Fansub Review: [Commie] Upotte!! (Episode 01)

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

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Gun girls~

Release format: MKV (219 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: No honorifics.

English style: American English.

Group website: http://commiesubs.com/

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/DfN0D4Pc

8thsin’s translation critique: N/A

Ji-hi’s screenshot comparisons: N/A

 

Table of Contents

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Timing

Results

Visual Quality

Karaoke.

 

Opening. It was decent but not spectacular. I suppose it’s kind of hard to be impressed with a group that goes with no-effects, English-only karaoke, but I’m sure I’ll be pleasantly surprised one of these days.

Ending. Sometimes the color changes, but I’m not sure why. It’s kind of simple to just go “slow song -> italics and a random font color”, so I’m interested in seeing how Commie handles such songs in the future, or if they’ll just stick to a very basic format.

 

Typesetting.

7 signs in a row with super minimal or no typesetting at all.

The hall signs are done well.

Since they go into the Nurse’s Office, I’m going to assume this says Nurse’s Office. Do you guys really not have anyone able to translate this or was it just too hard for your typesetter?

“Aim for the lowest-hanging fruit.”

You know, I might just be interested in what he’s reading.

Aww, I wanna fuck 16 so hard.

The “grab”s moves around the screen along with the Japanese text. Naisu.

Commie did a good portion of the signs, but not all. I’d say they focused on the most important ones, but there were still a lot left untranslated.

Script Quality

Karaoke.

The opening made sense and I didn’t have any trouble relating it to the anime. Good work.

Similar to the opening, the ending worked just fine. It did what it was supposed to, which is convey the meaning of the song without fucking it up somehow. Nothing important to bring up here.

 

Main Script.

Good word choice with “followers”. There were a number of worse options that I’m glad Commie didn’t choose here.

This is a legitimate phrase, I guess, so I’m not going to count it as an error. But I would like to point out that “Where’s the fun in” is vastly superior to “What’s the fun of” in common human English. (I’ve actually never heard “What’s the fun of” before. Is it a regional phrase?)

“Where’s the fun in growing inedible flowers, anyway?”

We already established that they could be eaten in the previous line. Thus, there is no reason to have “edible” in the second line. I imagine the editor thought they were expressing that not all chrysanthemums are edible, but that’s easily done without being redundumb.

“Like some kinds of chrysanthemums.” <- Super fucking hard, I know.

“How about you let me win it for you?”

I probably wouldn’t call this out as a problem if they were using honorifics and going for a more Japanese style, but this doesn’t really jive with the more liberal style they tend toward. As it is, the line is lol because she sure as fuck isn’t the girl’s “big sister”. Yes, I know the Japanese throw out onee-chan like they’re all related (incest joke here), but I find it more important to convey the meaning of the phrase than the deep intricacies of the Japanese language.

“And he’s in the forward-leaning position.”

Is their dream to become great assault rifles and study at this academy? I doubt it. Seems to me they’re trying to become great assault rifles by studying at the academy.

“Every day, we follow our dreams to become great assault rifles”

“by studying at this academy.”

Actually, handguard is one word (hand guard also appears to be acceptable). However, complaining about this is basically just a “lol, gotcha!” thing. It’s not really important at all.

Not a big fan of this phrasing. Why not, “Elle’s big boobs are well-hidden.” ?

So much what? What does this mean?

That was puntastic. Kudos to whoever did this.

 

Timing Review

Listing on Entire Changes: http://pastebin.com/hRLqae03

Key-frame Snap Errors (Mostly preferential to prevent flashing subs): 47 Errors.

Linking Errors: 1 Errors total; 1 Major.

Massive Derping Error: 1 Massive Derp Fail.

