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Answerman - Subtitle Hues and Cry


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Brakus



Joined: 21 Sep 2003
Posts: 130
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 11:29 am Reply with quote
Subtitle style doesn't really bother me too much, just as long as it's readable and all. But what sometimes disappoints me is when an American company does not attempt to replicate how the OP looks in a show. This is especially true if the OP involves a lot of kinetic typography, such as the 2nd OP from Attack on Titan, or the OP to Welcome to the NHK. For the most part, FUNimation does a decent job trying to replicate the credits during OP sequences so they looked similar to how they looked when broadcast in Japan. ADV did a good job with their handling of the Azumanga Daioh OP way back when.

I am just disappointed sometimes that we can't always have the exact same viewing experience for anyone not in Japan. Keeping the sweeping and gorgeous kinetic typography that's omnipresent in Kill La Kill throughout the show is just something that I kinda wish that the original production companies would consider when they know a show like that is going to be localized for the English language.
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redcar



Joined: 04 Jun 2009
Posts: 172
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 11:30 am Reply with quote
Quote:
(Incidentally, this email had lines like, "using two hyphens instead of an em-dash is not OK, sorry.")
Quote:
From what I can tell there's only a handful of people like this, and I don't think they realize that they're coming off as irascible -- I get the feeling from reading these blogs that they'll simply never be satisfied.

Nice one Laughing

As for Bandai's catalog, I'm glad much of it is getting unearthed and rereleased now. They had a lot of good stuff that deserves to be circulating again, plus it's nice for the companies involved to be able to mine those series for profit. The one I'm waiting for in particular is Gosick, as it sadly never got a North American release under Bandai. I just hope the market's seeming lack of interest in mystery anime isn't insurmountable :/
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Paiprince



Joined: 21 Dec 2013
Posts: 593
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:03 pm Reply with quote
Brains Base, as a studio, hardly does second season of its projects except for Natsume which got 4 seasons. It's kind of their policy.

Quote:
Let's compare that to the catalog of some of the other companies you mentioned. Geneon had their hits too, but most of those have been relicensed by now. Most of the stuff that hasn't either didn't set the world on fire, or were complete bombs. I don't think anybody is all that excited to re-release Cybuster, Gate Keepers, Nazca or Mao-chan. Aside from Paranoia Agent, there aren't many noteworthy shows left in the Geneon catalog that haven't been snatched up by somebody.

ADV Films' corpse is similarly picked over. Nobody wants Generater Gawl, Mezzo DSA or Orphen. Their catalog is also full of short OAVs that are harder to sell these days, and don't often get HD remasters. (Central Park Media's catalog is like that, too.) What's more, ADV often owns the rights to the dub of older shows, and they may not be willing to offer those dubs to competitors. With a handful of shows from the bubble era, ADV was actually on the production committee to make them in the first place -- effectively giving what is now Sentai Filmworks/Section 23/etc. veto power over re-licensing those shows to another publisher at all.


As someone who grew up watching the shows mentioned, yes, I would very much like a revival of these titles. Sure, they weren't anything special, but they very entertaining regardless. Granted, a couple of them are from the early digipaint era, so remasters of these would not do them much grace.
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Just Passing Through



Joined: 04 Apr 2011
Posts: 276
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:05 pm Reply with quote
Brakus wrote:

I am just disappointed sometimes that we can't always have the exact same viewing experience for anyone not in Japan. Keeping the sweeping and gorgeous kinetic typography that's omnipresent in Kill La Kill throughout the show is just something that I kinda wish that the original production companies would consider when they know a show like that is going to be localized for the English language.


All the Anime are releasing Kill la Kill in the UK in three parts, and when they began with Part 1, the subtitles were a mix of player generated subs, and hard subs burnt into the print. That had a little advantage of freeing up the font used, and adding a little animation to the text translations that matched the animation of the on screen Japanese text.

