Fansub Review: [gg] Eureka Seven AO (Episode 03)

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

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Eureka Seven Ao is good. gg’s subs are not.

Release format: MKV (445 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: No honorifics. Japanese name order.

English style: American English.

Group website: http://www.ggkthx.org/

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/tXCi5Wkx

8thsin’s translation critique: http://8ths.in/spring-2012-fansub-comparison-reviews#Eureka

Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: N/A

 

Table of Contents

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Timing

Results

Visual Quality

Karaoke.

Opening.

Ending.

Both were pretty mediocre.

 

Typesetting.

The “Still Fighting” part is what gg added. Everything else was hardsubbed in the original Japanese release.

I burst out laughing at this one. Oh, gg, do you have any competent staff?

I’m thinking I should join gg as a typesetter. My {an8} skills are amazing. (To the non-fansubbers reading this, that’s a “command” you use in Aegisub to shove text to the top of the screen.)

 

Other.

Beautiful text colors. That green is great.

Skilled at text placement, I see.

Script Quality

Karaoke.

The opening is fine except for this beautifully stupid line.

“The memory of my tears are dyed by rainbows and fly” ?

“The memories of my tears are dyed by rainbows as they fly” seems much more sensible.

“Don’t close your eyes. Always look on ahead.” <- Removes the confusion if you read it as “Don’t close your eyes and don’t always look on ahead.”

I thought the ED was well done besides that.

 

Main Script.

Your troll would work better if any of your members were actually born in America. Maybe then you’d know that “terrible teeth” is a stereotype we usually reserve for the British. It makes no sense to have it apply to Americans/French. Nice try. Hope your green cards clear.

I’m sure this is a totally legitimate translation. gg only hires the best of the best.

“We’ll be fine in negotiations without you.”

The “with” followed by “without” thing makes for awkward phrasing.

“He piloted the IFO yesterday?”

There’s a special place in hell for people who fuck up tenses this badly.

“Scub Coral” is not the name of a person.

“Join Fleur. Keep an eye on the Scub Coral from a distance.”

Fukai-san -> old Fukai ?

gg: group of the century. Top-tier translations.

Oh wow. Why the fuck is this capitalized?

There are two ways to interpret this excellent translation.

1. “That woman” is actually a man, and therefore “his” is acceptable to use.

2. “his son” refers to Ao’s son. From the scenario they’re talking about, that means Ao was capable of fathering a child just days after he himself was born.

…or we can write it off as more retardation from a group that couldn’t collectively pass a high school English exam.

10 syllables in Japanese. 2 syllables in English. Nice matching there, gg.

I don’t know if that good a good thing. Perhaps if that good a good thing then it good a good thing but perhaps not.

I actually liked this line. Made the dude pretty badass and put more emotion into what he was about to do. (Suicide run/prison break/etc.)

How fucking stupid can you get? Didn’t you fuckwits learn basic capitalization in school?

“I’m sorry, Dad!”

“Conventional projectiles will cause it to react and counter them.”

“be countered” means that the projectiles will attack the G-Monster, causing it to react, and then the G-Monster will be… countered by the projectiles. This makes no sense because it’s fucking wrong.

lol. Let me break down the abbreviations so everyone sees how this actually reads.

“The Secrets’ reactions are slow compared to Flying Platform’s and Intelligent Flying Object’s. It’s like saying their reactions are slow compared to UFO’s. It’s fucking stupid Engrish that doesn’t take into account plural possessives.

“The Secrets’ reactions are slow compared to FPs’ and IFOs’.”

“Therefore, our team — Pied Piper — will engage with and annihilate the Secret.”

This comparison makes no sense. What do a “fighter” and a “mothership” have in common? Utter gibberish.

 

Timing Review

Incoming. When “Timing Critique” is added as a category, you’ll know this part is done.

Results.

Watchability: Watchable.

Timing Grade: 

Visual grade: C-

Script grade: D+

Overall grade (timing results not factored in): D+

Thanks for the subs, gg. I knew I was in for a treat when I watched your Engrished-up episode 2. You did better with episode 3, but this is still nothing to be proud of.

0 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [gg] Eureka Seven AO (Episode 03)”

  1. Yeah, I was a little disappointed with the editing in ep1 when I took a look at it for NRR. The base translation seems decent, but it needs a lot more editing effort put into it. As you can see from the typesetting as well, this is basically a ‘Coalgguys’ production.

    A couple things I’d disagree with though – I believe the “racist stereotypes” line is replacing another joke in the original script, and to be honest I thought it was pretty funny (as I understand the guy who delivers the line is basically a complete jerk as well, so it fits). You do tend to think of the British first with “terrible teeth” (sorry guys) but I’ve seen enough evidence that for it to apply to the Japanese as well.

    I don’t really have any issue with the “Ghostbusters” reference either, and “old Fukai” for “Fukai-san” seems fine to me because the meaning of -san is so heavily dependent on context.

    Reply
    • The original joke was the dude substituting “nikoichi” (making something from multiple parts) with “sankoichi” (a made-up word that replaces “ni” (two) with “san” (three)). It’s pretty untranslatable.

      Reply
  2. I wish I knew a TL that was free to work on this. This show deserves to be subbed properly, but it seems the only two groups to have picked it up fucked it up royally.

    Why hasn’t this been picked up by an official stream yet? =[

    Reply
  3. “This comparison makes no sense. What do a ‘fighter’ and a ‘mothership’ have in common?”
    I don’t think that was intended as a direct comparison.
    Here is my take on it: “Suppose yesterday’s opponent was a fighter; in that case, this one is the mothership.” Mothership being that big carrier-type vessel that spawns all the smaller ships (fighters) in every stereotypical alien invasion there ever was. The point is to establish the relation between the two.
    …But hey, I haven’t watched this yet, so what do I know?

    Reply
    • Ya but a better comparison would be a fighter and bomber or something similar not a comparison that is pretty much equal to a fighter jet and aircraft carrier.

      Reply
    • I think Hadena actually phrased this better than gg did, so I’ll give their version as an example of something I was hoping to see.

      “If yesterday’s was the size of a fighter, then today’s is an aircraft carrier!”

      I didn’t interpret gg’s “fighter” as a “fighter jet” because fighter jets usually aren’t spawned from motherships. Hadena compared the giant thing to an aircraft carrier, which allows for “fighter” to be used in this context.

      Reply
  4. >How fucking stupid can you get? Didn’t you fuckwits learn basic capitalization in school?
    But “dad” isn’t a proper noun you fucking retard

    Reply
  5. So it’s correct to say “do some justice”? Isn’t it only “do some (verb)+ing” which then turns the “(verb)+ing” into a noun that is the act of doing the verb?

    Reply
  6. this is the first of your reviews I’ve read, but I already know I’ll be coming back for more. imo the subbing and scanlation scenes need people like you to pick apart their (often) terrible work, and commend it when it’s actually done right. if something is translated poorly, the audience won’t always know to blame the translation itself if they don’t understand the original language. they might even enjoy the show that much less, thinking the script was mediocre to begin with.

    Reply
  7. D_S, just out of curiosity, have you seen what gg did with the karaoke of the 2nd OP and ED of AO? I think the whole manga-themed thing for the ED was a nice touch.

    Also, I enjoy the anime quite a lot.

    Reply

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