Fansub Review: [gg] Hyouka (Episode 02)

C-Tier, Fansub Review — By on May 5, 2012 4:27 am

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

Twitter YouTube   


These reviews took *far* longer than any of the others I’ve done so far. I hope you enjoy them.

Release format: MKV (287 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: No honorifics.

English style: American English.

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

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/Sivz3b3H

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

Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: http://www.ji-hi.net/sp12/hyouka/

 

Table of Contents

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Timing

Results

Visual Quality

Karaoke.

Opening. The colors change depending on the scene and it’s clear they were the only group to put any effort into the OP. There are derps, as the second screenshot shows, but gg’s karaoke is still the best version here.

 

Ending. And… gg drops the ball on the ending. The girls were pretty, but the font was not.

 

Typesetting.

Well, at least they typeset this, unlike the other groups.

I was doubled over, laughing my ass off for a good 30 seconds when I saw this. A-tier, kusion. A-tier.

I see great typesetting.

Delicious.

Script Quality

Karaoke.

The opening was just fine. The ending had a derp with confusing “stars” as singular. This should be “The tiny wishing stars disappear into the dawn.” Also, “dreamy promise” sounds stupid. Otherwise, the ending was okay too.

 

Main Script.

Opening quotation marks only? No closing quotation marks? gg fucked this up 18 times. The kicker is that on the final line of this sequence they put in a closing quotation mark. Great job, guys.

They probably took their cue on this from the shitty Wikipedia article on quotation marks. Fun fact: Pride and Prejudice is not a fansubbing script. Update your fucking standards accordingly because all 18 lines you chose to enforce your stupidity on look like shit.

To do this right, you either put quotation marks around each line or start the first line of the sequence with a quotation mark and put a quotation mark on the last line of the sequence. Or you could do what Mazui and Commie did and just put everything in italics. Much easier.

Not good, gg. Try something like “protect my past; protect the Classic Literature Club.” Or something along the lines of “not terribly shitty phrasing”.

alumni -> alumnus

alumni is the plural form of alumnus. This mistake happens twice in gg’s release.

Lazy-kun’s rejection level: MAX. I wanna compliment gg on this line. It’s absolutely perfect. Script enhancement at its finest.

Commie’s version: “Give it up. That’d take way too much effort.” <- Mediocre.

Mazui’s version: “No thanks. It’s too much work.” <- Also mediocre.

What? Geography Lab? I have trouble believing that those beakers in the background are for measuring the mass of Turkmenistan.

Protip: Geography classes don’t have a “lab” in the traditional sense. You can do geography labs, but having an entire room dedicated to them in a fucking high school? Bullshit. This doesn’t make sense.

This wasn’t even a bad joke. It was just a bunch of words strung together like a human centipede.

I know the feel.

Though the other groups made her speech more clever, gg made her a bit more blunt. Both approaches have their upsides/downsides, but I like gg’s handling of her character better.

Oh god she’s so hot.

began -> begin

Get the tenses right here. (Though I will admit this is a bit confusing. It’s probably the Past-Present-Pluperfect-Conditional II or something like that.)

“It was borrowed and returned on the same day for five weeks straight.”

“within the same day” sounds like shit.

Let’s look a this amazing editing.

“It’s possible that a random selection of five people from this school would result in five girls.”

Too long for the time allotted.

Why is there an accent on “use” here? Trying to speak the sentence like they wrote it doesn’t really work.

gg was the only group to translate the background noise here.

This is a fantastically shit translation. Good job, gg.

 

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: C+

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

A number of lines were done well, but there were also a number of lines that were handled poorly. Overall, this is probably not the release you should be waiting for.

Grade:
Show:
Tags: , , ,

96 Comments

Xythar says:
May 5, 2012 at 4:47 am

Two more bits near the start that I noticed when doing a quick read-over the other day (and yeah, I don’t mind if people do the same with me, etc…)

Dialogue: 0,0:04:50.75,0:04:54.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Anthologies have been around for over 40 years too,

I’m pretty sure anthologies in general have been around for longer than 40 years.

Dialogue: 0,0:04:34.48,0:04:38.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Isn’t there something else we Ncan do for the culture festival?
Dialogue: 0,0:04:38.62,0:04:40.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Let’s set up a booth.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:40.13,0:04:44.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The Kami High Culture Festival prohibits the use of booths.

He says “mogiten” (模擬店). Now, I’m not some kind of Japanese expert, but the dictionary definition of this (which Mazui used) is “refreshment booth”. A Google image search of 模擬店 turns up a whole lot of what I would commonly consider “food stalls”. On the other hand, if you Google image search “booth” on its own, you’ll get pictures of something rather different. To me, that word choice didn’t accurately bring across what they were saying.

Reply
L-sama says:
May 5, 2012 at 5:01 am

>>>Overall, this is probably not the release you should be waiting for.

I guess those are your final words in the “What’s more important: TL or Editing quality?” debate…?

Reply
ReinWeiss says:
May 5, 2012 at 5:21 am

Until we see his opinion of the other two releases, I don’t think you can make that assumption.

Anyway, the fallout from this should be fantastic to watch.

Reply
FalseDawn says:
May 5, 2012 at 5:38 am

Not overly convinced by the “began/begin” one. I’ve read it both ways and I’m not sure which is more accurate, because “have seen” is one of the various past tenses we use in English. To be honest, I would have scrapped the second verb and just put “at the start” to save confusion – but I think it’s definitely a bit of a nitpick, that one.

Reply
Aelysium says:
May 5, 2012 at 6:21 am

Oh? A fansub review? After your Prelude to Hyouka Reviews Part 2 I was expecting something, a bit different…

Well, this is awkward.

Reply
hairy says:
May 5, 2012 at 6:49 am

But 8thsin said gg’s version was the best!

Why would he lie?

