62 thoughts on “Translation Review: [Hadena] Love Lab – 01”

1. Looks like someone’s pissed…
   *walks away slowly*

   >fansubbers
   >girlfriends
   plz

   • The first year Hadena was around, it was funny. The second year it was just sad. Now we’re getting into Murder Two territory.

     And yeah, fansubbers and girlfriends… we can make it work anyways. Just ask tofusensei.

2. hi i am leader of hadena we are a pro speedsub group and we need donations to keep our work up plz donate

   • >Goes to website

     >Sees that people actually donated

     >Goes to “apologize for any behavior that might have been rude.”

3. Crymore’s new banner is nice.

   • Yeah, almost makes me wish I made it :3

4. >Chamber of Embarrassement[sic.]

   I think Hadena just created a whole new level of fail.

   • I didn’t think they’d top “Zero no Tsukiama” but thankfully you pointed out that cherry on top which I was apparently too sleep-deprived to notice :^\

     • It’s funny because it’s “embarrasSEMENt”…
       http://i.imgur.com/J8K3L.jpg

5. >Why do good groups like Eclipse and Static Subs fade away while you and your band of useless post-assfucking-coital dickshits come along to replace them?
   Not to mention recently, GotWoot :(
   http://www.gotwoot-subs.net/gotwoot/

   • Yeah… I can’t help feeling at least partially responsible for that :p

6. No, just no! Hadena reviews can only be done by D_S. He’s the only one capable of making fun of Hadena’s subs to an extent where I might wet myself laughing. Bad k-kun, bad boy! Now go and get D_S here.

   • But at least this person hit the nail on the head in terms of the final verdict. And I’m having a strong feeling that’s what the majority of us are saying about Hadena — terrible on all angles; they need to retire and save us all the trouble.

   • Yeah, it took me a while to find all those expletives to hurl at them… and it still doesn’t feel quite right.

     D_S, halp!

7. >Why do good groups like Eclipse and Static Subs fade away

   SS and Eclipse weren’t really all that good, and Eclipse especially is probably the most overrated group ever. They always had the same-looking hardsubbed karaoke (done by D4RK-PH0EN1X, the master of gradient and sparkle recycling), hardsubbed insert song karaoke (literally worse than any “literally worse than Hitler” that Commie might be pulling today), deidryt’s “editing” is rather legendary (and not in a positive manner) and Mentar’s encodes were terrible bandingfests (guy was actually encoding in Main Profile 5.0 before I pointed out that he really should be using High Profile like every other encoder out there)… They usually did have ok translation, timing and typesetting, but nothing that special. Modern releases (the good ones) are much better than what you got with the usual Eclipse release.

   As for SS, even if Kunio-kun (the guy who always translated all SS-Eclipse joint shows, and was the only member from SS involved in those) hadn’t disappeared they still wouldn’t be releasing shit since they’re deeply stuck in the oldfag slowsubbing mentality (or as I like to call it, ENTERPRISE FANSUBBING). Rigid defined roles for every single job, doing some of someone else’s work is a big no-no, having someone else do something because the designated person is not available is also a big no-no and QC takes forever because you gotta have a million passes and dozens of RC encodes (gotta make sure that hardsubbed karaoke and typesetting looks right and re-encode at every tiny mistake). As a result, if even a single person procrastinates, the entire thing gets stalled to kingdom come. This is where the slowness of slowsubs actually comes from, not from some kind of “taking our time to put out maximum quality” thing, even though that’s what they like to believe.

   Today’s fansub releases are better than ever before, even with some completely rotten apples like Hadena in the mix. If anything, the amount of bottom-of-the-barrel shitsubbers has actually gotten lower. Even lazy no-effort CR muxes tend to be better than most of the garbage you had to deal with in the past.

   • Fansubbing isn’t better today – it just has a more accurate base to work from, meaning that all you have to find are capable staff above that. That’s why series like Monogatari get pretty average scripts because when there isn’t a decent base script, fansubbers only make up the numbers.