Total Errors: 49

Overall Grade: 3/5

Jesus fucking Christ, congratulations on getting the highest amount of errors so far Commie! Fantastic job you did on this, especially snapping to key frames. Dialogue between characters looked like shit as subs continually blinked on and off during scene changes. The linking error and massive derp fail were pretty good too, ending the line early while the audio is still playing. Sorry, but this was just a chore to watch and even review. Having to stop every few seconds to note an error is just not fun.

*EDIT: Cause I’m too preferential about my scene snapping to prevent flashing subs during dialogue.

Results.

Watchability: Quite watchable.

Timing Grade: 3

Visual grade: B

Script grade: B+

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

Good release from Commie. There weren’t too many stand-out lines that I found to praise, but that’s not exactly Commie’s fault. Overall, I found the release to be worth watching. I believe their only competition on this show is Warui-chan, so we’ll see how they do in my next review. Warui-chan is absolute shit. I don’t think they did anything but copy CR’s script, put a font on it, then fuck everything up. At least Hadena tries. Warui doesn’t deserve my attention.


0 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [Commie] Upotte!! (Episode 01)”

    • Natural Japanese phrasing:
      “It was my first time seeing so much X.”
      Natural English phrasing:
      “I’d never seen so much X [before].”

      I haven’t watched this, so I have no clue what X is, either.

      Reply
  1. I’m pretty sure the red book is the “Gun Manual” and the book that currently says “Gun Manual” is actually “Class Curriculum”. I mean, considering the blue book has the school emblem emblazoned on it while the red book has, you know, guns on it.

    Yay for typesetting without a translator?

    Reply
    • You are welcome to donate like 5-6 translators so they can check all our typesetting and translate signs CR missed.

      Or, you know, stop talking out your ass.

      Reply
      • Oh my god. How DARE I? I pointed out a mistake! Dear me, excuse me while I inform my ass that it should stop talking.

        Obviously I can’t expect a fansub group to make sure their translations match what they’re supposed to translate. Next thing you know, they’ll be asking for dialogue translations to match the correct audio! I mean, everyone knows translation is an insignificant aspect of typesetting anyway, and if I want to criticize a release, I should clearly shut up and help the group in question instead of pointing out their mistakes. I mean, what kind of monster would do that?

        Reply
          • So… my complaining about your release will do nothing, but your complaining about other releases -will- do something? And the next time we make a mistake, I should just say, “Well quit complaining, because fixing that is impossible unless you give us a ton of staff”? Well hell, that’s a lot easier than just owning up to the mistake and trying to do better next time. Golly, I’m learning a lot from you.

            Why are you even doing so many shows if you can’t spare the staff to handle it?

            Reply
            • In this show’s case it’s because whatever we do is still an improvement on CR, basically.

              A lot of those signs are ones where it’d be nice to have them, but it’s not really vital to the plot. Anything that actually is important will probably be translated by CR, and so that’s how it goes.

              Reply
            • No, you can easily recruit a better typesetter or teach them how to be better at it (which is why I sometimes give suggestions as well). The opposite is not true in this case.

              >Why are you even doing so many shows if you can’t spare the staff to handle it?

              Because one sign that’s placed incorrectly out of the hundreds we do a week isn’t worth trying to find a ton of translators and then making them waste time watching everything.

              Reply
            • Give me ten minutes and I could translate all the untranslated screenshots in the post (excluding the walls of text like the book, which no one expects to be translated). I’m sure the screenshots aren’t comprehensive, but even so, I don’t expect it would take anybody competent longer than 20 minutes, even for a relatively sign-heavy show.

              You guys are a fansub group, aren’t you? Quite insistent on that fact, if I recall. For any other fansub group, what I pointed out would be considered a mistake and legitimate criticism. A small mistake, of course, yet you clearly took issue with my casual pointing out of it. If other fansub groups can be expected to get it right and can be criticized if they don’t, what makes you guys so special?

              Reply
            • It is a legitimate criticism, but we don’t plan to do anything about it. The Upotte! team at Commie is two people and unlike say Nisemonogatari we don’t have a translator who is interested in working on the show, therefore the additional signs don’t get translated.