Reply
Dark_Sage says:
May 5, 2012 at 11:03 am

Ignoring the differences in what our sites review, to 8th, his release was the best. I trust 8th to review his work fairly (in the sense that he believes what he’s doing is fair). I don’t even trust myself to do that, so I will never give a real review to releases that I worked on.

Reply
herkz says:
May 5, 2012 at 2:52 pm

>I trust 8th to review his work fairly

I sure as hell don’t. He likes to give himself an A- grade without even reviewing. He also seems to think no one could possibly be better than him.

Reply
Tri says:
May 5, 2012 at 4:01 pm

What about his Ano Natsu review? He didn’t give himself the highest grade.

Reply
herkz says:
May 5, 2012 at 11:46 pm

I mean this season.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 6, 2012 at 12:29 am

he didn’t give his hyouka an A-?

Reply
Xythar says:
May 6, 2012 at 12:58 am

He was probably referring to Accel World with that specific example.

Reply
Tri says:
May 6, 2012 at 1:28 am

Maybe he reviewed his own subs(for Accel World)? The little note he wrote there says he wouldn’t review everyone else until episode 3+.

Reply
herkz says:
May 6, 2012 at 1:35 am

Yeah, I was talking about Accel World.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 6, 2012 at 1:43 am

he did have the pre-air to work with. so that might be why he was able to give himself an A. but yeah, he’ll be reviewing them more in-depth later.

Reply
Eagle1337 says:
May 5, 2012 at 5:07 pm

herkz is always so butthurt.

Reply
Shitty says:
May 5, 2012 at 5:44 pm

Just like you with your typesetting?

Reply
MahaiOne says:
May 5, 2012 at 7:03 pm

I, for one, find your lack of blur extremely distressing.

Reply
Shitty says:
May 5, 2012 at 7:28 pm

Yeah, I thought so as well ;_;

Reply
8thSin says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:06 am

Of course I’ll give myself the top grade if I spent sufficient time working on a script. If there’s actually something so difficult and ambiguous that I can’t understand, then obviously it wouldn’t be reflected in my review because guess what? I wouldn’t be able to detect the error! The bar I set is the best that I can possibly achieve or imagine, just like every other reviewer’s highest grade should be. It’s not my fault only CR achieved this level in my review.

Not many fan translators are raised in Japan and completed post-secondary education in English-speaking countries (or vice-versa). My language proficiency alone is enough to put me in the top quarter of all fansubbers, and then add 7 years of translation experience to that.

And no, I don’t think I’m THE best translator, but in terms of accuracy alone, I’m at, or very close to the top. There’s only 4 or 5 fan translators active right now who can translate at my level or better for easier series, and only 2 translators who even stand a chance against me for harder series. They’re obviously not translating the series I’m reviewing this season because anyone with that much experience is usually too busy for speedsubbing (or they just have shit tastes). You can go ahead and watch Accel World Ep1 to see if there’s any major errors that would warrant a lower grade than “A-“.

I wouldn’t have started a review site in the first place if I didn’t think I was one of the best, because everyone would get an automatic “A” or “B” grade, and I would be pointing out false errors all the time.

I don’t even know why you’re doing the typesetting review when you’re an absolutely horrible typesetter who can’t even configure your own setup to show the right color for subs, and I don’t think I’ve ever even seen Commie use mocha for typesetting.

Reply
ar says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:15 am

Nah 8th, they do use Mocha at least. Whether they use it properly or not, IDK, but that’s something that comes with experience, as it is with all professional applications.

Reply
Xythar says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:18 am

Uh… I’m going to leave the rest of that post alone for now, but yes we do use Mocha for most of our shows and herkz uses it more than anyone else. I have no idea why you would think otherwise.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:23 am

Okay, I stand corrected then.

I just don’t remember ever seeing seamless tracking for moving signs from a Commie release.

Reply
Vale says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:25 am

No offense, but you should seriously consider tuning down your ego.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:42 am

I think I’m being pretty modest by even listing so many people to be on my level, when most fansubbers active right now have probably been studying Japanese for shorter time than I have fansubbed.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 6, 2012 at 3:28 pm

vale, i love you, but you have the biggest ego out of the translators i know. and i know a lot of translators.

having an ego is fine, but let your work represent that.

Reply
herkz says:
May 6, 2012 at 7:02 pm

I’m surprised you’d try to talk about typesetting when you can barely seem to be able to comment correctly on English. Maybe you should stick to what you’re good at—Japanese.

Anyway, I don’t think you don’t deserve a good grade on Accel World, but I think it’s hilarious that you give yourself an A or A- on some shows without even reviewing them. Of course, your Hyouka may have the most accurate translation but your review tried to (and failed at) judging it also on editing quality.

tl;dr lol

Reply
8thSin says:
May 6, 2012 at 7:58 pm

I make episodic posts on my blog… I watched that release and there were only two minor and a TS error (which I don’t include in review unless they’re substituted for dialog).

I was holding off Accel World review precisely to avoid biased review because we are not going to have the luxury of time while the staff for official subs are presumed to get their scripts early all the time (their Ep3+ will be just as good, while ours will not be). I think I explained why I’m not reviewing it yet in my post.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:14 am

And you keep saying you can’t trust my review to be fair, but what you don’t know is that if I reviewed everyone in the same standards of my own work, then no one other than CR would be able to get a grade better than C.

I could’ve easily pointed out 10~20 more nitpick errors for both Commie and Mazui Ep1 if I graded them at the same standards as gg’s Ep1.

Reply
Xythar says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:35 am

No offense, but when you write a line, how do you know that everyone watching the show will interpret it the way you do?

That’s the problem I have with when you start really getting into the nitty-gritty of “nuance” and whatnot. In judging what a line means, you are essentially projecting yourself onto the audience. So I’m not surprised if you would consider everything you write to have excellent nuance, because it means to you exactly what you intend it to mean. But it doesn’t always follow that it’ll mean that to everyone.

