m wrong, I’ll have to change up the grades here.
The exchange was better with Commie’s but it still didn’t make sense when the two girls were doing wordplay off the name. To the average viewer it would come across as gibberish.
What I got from the wheelchair part was, “See how I’m in a wheelchair? See how I’m suffering? Well, this was Yomi’s fault and I’m going to hold her responsible for it until the day I die.” Nishi’s was the only release to even get close to that meaning. It’s significant because it explains why Yomi is so subservient to Wheelchair-chan — she feels guilty.
If I’m wrong, I’ll be eating serious crow, but if I’m right, this really is something worth bitching about.
Yeah, it’s true that part doesn’t make a lot of sense if you don’t know the Japanese meaning of the name, though to be honest I’d have trouble coming up with a better way to handle it. It would look too weird to call her “Little Birds Play” or something when everyone else in the show has a normal sounding (non translated) Japanese name, and personally if I was editing I’d die of embarrassment if I ever had to insert a “{an8}TL Note: Kotori Asobi means ‘Little Birds Play'” line in the script without any hint of irony. That’s some keikaku means plan shit right there.
You don’t even need a TL Note. It requires editing in some meaning that wasn’t there before, but it can be done. For example, when she first says “Her name is Kotori Asobi?!” you could go with “‘Kotori Asobi’ as in ‘little birds play’?!” instead.
There is a slight impediment to the flow there but it gets rid of the need for a TL Note and it allows the viewer to connect the dots. “Oh, so Kotori Asobi means ‘little birds play’. Got it.”
Fair enough.
Commie’s line is a context error. I think something like “this is Yomi’s doing.” would work the best here.
I personally don’t like Nishishi’s “all Yomi’s fault.” (the “all” part) because that changes the nuance a LOT. Notice how the camera zooms into her leg. The production team made it very clear she’s talking about the injury, and the dialogue (subtitle) only needs to assist the video in that scene IMO.
WhyNot line is the closest to what’s actually being said, except probably “I got this from Yomi.” instead of “I got it from Yomi.” would’ve been better because it’s confusing what “it” is.
Also, you should review [AsukaSubs-subDESU]. I’m only 5 minutes in, and it’s already comedy material.
Same deal with CCS, but they use niconico in the second half, so it’s not as much fun.
“Got” implies receiving the doll or wheelchair more than the injury, though. You wouldn’t normally use “got” in that context otherwise. To be honest after reading all the subs I was thinking something like “You see this? It’s all thanks to Yomi” might be best, though that would also be pretty close to what Nishishi has.
For reference, the official Nico subs have:
See this?
Yomi did it.
Yomi did it.
Oh, I see what you mean.
niconico’s “(You) See this?” is a pretty good solution to it that makes dictionary translation for the second line possible.
BTW, I just realized entire CCS is niconico edit. Except there are typos and missing lines lol