               

              Obviously, this doesn’t apply to every show we do – it entirely depends on whether whoever is working on the show feels it is worth the effort. I’m sure you’ve seen how much work we put into typesetting Acchi Kocchi.

              Reply
            • >Give me ten minutes and I could translate all the untranslated screenshots in the post (excluding the walls of text like the book, which no one expects to be translated). I’m sure the screenshots aren’t comprehensive, but even so, I don’t expect it would take anybody competent longer than 20 minutes, even for a relatively sign-heavy show.

              Problem is you’d have to be around when the show airs and then whenever it’s finished to QC. Enjoy doing that 10 times a week in addition to actually translating 2-5 shows, editing, translating songs, TLCing, etc. I’m sure you can see how finding someone to translate signs is a pretty fucking low priority.

              >You guys are a fansub group, aren’t you? Quite insistent on that fact, if I recall. For any other fansub group, what I pointed out would be considered a mistake and legitimate criticism. A small mistake, of course, yet you clearly took issue with my casual pointing out of it. If other fansub groups can be expected to get it right and can be criticized if they don’t, what makes you guys so special?

              Because other groups don’t do 16 shows. Not all of us can have 12 people to work on one show.

              Reply
            • >Simple solution is: don’t do 16 shows. Quality >>> Quantity.

              I dunno, we can do 16 shows and be better than or equal to the competition for all of them. I’d say we’re doing pretty good work.

              Reply
            • >Because other groups don’t do 16 shows. Not all of us can have 12 people to work on one show.
               
              Ah, so you -are- doing more shows than your staff can handle. Mkay, good to know. Still don’t see how that puts you above legitimate criticism, since it was fully your decision to pick up that many shows.
               
              Hey man, you’re welcome to sub what you want, how you want. But if somebody points out a mistake that was caused by those decisions you made, don’t pretend it wasn’t your own fault.
               
              >It is a legitimate criticism, but we don’t plan to do anything about it. The Upotte! team at Commie is two people and unlike say Nisemonogatari we don’t have a translator who is interested in working on the show, therefore the additional signs don’t get translated.
               
              Great! That was all I needed to hear in the first place. Surprising how legitimate criticism is called “talking out of your ass” these days.

              Reply
            • And since I took too long to type…
               
              >better than or equal to the competition for all of them
               
              You keep telling yourself that.

              Reply
            • No, I just thought it was funny coming from you, a group who has mediocre typesetting and no editing yet you think our lack of signs is somehow terrible.

              Reply
            • Lyger, you’re kind of missing the point – even if we were doing just this show and no others the signs still wouldn’t get translated because we don’t have any translators who are interested in working on it. We’d just have ~20 very bored staff members.
              We’re doing this show because we had someone interested in editing it and someone else interested in timing/typesetting it. At Commie we have a bunch of small teams working on a wide variety of shows instead of one big team working on a few. It’s a different approach to that used by many other groups, but it does let us sub a lot of stuff that’d otherwise go ignored or not done well. And in the end, we sub stuff because we enjoy it, and isn’t that reason enough?

              Reply
            • >[…]a group who has mediocre typesetting[…]
              Really? I don’t think the typesetting for InuBoku was “mediocre”.

              Reply
            • Oooh, how cute, you can’t win the argument on logic so you resort to petty insults and ego stroking. Good to know a great group like Commie has such a great member as you, herkz. I’m done here. Don’t miss the next time you have to piss because your dick isn’t as big as you think it is.
               
              @Xythar, you’re a reasonable guy and I get what you’re saying, but if you agree it was a valid point, then regardless of the reasons behind it or whether it can/will be fixed (or, for that matter, who is making the critique), it’s still just as legitimate as any other criticism. herkz had no reason to take particular issue with it over any other critique that this site abounds with.