It’s like how I can write a script, read it over and decide it’s as good as I can make it, but then an independent reviewer (e.g. D_S) will pick out all kinds of things I never even thought of, because they look at and understand the words used in a different way than I do. The AK review is a good example – the opening and closing jokes in the episode made perfect sense to me and were funny, but D_S didn’t find them amusing at all. In the end, who’s right?

Reply
8thSin says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:59 am

I have said before, nuance and flow are somewhat subjective.

I don’t usually use something so subjective like jokes for those scores either. It’s more like “character sounds angry here, does the line mean the same thing?” There’s very little debate if nuance is good or bad when you understand both languages in most cases, and my nuance scores are actually based on accuracy (+- 1 grade point except for extreme cases like Hadena, when I could tell from the script that the translator(s) was very bad, but the editors totally made all the nuance fit) so they don’t affect overall grades that much. They’re basically subjective modifiers for accuracy, which you have to satisfy for a line to be an translation in the first place. For myself, I tend to rate with even smaller variance so it’s less subjective.

Reply
herkz says:
May 6, 2012 at 7:03 pm

I don’t mean Hyouka. I mean things like Accel World and Lagrange. I don’t know why you assume your release is the best without even watching and reviewing the other ones.

Reply
FalseDawn says:
May 5, 2012 at 11:12 am

You can have the best translation but still the worst editing. That’s why translator and editor are generally two different roles (unless you’re exceptionally good at translating).

Reply
Kusion says:
May 5, 2012 at 8:15 am

i don’t usually comment on review blogs (because they’re all subjective), but i should probably comment on this. it seems like a popular thing to do:

1. “fucked up” is such a terrible term to use for something that doesn’t follow your method of fansubbing. claiming that i used a wikipedia source over common knowledge is also pretty lol. also, just because something looks stupid doesn’t make it incorrect. starting a sentence with a conjunction looks stupid, but it’s a common practice in writing. so saying this was “incorrect” is an invalid statement. though i’ll agree there are better ways to handle it (italics, closing every line with a quotation mark, having an open quotation mark in the first line and a closing in the last line).

2. this isn’t really “terribly shitty phrasing,” seeing as it’s something… well, someone would normally say. covering this up with “yeah, if they’re stupid” isn’t a good counter-argument, btw.

3. i don’t think you meant to include this picture?

4. though i’ll agree geography lab is a poor translation, i’ll have to talk with 8th on what he thinks. he came up with it, anyway.

5. dealing with puns isn’t fun. translating them isn’t fun either, so i tend to leave these alone. as i’ve told a number of people already, i don’t really care enough to edit a pun. it’s too much work for a shitty outcome.

6. i’m assuming this is something koda or 8th fixed, because i had a completely different line for it.

7. “sounds like shit” is a poor statement. “within the same day” is fine. not really an error, but if you want to nitpick, then it’s a fair choice.

8. nothing to say about this. it was my bad. missed a line during the qc, i suppose.

9. i hate the repetition. the line is fine as-is, and doesn’t require the unnecessary duplicate “five.”

10. can’t comment on this without rewatching the episode, but i’ll take your word for it.

11. um, what? the emphasis is on “use” (which is why it’s italicized), that’s how you speak it. it works fine. this is also another pun, just so you know.

12. saying something is a “shitty ” without offering any more information is bad reviewing, though you do this a lot, so it’s not out of character. the translation is fine, though. if you have an issue with it, you should probably offer your own idea of what the line should be. though i’m sure you’ll just use another fansubs translation to base your opinion on.

so, episode two went through more editing than episode one. i half-assed the typesetting because i was busy with other things. that and, well, i don’t really care enough to open mocha for every other sign in a show (i did this for episode one and i ended up working on it for a few hours. not worth it my time. it’s like working on idolm@ster again). same goes with the ending. i guess i can change that up, though.

i think that’s all i have to say, actually. unless there’s a point i missed. let’s pretend i didn’t, though, so i can go back to playing games.

i’m not looking for a long discussion, so try to keep it short. it’s saturday after all :( oh, and because i love my dark_sage-kun-chan.

o/

Reply
Dark_Sage says:
May 5, 2012 at 11:41 am

1. “It looks terrible, and it was the worst possible way to handle these 18 lines, but dammit if I can’t argue I’m technically correct!”
Kusion, I’m sure we both can agree that subtitles aren’t handled the exact same way as books are. One of the philosophies behind subtitling is presenting a good viewer experience. That quotation style does not present a good viewer experience.
I had no clue this style even existed until I saw this release and had to look it up to make certain you guys didn’t go off the deep end.
My main problem is that it has no basis in logic. The only argument for it is “Well, it’s right because it’s right.”
Considering all the other options you had available and chose not to use, that argument is not good enough.
2. I’m relatively certain no human has ever spoke those words in that order.
3. Ah, whoops. I did copy/paste the wrong image in. There was another “alumni/alumnus” image that I should have put in instead. Blame the 8-hour marathon that was these reviews.
4.
5. Fair enough. I know it’s more effort than it’s worth. Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna call it out though.
6.
7. “within” has certain implications
8.
9. It’s poorly done. Mazui and Commie had much better lines than my shitty correction, so look to theirs if you really want to see what it should have been.
Mazui: It’s entirely within the realm of possibility to get only girls if you were to randomly pick five students from the entire school.
Commie: If you randomly selected five students from this school, there’s a decent chance they’d all be girls.
10.
11. All the needed emphasis for the pun in this line comes naturally. You’re forcing it. That isn’t how humans speak.
12. I tend to point out shitty lines without offering much context because I hope most people can see it’s shit. I guess I was a bit tired and didn’t offer enough context here.

