• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

ITT we bitch about modern anime fansubs

Status
Not open for further replies.
That 5 part doco hit the nail on the head with the frustration of watching a modern fansub...

It's fantastic the time people put into subbing a show that wont be seen in the west for a few years but fuck why do they have to obliterate any sense of style? I always have a bittersweet appreciation - "Thank you... fucktart"

It's got to be some form of ADD...

Also I've noticed a new thing creeping into subs... the "this line of dialogue can be translated in 2 ways... Hell, let's put both of them in and let the viewer decide!" fansub.

Thank you... fucktarts.
 
Cohsae said:
Watching that fansub documentary, holy crap those animated, flashing, brightly-coloured subtitles in some crazy font are the worst thing. God it looks like the subber just discovered powerpoint text effects. Why the fuck would anyone want that?
Click to expand...

I like this in the action shows when the characters are calling out the name of their moves. Especially in One Piece because it kind of goes towards that whole, 'oooooh, he gonna get owned,' feeling.

In any case, I haven't seen anything that really bothers me in the last three years since I delved into the fansub side of anime. Dattebayo's liberal translations usually bother me more then anything listed here..... minus the overtly fake screenshots.
 
2009-07-01_2128.png
 
That 5 part documentary is totally great. Pretty much said what I was thinking.

It was so nice recently when I went to go watch some of the original Gundam stuff and all the subtitles were very neat and to the point. Nothing distracting about them, save for the karaoke OP and ED songs, but I don't see that going away in any fashion too soon.
 
I don't really have problems with notes during episodes to explain some stuff (altho putting it at the end of the episode, on a wiki or something is better) but lately I'm starting to get annoyed by the usual words being left untranslated.
There is little more annoying to me than reading a kawaii or a onee-chan or imouto and stuff like that nowadays.
Even the karaoke are starting to annoy me tho.
 
I hate when they swear allot for no good reason like when they translate "Bakka" to "F**king idiot", that's just lame.
 
Freshmaker said:
Bon Clay.
Click to expand...
Bon Kurei.

It comes from the last day of the Bon festival in Japan (keeping in line with the holiday naming of the higher-up Baroque Works agents).

I don't really care either way though. Hell, not even Trace and Chaser bother me that much.
 
Aaron Strife said:
Bon Kurei.

It comes from the last day of the Bon festival in Japan (keeping in line with the holiday naming of the higher-up Baroque Works agents).

I don't really care either way though. Hell, not even Trace and Chaser bother me that much.
Click to expand...

It's Bon Clay. Bonkure (no i) is the reference but his name is spelled with a - which makes it Clay when translated. It's not uncommon to see this kind of joke. Spell a character's name differently but when you look or say it, it references something else.
 
I can't believe some of those screen shots...what the fuck.

I mean what the fuck does:

Even electronic brain pancake crystal elderly even MEAN?

:lol :lol
 
Rewrite said:
I can't believe some of those screen shots...what the fuck.

I mean what the fuck does:

Even electronic brain pancake crystal elderly even MEAN?

:lol :lol
Click to expand...
It's gotta be either a joke or a terrible Hong Kong sub. I saw some one piece episodes from HK DVDs and it would dive off into nonsensical rambling like that sometimes. It was almost like running an anime episode through google translate.
 
Relaxed Muscle said:
Very interesting documentary, about modern anime fansubs, and what's wrong with them.

Rise and fall of anime fansubs PART 1
Click to expand...
Thanks! That was a great documentary.

Didn't know it was THAT bad. I've watched two fansubbed movies this year but they had just five translator's notes each... still, it was really annoying having to pause and read the stupid note when it should've just been baked into the translation.
 
The last part where he made a parody of the "best" fansub ever made me a die a little since I remembered watching a fansub similar to that. :(
 
After watching the documentary I realized that it's the biggest reason I don't watch animé anymore.

It just became tedious instead of fun and entertaining.
 
NSBrandon said:
2009-07-01_2128.png
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm also annoyed of this.

YOU CAN TRANSLATE onomatopoeias (or however you spell it). You don't need to do a "sub: wan wan, footnote: wan wan is how japanese onomatopoeia for barking".
 
Ashour said:
I hate when they swear allot for no good reason like when they translate "Bakka" to "F**king idiot", that's just lame.
Click to expand...

