Controversial Fansub Documentary

[Mentar]

The documentary raised a few justified criticisms and was delivered in an amusing way

Unfortunately, the few real points could have easily been condensed to a quarter of the size.

The main weakness: If the "professional" way is so obviously superior, why are the fans preferring fansubs to "professional" subs? Obviously the fans don't seem to agree with the author. And there are some very good reasons for that.

What remains are bitter rantings of a spurned pro, delivered in the same sneery-arrogant way he accuses fansubbers of having...

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by Mentar

What remains are bitter rantings of a spurned pro, delivered in the same sneery-arrogant way he accuses fansubbers of having...

If you look at his CV, he's not much of a pro. I know some active fansubbers with much more pro experience (I won't name names).

-Tofu

[D404]

I kidna loled that he argues for total westernization of subs, including replacing japanese puns with western/american ones, yet goes on to say "why would the japanese put english on this grave".

"Well good sir," I would ask, "why would the japanese use american/western puns."

GOOD DAY.

*wanders off after being a retard*

Mind you, I agree that logos, epenis credits, SUPA-FLASHY kara, etc are fucking retarded and useless. :F

[Tofusensei]

I'd like to also note how dumb he goes to say:

"You need an Amiga (or a PC) and a copy of Substation Alpha."

Because NO ONE used Jacosub or ZeroG...

-Tofu

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

If you look at his CV, he's not much of a pro. I know some active fansubbers with much more pro experience (I won't name names).

-Tofu

Okay, well - I just believed his... er... self-description. No matter how competent/experienced he really is, I think it's very obvious that he strongly considers himself a pro at least. Even though some statements were obviously very silly. Like the one where he said that with modern tools fansubbing an episode would now take only half an hour...

He follows a certain school of thought. A valid one IMHO, even though I don't adhere to it myself for various reasons. And he did have some points - but they were drowned out by longish repetitions. And devalued by his painting with a very broad brush, as if fansubs didn't have different styles either.

[Deathkillz]

Funny how I just stumbled here...it must be my first time in this section of the forum

I think the guy really do complain a lot (and hold some serious grudge on the group subbing one piece, not that I watch it).

He probably hasn't heard of the term "beggers can't be choosers" as I am certainly am grateful that we have fansubbers taking their time to translate something for stangers to enjoy or otherwise we none Japanese literate fans won't have this experience in the first place.

There are really too many points he has tried to pick on but they are rather silly imo.

Those examples where he comically add subtitles to a movie prove a point fell completely flat on it's face. I should question why and english language movie would need english subtitles if he is willing to mock why the name of the police station in a scene from death note was placed on top of the original (on top as in above it).

Another nag he was picking on was the use of "selective bullshitting" as he puts it. Whilst he may have a minor point about not translating "onee-sama" he then goes to bash the fansubbers for tanslation words like "you" and "I". If he thinks that fansubbers are being undecisive to be annoying then he is wrong. He needs to look someone up on how sentences flow naturally.

I had a real laugh at when he pointed out the fault with not translating "ahoge" then translating "book worm" (or something like that). Imagine injecting "shut up miss sticking up hair" into the sentence...err sorry, but it just doesn't flow

Well I can say that someone wasted half a year of their life more than me

[Schneizel]

I must say, I never knew the way Japanese people watched anime on TV was with English "pro DVD" subtitles...

[SeijiSensei]

I'm not a subber, just a fan. As a fan, I don't think he understands your audience the way you do.

His iconic "professional" translator apparently must assume that the viewing audience has no comprehension of the source language being used or the source culture being portrayed. Having those preconceptions about the fansubbing audience would do many of us an injustice. I don't want or need to see honorifics translated into English. It's not hard to understand what "-san" "-kun" "-chan" "-sama" and the like all mean if you watch enough anime. I can't tell whether the Japanese is "correctly" translated, but if the subtitles are literate and synchronous with the events on-screen in tone and complexity of meaning, I'm likely to credit the intelligence, knowledge, and experience of the people who put those words at the bottom of the screen.

I share some of this fellow's concerns about simultaneous on-screen notes, but he misses the fact that the fansub audience largely watches these shows on a computer. I can choose to pause the player and read the note or just ignore it and continue along with the show. I don't like notes that are displayed in less time than I can read them, though, since I'm not always in a position to pause the player.