*As Houtarou leaves the library, the other members tell him to wait because they haven’t found the anthology/anthologies yet.*

Eru: We have to wait for the librarian.
Satoshi: He’s silly like that sometimes.
<3-chan: Sometimes?
<3-chan: I think you're overestimating him.

Eru: That's right. We need to wait for the librarian.
Satoshi: Sometimes, Houtarou acts like he's not all there.
<3-chan: Sometimes?
<3-chan: That's an understatement.

Eru: We have to wait for the librarian.
Satoshi: You sure can be careless sometimes, Houtarou.
<3-chan: Sometimes?
<3-chan: Now that's an understatement.

Calling Houtarou "silly" was the worst line I saw across all three releases. You can throw out your "Haha, you don't know Japanese" potshots all you fucking want, but you need to get your brain checked if you think "silly" is an appropriate word to use here. What male high schooler would ever use this language non-ironically? It reeks of trollish garbage or blatant stupidity, though I'm not sure which would be worse.

Love ya too, Kusion. Have a good Saturday.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 5, 2012 at 2:28 pm

@1 maybe it’s due to the fact that i’ve always seen (and used) the style. it doesn’t bother me. and i completely agree! subtitles shouldn’t always follow the same rules writing does. it’s a lot more flexible. my only point is that it’s not incorrect. it’s not _really_ an error, just something that would bother some people.

@2 i’ve seen plenty of people talk like this. then again, everyone _is_ stupid, so who knows!

@3 i wasn’t aware this happened twice

@11 i’ve noticed that, without adding the italics, some people won’t notice it. just one of those things.

@12 my “what the fuck is this shit” post toward this was mainly because i didn’t want to open up the video, so thank you for clearing it up. while i still think “silly” works well with the line, the follow up could’ve been handled better. i don’t see it as “trollish garbage.” normally in high school, you’d hear “retarded” instead of “silly,” and that wouldn’t fit into the subs. while the other choices (comme/mazui) are fine, i still think the line is okay.

my issue with this review is that you talk about the number of errors there are (3 minior, 10 major, 5 as opposed to commie (3 minor, 11 major, 5 standout) and mazui (3 minor, 9 major, 4 standout), but you don’t really show the errors in the post. there were two or three extra images of “oh, she’s hot” or “what a drag” and such.

grading over the feel for each release and using the numbers as a final lookthrough for it is fine, but if you wanted to be more specific, you’d add flow to the number chart and try to find a way to incorporate that as well, because the way it looks right now, the quality of editing should go: mazui->gg->commie. don’t get me wrong, i could care less about any of the grades a reviewer gives, but the scaling seems a bit off. if a group has more errors, but flows better, that doesn’t really make them the better choice, no?

i also disagree that the use of quotations, while not a common practice in fansubbing, should warrant such hate that it lowers a grade. it looks bad, but it’s not incorrect, so why mark it as such?

re: 8th’s post
the visuals are of no concern to me. i’m not spending 3+ hours a week to typeset every sign, especially if i have to edit it after. to note, there are also a LOT of signs (it feels like shaft all over again), so i can understand why not many groups put that much effort into it all.

if bringing your game in the latter half of a release warrants a better grade, then what the fuck? the fact that it’s uneven and partially edited (assuming) should be a straight C or D. consistency is huge, i agree, and that’s why i feel mazui shouldn’t have the grade they were given. especially if what you’re saying is true.

not that i hate fotc or ulrezaj or anything, but really now.

Reply
kyonyUU says:
May 5, 2012 at 3:24 pm

sup, josh

Reply
Kusion says:
May 5, 2012 at 3:27 pm

hi kyonyuu baby

Reply
8thSin says:
May 5, 2012 at 9:33 am

Editing isn’t my domain, but I’m seriously having trouble understanding why we got the lowest grade when gg had the fewest reported, and arguably least severe errors (other than alumni/alumnus one, that shit was retarded and I facepalmed when I was rewatching it for my episodic blog post). Other groups were missing important lines and signs too…

“Geography Lab” = 「地学準備室」is extremely rare in Japanese schools too. It’s literally “Geography Preparation Room”, but that’s obviously not going to fit there and it’s even less convincing in English. I was gonna go with “Geography Storeroom” at first, but since there’s a huge black lab table right there, it’s not a stretch to translate it a “Geography Lab”.
Either way, traditional Geography classes don’t have “Geography Prep Rooms” either. I don’t think you can argue that’s more common than “Geography Labs” in high schools.

Yes, the “bad joke” is actually a pun too, but that’s obviously untranslatable in English, and we can only work on the other half of the joke, which was the fact that the Chitanda Family is a rich farm landlord, and not double-cropping is a waste of land. I think we smoothed that part as well as we could. Commie’s “pun” is nearly impossible to comprehend in the allotted time IMO, not to mention it had zero resemblance to what was actually being said. Completely replacing jokes is somewhat of an acceptable translation practice (there’s only one prominent pro J-E translator who’s ever done it from what I’ve seen), but it’s in no way better than forcing a joke that didn’t turn out to be all that funny. This one in particular wasn’t supposed to be funny in the first place.

“Use” was italicized to emphasize the pun since it was emphasized in Japanese and it’s not all that clear in subs. They like puns a lot, and this show is filled with them.

Also, I don’t get how you can say Commie’s “The popular but unwanted book” was phrased the best when two other groups clearly phrased that line as oxymorons on purpose with specific word choices. I wouldn’t have blamed you for it if there were only two groups, but the point of that line should be apparent.

Reply
Sutai says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:06 am

Dark_Sage is obviously biased toward Herkz, 8th.

Reply
brainchild says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:30 am

Sutai, your butthurt is everywhere.

