Fansub Review: [Nutbladder] Hidamari Sketch X Honeycomb (Episode 04)

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

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All I want for Christmas is whoever started this “commercials in fansub releases” trend to die.

Table of Contents

Release Information

Visual Quality

Script Quality

Results

Release Information

Episode details.

Release format: MKV (318 MB, 10-bit)

Japanesiness: No honorifics.

English style: American English.

Encoding details: http://pastebin.com/1mWHipPH

Speed: Quick (<48 hours)

 

External links.

Group website: http://www.onezerotwo.net/

IRC channel: #(X’_____’)@irc.rizon.net

SubCompare screenshot comparisons: http://www.subcompare.com/hidamari_sketch_x_honeycomb/

Commie’s fansub reviews: http://notredrevie.ws/autumn-2012-reviews/#hidamari

 

 

Visual Review

Karaoke.

Opening. This is literally just the dialogue font. You can act like you wanted it this way, but if that’s the case you wouldn’t have labeled the style “op-placeholder”.

Maybe you put in more effort later, but as of ep 4 you didn’t.

Rating: Bad.

 

Ending. This is just the same as the OP. Why do this to me, Nutbladder? ;_;

Rating: Bad.

 

 

Typesetting.

 

 

Ads

These two ads took up a minute of time that I’ll never get back. Hey Nutbladder, if you’re gonna put ads in you might as well fucking typeset them.

And what’s up with your focus on the Japanese names? Kaichutabi’s already been localized under “Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro”. If you’re gonna put in a fucking commercial for it, you may as well use the fucking name that people would recognize it by.

And 45 more seconds of commercials. Goddamn, Nutbladder, you are hilarious. In fact, this is so funny I think you should quit subbing anime and just sub commercials instead.

And a 15 second commercial. So many lols! Great anime funmaker Nutbladder.

…I hate fansubbers.

 

 

Other.

For the camera parts you should have probably messed with the sub placement so they wouldn’t run into the camera’s display.

Well, at least the sponsor screen art is good.

 

 

Script Review

Karaoke.

This is what these subs special.

What if I told you you’re allowed to have more than one comma in a line?

 

 

Main Script.

Why would you italicize Japanese words? What, is this supposed to draw attention to me not knowing what the word means? I know that already; it’s why I googled it when I got to this screen.

My only issue (though it’s incredibly minor) here is the italics. For many food items I think it’s fine to leave them untranslated if there’s no almost-equivalent word in English, so I saw no issue with using the word “furikake”.


But you’ve clearly made it this far without them.

You can’t read the English in the time given. The Japanese line is four syllables, but this one is 11, which isn’t even close.

“Art Department” or “art department”. Choose. “art” isn’t usually capitalized as the name of a classroom, so you can’t mix the capitalization here. If it were the English department, that would be a different story, because “English” is always capitalized. But because it’s “art”, you need to choose which standard to use for this release.

What feels looking straight at ’em?

I, … um… Wait, … what?

Comma splices make me sad. ;_;

Class A and Class B are capitalized here, but in the regular subs, they aren’t. Either way works, but you need to standardize it.

The signs are generally translated as part of the regular sub script, but the “doki” line was untranslated.

 

 

Results

Watchability: Watchable.

Visual grade: B-

Script grade: B-

Overall grade: B-

While it’s not like Nutbladder’s release was bad, FFF’s release was better from what I saw. Overall, I’d go with FFF for the show.
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18 thoughts on “Fansub Review: [Nutbladder] Hidamari Sketch X Honeycomb (Episode 04)”

  1. If this trend keeps up you should add in a commercial review section. It’s clearly an important part of the anime experience. Why else would they be included?

    Reply
  2. I’ve done the italicizing Japanese words thing before. Actually, I believe it’s what I do by default, except for a subset of words that are considered common words and are therefore unitalicized (this can vary by show).

    Reply
    • Sure, but generally you use style guides for academic text or editing guidelines for official publications.

      Subtitles are a whole different beast with no value gained from italicized foreign words (if you can come up with some great reason to do it, please let me know), and a significant drawback in visual appeal if you decide to go that route. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

      Reply
      • Is the drawback in visual appeal usually because people choose fonts that don’t have italicized versions, causing it to appear like a case of {\fax} gone wrong, or is it just because italics look awful if the subtitles keep switching between regular and italics?

        Just curious, since italicized foreign words usually don’t bother me.

        Reply
        • Hey Onee-chan-san, would you like to watch ninja anime on the Sony tv while we sip on ocha and eat pocky?

          It’s because italics draw attention — that’s the point of italics. So when you’re drawing attention to all these Japanese words, what you’re doing is telling the viewer to focus on that stuff, which invariably leads to a bad viewer experience because they’re focusing on the subs’ intricacies rather than the show. It’s the worst policy to have in fansubs because the entire fucking thing is foreign; what’s the value in drawing attention to the unlocalized words?

          Reply
          • Oh. I see. I never realized that I was actually doing that behavior (focusing on italicized words) until you mentioned it. Thanks.

            Reply

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