     Eclipse were definitely overrated, but what few people remember is that Deidryt actually did some good work for Lunar – I guess the Eclipse method of working didn’t work for his style of editing (i.e. better with time to think lines over).

     The shift in fansubbing is from literal –> liberal translating/editing, because everyone rightly chucks stuff at waps and wap phrases nowadays.

     • >That’s why series like Monogatari get pretty average scripts because when there isn’t a decent base script, fansubbers only make up the numbers.

       Saying that Monogatari gets “pretty average scripts” is pretty dishonest, because it’s one of the most challenging things to translate well. Hell, in 8th’s recent comparison of Monogatari S2 03, while Commie’s overall grade for their original translation is only C+, it still ranks better in every aspect compared to the professional script used in the official simulcasts (which 8th ranked as C-). I would say that the average quality of fan translations has also gone up along with the other aspects, if only for the fact that the “core scene” is smaller nowadays and has less cruft as result. Also, the shift towards more liberal translating / editing that you mention also implies an increase in translation quality, since you need translators who actually know what they’re doing in order to do a good “liberal” translation. Otherwise the average translation quality would have dropped, and I just don’t see that being the case.

       Of course, the vast availability of at least decent quality professional translations has also helped tremendously. Thanks to them we can get a lot more high quality releases in less time than ever before. But things have improved outside of that too. Typesetting has had what you could call a “mocha revolution”, and with the likes of xy-vsfilter softsubbing can be pushed further than ever before. Encoding has improved thanks to better filters and technologies (like 10-bit encoding) and the fact that people actually bother learning to use them. And while this isn’t as big of a thing as the other two, fansub styling has also improved tremendously over the years – nowadays most groups at least know how to pick a sane font, size, colors and vertical margin. Now if people would just learn the value of decent horizontal margins and manual line breaks too…

       • So basically you’re saying that things have improved… because technology has. I don’t see how that points to the fansubbers being better now than they used to be. Though, as you say, a lot of it is probably down to the fact that there are a lot less groups releasing now than there were even four years ago.

         And I think the liberal stakes were raised when CC’s first started being included because then there was less pressure on the sheer accuracy of the script and translators/editors were allowed to mess about a bit more. It went further when the base translation was taken from a source that’s already well-translated

         • >So basically you’re saying that things have improved… because technology has.

           No. Technological improvement only increases the theoretical quality, but to actually increase the quality, talented people will need to learn to make use of the technology. The existence of Mocha alone does not make your typesetting better, you need to be willing to learn it and then put what you’ve learned into practice. If nobody cared about learning new things and pushing the boundaries, hardly anything would improve.

           Also, while closed captions are a nice thing for a translator to have, they have always been a rarity with anime, only available on a few select channels. Considering that, I doubt their existence would have had that much of an effect on translation practices.

         • CR et al edits shouldn’t really be considered. Original translations for simulcast shows are rare, and demonstrably do not consult the professional translation when there is such overlap.

           Especially your statement regarding Monogatari is confusing.

           Personally I’d chalk up the improvements we can see in the scripts to the sheer number of simulcasts; only few shows remain that can be subbed meaningfully, so there are enough decent people to take care of these. It was a lot more tempting a few years ago (I imagine) to start fansubbing despite one’s inadequacy since there were many shows that may not have had subtitles otherwise.

           Also, I don’t understand why you brought up CCs. Can you explain? For comparison, most shows these days do not have CCs. It’s usually only 4-5 per season, maximum.

         • Also, one thing I didn’t explicitly bring up is that fansub group management has also improved over the years. Most shows are subbed by small teams with flexible roles in an agile fashion, which is why stuff actually gets done in a timely fashion. I mean, it’s not like most of the “old” groups are actually completely dead, they just never manage to release anything thanks to being stuck in their ENTERPRISE FANSUBBING™ ways.

           • Actually, the old groups are dead because of lack of motivation. I know. I’m in a lot of them :D

             And Daiz, I don’t really understand what you’re driving at. Technological advances have always been ongoing in the fansubbing community and there have always been quality, talented people pushing the envelope – why do you think h264 in .mkv is now the standard? It’s down to encoders saying that xvid in .avi was substandard.