I'll just close by saying I have an enormous amount of respect for the fansubbing community. This guy will get some traction, perhaps, but only because of what you do, not because of his little rant. Maybe I've just been lucky in my choices, but I've seen many quite beautiful releases in my few years of watching anime, and they seem to increase in both quality and number each year. As a self-admitted "leech" let me just thank you all collectively right here. He may get his moment in the sun on YouTube, but we here on AS know who the true stars are.

[asunder]

I've tagged this thread as 'noob' and 'whining'
Since we can only tag 2 items, what else should this thread be tagged?
My other suggested tags: delusional , pompous, bitter, bored, dumbdumbdumb, !controversial and headupass

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by Deathkillz

I had a real laugh at when he pointed out the fault with not translating "ahoge" then translating "book worm" (or something like that). Imagine injecting "shut up miss sticking up hair" into the sentence...err sorry, but it just doesn't flow

I dunno, "Shut up, Alfalfa!" would have been much preferred :X I think that's his point about creative translation.

-Tofu

[Schneizel]

...yes, I'm sure everyone knows who Alfalfa is, and there's no way they'd confuse his name with the flower.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by kodachrome

...yes, I'm sure everyone knows who Alfalfa is, and there's no way they'd confuse his name with the flower.

I dunno, I write my scripts for a reasonably intelligent American audience :X

YMMV

-Tofu

[Kristen]

I really disagree with him on certain points. Namely, a lot of the point on TL. I mean, Kogarashi-san or Yume-chan or whatever is usually invisible to me now, anyways, but it is just sort of special. It allows for people to see name differences and relationships easier.
And his "excessive TL notes" are true. Some fansubs do use far too many TL notes to explain things that they could've put in English. But, they are necessary at times. For instance, when they talk about food, or traditional ceremonies in Japan. Like, I enjoy seeing fansubs with a note saying Taiyaki is a pastry with jam in it, not ones that call it "jam-fish-bread" or whatever. But do it once, no more.
The excessive font usage is true. That's why whenever I freelance a parody, it gets encoded in size 30 arial. There's no need to have fancy fonts on the screen.

The karaoke is DEFINITELY true. I despise karaoke in all forms, and have since like January. Since that show is licensed, I won't mention it here. But, what that karaoke did was incredibly stupid. It added in an animation for karaoke, fansubber credits, AND TLed the original credits. As a result, the OP was nothing but text.
OP's are made for their animation, not for dancing text. For instance, look at To Love Ru. I've seen that from many fansub groups, all who do karaoke. But, you just cannot watch what's actually going on. Either you're distracted by the staff credits, or you are stuck trying to pay attention to the animation while the text is just dancing away. I didn't watch TLR's OP for real until episode 5, when I started fansubbing it myself. And I think watching the original animation has been a MUCH better experience than seeing a bunch of text dance on screen.

The typesetting has a point, but it holds less merits. I've never noticed typesetting, personally. But, it is nicer that being left in the dark or seeing some on screens. On screens are just as distracting as TL notes, so he was hypocritical to say that they should start making on screens instead. So, I'm for typesetting. However, I'm against stupid typesetting. Like, typesetting some remote sign that has nothing to do with the anime to begin with.

As for his editing comments, he really was far off the mark. He was showing times when an editor should have done something differently. He just assumes it is shown as is because TLs wanted it that way. No, it's usually that an editor misses it because it looks fine in their eyes.

He should have talked about timing. Because scene timing is OBVIOUSLY much worse than the old ways of injecting fansubs and sometimes missing a line completely. [/sarcasm]


He had a good point at the start in saying that competitive quality fansubbing exists, and it is stupid. Honestly, just let whoever gets it out first get it out first, and then release a high quality release. Multiple quality groups competing is just rediculous.
Heck, fansubs are a tool. They aren't an art. You get fansubs to watch what you can't understand in Japanese. I'd much rather go for something out fast that looking for "artsyness"

[Jaka]

"Japanese is a sacred language"

Seriously, I don't know whether to laugh or cry after watching this.

[Eeknay]

10/10 great troll would watch again.

[Xabin]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

I dunno, I write my scripts for a reasonably intelligent American audience :X

YMMV

-Tofu

I feel offended. Why am I not included in your userbase?!