              Reply
            • Yeah, I’m not saying it wasn’t, just explaining why we ended up doing things this way. In the end I guess it doesn’t really matter since there aren’t any other groups who are willing to put even this much effort into the show, let alone the amount it would take to translate and typeset all the signs.

              Reply
            • >No, I just thought it was funny coming from you, a group who has mediocre typesetting and no editing yet you think our lack of signs is somehow terrible.
              This would be a valid complaint, if not for the fact that EveTaku is better than Commie on both of those points.
              ­
              >I dunno, we can do 16 shows and be better than or equal to the competition for all of them.
              That’s bullshit and you know it.
              ­
              ­
              how2notsuck: stop picking up a billion shows when you clearly don’t have the staff for it. And don’t fly into an autistic NO U SUCK rage when someone points out a valid criticism. You’re starting to look a lot like that fag from Doki did when Raze commented on their translator recruitment post.

              Reply
            • >This would be a valid complaint, if not for the fact that EveTaku is better than Commie on both of those points.

              I dunno, their Acchi Kocchi is considerably worse than ours.

              Reply
            • >how2notsuck: stop picking up a billion shows when you clearly don’t have the staff for it.

              We only pick up shows if there are people willing to work on them (hence why we’re not doing Medaka Box, etc) so you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about here. Where did anyone say this release “sucked”, anyway? Even D_S agrees it’s a solid B+, which sounds consistent with the amount of effort we put into it.

              >That’s bullshit and you know it.
              I don’t know if I’d necessarily say “all” without comparing every single one of them to the other groups (would take a while) but this is largely true in my completely subjective opinion. I feel like most fansub releases these days still have much too literal translations and awkward phrasing in their editing, and the standard of typesetting is still pretty low.

              Reply
            • “Because one sign that’s placed incorrectly out of the hundreds we do a week isn’t worth trying to find a ton of translators and then making them waste time watching everything.”
              One sign is placed incorrectly, but half of the signs aren’t translated at all. Wow. Way to go. Stay butthurt in your denial.

              Reply
              • Jeez, this got really venomous. Here’s how I see it: It’s true that Commie didn’t do a spectacular, eygasmic job here, but the signs they typeset seemed to be the most important ones. Lyger’s critique is valid – dude knows what he’s talking about – and there’s no need to cut his group down for pointing out a mistake.

                It’s true that having a sign TL on this show would be ideal. I don’t think the staff on the project thought it wouldn’t be a good idea. However, staff are a limited resource. If anyone deserves criticism for not allocating group resources sufficiently, it would be whoever’s the group leader is. (I assume the policy implemented was along the lines of ‘find your own staff among ours for the shows you want to do’, which is an easy way to delegate responsibility but can result in certain roles being unfulfilled on projects.)

                I think we can all agree at least that Commie’s release would be better with sign TLs, but I also think we can generally agree that the release is pretty good in spite of that. Save the hatred for a better opportunity, y’all. I’m sure there will be one.

                Reply
        • lol, I was wondering how long it’d be til you showed up.
          I see we got a visual grade of B, gonna bitch at Dark_Sage to downgrade it to a D too?

          Reply
          • Way to completely miss the point, as usual.
            1. Visual = not only typesetting
            2. Dark_Sage doesn’t claim to be typesetting expert that has right to talk shit about people for not adjusting proper blur or border colors (lol). It’s to be expected that the best typesetter in the world is judged more harshly than editor.
            3. I wasn’t bitching at nrr. I mentioned single mistake (severe one though). When you showed “so what” stance and started bitching at me for doing it, I provided more examples. But no, you had to stay absurdly defensive. So I proved you wrong by listing all the mistakes. What was the best typestters’ in the world response? Censorship! Commie might fail, but it’s forbidden to say it out loud. Sugoi.
            4. I wasn’t saying it should get D, only retorted to your mindless argumentation.
            5. Calm down, keep your e-peen quiet, don’t rage so hard when someone points out your mistakes. You aren’t perfect. No one is. It’s not a shame to fail from time to time. Accept critique and try to improve next time.
            I don’t really care what score you get, there aren’t many alternatives after all. It’s just hard to stay silent when I see you like that.
            ­
            P.S. Xythar, why are taking every comment about Commie so personally even if you have nothing to do with the show?
            ­
            ~~^__^~~

            Reply
  2. “Do you guys really not have anyone able to translate this or was it just too hard for your typesetter?”