             Anyway, let’s just agree to disagree. I personally think there were a number of groups between 2004-2008 that were better than the groups around today (taking differences in tech and styles into account) – though there is a lot less dross to wade through these days to find something watchable.

             • ———————————————-
               Anyway, let’s just agree to disagree. I personally think there were a number of groups between 2004-2008 that were better than the groups around today (taking differences in tech and styles into account)
               ———————————————-

               Could you give me examples?

               • Well, my memory’s not what it used to be but Aone, Solar (bias, because I was in it), Ureshii (bias because I was in it), Lunar, afk (best group ever?), Froth-Bite, Frostii (bias, because I’m in it), Saizen (bias, because I’m in it), Live-evil (because I’m in it) – to name a few. Those groups released good quality releases – with only a few exceptions with pretty glaring typesetting derps on maps :D

                 • Any show you feel I should download?

                   • Well, check out anything by a.f.k if you’re looking for translation quality – I believe it was a one-man group, pretty much, and one of the few groups that localised terms and was sadly berated by “fans” for it (alas, such was the attitude in those days). If I remember correctly, they were well-known for their KyoAni releases (Haruhi, Kanon 2006, etc).

                     Oh, you can throw The Triad into the mix too. I remember Bokurano being good by them (and if you haven’t checked out that series, you should anyway).

                   • I remember watching and liking afk’s Haruhi a long time ago, so that’s off the table. I’ve also heard many good things about it.

                     I’ll take a look at Bokurano. This is chiefly for research purposes, so I can’t guarantee that I’ll watch more than a few episodes.

                   • Actually, I don’t have it on me, but I’m pretty sure in the credits of Kanon you can see that a.f.k. had several members working on it. Also, I loved them when they were active (and I wasn’t part of the subbing scene yet), but going back you can see that they actually used really natural (read: what most people call liberal) translations, which wasn’t as common in those years iirc. It was kind of sad that when Haruhi second season (E8) aired they were slow and used below par encodes. I think that was their last release.

                   • As I say, my memory isn’t the greatest. It could be that it was just started as a one-man group but gained a few more members on the way to help with pesky things like typesetting and encoding.

                     And yeah, they were definitely ahead of the curve – if they were still active now, they’d nestle in among modern fansub groups quite nicely (well, apart from the speed side, lol).

                   • I’m sorry FalseDawn, but most recent scripts are comfortably superior to what I just read.

                     http://privatepaste.com/c08f233068

                     I ignored the vast stylistic differences to the best of my ability.

                   • > As I say, my memory isn’t the greatest. It could be that it was just started as a one-man group but gained a few more members on the way to help with pesky things like typesetting and encoding.

                     The opposite – rather than recruiting new people to replace people who lazymoded, over time Strato started just doing everything himself.

             • I still like some of the AonE and Lunar releases, but a.f.k. scripts really haven’t held up all that well (see: Full Moon, Haruhi). Admirable for a one-man operation, but taking off the nostalgia glasses… eh.

               • Well, styles have moved on. I mean, in those days, it was perfectly acceptable to leave something sounding engrishy and translationy as long as the meaning was apparent (I cut against the grain a little because I branched out into more natural language – which is probably how I still stand up in the editing stakes today). But back in the landscape of 2004, it was perfectly natural for groups to leave a word in Jp and tl note it if there was no direct equivalent (I think Lunar did it in Bleach – and some of the worse groups did things like Ittadakimasu and nakama >.>).

                 You wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. The anime community was very insular (much like Japan, I guess) and those things were the accepted norm. It’s only in more recent years that the editing has become more natural language (and in some cases, cuss fests) which is probably a mixture of gg going down that route as well as the season CR decided not to use any honorifics in any of their shows (which, due to fan backlash, became a viewpoint they retreated from).

                 UTW has been floated as a good group, so the experiment to do would be to check out their first releases to their current releases and seeing how they’ve evolved. They’re probably not any better or worse as a group itself – time has just taught us lessons and moved fansubbing on.

8. It would be interesting if someone gave them the closed captions. Even tho some parts would still suck, it might make it watchable?

