Here is a note to all fansub groups: Please make sure that your translator actually speaks Japanese! And please make sure that you have at least one other team member on the project who speaks Japanese so that he/she can make sure that the translator isn’t pretending to know Japanese by making random guesses and checking Babelfish!
NEVER TRUST YOUR TRANSLATORS WITHOUT SEEKING A SECOND OPINION!!! (I was one. I know what we do.)
Now here’s a sad, sad example of a “fansub” gone horribly wrong. The following translations are from Doremi-OTOME’s fansub of Mai-Otome DVD Special 8. The torrent can be found here (way at the bottom).
The translator is very cunning. He sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. But really, I am not certain if he even speaks a single word of Japanese after watching this piece of wombat dung.
Evidence 1
Sounds like reasonable translation? Well here’s what Mai really said in that exact scene:
ç§ã€å®¶å‡ºåŒç„¶ã¨å¦åœ’ã«æ¥ã¡ã‚ƒã£ãŸã‚“ã ã‘ã©ã€
I entered the school after running away from home,
é‹è‰¯ãæ´åŠ©ã—ã¦ãれるãŠå®¶ãŒã‚ã£ã¦
luckily there was a family who offered to help me
Wow! That sounds like a completely different story now, doesn’t it?!?! How the fuck did the translator miss SO HARD that he nearly landed in a totally whole new continent! Imagine if I didn’t know Japanese and believed in this asshat’s lies. He’s creating a whole new anime with his “translations”.
Evidence 2
Again, this sounds completely reasonable doesn’t it? Well SURPRISE!!!
ã¿ã‚“ãªè‰¯ã„人é”ã ã£ãŸã—ã€ä½•ã‚ˆã‚Šæ¡ä»¶ãŒç ´æ ¼ãªãらã„よã‹ã£ãŸã®ã‚ˆã€‚
Everyone was so nice to me and the conditions were just too good.
Wow. Another brilliant translation. I can’t even figure out which word he might have mistaken to produce “trouble”, so I conclude that the translator just made the whole thing up out of thin air. Please also notice that the translator is using present tense. I guess the editor went fishing too, huh?
Evidence 3
最åˆã¯é€ƒã’よã†ã¨ã‚‚ã—ãŸã‚“ã ã‘ã©ãã€
I tried escaping at first,
ãã®åº¦ã«æ•ã¾ã£ã¡ã‚ƒã£ã¦
but I got caught everytime.
The meaning is changed, but hey, at least he got all the keywords right! CHEERS!!!
Evidence 4
ã§ã¾ãã€æ¯Žæ—¥ã“ã®åã¨ã“ã®è°·ã§éŽã”ã—ã¦ã„ã‚‹ã†ã¡ã«
So, during the time I spent in this valley together with her, I unknowingly…
ã†ã¡ã«ï¼Ÿ
Unknowingly?
ã™ã£ã‹ã‚Šé¦´æŸ“ã‚“ã§ã—ã¾ã„ã¾ã—ãŸ
I got attached to her completely.
ãŠå‰ã¨ã„ã†å¥´ã¯æ˜”ã‹ã‚‰å…¨ã変ã‚ã£ã¦ã„ãªã„
You have not changed a bit since then.
I must confess that my translation for the second line isn’t very accurate.
ã†ã¡ã« (uchi ni) is used to mean “within a period of time”.
ã†ã¡ (uchi) means “house”.
The translator, in his infinite wisdom, confused the two and just went along with it even though it makes no fucking sense if you stop and think about it for even 1 nanosecond.
The last line is even more hilarious. The translator confused 変ã‚ã‚‹ (kawaru) with ã‹ã‚ã„ã„ (kawaii) and the meaning of the sentence was TOTALLY RAPED in the most gruesome and inhuman manner possible. For the love of Haruhi and all that is good, what kind of “Japanese translator” confuses “to change” with “cute”!?
Maybe he’s really just a narutard who knows nothing but “NEKO NEKO KAWAII DESU”. Holy shit, I saved the best for the last!
