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Answerman - How Do Anime Companies Quality-Check Their Work?


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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5296
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 12:24 pm Reply with quote
I can't renumber which show it was, but I once recall seeing a show, where there was a crowd scene, and in the English dub you can hear some people speaking Japanese in the background.
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2401
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 12:25 pm Reply with quote
That makes sense when you're talking about QC'ing the final product. What about a QC for the translation though (disc releases, not simulcast)? Just going through to compare lines shouldn't be near the hassle of watching the entire thing looking for small mistakes. Or do they not receive a script and just have to do it by ear (which would mean watching the entire thing)?

MarshalBanana wrote:
I can't renumber which show it was, but I once recall seeing a show, where there was a crowd scene, and in the English dub you can hear some people speaking Japanese in the background.


Maybe that was part of the sound effects track?


Last edited by SilverTalon01 on Wed Mar 23, 2016 12:49 pm; edited 1 time in total
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NeoStrayCat



Joined: 14 Sep 2011
Posts: 610
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 12:33 pm Reply with quote
Well, that's something, yeah, usually there would be articles here (and elsewhere) for quality control issues, the recent being the Sailor Moon Classic R set 2 with that one episode of audio issues, and that had a replacement system (dunno if that's still available, or can be attuned with the reprints of that exact set.)

QC work is rather rough, concerning what the article meant.
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Saffire



Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1255
Location: Iowa, USA
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 12:59 pm Reply with quote
SilverTalon01 wrote:
That makes sense when you're talking about QC'ing the final product. What about a QC for the translation though (disc releases, not simulcast)? Just going through to compare lines shouldn't be near the hassle of watching the entire thing looking for small mistakes. Or do they not receive a script and just have to do it by ear (which would mean watching the entire thing)?
My understanding is there's some pretty wild variance in what is/was actually available to the translation team, depending on time period, production company, etc. Sometimes you can get a script and access to the director/creator, sometimes you get an audio track and a "Good luck!" It's all random and the only way to know for sure what happened is to hear it from someone who worked on it.
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Spike Terra
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Joined: 21 Mar 2016
Posts: 358
Location: Maryland
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 1:48 pm Reply with quote
I have seen QC go bad a variety of times when translating video games (I'm looking at you Koei Tecmo). I run into it a few times with current season anime streaming and most are just minor spelling and punctuation goofs. This is understandable because of the short time frame that companies are given to work on their translation.

With older dvds (2006 and back), I tend to find alot of audio errors. The sound effects in Ah my goddess are on a delay. For example, someone is hammering a nail but you can only hear the bang sound from the hammer a second after he finishes each swing. Sometimes, the music overtakes the dialogue and I would have the TV on a louder volume in order to understand what the characters are saying.

It's not just audio either, I have seen a few mishaps with subtitles on older anime as well. While I can't think of any off the top of my head, the subtitles in the show Yumeria were so awkwardly written. My favorite awkward line being "How dare your child inflict violence upon my son"
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marshall2000_uk



Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 46
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 2:37 pm Reply with quote
Sounds like an awful job to do. I think this makes me appreciate those people even more now. I knew they had to watch the sub and dub but there's even more to check. No thanks.
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rizuchan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 974
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
and probably Sentai have dedicated in-house staff who are trained in how to check a disc for issues.

Hahahahaha.

To be fair, Sentai is much better than they used to be in the QA department.

I feel like in just about every industry these days QA (and editing for printed work) is the first to go when there's budget cuts. Whatever happened to the days when typos were embarrassing to companies? Nowadays, especially with more niche entertainment like anime and non A list video games, you complain about these things and it's "just be glad this is getting released at all" Sad
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Amara Tenoh



Joined: 22 Mar 2014
Posts: 333
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 4:55 pm Reply with quote
NeoStrayCat wrote:
...the recent being the Sailor Moon Classic R set 2 with that one episode of audio issues, and that had a replacement system (dunno if that's still available, or can be attuned with the reprints of that exact set.)


