On Fakesubs

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

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I doubt there’s a maternity ward around that has more babies than this scene. Jesus fucking Christ, I feel sorry for any sociologist who picks fansubbers for their thesis.

Episode 5.5

In case you missed the drama over the past few days, a bunch of “fansubbers” got super mad that I would dare call them out for being lazy little shits. Apparently they’d never been to Crymore before, so this was quite a bit of culture shock to them.

Grr! I e-hate you, D_S!
“Grr! I e-hate you, D_S!”

The issue they had revolved around me disqualifying a number of releases that were not significantly different from the official subs that they were modified from.

To me, it makes sense: no point in reviewing what is essentially the same release over and over again, especially since my primary focus as a reviewer is on the dialogue. But to them it was blatant snubbery! Who am I to judge frontline fansubbers like them? They’re the ones remaining relevant by releasing unchanged fansub scripts!

Quick! Name ten fansubbers that aren't Dark_Sage!
Quick! Name 10 fansubbers that aren’t Dark_Sage!

 

Bzzzt!

 

Their argument goes something like, “We fixed a single typo in a Crunchyroll script! That makes us objectively better than Crunchyroll, hence we deserve an A!”

"Why won't you understand that, D_S?!"
“Why can’t you understand that, D_S?!”

It’s a heaping load of self-apologetics. But you know what, fine. I will give them that fixing one typo in a script and releasing it makes the release better than the typo’d one. They are absolutely correct, and I was wrong to even so much as almost imply anything to the contrary.

 

So here’s what I’m gonna do: Starting next season “fakesub reviews” will turn into “fakesub comparisons” (title pending). What I’ll be doing with those releases is posting comparisons to the original Crunchyroll/Funimation scripts when the release’ changes are not sufficient enough to warrant reviews on their own. That means typesetting, QCing, and karaoke are all in-scope.

And you know what, I’ll even give you guys grades now.

"I-It's like I have any reason to thank you, though! B-Baka!"
“I-It’s like I have any reason to thank you, though! B-Baka!”

That’s right, your very own fucking score you can pin on your mother’s refrigerator to show her how your life wasn’t a complete waste after all.

Now I would like to note something for all the Commies and Anime-Kois out there that are jizzing their pants in excitement: It’s not me you dumbasses should be trying to convince; it’s the entire anime fandom that fucking left you because you don’t create content worth waiting for.

So my scoring methodology is going to be a bit different from my normal reviews. You’re going to be judged based on whether or not your release is worth waiting for. So if you’re gonna be lazy, I do encourage you to be quick about it. Because I assure you, the clock is not on your side.

 

~~~
~~~

I’d implement this new standard this season, but I have the real reviews to get to before I stall out.

I'd implement this new standard right now but I have actual reviews to get to. Doki's Mahouka has been waiting ever so patiently.
And Doki’s Mahouka has been waiting ever so patiently.

 

What’s not going to be changing:

  • I will still call these releases fakesubs.
  • I will still call the garbage responsible for these releases fakesubbers.
  • I will still only half-jokingly wish death upon anyone involved with this blight upon the scene.
  • Naruto will remain the greatest anime of the all time ever.

 

So there we fucking go. Everyone wins, and life is good again. Roll Eva clap.

Congratulations, everybody.
Congratulations, everybody.

 

Now, can I finally go watch Captain America without having to worry about some dumbfuck shooting up a school because I dared imply they weren’t the greatest thing to happen to fansubbing since me?

92 thoughts on “On Fakesubs”

  1. >Naruto will remain the greatest anime of the all time ever.
    I’ll have you know that Attack on Titan is with its epic story that progresses forward every second.
    Your existence is as fake as these fansubs.

    Reply
  2. Yay! More reviews for you to procrasturbate on and then drop all together half-way through! Because FUCK productivity!

    Reply
  3. Honestly I really don’t care about fanedit reviews. The only time I bother with their releases are if no-one’s doing an original translation and Horriblesubs ripped straight from Funi, because they have bad vid quality and large filesize. Oh, and also if it’s a show with tits in it that goes uncensored on ATX.

    I’d be fine with just having the Horriblesubs review, and then a footnote at the bottom very briefly explaining what the various fanedits did. There’s not really any need for them to get more attention than that. Besides, there’s only so many times you can do the “Look how little they changed, and even then only to add mistakes!” routine.

    Reply
  4. OMAYDAYTOES!