    The former. We’re only typesetting the signs that CR translates because there aren’t any translators who want to bother translating the rest of the signs in every episode.

    I’m pretty sure “How about you let your big sister win it for you?” is thanks to CR’s translators (I think they brought back their D-team for this one) but it really should have been edited. I groaned a little when I read that line the other day.

    Reply
    • Probably a silly question, but why bother releasing this at all if you don’t have a tcer to go over it? Is it just for the karaoke? Oh wait…

      Reply
      • Because CR’s script is derp as hell (“Good morning Jiisuri, Ichiyon”), their timing sucks and they don’t typeset – all of which we can improve on. What a stupid question.

        Reply
        • Seems like a pointless exercise to me, just re-editing and typesetting without checking the translation too. But then, I’m considered old school now, so maybe that’s why I don’t get it.

          Reply
          • Then feel free not to watch it. CR/HS are obviously going to be faster, so if you don’t care about the difference there’s no reason to wait for us.

            Reply
            • Oh I don’t even care about the show. Absolutely ridiculous concept from start to finish. I was just questioning the mindset on releasing a show without some kind of Japanese knowledge casting an eye over the script – but then, I guess that’s what fansubbing is these days. Rehashing official sources because the visuals offend someone’s sensibilities.
              Le sigh – I am too oldskool for this (goes back to editing 80s shows).

              Reply
            • We translate plenty of shows ourselves as well, but there’s usually no point in translating something that’s simulcast.

              Reply
            • >usually no point in translating something that’s simulcast.

              Never a point. If it’s actually simulcasted you’re a damn fool and you’re wasting your time if you’re re-translating something instead of just TLCing the simulcast.

              >>inb4 some weeaboo group member with some irrational hatred of simulcast scripts

              Reply
            • Oh, I see the point if you’re tlcing rather than translating – but just plain editing, and improving the typesetting… Just seems like a waste of energy to me.

              Reply
            • You act like the official subs aren’t almost always very accurate. Just look at 8th’s reviews. Most of the time the official subs are very, very accurate but have bad editing.

              Reply
  3. Revy-chan: For the record, I disagree with any “scene snap errors” that would require over 300ms of lead-in to fix. I wouldn’t consider those errors at all, though in the end it’s up to the personal taste/style of the timer.

     

    Just mentioning it since I notice those “errors” are coming up a lot in your reviews and I’m pretty sure 95% of them are done on purpose.

    Reply
    • All of them were within 300ms, or less. Most were actually closer to 200ms. Anything over 300, it depends on the scene but 90% of them were well within 200ms.

      Reply
      • Here’s how much lead-in the first four lines mentioned would have with your adjustments:

         

        Dialogue: 0,0:00:19.70,0:00:23.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from the high school section to help with the beach school

         

        460ms

         

        Dialogue: 0,0:00:58.74,0:01:02.16,Default,Fujiko,0000,0000,0000,,Well, I was asked to take care of the flower bed here,

         

        370ms

         

        Dialogue: 0,0:01:07.71,0:01:09.04,Default,Fujiko,0000,0000,0000,,That’s correct.

         

        450ms

         

        Dialogue: 0,0:01:07.71,0:01:09.04,Default,Fujiko,0000,0000,0000,,That’s correct.

         

        420ms

         

        Do I have to do the rest too? >_>

        Reply
  4. “I suppose it’s kind of hard to be impressed with a group goes with no-effects, […].”

    Derp.

    On an unrelated note, this show fucking sucks.

    Reply

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