Evidence 5
ã“ã‚Œã¯ç§ã«ã®æŒ‘戦ã§ã™ã‹ã€æ°·é›ªã®éŠ€æ°´æ™¶ã€‚
Are you challenging me to battle, Silver Crystal of Ice?
ã‚ã£ã€ã„や・・・ã‚ã®ãƒ»ãƒ»ãƒ»
Ah, no…I didn’t…
ãªã‚‰ã°ãŠç›¸æ‰‹ã—ã¾ã—ょã†
Very well, I accept.
Cool. I think this speaks for itself. The translator just had to screw up the funniest part of the video.
EDIT 2
Thanks for informing me that Ladholyman isn’t responsible for the mess up because he only translates from Chinese subs. You can read my follow-up here. But I’ll keep the remarks below for the sake of completeness and preserving history and all that jazz. Just imagine that I’m talking to the Chinese translator instead. :P
END EDIT
Mr. “Translator”: If you can’t figure out what they are saying, please be honest and tell the rest of your team. Your team members do not speak Japanese and trust you enough that they didn’t get a second translator to expose your little lies. You betrayed their trust. If you want to bullshit, at least do it with style like “Mass Naked Child Event” or something. Be creative!
Listen up fansub groups! DON’T let this guy translate anything! Not a single word! Not even if it’s in English!
The rest of those guys are probably cool, but Doremi deserves a good ass-kicking for not having a translation checker. Come on, it’s so fucking basic that it’s not even funny.
This has been a public service announcement brought to you by DarkMirage. I know if you’ve been naughty or good, so don’t even try to %$#%# around with me!
EDIT: I have to add that these are NOT the only mistakes in this 4:32 short video. And also, the first scene is relatively free of mistakes because it was taken from one of the main episodes, meaning the “translator” probably “borrowed” the translation.
The difference between AJ and Doremi is that Doremi has been one of the most responsive and friendly fansubbing groups around. Yes, they have made mistakes, but even when people act like complete assholes to them they acknowledge the mistake and fix it.
I’ve had my own run-ins with Ladholyman and Maceart over My~Otome translations, but all in all I think they do a great job on the shows they work on.
And how does what Doremi and AJ do stop you from fansubbing?
Hehe. I started an internet drama. Woohoo.
Augusto: I watched the previous specials raw.
Scope: Of course it’s a huge waste of time and really silly for me to whine about poor fansubs.
But then again, it’s my blog. It’s a huge waste of time and really silly of you to read my blog and take the time to tell me that.
It’s the same thing. I saw something I didn’t like and I ranted. You didn’t like my rant, well that’s too bad. Some people had a good laugh.
Tsubaki: Perhaps I was a bit too harsh, but I think it won’t have reached so many people otherwise. People love internet drama!
LianYL: Of course I’m elitist! I spent the last four years learning Japanese so that I can be elitist! Hell, I have to make my investment worth it.
Fence: Because quality isn’t appreciated – speed is. Speedsubs are supposed to be more highly regarded than quality fansubs (although Eclipse did a heck of a job with F/SN), and translators who can understand Japanese feel insulted when people are using someone else’s sub to (example: copying from a Chinese or Korean sub group’s work) do the translation and (implicitly) claiming the credit for the ‘translation from the original’.
But, as others have noted, some things are ‘common knowledge’, such as the use of Chinese subtitles or translations for the English redo for certain shows. One legitimate complaint that can be leveled in such a scenario is that the translation of a translation may miss information or contexts, not translate a cultural reference correctly, or distort the original intent of the writer (like reading a webpage that Babelfish has translated into another language, then translating it back through the same engine into English).
In the case of Keroro, I’m satisfied with what I am getting… even if it’s not the same as a direct translation of the Japanese.
This isn’t anywhere near animejunkies level since at least animejunkies’ mistranslations were funny. This is just sad.
If you’re going to use any sort of script that you aren’t translating yourself, you need to check it, especially for scripts that go from Japanese to another Asian language like Chinese or Korean. You can’t simply trust it even if the track record is good. At the very least, have a J to E translator check the C to E translation after it’s done.