    …and yeah this seems more then fair. I guess it could even be a useful service inasmuch as significant typos get fixed or the result has much more readable typesetting, lyrics added or whatever. I hope you too adopt the Original Sin from the translation side kokujin-kun is already doing, and instafail them if they actually add any typos of any sort whatsoever. If they’re fakesubbing and doing it fast and adding value, however small, then great. The great crime would be taking the lazy route and then making the result worse.

    Reply
  5. >“I-It’s like I have any reason to thank you, though! B-Baka!”
    I’m going to copy this post, change this typo, release it as my own, and get A+ status. Thanks, D_S!

    Reply
  6. Meh, all I want is a Shark vs Underwater throdown, and a all out brawl between whoever is subbing that Atelier show. Everything else might as well be Horrible. (Subs).

    Reply
    • The Sidonia releases, uh, aren’t just me, you know. And if it turns out anything like the last one, there won’t be much value in the review.

      Reply
      • I know, I just didn’t want to type “Watakushi” by accident somewhere there.

        As far as I’m concerned you and Underwater both do good work on Sidonia.

        Reply
  7. Call me a noob or what ever, but I’ve always secretly hoped for a collaboration between 8thsin and DS, TL & QC. Has this ever happened in the past, did I miss it?
    Sorry off topic, but yeah I kinda miss the days when these guys were really active.

    Reply
  8. Well, seems like there is still some will left in D_S. I thought he is no longer interested in reviewing subs. It is really apparent on D_S lack of enthusiasm this days.. I guess work get the best of him lol

    Reply
  9. Well, seems like there is still some will left in D_S. I thought he is no longer interested in reviewing subs. It is really apparent on D_S lack of enthusiasm this days.. I guess work get the best of him lol

    Reply
  10. It’s okay, D_S, you don’t have to try so hard. It’s perfectly understandable that you want to lighten your load by making up reasons to call things “fakesubs” in order to disqualify them, even if it means not actually reviewing what could be the best fansub releases for a given show. Though seeing as we’re a third into the season and all you’ve managed to put out is one review, one TL party, and a bunch of diff screenshots (by the way, did you know that you can export scripts to text in Aegisub? You could make the diffs much cleaner if you removed everything but the text from the lines), I guess that wouldn’t happen anyway… but not to worry, at least you can trust the NyaaTorrents A+ committee to actually review and recommend releases!

    Reply
    • Daiz, please consider the following CGi torrents for A+ and tell me why they fail if they fail.

      idolm@ster – Biggest offending case, CGi uses the exact same subs on a BD source, size increase is no different than a typical TV->BD conversion.
      FMA:B – Eclipse is A+, CGi released a BD using the same subs.
      Suite Precure – BDrip with highly corrected subtitles, definitely better than some subs of other series that got A+.
      Star Driver – gg is A+ even though CGi released a BD using their subs, with some improvements to the scripts.
      Shiki – Good subs (umee) on BD.
      Rideback – Frostii has A+ even though CGi used their subs on a BD source.
      Yumekui Merry – gg has A+ even though CGi used their subs on a BD and took out trolls like “Vagina Bones”

      These are a bunch of examples that really make me question if Nyaa’s A+ committee actually looks at releases or just upvotes their own. I saw you started giving Chihiro A+ for Mangaka-san, but I’m not entirely convinced that wasn’t done just because I have started to publicly state that the system is biased.

      Reply
      • Also, there are more examples, but some are debatable, or I can see Daiz’s method of thinking even though I disagree with it. These are just the obvious ones I’d like an explanation on.

        Reply
        • Well, people are biased towards what they like in their subs, but it isn’t necessarily the group name that Nyaa mods are biased against.

          That being said, they should probably change “A+” to “Recommended” instead because that’s really what it is: a recommendation, not a grade. “A+” is misleading as it leads to people believing that everyone will like that release instead of just the people that think like the evaluators.

          It also doesn’t help that they’re all human and that they wouldn’t have the motivation to evaluate every single release.

          Reply
          • Also, I think there were cases where the encode was one of the factors that led to releases not getting A+ status.

            Reply
            • Blue Enteries

              Torrents marked as A+ quality are blue in the torrent lists.
              These are exclusive torrents picked by us.
              They represent the best available version of this content.
              There will be no duplicates.
              Only versions that we actually consider worthy of a seal of approval will be listed.

              It’s not necessarily a grade…

              Reply
          • That’s exactly what I tried to tell nyaa staff (on changing “A+” to “recommended) on one of the recent posts here. Still waiting for a response.