[Slice of Life]

I'm not American, and when I think "alfalfa" it's the sprouts of that flower you put into your salad. Well, most fansubs don't do these obscure localizations which already leads to fansubs - commercial releases 1-0.

After viewing the whole docu I don't really understand why some people react so defensive here and at youtube. The only valid point in this documentation are the sometimes awkward translations. Yes, "person" for example is more often wrong than right. But just to put things into perspective: I see equally bad and worse translations from English into German every day. Not done by hobbists, but professionals. In books, newspapers, or dubbed TV. Translation is a hard job even if you're fluent in both languages. And especially when you are, literally translated phrases that don't make much sense tend to creep into the target language.

Now, all other bugs that guy mentioned are in my eyes either
- important features, like infoboxes where necessary or translated signs. I would consider the latter even as indispensable for a sub deserving an A rating.
- nice additions like moderately flashy karaoke or group names next to the anime title, fitting in style
- neutral like -san, -sama, etc. endings. (You can live without them because you have ears and they are not any more indispensable in Japanese than in many European languages. But if that guy hates them so why doesn't he ask for a boycott of Funimation?)
- and finally things that would indeed be bad if they would actually happen like leaving random Japanese words in the text or hyper flashy subtitles. It's just that I hardly, if ever, encounter such things like he presents them in his handpicked examples. Am I watching the wrong anime?

So most things he complains about are actually improvements over official DVD releases. Or (almost) never happen.

And as a final remark: bad sub beats no sub.

[Doughnuts]

He babbles on for 20 minutes about the over-use of translator notes and additional text covering the screen, but then when he discusses typesetting, he completely negates all that argument by saying "you shouldn't do neat typesetting - a simple translator note will do." I wonder how he would go about doing that 'professionally' if there is more than 1 sign on the screen at once, or maybe if someone is speaking at the same time? It's obvious that this pretentous twat doesn't realise that the "professional" fansubs are the way they are due to the limitations of DVDs that aren't a problem in the fansub world. Maybe when we become more professional we'll start encoding MPEG2-PS episodes and do away with mkvs.

He has some valid points though, I don't think it's neccessary to keep in the sans and chans for anime set outside of Japan where the honorifics are irrelivent, but in the opposing case, it's almost necessary to keep them in sometimes or you completely lose the meaning behind what's being said. I'd love to see his attempt at translating SZS puns into understandable english and retain the humor in them too. It's clear what viewers prefer anyway. Fansub watchers are interested in the Japanese cultute/language and are grateful to fansubbers for retaining cultural references and sometimes educating us with notes.

[Access]

What he neglects to mention is that the fan-population has become more sophisticated with the advent of the 'net, in the 80's and 90's few people knew the different honorifics and what they meant, now most fans know them by default so why bother translating them. Also VHS fansubs were typically shown in a club environment before a large audience, today subs are downloaded and viewed often by a single user who can pause, rewind, or jump forward the video at their leisure. There were pleanty of really bad VHS fansubs out there which he does not show, and there was also a lot of elitism and things like exclusive clubs and profiteering in distribution to the tune of $10000. every quarter.

The purposes are different from the very beginning, with fansubbing the old adage 'by fans, for fans' applies, while commercial products aim to please 'the masses'. Also for an example of on-screen notes he needs look no further than ADV's Pani Poni Dash DVD which has a TON of on-screen notes that can be turned on/off from the menu.

His comments about pizazz or over-done effects are on track, but at the same time, I don't have the unrealistic expectation that debating it and pointing that out will change a thing. There will always be people trying to compete, show off, or outdo one another. Fansubbers are not professionals.

[Lordshin]

Originally Posted by kodachrome

...yes, I'm sure everyone knows who Alfalfa is, and there's no way they'd confuse his name with the flower.

thats why you put a translator's note amirite?

so yeah i finished watching this and im going to say i agree with some things he said... for example:

-multiple lines all over the place. i mean we can, and i do, ignore them but still...
-a lot of translator's notes, most are really useless and if we really want to know, or care, what they mean we'd look it up. also.. wasnt there a fansub that didnt translate "hai" into yes but put a translator's not saying: "Hai means yes in japanes" >.>
-not translating a single word for no apparent reason, "nakama" "yosh" >.>
-he also has a point about the grammar some lines just sound wrong.

but really.. i dont mind all of the things he's complaining about... although.. translator's notes that ruin what you're about to see kinda make me angry...