Speaking as a translator, if you don’t have someone that can do J to E at the QC stage at least, don’t bother even translating.
Everyone knows Doremi doesn’t have Japanese translators. They translate from Chinese subs. Most people don’t give a fuck because Doremi manages to not be assholes and deliver when no one else does.
The omake chinese subs usually comes out first but there’s always mistakes. ALWAYS! I nearly flipped when i saw the first doremi sub. I was like “wtf, isn’t this directly translated from that chinese sub?” T.T
I didn’t know, not everyone knows :P
That’s what I find funny about this argument. One side says that they’re translating from Chinese subs. The other says to check the Chinese subs. If they had the ability to check from Japanese to Chinese or Japanese to English, don’t you think they wouldn’t be using the Chinese go between in the first place? They aren’t hiding that they use Chinese translations first. It’s given knowledge for most people who regularly watch Doremi releases and is even mentioned in the Mai Otome show description on how the schedule released occured when the show was being aired.
I’ve been quite happy with Doremi. Eventually I’ll start watching Keroro Gunsou. They do a good job of releasing series no other fansubbers want to touch. They even admit when they’re not doing a good job with a release while other groups are.
Good Job DM. You’re the new king of Internet Drama.
Ceres, translator and translation checker have completely different levels of responsibities.
A translator needs to spend hours on one episode to refine the lines and meanings. It’s a lot of dedication that requires both hardwork and skills.
A translation checker only needs to watch it once to tell if the translation is complete junk. It only requires skills. Not much work involved really.
It’s not that hard to find someone willing to do the latter, especially if you credit him for it.
The words “Lost in Translation” come to mind.
Wow, I never was a fan of Mai-Otome (Mary-Sue is not my cup of tea) but thank you for the heads up! But this leads me to a doubt:
Are they screwing up Strawberry Panic? It’s one of their projects and after checking out the Mandarin sub summaries and theirs and Doremi’s are almost exactly the same! It’s either they think somewhat alike or Doremi is strictly Chinese ._.;
Of course this is why some of us actually bother to buy our anime on DVD in addition to watching fansubs… companies actually hire professional translators who translate from Japanese to English. ^_^;;
Hi, those who recognize my name, you know I’m the translator of Static-Subs, and you know why I’m here.
A member of SS brought this site to my attention, and wow did I get a good gag out of this. The nonsense translations and how this site reveals the sloppy works that Doremi has been releasing, contaminating innocent non-Japanese speaking people’s mind is priceless.
Here’s some inside story that I can share. Those who followed the specials know that there were SS-Doremi joints for specials 2 and 3, and ended after that. Why? Because Doremi was rude enough to ignore the agreed release date/time and make a jump forward. So I stopped providing them with the TL. And anyone noticed how they got the color sub in the later specials when they didn’t for TV and Special 1?
Speed sub is good, but without quality, it’s worthless. I think this group did a great job in proving that. I’d like to give them a hand for being the example of what happens to inaccurate translation. If there is a history book for fansub, they’re name deserves to be in there for the above reason.
Oh, and “Doremi does things that others don’t do?†Must say, “Check again, ” because with the recent stuff, Strawberry Panic is done by over 5 group, and Binbou Shimai got 3 others. So there are plenty of other choices out there.
Lastly, lesson to be learned: Have someone who knows Japanese and English well enough to check the script at some stage, and don’t be lazy about it.
It sucks for us fans who know nothing about Japanese. How can we tell which is or isn’t a good translation? *sigh* Just one more year until I can take actual Japanese classes…
Or do like nooneofconsequence says and buy the DVDs. XD
Pity nobody’s licensed OR that nobody else has picked up Keroro yet, however. It’s a great show, but it’s been ignored because it’s very ‘kiddy’ in its animation style.
Again, however, NOTHING beats AnimeJunkies for the Mass Naked Child Events. Nobody. :D
HarHar for trashing a fansub group’s rep.
HarHar fansubs.
HarHar Internets dorama.
Call the the 4chan party van.