            Reply
      • I would assume because CGi’s releases are BDs while the subs you used for them are weekly tv releases, which people would like to know about the quality of the group’s subs during their television airing.

        Reply
      • I wouldn’t give CGi’s FMA:B the A+ because of the dual audio bloat. That doesn’t make your point any wronger, though. Eclipse shouldn’t have it anymore either.

        Reply
        • This is true. But at the same time, http://www.nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=386504 was accepted which used FLAC and a commentary track.
          In the end, the audio difference between Meguca’s release and the FMA release is 72 MB per episode, or less than a GB per 13 episodes. This means the final filesize if CGi used the same audio policies as Meguca would be 44 GB instead of 48 GB. This would still be considered large.

          So while I agree that bloated files should not be A+, it needs some consistency.

          Reply
          • Those BDs are done by the fansub group themselves. They’re not just a simply remux of another group’s script. They’re actually tl’d and done with those group. CGi in the other hand, only takes another group’s script, bloat their encode with CRF13 [god knows why?], and so forth.

            So unless CGi actually use their own script, you’ll never see them having A+ torrent.

            btw, Meguca is obviously a joint between UTW and another group(s).

            Reply
            • Actually Meguca is just a tag we (UTW) used for Madoka (we do this sometimes for fun!). For the TV series, the main staff were: Me, Xythar, Kusion and 8thSin.

              Reply
              • Kristen,

                If you really want Xythar to give up his free time (of which he could be doing other things) to go through your requests and check each of them you’re going the wrong way about it.

                Reply
                • free time of which he could be doing other things -> he could be doing other things of his free time

                  ????

                  Reply
                • If he refuses to review them or stalls them because of me as a person, that proves bias as well. Stall, or just not, give out what should be obvious A+ ranks because of not liking a certain group member is what people have said is wrong with the A+ system the entire time.

                  Reply
                  • Well if he refuses to review or stalls them because you as a person pissed him off it doesn’t prove bias, it just proves that you are a fool for pissing him off when you wanted something done.

                    @Anonymous

                    It’s the god given right of native speakers to desecrate the language, but thanks. Just means he could be doing better things with his time.

                    Reply
                    • Who said I wanted it done? You seem to misunderstand. This isn’t being requested to get CGi to A+, but to prove a point. And he and you are by far proving it already.

                    • Well, if you don’t actually want them looked at, there are a lot of other things I could be doing with my time.

                    • Which proves your bias and the bias of the nyaa A+ system.

                      See, the whole fact that they aren’t A+ now already proves the bias.

                      If one of your friends did this, you would have either automatically A+’d it when it was reviewed, or if you reviewed it you would have DL’d it, done a quick skim to check the dialogue font and maybe a sign or two, and then put it as A+, similar to FFF’s AKB review.

                      Since it was me, it became “I’ll do it when I get around to it – still reviewing this season”, an excuse to stall (This season is 4 weeks old, there can’t be THAT much to review if you actually do reviews at all). And then instead of checking dialogue or a single sign, you would have checked every sign, possibly in every episode, looking for a single excuse to fail it.

                      You’ve done very well to prove the bias of the nyaa A+ system Xythar with this. Thank you.

                    • >If one of your friends did this, you would have either automatically A+’d it when it was reviewed, or if you reviewed it you would have DL’d it, done a quick skim to check the dialogue font and maybe a sign or two, and then put it as A+, similar to FFF’s AKB review.

                      Erm, where are you basing that from?

                    • >If one of your friends did this

                      Because every single FFF BD release is A+, right?

                      I flag upgrades of A+ releases done by people I trust when I see them. Usually these are upgrades done by the original group (in which case the A+ is automatic) but there have been a couple of recent upgrades performed by FFF which I have flagged because they have already proven themselves to be competent shifters.

                      This does not mean I’m going to go through every single BD release ever without due cause, especially those released years before I even started fansubbing, and fuck you if you think I’m going to spend all day reviewing ancient, probably-shitty releases for someone who doesn’t even believe in the system.

                      My offer is the same as always: if you or anyone else believe you have a release of A+ quality that you want reviewed, flag it and I will check it out. However, the point of the A+ system is to help our downloaders out, not to fuel your or anyone else’s ego, and if you think you can make me waste my time solely to prove some stupid “point” of yours, you can go fuck yourself.

                    • Wow, you’re just digging yourself into more and more of a hole here.