Reply
Dark_Sage says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:58 am

For visuals: Though you had the best OP, I’d call your ED the worst. So your karaoke values pretty much nullify your ability to pull ahead of the pack from there. When it comes to the typesetting, gg had the least typesetting overall. Not once did the group “stretch” itself to try those longer typesetting sequences that the other groups at least put a good faith effort into. On easy signs like the name of the book and the name of the cafe, you guys also didn’t bother to typeset it. No group had good typesetting, but yours had the least and the quality of the signs you had wasn’t impressive. Thus, you got the lowest visual grade.

For script: We’re talking C+/B- differences, so I can understand why you’re having trouble seeing where I thought the other groups did better.

I would’ve liked “geography storage room” the best, simply because it wouldn’t be illogical for a storage room to have geography items. But I had to look up to make sure that geography classes COULD have labs. The kind of results I found were suited to maybe a college class where they did all kinds of crazy experiments, but we’re talking upper-level college classes here. Not high school, at all, no matter how rich the damn place is.

Yeah, I felt bad when I saw that line because I knew no group was going to absolutely nail it. I don’t even want to attempt coming up with a good line for it in English. The reason why I liked Commies’ *best* is because even if it was slightly awkward to read, it still fit the criteria of punning words.

I already got that it was a pun without the italics. You didn’t need to throw it in the viewers’ faces. The italics get in the way of the line by forcing the reader to stop the natural flow, stumble over “use”, and then continue on.

I realize that Mazui/gg phrased their line intentionally. I would hope that was the case for the majority of the script. “Popular but unwanted” is an oxymoron, so it’s not like Commie screwed this up. The reason why I liked theirs best is because it conveyed the idea without being awkward. I wouldn’t count Mazui’s or gg’s scripts as bad. It’s just that Commie’s was better.

When it comes to the numbers, each group about had the same amount of “standout” lines. That is, lines where they clearly did better than the rest. When it came to error count, not taking into account my personal *feel* of the subs, gg actually had the most *real* errors.
“Minor error” = Commie’s double space fuckup, your alumni/alumnus fuckup (it’s a common enough mistake in English that I’m not going to consider it a big problem).
“Real error” = Phrasing fuckups.

Minor (Commie): 111
Major (Commie): 11111111111
Standout (Commie): 11111

Minor (Mazui): 111
Major (Mazui): 111111111
Standout (Mazui): 1111

Minor (gg): 111
Major (gg): 1(*)111111111
Standout (gg): 11111

Of course, numbers are just a guideline. I weighed the relative severity of each error (two categories is not enough) versus the overall “feel” of the release, which is difficult to capture in reviews. As you can see, you’re all in the same area. There’s not much of a difference between the number of errors or their base severity. But there’s an asterisk by one of your mistakes, which indicates I *really* hated that error. So much so, your grade was lowered for it. It was the quotation mark issue. While I understand you did get it from Wikipedia, clearly whoever chose that standard did not consult anyone. It looks terrible. Seriously, seriously terrible. Perhaps I would have left it as a regular error if it only happened a few times. But it takes up two sections in the release — 18 fucking lines. So that was what knocked you out of contention with the other releases.

Choosing between Commie and Mazui was very difficult. Ultimately, it was Mazui’s unevenness that drew me away from them. Their first half was stupid; easily the worst of all three groups. Halfway through my reviews I told Sutai to give up on Mazui’s release and go with gg’s instead. However, they brought their game on in the second half. Whether this is because they switched staff halfway through or they just started to care more, I’m not certain. But it wasn’t consistent, and I like consistency.

Reply
beta says:
May 5, 2012 at 11:58 am

To add to the quotation marks, I’d say it’s because of the media it was in more than ‘correctness.’ It may be technically correct on a textbook level, but in practice it’s for long text forms where you have all the lines that are a part of it in your field of vision. On a more human level, when the lines are scrolling by one at a time italics or individual quotes per line are better off being used.

Reply
Dark_Sage says:
May 5, 2012 at 12:30 pm

This was definitely a better way to phrase the argument. Thanks for clearing that up.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 5, 2012 at 6:41 pm

I know “geography lab” isn’t the perfect choice, but I made a conscious decision to sacrifice accuracy so that it’s more relatable for viewers. You won’t even get a relevant number of hits if you searched “geography/Earth Sci prep room”, and if there is a science prep room, then there MUST be a lab anyway, because what else are you going to prep for? Would typical high school geography classes need to “prep” all that stuff?
What two other groups had was far more obscure than just “lab”. They’re basically a smaller part of the lab. Our choice is bad in a way because we generalized it, but certainly not for the reason stated (and if you’re going to whine about it, we shouldn’t have been singled out).

I’ve already justified my choices and I understand better than anyone that every reviewer see things differently, so I’m not going to bother whining about other ones.

It makes no sense for us to be “knocked out of contention” just for quotations though. I personally hated the quotation marks too, but it’s pretty much a stylistic/format choice. I saw the logic in it, so I didn’t bother changing them back.

Even if the whole quotation thing is technically wrong or whatever, it has absolutely no effect on the actual script itself. It’s just a different way of presentation, and if you’re going to penalize it, then it should be in “visual” instead.

Reply
Nevreen says:
May 5, 2012 at 7:05 pm

>Unfortunately, because all the groups were so close, I can’t say *definitively* that Commie’s release is always going to be the best. Hell, any one of them could do something to set themselves ahead of the pack in the future.

From the Mazui review. He basically says that all three groups did about as good a job and that his rating of one episode isn’t very representative of how good each group will be going forward. He docked you extra for the quotation marks because it’s particularly obnoxious. All three releases are still bad and none of them is noticeably better than the others.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 5, 2012 at 7:11 pm

the point is that you shouldn’t remove points for something that you find annoying. if it’s a correct use or practice, then it’s, well, correct. saying that it’s obnoxious is just nitpicking by your own standards.

that’s the biggest issue i have.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 5, 2012 at 8:02 pm

He didn’t even make a case for how gg got the lowest script grade for THIS episode. It should be “Commie’s phrasing was the best, and I’d go with them because they can easily get ahead of gg if they stopped making careless mistakes.”