As DarkMirage points out, a person that does Translation Quality Control and someone that does Translation have different roles. A Translator does all of the primary work translating from one language to another while a TQC makes sure the lines are actually what is being said or to point out if something sounds/translated wrong. It’s a lot less work and arguably a lot less taxing on a person’s Japanese capabilities to do TQC since you only have to spot what’s wrong and not make it right.
I have been enjoying Doremi sub’s (Strawberry Panic and Otome Spcials) for a while now, and compared to a lot of other groups out there.. well, it’s not bad at all, and unlike these new groups I’ve seen, they don’t fuck up the typesetting (which matters to me cuz I do that, but obviously not others).. and I haven’t seen many mistakes in the whole TL department.. but then I only know simple Japanese.. (three semesters in college really wasn’t worth jack.)
The whole hype on people making a new fansub group just so they can do something they think is better than some other group, or so they can do it faster… is all a crock of shit, and educated leecher out there will download the group they feel does the best overall job. There have also been the few groups out there a friend or two of mine tried to start, and they always make the same fatal flaw… finding people for all positions EXCEPT the J-E TL .. why is that? because it’s hard as fuck to find someone that has so little of a life outside of college/work/relationships. All three of these groups that friends tried to start failed, and I’m sure more like it happen all the time.
I’ve heard plenty of stories about fake TL’s that can get away with stuff, hell I could prolly do it if I felt like being a total asshole to the fansub community, but this is why all groups need TL Checkers and QC’ers, prevent the whole fucking v2, v3 crap in the first place. Is it really that hard to put in the extra 30 minutes to write down all the massive shit that’s wrong with an ep, pass it along, they fix it, have someone else check it, and once it passes, release? Seems to be that way lately, and barring speed subs, there are really not that many good groups out there any more.. they’re either really fast cuz they want leecher count and nothing more, or really slow cuz they take too much time on stuff (I know slow, I’m in Nanashi and Bakakozou after all, we are the epitome of slow, and guess where all the eps are stuck at in both groups?! –You guessed it, QC… why the hell can’t people spend 30 minutes of their day to watch an anime.. they’d do it anyhow later…
nooneofconsequence mentions that you go buy DVD’s of the anime’s you like, that’s all fine and good if a good company does the anime (just like how there are only a few truely good fansub groups, only a few licensing companies exist too)… I bought the Girls Bravo DVD’s at the last AX, and as I sat there watching them on my laptop, I could just start to count errors (and silverfire in the same hotel room was also correcting stuff and he knows infinitly more japanese than I) Not even companies that supposedly spend time and money on this stuff bother to give it their all!!! It is becomming more and more apparent that everyone would be better off learning Japanese themselves if they want to get the full quality of anime.
Another thing that angers me about companies releasing DVD’s (and why fansubs are so much better) is the sever lack of either, or both, pronunciation of names, places, titles, etc.. as well as the lack of typesetting signs, letters, you name it. After sitting in on the Bandai panel for Eureka seveN, it was quite apparent at how they don’t bother to pronounce anything properly (just listen to how they fuck up saying “eureka”) also various members from Nanashi have watched the Cartoon Network episodes and only come back to IRC to report the countless fuckups in translation or pronunciation.
[/rant]
And main lesson, You can’t trust anyone but yourself, as DM proved here. So go learn Japanese if you care, be ignorant if you don’t. I personally like challenging myself to watch the newest RAW of Bleach just to see what % of the ep I understand.
@Shouta: You’re wrong. When I do translation check work for all the groups I work for, namely Nanashi, I make special notes whenever I find translation errors and I write the mistake, the correct literal translation, and an acceptable figurative meaning that would make sense in English. Not only do I need to be able to find what’s wrong, I need to be able to back it up by offering a suggestion as to what’s correct. An unfortunate side effect to many layers of quality control is a lack of speed, which is apparent from the release intervals from fansubbers who actually care about quality the most deep down inside. The groups that release weekly or on any consistent schedule tend to make sacrifices from quality at some point in time, however small, to maintain that time schedule.
I, for one, belong to the camp that is committed to as accurate translations as possible while sacrificing any speed that is necessary to achieve that quality.