                      “I flag upgrades of A+ releases done by people I trust when I see them.” is bias at the start. Especially considering you no longer are saying “just the same group”.
                      It’s a more PC way of saying “I give my friends A+.”

                      Also, funny how you’re pretending this whole thing is to fuel my ego. Not sure how this would make me feel any better about myself if you are biased or not. But it certainly is about fueling the ego of the nyaa staff members by making their own releases A+ and refusing to make upgrades of them to A+ if someone else did them.

                      No, Xythar, I am not going to grovel at your feet to get you to do these reviews. But OK, you say flag them to get it checked out? Sure, brb, flagging them on nyaa. Although funny how nobody from any of your friends’ groups had to flag their releases to get them reviewed.

                    • The only “hole” here is the grave you dug for yourself. I extended the olive branch to you and offered to take time out of my schedule to review your releases, at which point you promptly spat in my face because I didn’t do it in literally 24 hours. So, like I said, you can go fuck yourself.

                      One of the other mods can check out your releases because I don’t really want to have anything to do with you again. Don’t bother approaching me in the future because I will probably just ignore you.

                    • >If one of your friends did this, you would have either automatically A+’d it when it was reviewed, or if you reviewed it you would have DL’d it, done a quick skim to check the dialogue font and maybe a sign or two, and then put it as A+, similar to FFF’s AKB review.

                      Let’s see…
                      We used Evetaku’s subs (which got blue for the tv release. Our release is also the only BD release of AKB Next Stage on Nyaa. We also did some minor fixes relating to typos/typesetting while not fucking up encode/timing.

                      Clearly we didn’t deserve A+ and I just sucked Xythar’s cock because I want blue so badly.

                    • By the way, nobody asked for you to grovel. The most you had to do was extend the slightest amount of common courtesy instead of acting like I was in some kind of customer service position where I’m obligated to do what you ask regardless of how much of an asshole you’re being. But no, you are apparently mentally incapable of not being a dickhead to people, even when YOU approached ME to get your shit reviewed and then acted like I somehow had to do it to win some imaginary argument in your head.

                      In conclusion, as always, go fuck yourself.

                    • archdeco, not saying that FFF doesn’t deserve A+. Saying that the fact that there was no review to check sign timings/other mess ups, while my requests require that is bias.

                      But no Xythar, you have fully proven your bias on nyaa. I know that you would’ve never reviewed it in the first place, since you get nothing out of reviewing it. Either you have to A+ a release from a group you don’t like, or get accused of bias. Your best option was to stall, which is exactly what you did, and the instant you have an excuse not to review it, you duck out of it.

                      Thank you for doing exactly what I expected you to do. If you had done anything else, I would’ve probably had second thoughts about Nyaas A+ system not being a worthless piece of crap biased system that upvotes its own releases to try and hide other releases with that filter.

                    • Hey Xythar, I’m sooo glad to see Meguka A+ Madoka immediately upon release. You must have some amazing review team to instantaneously watch a 2 hour movie and deem it the best.

                    • >You must have some amazing review team to instantaneously watch a 2 hour movie and deem it the best.
                      >implying things can’t be offered for review well ahead of general release
                      I really hope you’re just pretending to be retarded.

                    • The only retarded people here are those who think the Nyaa staff actually did a review of the file. Stop kidding yourself, it was A+’d because of the group name. Is it better? Maybe to some people. But that’s what should’ve come from a review, which wasn’t done. gg.

                    • Believe it or not we actually watch things before we release them. I know this might be a foreign concept to you Kristen, but it’s not to us. You didn’t even bother to upload your Madoka releases to NT so I don’t see why you even give a damn.

                    • This is fucking hilarious. You guys have pre-screeners for fansub “review” purposes? How much pride are you guys gonna throw away to the circlejerk altar? Do you even have any left?

                    • >Approving your own releases based off of your QC reviews.

                      And this isn’t biased… why? Approving your own releases is exactly what I’m talking about, a system created solely to promote your own groups. If you’re going to pretend otherwise, at least have like Daiz or someone review it.

                    • Kristen,

                      Good job derailing that bakabt offer. Never change.

                      Dark_Stooge,

                      Ilu bro, also please never change.

                    • Are you still arguing this? NyaaTorrents isn’t going to change the way it operates, and Kristen’s not going to change opinions, either.

                      Since Nyaa isn’t the only or even best torrent site out there, it doesn’t even matter.