I quite liked it, although it wasn't as epic as the GIF in the article, the font used was still white. But the fans hated it. From part 2, it was back to all subtitles and on screen text generated by the player.
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Juno016



Joined: 09 Jan 2012
Posts: 2373
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:07 pm Reply with quote
I support both fansubs and official subs for one reason over any other reason: both put a ridiculous amount of work and require quite the teamwork and management to pull it off well. Both have their ups and downs, but that's why I value the diversity. When people have debates about them, I tend to butt in and shut both sides down because they tend to get heated on topics that have no actual consensus or either side is looking at issues through a completely closed or warped lens...
Really, when fansub quality gets brought up, it tends to be overexaggerated on its quality, too. So many groups hurry their releases and only a few care to go back and fix mistakes for a batch or something... if they notice the mistake in the first place.
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Lynx Amali





PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:14 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
I don't think anybody is all that excited to re-release Cybuster


And thank god for that.
Cybuster was bad, even if you weren't familiar with the Masoukishin characters and story in either incarnation (The story and cast involving Masaki and co as well as Panzer Warfare's pseudo-sequel/alternate La Gias.)

So many shoddy decisions with that show, both from a writing perspective to a creative direction.

Should've dropped the Cybuster name and had it be it's own thing. That...thing was not Granzon.

Kinda wish they did a proper Masoukishin anime though, at least adapting Part 1 during the game release binge they did. I would absolutely love a proper Masoukishin anime.
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AmuroNT1



Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 106
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:36 pm Reply with quote
Regarding fansubs, you mentioned typesetting and my mind instantly went to one place: Kamen Rider.

I'll avoid naming specific sub groups because the ANN mods may not like it, but there's one group that's rather infamous for...well, a lot of things. If you've seen screencaps of subs with the words "kisama", "yatsu", and "-tachi" awkwardly shoved in the middle of English sentences, then you know who exactly I'm talking about. But the reason I bring them up is because part of the reason their subs take about a week (sometimes more) to get out is because they INSIST on adding all kinds of cute typesetting effects to the subs whenever a Rider transforms or uses a special attack. They'll actually go out of their way to render an effect that imitates the actual Rider transformation sequence, such as a magic circle sweeping across the text in their subs of Kamen Rider Wizard. It came off as kind of cool when I was younger, but now I just consider it a massive distraction. And that's not getting into the fact that they use different fonts for each different series they sub, which can get really weird during crossovers.

And then, of course, you look at the other big group that subs Kamen Rider: They just use a basic sans serif font, white text with a black outline, nothing fancier than italics used to occasionally show emphasis. Thanks to that, they get their episodes out in about one or two days. And they're willing to occasionally "tweak" a line of dialog if a direct translation would result in a sentence that doesn't sound right in English. As one might imagine, a lot of people jumped ship to this second group as soon as they appeared.
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bj_waters



Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 234
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:38 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Nobody wants ... Mezzo DSA.


What? Mezzo DSA was awesome! Okay, it isn't deep or thought-provoking, and the animation quality would dip from time to time, but if you wanted some straight-forward action and gun-play that doesn't take itself too seriously, Mezzo DSA fit the bill quite nicely. I even think the dub was pretty good.

Now, granted, I probably wouldn't buy the series if someone rescued it because I found all three volumes of ADV's version used at a local store, and I'm not inclined toward double-dipping. However, I do think that it's a series worth saving, simply for those moments when we want something that doesn't require or expect much from its audience.

Of course, it could simply be a matter of taste. Maybe Justin hated it (or was simply "meh" enough about it) and he's bringing it up because it's one of those "okay for its time but clearly not relevant anymore" titles for him to bring up in this context, and I can't fault him for that. Whatever; to each their own; etc. I'm sure most of us older fans have those certain titles that we think are classics or "gems" that probably held up well over time. (I personally cannot understand the desire to have a copy of MD Geist unless it's the result of a practical joke.)
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:01 pm Reply with quote
I plan on keeping my fansubs of Madoka Magica and Kill la Kill, even though I bought the Madoka Magica TV Blu Rays and I am getting the Kill la Kill Blu Rays.

For Madoka Magica, while the upgrades to the Blu Rays were fantastic, there were some artistic decisions that I disagreed with.

