Fansub Review: [EveTaku] Kamisama no Memochou (Episode 01)

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

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The clear difference between gg and EveTaku is understandability. Go with EveTaku’s release for this series.

File size: 494 MB (includes both parts 1 AND 2 of episode 01, which means it’s double the length of a normal episode)

Japanesiness: Japanese name order. Honorifics. Loose, localized style to match how people speak. Keeps up with yakuza terms and flavor (e.g. Ane-san).

Release format: MKV & AVI

Font: I was not a fan of the fonts they used for the main episode or for the karaoke. The main episode’s font was disconcerting because it takes the idea of san-serif to the extreme, meaning that things like “d” or “a” don’t have the trailing line coming off from them.

OP/ED. They did not do karaoke for the ED, which is in English.

Typesetting.

This is not a question. It is a statement.

The word is “Furthermore”

The word is “probable”. As in, it is probable that nobody edited this.

The timing is way off here. The bottom line should be the only one on the screen until it gets replaced by the top line, but they both appeared at once.

the wounds of her heart.

If you wanna accent the “Wha”, that’s fine, but limit it to two of the same letter in a row. Why? Well, no word in the English language has three of the same letter in a row.

Capitalize Senpai. In this context, it’s a term of address, much like Father or Mother. This was wrong a LOT in this episode.

Farther and farther what? Away?

anymore.

her real name.

By now you’ve probably realized that most of these mistakes could have been corrected with a 20-minute check-through of the script.

But by that time, Shouko had, of course, gone missing.

I was just gonna add another comma after “time”, but three commas is more than enough for one line.

-with

+was

Again, this is a statement, so drop the the question mark.

18-year-old male

 

There were also comma splices and a number of smaller mistakes that I generally only point out in reviews that reach the higher tiers (mostly related to sentence phrasing and word choice).

 

Overall grade: C-

Funnily enough, gg fucked their grammar to hell and EveTaku fucked their spelling/word choice to hell. In the end, what matters is that proper grammar is more important than proper spelling in terms of understandability of the show. When it comes to gg vs. EveTaku, I suggest you go with EveTaku.

0 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [EveTaku] Kamisama no Memochou (Episode 01)”

  1. Quote from EveTaku site “So I got three hours of sleep before AX. Wasted my entire day at AX and at the best concert ever. Came back and I’m up at 4 AM past still working on this. So if I missed some mis-times or typos, derp. I tried my best with my lack of sleep.”

    I somehow can’t shake the feeling that both groups rushed to get this out before everyone else. ~_~

    Reply
    • >> I somehow can’t shake the feeling that both groups rushed to get this out before everyone else. ~_~

      Sure did!

      >> The word is “probable”. As in, it is probable that nobody edited this.

      Sure didn’t!

      Suggestions duly noted and fixed. Probably v2 later today.

      Reply
  2. gg release was translated in 4 hours. No editing was performed because all editors were at AX lol.

    In fact, this was entirely done by 2 staff members using a pub raw, that’s why it’s labeled as “pre-release”. There’s a v2 coming up shortly.

    Admittedly, EveTaku release is a lot better even in the translation front overall, because well… they blatantly took a lot of my translations in the first half lol. There are still a few TL mistakes though. At least their translator knew what he was doing, so most of those lines were improved rather than butchered.

    Reply
    • A coincidence, I assure you. I translated the episode from scratch. I wasn’t even aware that you’d released until I was well into the second half of the episode.

      Reply
      • I see, I just found it creepy how some of our word choices are extremely similar. I think there were 3 lines that really bothered me (only remember 2 now):

        1:34 (karaoke) – This line seemed rephrased. I rushed my translation and made a really bad word choice, “unhealable” for “incurable”. Yours was “unhealed”, but the lyric is “not possible to heal”, not wounds that haven’t healed yet… This could be just a coincidence, but a grammar mistake I caught while working on v2, “our voice” which should’ve been “our voices” since there’s no hint of strong group unity etc theme so far, was also present.

        12:42 were identical, which happens, but you translated to “hang out” for “get involved” in the previous line. It seemed odd to reword them when they appear in the same conversation.

        TBH, I was actually considering using “hang out” for those lines at first too, but it didn’t sound right for 12:42 line, so I changed both to “get involved”. I guess there’s enough there for benefit of doubt. Now that I think of it, we could’ve just left something like “I didn’t want to anyway” to avoid the whole problem…

        Anyway, sorry if it was indeed a coincidence. I don’t usually talk about other fansub groups unless I was reasonably sure though. Maybe we just have a really similar translation style. I think using another group’s subs as reference is a good idea (especially since you can find out if you’ve misheard something, and personally I can recognized other people’s mistakes better than my own, so improve the same lines), but it’s not cool to use exact phrases and terms, especially for more liberal TL.

        Now that I watched your subs, few of my lines suddenly feel very awkward, so I’m sure as hell going to fix those lol
        Of course, gonna get these done completely with my own words.

        Reply
      • I just finished v2 edits for second half, and watched your release (didn’t want to be influenced). It’s amazing how we picked same terms for couple of lines. I take back what I said earlier m(_ _)m

        Especially after about 14 min point, where we both went with liberal translations… many lines were identical, it’s almost scary.

        Of course, I didn’t see your subs either (check top left time stamp)
        http://ietherpad.com/ep/pad/view/yDcTjx8ksZ/8qoqA6wnl3

        Reply
        • It happens. It’s not uncommon for there to be a single obvious way of wording a line in English that comes to mind first.

          But I’m glad this was settled as just a coincidence, and thanks for some of the lines you pointed out; I’ll have to have another look at them.

          Reply
          • When I was working on Bakuman, we regularly saw other groups use *very* similar wording to ours when they released their versions 4 days later, but honestly, I don’t really think they were stealing our TL. It’s just exactly what you said — for a lot of lines, there’s just one translation that is obviously the best way to put it.

            Reply
          • @ObsidianTK

            I pay a lot of attention to subs when watching anime, and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered one that was so similar to how I would’ve translated it myself.

            Not only that the previous two points listed also seemed too strange for coincidence.

            But then, I’m sure now it was a freak case after watching their second half. I think I’ve found my evil twin online j/k

            Reply
  3. >they blatantly took a lot of my translations in the first half lol.
    Now, you’ll have to excuse me for saying this- but the term here is “sucking your own cock”.

    Reply
  4. All these pissant little critiques aside, these folks won my heart forever by getting “alumnus” right.

    I want to firebomb every car I see with a “Wossamotta U Alumni” bumper sticker.

    Reply

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