   • http://kitsunekko.net/dirlist.php?dir=subtitles%2Fjapanese%2FLove_Lab%2F

   • Honestly, I doubt if they can even read the goddamn captions.

     • SubtitleEdit got a nice auto-translate function.

9. >SS and Eclipse weren’t really all that good,
   >and Eclipse especially is probably the
   >most overrated group ever.

   Yes, in retrospect, those two groups weren’t *that* good ~dearimasu, but back then pretty much everybody considered them to be to-tier fansubbers. At least they are a hell of a lot better than Hadena ( ¬‿¬)

   • >everybody

     Not true. Most leechers maybe, but not most fansubbers. In much the same way that Commie and gg are considered top-tier nowadays :D

     • Well, back then I was one of those leechers
       ┐(￣ー￣)┌

     • You can say that Eclipse did release decent fastsubs. good enough subs in a very short time, aka, high quality speedsubs. This thing is not so much common especially back then, right?

       gg and Commie are considered one of the top teams today? where are UTW then? gg are good so as Commie but they have mistakes due to fast release time… but it is still a good release, time vs quality…

       teams like Eve-Taku did beat gg in SNK this season (in 1st releases at least), but, how did they do it? because they delayed their release to have more time! while gg and Commie release very fast and good enough.

       I think this thing should be taken in consideration.

       ___

       However, fansubs DID improve over the years due to technology AND the people using it. Nowadays fansubbers tend to learn the new tools unlike the old days where they just Xvid the damn thing in an 175mb AVI and you get “HQ release” and then find “this fansub is not for sale nor for rent” or “this is subbed for viewers like you” in it.

       now we have really great releases, the best team is UTW… gg and Commie comes in 2nd place. there are other good ones but not so much active.

       • I’ve never understood the argument that “delaying” a release is in somehow cheating at fansubbing. If groups decide to release as soon as the episode is half-ready with no QC, that’s up to them – there isn’t a “relative quality” scale. A speed group isn’t instantly better because they release faster. They’re simply faster. If you prefer speed over quality, that’s fine. But don’t mix up the two.

       • >gg and Commie are considered one of the
         >top teams today? where are UTW then?

         FD was definitely being tongue-in-cheek there, especially considering that both groups have a whole lot of detractors in such places as MAL. UTW is definitely more trusted.

       • @FD: you missed the point. There is a relation between speed and accuracy for sure, but for weekly shows, speed should be considered. gg and Commie release in a short time and the quality is good. Eve-Taku release after them (aka, delayed) while having better quality for most times.

         They chosen to make their releases slower than the others for the sake of quality. gg for example, released it fast on purpose and I’m sure they knew that their release will not be the best.

         the bottom line is: if you want to compare releases, make sure you have the release time in consideration. Obviously, if gg spent 3 more days on the release (or a week) just like Eve-Take, they will be better (also depends).

         @K:

         well, gg and Commie are not bad and they do fine releases mostly (especially gg). UTW is the best for sure, UTW can release in a short time with great quality… that is called “efficiency” which I don’t think any other team have it right now.

         people swear by some teams like TAKA but I don’t think they are that good.

         • No, that’s just not true. Just because something’s faster doesn’t mean you should viewer it as better simply because it’s faster. Quality is down purely to the quality of the script. Now, if you choose to get the first script out, that’s entirely up to you – but you shouldn’t artificially raise the estimation of a script or lower it because it’s faster or slower than another.

           I don’t see why people automatically detract from a release because it’s out a few days after the first release. Is everyone really that impatient?

           • I think it’s harder to do a good job in two hours than a perfect job in forty.

             • I think you’re missing the point, Vegeta, not me.

               It may be harder to do a good job in 2 hours than 40, but it’s a conscious decision by that subbing team to set those targets, so there’s no real argument that “it would’ve been better if we took more time” because if they cared about that, they would have taken more time.

               Besides, I don’t subscribe to the viewpoint that more time = better quality script. If you give a bad group a week to sub something, they’ll still produce an inferior release to a good group that’s released six hours after first airing.