Thanks every1, had a good laugh readin all this. XD
Wow, thanks for that Dark Mirage. I love helpful and informative posts like this. I appreciate people who love finding problems, complaining about them for cheap laughs and not contributing any kind of solution.
I suggest you get back into fansubbing, and do something useful with your amazing comprehension of the Japanese language rather than simply lying back and insulting people who don’t share you unequaled translation prowess, but are trying.
I don’t mind people pointing out errors in fansubs, but you have no right to personally attack ladholyman for his translations, which were based on the chinese subs (the source of error, you’ll find). Try and be constructive in future rather than derogatory and needlessly rude.
So what if they translate from chinese? At least this allowed them to realease two series other fansubs didnt even have the balls to even touch. And judging from one their early releases, the group seems to improve little by little, beacause unlike other complete dickheads they are open to criticism and admit their mistakes.
Washi: So you would rather that I keep my mouth shut and let the problems solve themselves? Just because I’m not the one to solve them doesn’t mean I can’t whine about my annoyance by them.
I mean, people can have cheap laughs off Osama bin Laden and George Bush and now you are telling me that I can’t get cheap laughs off someone just because you know him. It’s the goddamn Internet! I don’t even know who ladholyman was! It wouldn’t have mattered to me no matter who he was, because the translation just SUCKED and he took credit for it.
Anyway, I realized that the fact that he had no idea what the original Japanese lines said means that he isn’t the liar I accuse him of being. But how was I to know, considering he was the one credited for translation in the ED. Hrmmm?
Wow… and I’ve never (really) translated anything because there’s always 4-7 words I can’t figure out. :p
oOOH This beat my FYG drama post damn!! This URL must be spreading like fire burning up an oily FYG through fansub IRC, forums and word of mouth.
OMFG its totally out,….from now on whoever saw that FKCing lying bastard name tell the sub to kick that bastard out of the group, no wonder when i watch the anime its sound really weird…im not good in japanese but still its really out of the main story…
Silverfire,remember how much we took just to translate from italian to english
that panel in Ergo Proxy ?I’ve spent over an hour with the TL to just get it right in english (since a literal translation from my lang to english doesn’t really exist) and he spent even more with another Italian and doing some research.But i guess not many want (or can ) to spend that much time for a single thing.Nonetheless i have to agree that at least their Strawberry Panic and Pani Poni Dash isn’t that bad (with the little knowledge i have of japanese).
I posted this on Doremi’s site, I shall repost it here:
Never do J->E translations through an intermediary language. Use the raws. Listen, Listen, rewind listen again and take notes when necessary.
Anyone is a beginner at something, Japanese is no exception. With hard work, one day you will get JLPT 1.
P.S: I still remember Animejunkies. Who could forget ‘mass naked child events’?
P.P.S: I seriously think a fansub translator should have at least a JLPT 3 or even 2. It is sheer madness for someone who barely learnt kana to try and translate. My 2 cents.
i’m just going to comment based on what i’ve read from your entry and the comments – mainly yours – since i watched nothing of mai otome.
“Fansubs do it for the fame. If they were doing it for the “good of it”, they’d have put more effort into quality control.”
lemme guess, what about fansubber Lunar? i don’t know if they do it for fame, but they certainly put alot into qc.
“It’s clearly deliberate laziness”
from the comments, apparently doremi had no japanese->english translator; where do you expect the resource to come from? my pants? they’re good enough to come out with something, even if it’s shit i don’t care. what say you? quit the fansubbing scene and start blabbering “I R LEARN WAPANEZE FOR 4 YEARZ AND GOT TRANSLATOR EXPERIENCEZ SO I SHALL PWN JOO NUBZ BY NEGATIVELY CRITICIZING JOO”? lol. how about going back to fansubbing and prove your worth than typing out your rant? maybe that makes time spent more worthwhile…and fansubbers properly won’t be “delibrately lazy”. then again, you weren’t lazy in writing the entry and receiving various feedback.