All I see is gg with 8 script errors, Commie 11, Mazui 11, and gg didn’t have retarded crap like “Thank you for honoring our restaurant” or “Yes” for every “hai”.

We just had a few stiff lines, a dubious localization, puns that nobody handled well, and the quotation style (which he agreed to a guy who basically said it just looks like shit even though it’s not inaccurate -> visual).
On the other hand, our script grade is given C+, while the other two were B-.

It just doesn’t add up.

Reply
Xythar says:
May 5, 2012 at 8:40 pm

Technically, “Thank you for honoring our restaurant” is a grammatically correct sentence, so it’s not wrong (just annoying to read) and probably should have been included in the visual grade.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 5, 2012 at 8:59 pm

@ Xythar
grammatically correct, sure. but it’s awkward to read. the same with quotations. not incorrect, so it shouldn’t play that big a role in the grade.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 5, 2012 at 9:01 pm

Ha-ha. Not funny -_-;

Reply
Xythar says:
May 5, 2012 at 9:09 pm

It’s a point, not just sarcasm for the sake of it. An editing review that only points out objectively wrong things can only go so far, and the only way you can bring things like awkward phrasing into it is by the reviewer deciding what subjectively looks awkward to them.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that the visual grade only covers styling, typesetting, and subtitle placement.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:00 pm

Quotation is a stylistic choice just like adding colors or italics to differentiate the quoted narration from other lines. It has nothing to do with the script itself.

“Thank you for honoring our restaurant” is grammatically correct, but it makes no sense whatsoever. He honored what? That line was simply “welcome to the restaurant.” You can spice that line up, but “honoring our restaurant” is just nonsense and no one ever says that.

Reply
Xythar says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:07 pm

Honoring the restaurant with his patronage, as in “you honor us”. It’s not something you’d hear often (or ever) in real life, but in the fantastical context in which it was presented (impossibly extravagant restaurant with an empty table stretching into the distance and food items named after abstract concepts) I didn’t think it was entirely out of place.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:11 pm

for the record, we were deducted points for using “silly” (it being a bad translation, apparently). if you think “thank you for honoring our restaurant” is a better translation (or even flows better) than using “silly” then this whole review is stupid.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:14 pm

and on that note, you should only be reviewing objectively. reviewing subjectively will only cause problems because it’s something you’re not used to seeing, or something you dislike. i could easily start reviewing and give everyone an F because i dislike the choice of words in the script. that’s not good.

reviewing objectively means that you’re using a professional knowledge of english to judge how well a script is written. if a line is awkward, it’s not awkward by your standards, it’s awkward because of the wording.

Reply
Xythar says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:32 pm

Just to be clear, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have been marked down for it. That’s D_S’s decision. I’m just saying it isn’t objectively wrong.

Reviews are by nature subjective. The only way you could have a completely objective review is if looked like this:
http://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii-179178.phtml

Reply
FalseDawn says:
May 6, 2012 at 5:11 pm

“I’m going to dispute the validity of using opening speech marks for each line without corresponding closing parentheses, because as I understand it, that style only works for paragraphs. For instance, if you were writing a book or similar, you wouldn’t open parentheses on every line, you’d only do it for the paragraph.
“The only accurate way to portray an extended quote is to have a quotation mark at the beginning of the quote and one at the end. No other variation of using quotation marks is actually valid.
“While having opening and closing parentheses on each line would also be wrong, however I believe it has more validity for its visual aspect (because subtitles rely on the visual impact of individual lines and if the quote is particularly long, it can be easy to forget that it’s a quotation.)
“That’s all I have to say on the subject :D”

Reply
Dark_Sage says:
May 5, 2012 at 9:42 pm

I didn’t call the other groups out for the simple reason that it wasn’t a problem in their versions. Mazui called it “Geography Prep Room” which is a bit confusing if you think really hard about it, but has just enough in the name to justify passing it by and forgetting about it. I interpreted that as a storage room for geography-related materials. Commie easy-mode’d it with just “clubroom”.

8 errors? What? All three groups had something like 12-14 script errors in their release. Last count, you had 12 distinct errors and counting alumni/alumnus twice, you had 13. This is including the quotation mark issue as 1 issue. Of course, I had quite a few problems with your quotation mark decision, which I’m going to address in another reply since I think it’ll take me a while to create a convincing argument for someone like you/kusion who’s realllly sure that this isn’t a problem.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:03 pm

it’s not a matter of convincing me. it’s the correct usage, whether you like it or not. deducting points for using it is foolish. like i said, there are plenty of ways to do it, this is the way i prefer to use quotation marks. i’ve only had one person complain about it, so i don’t think many people have trouble reading it.

is it ugly? sure.
is it incorrect? no. not by a long shot.

there’s obviously a problem if you continue to think that this should be corrected, or if you’re stuck on the fact that this is an error. while there is a difference between writing and editing fansubs, there are some things people like to bring over.

on that note, plenty of “professional” subtitles use the same method. so i’m not too sure this is the best place to use your energy. you could, instead, do something else.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:32 pm

I still don’t see how “Geography Lab” is makes less sense than other imaginary room names called “Geography Prep Room” or “Earth Sci. Prep Room”, but whatever.

I personally don’t like it either, so you don’t really need to convince me how it’s shitty, but like I said, quotation is just styling. Put quote marks, italicize, or use a different color? If you think it looks shit, then it’s a visual issue. Nothing to do with script at all.
Same deal with the other italicized “use”, which isn’t really an error to begin with (but this one is slightly more arguable as a script error).
Then there’s one “error” you included in the script section that was a timing issue. But yeah, it’s 9 script errors now that I recounted it.