               Eclipse was “good for a speedsub” and I think you can class a lot of groups under that heading today – but if your group is taking the conscious decision to sub something in less than 48 hours, don’t go moaning that another group released a better episode three days later. Your group had the choice to do that and decided not to.

               Everything’s a choice when it comes to fansubbing and while there are no *wrong* choices, I think it’s a little immature to blame your errors on the fact that you’ve made those choices. Stick to your guns and if someone makes a better release, hold your hands up and say “they’ve got us beat, but we’ve got more dl numbers because we released first.” Which is perfectly fine.

               • Oh lol, that was in response to Vegeta more than you, fnord. I just fail at comment placement.

               • All you said I know it. Choice or not it’s a fact, right?

                 All what matters is the normal time to release so that you are not delayed. Let’s say 2 days after airing. Every group should try to commit to this, so that if you want more time it would be 1 day later, meaning, 3 days from airing… All this is “normal” release time with no delay.

                 But to release after 10 days or so is just a delay, choice or not, it’s bad and should be avoided. That’s the whole idea.

                 and fnord was right, doing a good job in 2 hrs is harder than 40. bad groups are bad groups, but good groups can be good or excellent.

                 There should be some time range for TV releases.. for example <24 hrs after airing is Speedsub, up to 3 days are normal, after it is just a lousy delay. It's not a *rule* or so, but a non-written standard for groups.

                 BTW, why should everyone wait 10 days to get an anime episode while someone can do it in 2 days with very good quality? << this is reality. every group should consider this.

                 the only difference is when someone watch the show after it ends, then all what matter is the quality.

                 I hope you get what I mean.

                 • “A non-written standard for groups”? Why? This may surprise you but “delays” can be caused by staff members not being around at specific times (we don’t all get up at 6am to do some fansubban) or various staffers like to discuss the finer points of episodes before releasing. Just because some groups don’t follow your specific timeline of how to release a fansub doesn’t make them any worse as groups.

                   It’s up to you what you watch. If you want to watch a group because another group is “slow as hell”, that’s fine – but you can’t claim one group is better than another because they’re *faster* but their quality doesn’t match up.

                   At least understand your own reasons for watching a group ;)

                   • I watch a group that have good quality with reasonable release time. I can wait for some time but not forever. weekly shows are to be watched weekly for me, so watching episode 1 when episode 5 is aired is not something I do.

                     some groups do release in good enough time with great quality like UTW, that’s a good example of a decent fansub standard. you should not be super powerful enterprise fansub you know.

                   • This “enterprise fansub” sounds like a troll phrase along the lines of srsbsns. If anything, the groups who called themselves “enterprises” were Eclipse and Dattebayo, who were both groups who started today’s penchant for releasing readable scripts in a very short space of time. The slow behemoths were never “enterprises”. If this is some new meme, it’s used by people who haven’t got a clue.

                     And that’s entirely your decision. I’m not arguing that. What I am arguing is that you suggest a group is “better” because it’s faster regardless of quality if there isn’t a huge gulf in quality (like really bad speedsubs vs. pro-quality slowsubs, I mean).

                     It’s also pretty unlikely any group would release ep 1 when ep 5 is airing, unless they’re doing it purely for archive quality because they’ve decided the group who’ve been keeping up weekly are a pile of horse manure. Which, as we’ve established, since the scene became all about CR-editing, is equally unlikely to happen.

                 • no, I didn’t mean “a group is “better” because it’s faster regardless of quality if there isn’t a huge gulf in quality (like really bad speedsubs vs. pro-quality slowsubs, I mean).”.

                   I meant a group that gives very good quality with reasonable time, not really bad one. this is a huge difference.

                   archiving quality should be taken seriously on the BDs in my opinion. some TV releases are archive-able though, but when a BD encode is there, everyone goes downloading it.

                   and again, I am not sad about great quality with time but I do want the groups to be more serious about speed, a little bit at least.

                   enterprise groups are those who seek 101% quality with tons of efforts, and taking forever to release. you can call it slowsubbing mentality where speed goes to hell and all the fans are waiting your release just because it’s 0.1% better than x release… editing the episode twice, multiple QC, …etc. THOSE are the ones taking fansub as srsbzns.