                    • What is the best torrent site? I think most groups default to nyaa because it’s a tracker with the graphical user interface of a torrent listing site. Despite its questionable A+ system, I haven’t seen another tracker that comes anywhere near giving the complete package like NT does.

                    • Every other public torrent site (for chinese cartoons) i’ve seen is terrible to be honest. NT is the most used for a good reason even if people don’t like the A+ system (which we really do give up our time for to try and help downloaders but can’t win them all!)

                    • Tokyotosho is the best torrent site as it does not attempt to shove opinions down your throat, and has a more complete listing of torrents than Nyaa, which excludes Doki’s listings, and the groups (such as my releases in CGi) which choose not to release there for various reasons.

                      If you are talking tracker only, anirena is a better overall tracker. It has the same GUI you like, and has the ability to sort sort by group simply by clicking the group name in the torrent.

                      However, I believe that the above user was talking about sites like Kickasstorrents or Piratebay.

                    • ar, that’s fine if you want to use that as an excuse for the total lack of a review on the movie, but the series itself was also instantaneously A+’d.

                    • The A+ system, and the trusted system by extension, was instituted in response to popular demand and to curb altogether horrible releases, trollsubs, and general incompetence. A+ is decided by the reviewer(s) as objectively as possible, and objecting to their judgment is perfectly legitimate.

                      Saying your release isn’t getting reviewed is not really valid criticism, however, because we review the shows we feel like reviewing, and we are loathe to sacrifice time for shows that finished airing years ago. If something was reviewed and you feel you were judged grossly unfairly, you are free to take your complaints to the relevant reviewer(s).

                      I have always explained my reasoning to the ones I reviewed if they so asked, but I’m not going to make the process more transparent because I simply lack the time to concoct long and dreary treatises on the relative merits of various releases – and they would be dreary, because I wouldn’t be trying to attention whore with them.

                      Nobody is entitled to a review.

                    • >I have always explained my reasoning to the ones I reviewed if they so asked, but I’m not going to make the process more transparent because I simply lack the time to concoct long and dreary treatises on the relative merits of various releases – and they would be dreary, because I wouldn’t be trying to attention whore with them.

                      Your jealousy sustains me.

    • >but not to worry, at least you can trust the NyaaTorrents A+ committee to actually review and recommend releases!

      Oh, so you’ve chosen an A+ release for every show every season, then?

      Reply
    • To be fair, the term “Fakesub” has been around since at least 2003-04ish. “Fansub” generally meant OTL, fakesub was any *any* official script thrown onto a raw and slightly edited/typeset.

      Meh, thanks for making me feel old Daiz.

      Reply
      • There are a lot of cases where an A+ is given to one of several competing releases that are of similar quality, and in those cases I don’t think an A+ should be awarded. But I’m curious what outright inferior releases you think have been given an A+, because I don’t think that happens as often as detractors would claim.

        Probably the worst A+ decision I can think of would be Commie’s Last Exile Ginyoku no Fam instead of SFWhine’s release.

        Reply
  11. I don’t need releases as soon as possible. If the CR/FUNi/etc scripts are fine, I’d just wait for better typesetting and styling. There’s really no reason to start a flame on trivial things like these. Simply admit you can’t review them as all you do is checking how “good” is the script in general. When there are no changes, you simply can’t bash anyone for their mistakes. If you prefer watching crappy TS/Styling/Timing, go ahead. I’d rather wait for an overall better release, even if it means having little to no changes on the actual translation.

    Reply
    • It’s just that a review is boring when the only difference is style/colors and timing. One picture is generally enough to show the difference with styling, and timing is difficult to show in a review with this format. What he already does with the fakesub disqualification posts is actually enough to show the style used by the various groups…

      Reply
  12. I like this idea a lot, at least in theory. I generally find your reviews helpful and informative, but I think a lot of the disqualifications answer a question that no one’s asking. If a group decides they want to provide song lyrics, improved typesetting and timing, and a 10-bit encode while only lightly editing the official subs, I just don’t see what the problem is unless the official subs have issues (or if the editing makes them worse). Most people are going to grab HS as always, and the people who want the extras are going to wait.

    But evaluating what the extras bring to the table compared to how long it takes for them to be released, that could be interesting. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.

    Reply
  13. No subs, no reviews? Oh, that makes sens. (But it doesn’t!)

    Let’s name this post: Fakesubbing in Fakereviewer’s Eyes.

    Reply
  14. It seems as though we can only count kokujin-kun for sub reviews this season, we’re nearing the half way mark.

    Reply

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