To be honest, I never expected our grade to be higher than Commie in your review. The problem here is that no matter how you look at these 3 reviews that you wrote, it seems like gg had the best script and least errors. Heck, it looks like no other groups even translated the important background line that showed the consequences of his actions in the previous episode.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:37 pm

I know you have a thing against gg and even asked me why I’m in that group in the first place.

I don’t really care if you nitpick against us and review us with higher stands than other groups, but if you’re going to give us the lowest grade, at least post enough derps in our script so it actually looks like it’s actually shit. This just looks biased as hell right now.

Reply
brainchild says:
May 6, 2012 at 7:11 am

Just accept that gg is generally average: http://pastebin.com/82mmb6KY

There’s personal preference, and then there’s awkward and confusing, which you guys tend to be.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 6, 2012 at 12:40 pm

Half of those are just personal opinions that the subs should be made for simpletons, and the other half was mentioned in this review already.

Also, I don’t even know why you’re trying disprove my claim or my rose line when your group uses my translation of an alternative to rose/gray, which I obviously didn’t choose to use myself for a reason.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 6, 2012 at 3:23 pm

here’s something i wrote up (instead of fansubbing): http://pastebin.com/heXM2hD9

you can see that no group is perfect, and that commie has the better release in its grade range.

as i’ve said countless times already, arguing about a grade is stupid, and the point of my argument isn’t that gg deserve an A+ grade for hyouka (i don’t think 8th means this either). the problem is that Dark_Sage cannot into reviewing. given the number of mistakes, and his attitude toward the different groups, the grading system is obviously flawed, and in serious need of reworking. it’s a long shot, but if Dark_Sage wants to be respected as an actual reviewer, then he needs to carefully look at how well he actually reviews, because it’s laughable right now.

Reply
brainchild says:
May 6, 2012 at 4:29 pm

8thSin, it’s obvious you can’t into English, so your opinion really means nothing to me, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread your misinformation about things you don’t know about because people actually think you’re a reliable source.

There’s a difference between “making subs for simtpletons” and making sense, which you are obviously incapable of doing. I now know this after having watched a few of your releases and reading your responses.

Kusion, I know no group is perfect (except for Funimation). I’m sure I’d have many criticisms for Commie’s release too, since Xythar doesn’t have the time he’d like to thoroughly go through the script, but it’d probably add up to be less than gg’s.

And yeah, Dark_Sage really hates gg, but because he’s done this for so long, people also see him as a reliable source. Like 8thSin, he can pretty much say whatever he wants, and his readers will believe him, especially if it conforms to their viewpoints. I’m sure most people are happy to see him lambast groups like Commie or gg, so no one really cares about objectivity except the people in those groups.

Mazui is shit, by the way, and I honestly doubt they’re better than gg at this point. However, at this point, I’m not going to tear their script to pieces… because Hyouka is also shit.

Reply
Kusion says:
May 6, 2012 at 4:55 pm

i can honestly say that Commie has the better release, by far. i’m not going to argue this. i looked over it myself and i only found a handful of grammatical errors, while the rest were just nitpicks and awkward phrasing. it’s not really the point of my argument, though. i’m more concerned with Mazui getting a better grade after what i’ve seen, and after how Dark_Sage comments on it. it’s obviously written in a way to say “fuck gg, i hate them!”

i know Dark_Sage hates gg. you can look at any release he’s reviewed from gg and you can see it. you can also look at this review and see it! it’s a shame that he can just throw out any subjective comment he wants and get his readers wet. that’s why i’m saying his grading (or rather, just reviews) should be re-evaulated. it’s stupid right now. then again, it’s just how reviewing goes.

Mazui having a bad script isn’t a surprise. i’ve seen screenshots, i’ve seen lines, and i know about their previous editing experiences. so it’s hard to believe that they can get a B (or B-? i don’t know) over us. a lot of their editing was poor, anyway.

you can recommend Mazui over gg as much as you’d like, but the fact of the matter is that their script (even from what little i’ve seen), isn’t as good. thus, their grade shouldn’t be as high as it is right now. and my only recommendation is to lower their grade, or bring our grade higher to match theirs (both Commie and Mazui get a B-? this is hard to believe, the grades should be: Commie – B+ [from B-], Mazui – C+, and gg – C+).

i would download and look into it as well, but i really don’t care enough about Hyouka to re-watch episode 2 yet another time.

Reply
8thSin says:
May 6, 2012 at 6:39 pm

@brainchild

What misinformation? That Commie release for this show clearly shows lack of story comprehension and “you can’t into” Japanese?

Half the comments in your paste is about you not understanding the source material and personal opinions like “puns are stupid”. There’s a pun in Japanese so they should be translated as a pun unless it’s impossible. You’re not supposed to go “hurr durr, this pun is stupid so I’ll change it into something that sounds better.” Same deal with the rose color.

Reply
Xythar says:
May 6, 2012 at 7:01 pm

Wait, what? How do you mean “not understanding the source material?” You don’t expect your viewers to learn Japanese and read the original novels, right?

I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the puns comment because we were the only group to translate that pun as a pun.

Reply
brainchild says:
May 6, 2012 at 7:08 pm

8thSin, your complete misinterpretation of my analysis, as well as my comments, once again showcases your inability to truly understand English. How you believe yourself to be a legitimate judge of nuance and flow is beyond me. Just stick to accuracy, please.

Reply
FalseDawn says:
May 6, 2012 at 7:11 pm

tl;dr srs bsns.

Reply
Anon says:
May 6, 2012 at 10:37 am

Just out of interest, 地学 means geography as opposed to geology?

Reply
kyonyUU says:
May 6, 2012 at 12:23 pm

geology is 地質学

Reply
Anon says:
May 6, 2012 at 3:30 pm

Ahhh thanks. I knew geography is 地理学 in Chinese, so the shortened Japanese version looked a bit ambiguous to me!