That's interesting, because I hate it when people who don't know japanese get on the ones that do because they don't like how one of the three words they know (yet can't spell) was translated.

charlequin said:
Plenty of people are interested in the process of translation and like to see translators talk about their decisions and choices. I enjoy seeing a section describing translation philosophy in videogame fan translations and I'd love to see the same kind of thing in professional releases -- describing the puns that had to be reworked for English, talking about why a given character's name was changed in a certain way, that sort of thing.

If you mean "there shouldn't be translation 'notes' that are actually needed in order to figure out what random untranslated words mean," though, I am obviously in total agreement.
Click to expand...

No, I agree that shedding light on thought processes and the way translators make decisions can be really cool, and they would make great DVD bonuses or extra features.

For example: http://www.dattebayo.com/pr/66 :D

The second part, which you are in total agreement with, is what I meant.

Let's take the Mother 3 fan patch. I enjoyed reading how they came to the decision to use "Fassad" for "Yokuba." I thought it was a great choice. Who wants another line/window pooping up saying "The 'Yoku' in 'Yokuba' means 'greed'" right in the middle of your game? It detracts from the experience. Notes in fansubs are no different.
 
HisshouBuraiKen said:
That's interesting, because I hate it when people who don't know japanese get on the ones that do because they don't like how one of the three words they know (yet can't spell) was translated.
Click to expand...
Good ol' fansubber elitism!
 
I like that YouTube documentary. A lot of good points. Half the fun of "localization" is putting things into terminology that make the most sense to a native speaker. Things like special moves with a translation note the first time I guess I can understand, but why not just put the English meaning? You can hear them say it in Japanese every time they do it!
 
slade said:
I like this in the action shows when the characters are calling out the name of their moves. Especially in One Piece because it kind of goes towards that whole, 'oooooh, he gonna get owned,' feeling.
Click to expand...

The character should be enough to show it. The font effects only shows that the people are having some attention problems.
 
HisshouBuraiKen said:
That's interesting, because I hate it when people who don't know japanese get on the ones that do because they don't like how one of the three words they know (yet can't spell) was translated.
Click to expand...
All the same, it is annoying when the translator doesn't seem interested in applying the proper context for a word's use, and immediately opts for more swear words. One fansub of Hajime no Ippo had Ippo fighting Date. A fairly respectful rivalry, and they had Date saying stuff like "You damn piece of shit! Stay down bastard!" Stuff like that just comes across as the translator thinking more swearing is always better/ZOMG MATURE!!!.
 
Freshmaker said:
All the same, it is annoying when the translator doesn't seem interested in applying the proper context for a word's use, and immediately opts for more swear words. One fansub of Hajime no Ippo had Ippo fighting Date. A fairly respectful rivalry, and they had Date saying stuff like "You damn piece of shit! Stay down bastard!" Stuff like that just comes across as the translator thinking more swearing is always better/ZOMG MATURE!!!.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of the old FFIV fan translations changing Debu Chocobo and saying it was supposed to be "Lard ass Chocobo" or "Fat ass Chocobo" or something idiotic like that.
 
Read this thread late last night, couldn't help laughing pretty loudly. Had to come back to say thanks.

God fansubs have gotten terrible. I'm glad I stopped watching in high school.
 
Icehouse said:
PLEASE change my name back. I can't post as this nick.
Click to expand...
Can't we just add it to your tag

"Also know as Himuro in Japanese and Moo in cow, Still lookin for sailors though."

I don't even remember if Himuro was your original name :lol
 
i think there are just too much swearing in the subs nowadays, when you watch them it just makes you feel immature.

edit: oh god, just saw the epic name change, lol i can't stop laughing, icehouse owned
 
:lol @ Himuro

I just read the new Naruto mange chapter (by SleepyFans) and after this thread it is just so painful to think of the Mange reading out anyway other than how it was translated by SleepyFans.

It is just a perfect translation. Everything reads out as if the mange was written in English.
 
shintoki said:
Can't we just add it to your tag

"Also know as Himuro in Japanese and Moo in cow, Still lookin for sailors though."

I don't even remember if Himuro was your original name :lol
Click to expand...

it was.
 
Himuro means ice house in Japanese. Himuro said everything must be translated to english. As a hilarious irony, his name was translated to English.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Modern technology
Opinion 
42
1K
p_xavier replied
New cute anime about the WW2 battle of Peleliu between USA and Japan
2
62
1K
winjer replied
Kagurabachi Anime Releases April 2027
News 
5
210
thefool replied
New Evangelion anime incoming!
2
52
972
NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt replied
Anime Streaming and Morality
Social 
41
1K
reinking replied
Top Bottom