As for Kill la Kill, whether it was a authentic translation or not, I found "stripped of the will to fight" a much better fit for this type of show, than the boring, "fiber lost".
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4404
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:07 pm Reply with quote
I think Justin is right in that if there are license rescues to be had going forward, it'll probably be from smaller companies that have made a specialty out of older titles. Please Teacher and Please Twins being picked up by Right Stuf are good examples. But, I also wouldn't expect a whole lot of that. It's been long enough since Geneon closed that companies have had plenty of time to pick it over, and Funimation came away with enough shows out of the Sojitz debacle that I'm not convinced there is a whole lot to gain from what ADV had left over at the time. The same idea also applies with Bandai since Funimation and Sentai acquired quite a lot out of Sunrise.

Like Justin said, if something hasn't been rescued yet, there is a reason, if not a few reasons, for that. I'm certainly pleased when something does get unexpectedly rescued, but I wouldn't hold my breath for any particular show at this point.
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Sailor S





PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:58 pm Reply with quote
bj_waters wrote:
(I personally cannot understand the desire to have a copy of MD Geist unless it's the result of a practical joke.)


I picked it up for three reasons. First, I wanted to see if it was as bad as everyone says (haven't watched it yet, so I can't comment, but hard to believe so many people could be wrong). Second, I got it during one of TRSI's Christmas sales for $2.99 (which I'm sure some people would say is at least $3 too much). Finally, I got it because it has Norio Wakamoto in it, and I refuse to believe that he can't at the very least make his parts awesome.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15271
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 2:29 pm Reply with quote
Oh, there's still some good stuff from ADV and CPM which have yet to be rescued. The Go Nagai OAVs like Hanappe Bazooka, Delinquent in Drag, and Abashiri Family come to mind. And on CPM's end, it'd be nice to get a re-release of A Wind Named Amnesia and the 80s Rumic World OAVs. I kept hoping Anime Sols would crowdfund the latter, but to no avail. But yeah, the only notable thing from Geneon worth bringing back is Paranoia Agent. Though I guess Bastard!! fans would like that OVA rescued, too. And maybe the Mini-Goddess shorts, if Ah! Megami-sama actually made money as anime here, of course.
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bj_waters



Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 234
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 2:32 pm Reply with quote
Sailor S wrote:
I picked it up for three reasons. First, I wanted to see if it was as bad as everyone says (haven't watched it yet, so I can't comment, but hard to believe so many people could be wrong). Second, I got it during one of TRSI's Christmas sales for $2.99 (which I'm sure some people would say is at least $3 too much). Finally, I got it because it has Norio Wakamoto in it, and I refuse to believe that he can't at the very least make his parts awesome.


Heh. Fair enough. I hope you don't regret losing those two hours like I did. Then again, I don't tend to enjoy watching something bad ironically. If you're the kind of person that likes to tear something apart MST3K-style while watching it, MD Geist will provide plenty of fodder.
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Utsuro no Hako



Joined: 18 May 2012
Posts: 1032
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 2:39 pm Reply with quote
My biggest peeve is when there's background dialogue in a scene and the subs don't do anything to distinguish it from the conversation we're supposed to be paying attention to. You just get two lines of text on the screen. Sometimes the subbers don't even keep it consistent which bit is on top from line to line. Even without the Aegis sub options, the official subs should do something to set the two bits apart, whether it's placing one line on top of the screen and the other on the bottom, using an attribution like "TV: Last night aliens attacked Shinjuku," or simply not subbing background chit chat that's not important ("What did you bring for lunch today?")
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 2046
Location: Austin, TX
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2015 2:59 pm Reply with quote
Lynx Amali wrote:
Kinda wish they did a proper Masoukishin anime though, at least adapting Part 1 during the game release binge they did. I would absolutely love a proper Masoukishin anime.

I would actually like to see someone pull Zeorhymer out of CPM's catalog. It was kinda hokey, but has great BGM and has enough fun with its few OVAs to be entertaining.
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