                   I don’t think eclipse was seeking enterprise subs because they are fast. dunno about SS.

                   the best team in my opinion is UTW. they are fast and give great quality.

           • yet another missing of the point. I don’t tell you to say that faster releases are better but do consider speed as a feature and an important one.

             Quality is determined by the quality of the script itself regardless of the time… absolutely true! didn’t say the opposite.

             However, these days, fansubs should be fast enough… so delaying 3 days after all other teams are a clear disadvantage! that’s what you should know.

             OK, I get that quality is important more than speed but delaying the release this much is not by any means an evidence of efficiency or quality… simply because if any other teams takes a week for their release, they will have even more accuracy than yours!

             gg or Commie gives good accuracy with nice short time, so please, stop supporting ENTERPRISE FANSUBBING by keep saying “quality over speed” or such logos.

             look at UTW for example, they give excellent quality in a relatively short period of time and sometimes even faster that ALL! this is “efficiency” and this should be the focus of every fansub group.

             Some fansubs delay their releases for 2 weeks or so… this isn’t a factor of excellence.

             maybe Eclipse had this efficiency feature back then and that’s why it’s so famous… now, fansubs can go beyond what Eclipse did because of reasons said by Daiz.

             THANKS!

10. What I don’t get is why translators put out stuff like this. If I’m translating something I want to do it as accurate as possible. From some of these screens you can see tell that they made “small” (not really but whatever) mistakes: They forgot a word (how is that small?) or the like. But from other screens it’s obvious that they had absolutely no idea what was being sad. Now if I imagine the one translating this show: “Oh, I’ve got no clue what they just said! I’ll just write what fits…”. I’m really in the dark here how people reconcile that with their conscience.

    • Oh, I can answer that.

      I admit that back during my stupid days as a rookie TL, whenever I would come across a line I couldn’t understand, my pride as a 1st/2nd year Japanese student who can understand moon better than most people would take over and I would just guesslate the lines, thinking, “It’s probably close enough. Besides, it’s just one line, nothing to go apeshit over.”

      Of course, now that’s simply intolerable. Now whenever I come across a difficult line or term, I suck it up and ask around. Hell, good translators shouldn’t even limit themselves to just asking native Japanese people. They should also ask people who are experts in different fields like philosophy, martial arts, medicine, nuclear physics, etc.

      • The “quality” of a fansub will vary from person to person.
        Though some people have different preferences, some cases are inexcusable.

        For example, this Hadena review…
        Hadena did a shitty job and I’m surprised they didn’t get another “F”.

        They don’t care about what they do, they simply want to release first and get high download counts from desperate leechers.

        • But Hadena hasn’t had a high download count in a long time, so there goes that one reason why they’ve stuck around.

          Unfortunately, I only reserve F’s for spectacularly bad releases. Hadena just registers as “pathetic.”

          • When Commie and FFF were late for episode 4 (or was it 5?), I think many people watched Hadena then.

            • Fuck it, accidentally hit the replay button. Anyway, saw their download count on nyaa for episode 4, was a bit higher but still not high I guess. Hadena used to be faster, but since they’re mostly slow these days nobody resorts to watching them. However, when they’re fast they will get downloads. Look at their “Minami-ke 08” or “Date A Live 01”. And as you saw for yourself, they are still getting donations every month. They also had this great “revamp” (leader change and everything) but in the end, Arashi’s still around and trolling (guess LoveLab is his show because he’s been posting the news for it).

11. Daiz, stop writing these walls of text and go finish the Chu2byou OVA already.

12. let’s keep in mind the main purpose of sub is ACCURATE translation.. even shitty editing / grammar mistakes, while extremely annoying, are still second to ACCURATE translation

    so if you’re talking about how eclipse/ss weren’t good groups, but you’re discussing typesetting, fonts, encoding, karaoke, etc, you’re missing the point.. they are still LEVELS above hadena just for not completely fucking up the translation of japanese into english