28 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [gg] Aku no Hana (Episode 01)”

1. Too bad the show looks like shit.

   • True that. Which means I’m 4/4 on season predictions for this season. \o/

2. The best choice is not watching this show at all.

   • Honestly, I’m loving the backlash it’s getting, because this is one of those shows with fuxxored animation I’d expect the hardest of the hardcore “all Japanese animation, no matter what, is perfect” fans would actually love. It means the fanbase of shows like Kemonozume and Mind Game has been completely eclipsed by people with taste.

     • I haven’t actually watched this yet, but it just seems… bad. I dunno.

       If they want perfect animation just get them to watch the last two episodes of Eva and that should shut them up.

       • The reaction is a bit overblown, and the style does have its benefits — it gives a unique feel to the show — but it’s definitely not my kind of thing. You’d probably hate it less if you watched it, but I wouldn’t really recommend it. Just read the manga if the show interested you before the drama.

     • >Not liking Yuasa Masaaki

       Sage, I respect your English-language credentials, but your taste is so bad that if you were given a glass each of Amontillado, Château d’Yquem, and Merlot, you’d misidentify them as orange juice, baby food, and a bowl of asparagus salad respectively.

       • I haven’t seen the two titles D_S mentioned yet, but the man behind Tatami Galaxy can do no wrong in my mind.

         I haven’t seen this show yet either, but I remember the season preview said it was rotoscoped or something? That would explain the weird-looking animation. And rotoscoping has nothing to do with the loose, organic animation in Yuasa’s stuff.

         • Actually, Yuasa did use some rotoscoping in Mind Game and Kemonozume, but he always merged it with multiple other animation formats—Aku no Hana, although an excellent series that wonderfully captures the lived experience of Japanese high school, is 100% rotoscoped and thus pretty radically different from Yuasa’s stuff. Thus my casting of aspersions upon D_S’s ability to distinguish the crème de la crème from the dreck.

           • >Aku no Hana, although an excellent series that wonderfully captures the lived experience of Japanese high school

             it’s funny, because it’s supposed to be a middle school, unless that was changed in the anime.

             Don’t mind me, I’m just catching up on D_S’ reviews.

         • Rotoscoping isn’t that bad in itself – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZNPdUjaXys#t=1m37s
           however it’s done terribly in Aku no Hana. All characters are wobbly blobs with no details, they have no faces until they’re two meters from camera, it looks like they have epilepsy and their hands constantly vary in width, length and amount of moving joints.

     • ;_;

3. By far the best unintentional comedy I’ve yet seen all year. The animation alone is side splitting.

   • The blinking freaked me out when I started the episode. But yeah, some of those faces… goddamn.

4. I was interested in watching this, but I guess I’ll just read the manga instead. How about a one-sentence review of the scanlations?

   • Shit. It’s all you have, though.

5. That’s some derpface there.

   And yeah, you could easily spend 5-10 hours just editing a translation of a poem (think about all those times you’ve searched for the right word in a line – now multiply that by *every* word in a poem). But I agree that consistency is king when it comes to this – using easily-recognisable searchable phrases gives the viewer greater scope for doing further research if they so want.

   I question gg’s presentation of it though – I’d be tempted to do it in italics or speechmarks, just to show that it is quoted from a poem.

6. Hopefully “Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru” is somewhat on the top of your priority list. Commie, WhyNot? and FFF are doing this show, in my opinion this should be an interesting comparison.

   • All shows with 3+ groups are at the top of my priority list for TL Parties. But for those, you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for episode 2 for the fansub reviews.

     • Lookin forward to it then. My bets on FFF on this one, which is risky due to not having even seen it yet.

       Good to see you pumping out stuff again.

       • Some anon did TL+editing comparison, Commie wasn’t as bad as FFF while WhyNot was worse than both of them. /82969279

7. Where is the to-review-list?

   • Yeah, I should get on that…

8. Yamada might be the first side character with more lines of dialogue than everyone else combined.

9. In regards to the thicks and thins jokes, Futo means thick while Futomomo means thighs so the translation for that line is as good as it gets in English.

10. dafuq . my eyes T-T

11. I just stumbled upon this website and I’d say I’m really enjoying my first visit. The fact that I’m not the only one who takes pleasure in butchering my classmates’ articles (or fansubs, in your case) is… exulting and reassuring. Heheh.

12. A bit late to the party, but FYI that first sign is the kanji for “salt”. No clue what it’s supposed to signify, though.

    Incidentally, Tangorin has a multi-radical search feature which is good for looking up kanji where you don’t know any of the readings or meanings.