Fansub Review: [Commie vs rori] Kokoro Connect (Episode 01)

Fansub Review, Subtitle Comparison — By Dark_Sage on July 8, 2012 3:01 am

Official reviews will start with episode 2. For now, enjoy this head to head for the best show this season. For all comparisons, Commie’s screens are listed first and rori’s are listed second.

Table of Contents

Release Information

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Results

Release Information

Episode details: Commie.

Release format: MKV (204 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: No honorifics.

English style: American English.

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/c6DjL1bG

Speed: Quick (<48 hours)

Group website: http://commiesubs.com/

IRC channel: #[email protected]

 

Episode details: rori.

Release format: MKV (228 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: Honorifics.

English style: American English.

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/jhfta8r6

Speed: Quick (<48 hours)

Group website: http://rorisubs.com/

IRC channel: #[email protected]

 

External links.

8thsin’s translation critique: N/A

Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: N/A

SubCompare screenshot comparisons: http://subcompare.com/kokoro/index.html

Commie’s fansub reviews: N/A

 

Visual Review

Karaoke.

There’s no way around it, I fucking love what Commie did here. Just fucking brilliant effort. I appreciate the vision card was trying to achieve with this chalkboard, but with rori’s release untypeset, it feels like an unfortunate decision. Now, I was told to blame Sutai, not card, so I’m going to. Sutai, I blame you. Whoever’s to blame though, I like Commie’s work here the best.

Commie’s font matches the credits perfectly. While rori’s doesn’t, that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. card themed the entire karaoke around the concept of a chalkboard, which is why the background looks like the marks a chalkboard eraser makes and the colors fit that of a chalkboard. Whether you buy into that artistic vision or not is a personal choice, and while I liked how Commie’s meshed with the credits better, I thought rori’s choice was an interesting decision.

While Commie stuck with the pink (a smart choice), rori took the opportunity to go full-out rainbow mode. This was more impressive for the lines it affected.

 

Overall, the typesetting in Commie’s OP combined with the sensible font choice makes their opening more enjoyable to watch than rori’s. I assume rori will typeset the chalkboard in episode 2, and if so… well, I’m not sure which group’s OP I’d rather watch. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Similar color choices (shut up, yes they are similar). I don’t know if I particularly care for either of them to a significant degree over the other.

 

Both are fine.

For the ending, I didn’t find a pressing reason to favor one group over the other.

 

 

Typesetting.

I didn’t particularly think this sign needed to be typeset, but I always appreciate effort to make the subs better for viewers, however slightly. If this were an actual review, I wouldn’t count this against rori, but this is a face-off. Shit’s bloodthirsty here.

Point: Commie.

Commie’s matches the line count and utilizes the empty space better, but rori’s matches the font much better and grabs the eye quicker. Gonna call this one a tie.

I appreciate what rori’s doing here, but I also appreciate being able to read the school’s name.

rori’s definitely matches better here.

 

Other.

 

Script Quality

Main Script.

Of the first two screens, I much prefer Commie’s version. It’s so much wittier, so much more sarcastic. When you factor in the third screen, though, I’m inclined toward rori’s version. “ice cold” as a comeback feels so… old. It reminds me of the people who still think “Whassssuuuupp?” is still funny. If you must use a similar phrase, us “Frigid.” One word, one sentence. It gets the ice cold part across, but also implies that he’s calling her a “frigid bitch”.

So overall, this one goes to rori.

Sorry, fotc, I promised to help you with this line but I failed in the end. I don’t like the image that wolves bring up, so I’m going to go with Commie’s version as the better choice here.

rori started every character’s introduction with “Or, for example,” while Commie switched things up so every sentence was something new. I’m sure you can see the flavor in Commie’s line more than rori’s, which feels dull in comparison. For this entire character introduction piece, Commie did a much better job than rori did.

Commie pretty much killed the line here, and I don’t mean in a good way. Inaba is a character who sleeps, eats, and breathes sarcasm. Sarcasm is all about indirectness while swearing is all about directness. So when introducing cussing into her vernacular as a standard response, she no longer becomes witty; she becomes an angry bitch. And there’s a big difference between the two. Now, I don’t mean she can’t swear. I’m saying that swearing as a retort in and of itself is not something that her character is likely to do. Essentially, this is really poor editing that fails completely at line delivery.

Not that rori’s lines are any better; “as you can see” is a pretty terrible response for someone as witty as Inaba. Can you guess who my favorite character is yet?

I think you can probably see the pattern here. Commie’s lines are often just plain better than rori’s. They’re wittier and they add much more flavor to the show.

Yeah, okay. I think this unofficial comparison is over. It’s pretty obvious that Commie’s script is better than rori’s most of the time.

 

Results

I know rori was bragging about how CR’s script was bad. But I don’t see myself choosing rori’s release to view this show at this point. I mean, we’ll see what happens on episode 2, but I felt that I got a better experience while watching Commie’s release than rori’s. The jokes were better, the phrasing was better, the flow was better, there was more effort put into the typesetting.

tl;dr: Commie > rori

Tags: Commie, Fansub Review, Kokoro Connect, rori, Summer 2012