Reply
kokujin-kun says:
May 8, 2012 at 11:17 am

I’m pretty sure geography – if you’re talking about mapping and human populations and that shit – is 地理 while earth sciences (geology, mineralogy) is 地学. I guess that’s why Dark got confused as to why there would be any type of geography lab since you don’t normally need all the sciency equipment you find in that room to study that subject.

Reply
AzureHakua says:
May 5, 2012 at 8:38 pm

>This wasn’t even a bad joke. It was just a bunch of words strung together like a human centipede.
>human centipede

Why you do that? >.<

Reply
mzry says:
May 5, 2012 at 8:59 pm

Maybe ‘Geography room’ would have been fine, since it’s close to the literal translation but just dropping ‘preparation’. I know that in the UK this would be a perfectly normal sounding room in a secondary school. Also it fits the sign quite nicely.
I personally think that this review is a little harsh on gg’s release, and some of the criticism is quite rude and unhelpful. I can’t help but think that the reviewer feels the need to put down a rival reviewer.
Just my opinion.

Reply
Nevreen says:
May 5, 2012 at 10:21 pm

8th and D_S are far from rivals. 8th does TL reviews while D_S does editing reviews. If anything, they complement each other. Both link to each other’s websites when they review the same show.

Reply
animegio says:
May 6, 2012 at 9:20 am

Yes, he wants to put down a “rival” reviewer. That’s why he adds a link to that said rival’s review site in each review.

Sup?

Reply
kyonyUU says:
May 6, 2012 at 12:24 pm

“ads a link”
i see wut u did thar

Reply
animegio says:
May 6, 2012 at 12:27 pm

*whistles*

Reply
Nevreen says:
May 6, 2012 at 12:32 pm

I’m calling foul.

Reply
Anonymous says:
May 7, 2012 at 12:07 am

Being from the UK I think Geography room sounds a bit general, and I’d imagine it being used to refer to any old Geography classroom. ‘Prep room’ or ‘lab’ gets the purpose across just a bit better, and neither sound particularly awkward to me. Earth Sciences Prep room also sounds acceptable, but a bit of a mouthful, and I can’t vouch for whether they’d be studying the full range of earth sciences at a Japanese school. Anyway, it’s a room for washing down and analyzing rock samples, so we can even bring KyoAni’s interpretation into question given how general a name they’ve given it.

Yeah, this site’s reviews seem a bit blunt, but I can appreciate them as editing reviews. The call on the ‘use’ issue was completely correct. It sounds awkward. You wouldn’t catch someone saying “He’s only useful if use him”, with a massive emphasis on use to draw attention to a pun that was completely obvious in the first place. It makes the guy saying it sound like an overexcited high-functioning autist.

On the other hand, there’s the whole thing about quotations. This was being used in the context of a fairly continuous speech, and in all the uses I’ve encountered, closing quotation marks are used specifically to break before narration or another speaker. Stylistically, the literary method looks much better here in my opinion, and much more in keeping which what’s happening in the audio track.

“Protect your sister’s history, the classic literature club.” sounds fine. The probability thing is also a non-issue. It logically follows from sample size=5 that P(all girls)=P(five girls)

I’d agree the review is a bit harsh on gg’s release, given that there weren’t any particularly awkward lines apart from ‘use’. On the other hand, from the commie review I can count numerous things which are iffy. “It ended up being much easier to visit the club room than I expected” is a very odd way to put his feelings towards the situation. “A different person every week! And they all return it on the same day!” is acceptable but could cause ambiguity when speed reading subs. “Thank you for honori-NOPE If they want to do liberal subs the English better be bloody perfect.

Reply
Murasaki no Tora says:
May 6, 2012 at 4:58 pm

I can’t believe I actually read all 73 comments. Was pretty interesting and even somewhat educational, though.

That said, I’m glad I can download whichever group I run across first for this show. Keep up the good work guys, we all appreciate you!

Reply
yo says:
May 6, 2012 at 9:04 pm

Hah hah, I did the same. Lots of interesting information & things to consider, like the reviews with 130+ & 150+ comments. I guess Dark_Sage said all he wanted since he hasn’t commented on the last 30 or so comments. Pretty crazy how lots of the discussion is on, what seems to outsiders (I think?), nuances many will pass over. Devil’s in the details, I suppose?

Reply
Nevreen says:
May 6, 2012 at 9:15 pm

This has been less of a discussion and more of a bunch of people bickering over nothing. The Hyouka preview post had an interesting dialogue about translating metaphorical speech. This is just people arguing back and forth about how unjustified their grade is.

Reply
Murasaki no Tora says:
May 6, 2012 at 11:12 pm

Which is why I said ‘somewhat’… but just because people were debating and arguing doesn’t mean that outsiders won’t find it informative (of various groups’ thought processes) or just… interesting in general.

Reply
Seis says:
May 7, 2012 at 12:15 am

The video is 10-bit, not 8-bit.

Reply
Dark_Sage says:
May 7, 2012 at 12:19 am

Fixed.

Reply
Elle says:
May 8, 2012 at 6:54 pm

“Because punishment has to be the most unjust.”

gg deserves the downgrade for all the troll subs they did in the past ^__^

Reply
Xythar says:
May 8, 2012 at 7:07 pm

That’s dumb and you’re dumb. This is practically a UTW release in everything but name anyway.

Reply
Shitty says:
May 8, 2012 at 7:29 pm

And without honorifics lol

Reply
Xythar says:
May 8, 2012 at 8:00 pm

A couple of UTW shows had no honorifics as well!

Reply
C says:
May 18, 2012 at 8:15 am

“Began” is correct, “begin” is wrong.

If you don’t like their use of quotation marks, take it up with the MLA, the Chicago Manual of Style, and every other such organization. Because clearly you’re better and smarter than they are and anything done by the actual rules is incorrect. LOL.

Reply

Leave a Comment