The replacement window is probably closed now. I bought R Set 2 and it had the corrected disc inside. Anyone waited this long will probably need to double dip if they want the corrected disc now.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 5:58 pm Reply with quote
Oh, were only there a purportedly neutral organisation that was contractually obliged to view every minute of every video prior to release.

There is, you say? But they care only for identifying objectionable content rather than performing any modicum of quality control? How lamentable a missed opportunity this is.
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2401
PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 6:41 pm Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:
Oh, were only there a purportedly neutral organisation that was contractually obliged to view every minute of every video prior to release.


Nah, that would be too silly to exist. I mean then you could force someone to watch hours of paint drying.
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AnimeLordLuis



Joined: 27 Jan 2015
Posts: 1626
Location: The Borderlands of Pandora
PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 1:16 am Reply with quote
Ah QC a nerds greatest weapon when attending a QA panel at any given convention. Laughing
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omiya



Joined: 21 Sep 2011
Posts: 1823
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 4:12 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Subtitles need to be checked for legibility, placement, timing and consistency, to say nothing of whether they're consistent or not.


...with what is actually being said?
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Just Passing Through



Joined: 04 Apr 2011
Posts: 276
PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:58 am Reply with quote
I've QC'd a couple of discs for some niche publishers (past the BD-R phase, and with pressed check discs). Basically stick the disc in and try and break it, pushing every option on every menu, navigating the disc up and down. It is a thankless task, even more so when there are multiple audio and subtitle streams.

But the biggest problem is that Blu-rays are a crap format. Don't get me wrong, the HD audio and video is a godsend, but the java crap that they are authored with is a pain. I'd much rather watch Terminator 2 on DVD than suffer navigating that Blu-ray again. It's so sweet when a BD turns up that boots directly to a static main menu and you can just press play. On top of that there's that Internet connectivity (anyone ever used that?). The final straw is that Blu-ray players are built like PCs; they're all subtly different. DVDs eventually found a common architecture, and now you can expect all discs to work equally on all players.

Not with Blu-ray. I have a Panasonic, and around 1 in a hundred discs will suffer audio sync problems. I don't know why. I just have to spend an hour or so trying to figure out the delay to get it in sync again. Fox's X-Files movie discs came with two versions of the films on, theatrical and special editions. I can navigate the theatrical versions and menu, but trying that in the special editions crashes the player. Terminator 2 crashes my player if I press Stop during the film. Too much java crap tends to crash the player I find, had similar problems with the Back to the Future trilogy. If major studios can't get all of their discs to work on all players, what chance to anime distros have?

Manga Entertainment had to cancel the UK release of the Haruhi Suzumiya movie as the disc didn't work on PS3s. Kaze Entertainment's release of Ungo didn't work on Panasonic players. These are big goofs, but there can be little goofs too, such as Perfect Blue's trailer set to 480 24p, which my old player didn't recognise as a format and crashed at.

Here's a list of defective DVDs and Blu-rays in the UK

http://forums.animeuknews.net/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=16462
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:23 am Reply with quote
Dear lord that's horrifying seeing how many anime discs in the UK having major issues. I can't find a US list of defective anime BD/DVDs anywhere.
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Just Passing Through



Joined: 04 Apr 2011
Posts: 276
PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:30 am Reply with quote
Hoppy800 wrote:
Dear lord that's horrifying seeing how many anime discs in the UK having major issues. I can't find a US list of defective anime BD/DVDs anywhere.


A lot of those Blu-rays have glitches that are inherited from the US discs, as they are simply the Sentai and Funimation masters changed to Region B, with the local distro's logo front-loaded. For example, I came across a player incompatibility on a Sentai disc made Animatsu yesterday, in that the pop-up menu was frozen for the first episode on the disc. Panasonic players. You have to love them!

The DVDs are usually sourced from Australia, although since we've started (finally) switching to NTSC, some of those are Funi and Sentai discs reversioned too now.
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