“You can see why I’m not fansubbing anymore.”
because you think japanese anime fansubs are brought to you from japanese->korean->english or japanese->chinese->english so you decide “i r not gonna t/l japanese raw anymore cuz i r too 1337”. hmm, go ahead then rofl.
“Ok, I apologize. The translator wasn’t lying. The team was just lazy.”
suuuuuure. they were too lazy they managed to bring you a release you probably perceive to be absolutely shitty and henceforth tell the intarweb “no more shit fansubs plz becuz only my wapanese skillz can be used for translations!”.
“I know how translators work and we tend to bluff our way through lines that we don’t know. In fact that’s probably what the original Chinese translator did.”
now you know what the original chinese translator did but you continue to flame the fansub when you know they translate from chinese to english? oh yeah, say what? “4 years of learning japanese” and “we tend to bluff our way through lines that we don’t know.”
“But then again, it’s my blog. It’s a huge waste of time and really silly of you to read my blog and take the time to tell me that.”
contradicting don’t you think? it’s your blog, we waste time reading it and take the time to tell you that. alright.
so you waste time writing about the quality of a fansub group without constructive criticisms, then receiving comments from everyone around the world and finally commenting back on your blog…when it’s a “huge waste of time”, it is also “really silly”; aren’t you wasting huge amount of time and being really silly over it? sure, i admit, i waste huge time and am silly to read your blog. what about you lmao.
“A translation checker only needs to watch it once to tell if the translation is complete junk. It only requires skills. Not much work involved really.”
ohh, so how about going back to the fansub scene now with the excuse of being a translation checker? at least you get to criticize much more about junk translations. besides, “it only requires skills” and “not much work involved really”.
“Perhaps I was a bit too harsh, but I think it won’t have reached so many people otherwise. People love internet drama!”
high five. you proved your worth. now i know doremi isn’t a quality fansub. yay.
“Of course I’m elitist! I spent the last four years learning Japanese so that I can be elitist! Hell, I have to make my investment worth it.”
yay for 31337 translator DM! now, only those with more than 4 years of japanese learning can be 1337! so to avoid further entries of DM criticizing your fansub quality you fansub groups MUST have fansub translators with AT LEAST 4 YEARS of japanese learning experience!
“Since when did people have to be useful and helpful when they whine on the Internet?”
true! that’s why i’m here whining with you on the Internet, along with the comment that you should should do something about your attitude.
bottomline: cheers lah, brother; you made singapore proud proud. limpeh is proud of ur blog.
@Valkyrie:
Personally I wouldn’t pick Lunar as an example of a group that does good QC. A better example would maybe be one of the etg groups like Soldats or The Triad, Anime-Kraze and Kaizoku-Fansubs.
Funny rant but ultimately very true. In the end it proved useful though, so it wasn’t all bad. I have nothing against Doremi. I’m grateful that they took it upon themselves to do Keroro Gunsou without feeling the need to go overboard with the typesetting(are you listening Soldats?) that’d probably not be of that much benefit to the viewer. A little note explaining the translation does the job, no need to spend months and months on it
Valkyrie: Ignoring the fact that you haven’t really read my comments, here are my replies:
It is true. I am too 1337.
It is also true that fansubs are competing for the torrent peer numbers. Translating from Chinese and Korean is a result of this battle of speed release. People don’t care if a translator translates faithfully. It’s easier to for a sub group to gain internet fame by speed subbing than by doing useless things like QC that people don’t even notice. I suck at speed translating. Fansubs don’t need me.
Doremi was lazy. It was minimum effort for free brownie points. Groups like Lunar can spend the time QC’ing and get no thanks for it. For an obscure release like the DVD Special, there’s no competition anyway. Since there’s no competition, who cares about QC? Everyone who wants to watch it has to download your version anyway. And they probably don’t speak Japanese either so it’s all good.
That’s laziness for you.
It’s only the truth. It hurts because people (or maybe I was the only one?!?!) trusted fansubs to at least get the general gist of the anime.
Wow. That’s exactly my point! Thanks for rephrasing it. They are both huge wastes of time, exactly what I said. :)
I think when the translation misses the mark by such a huge margin, it’s no longer a matter of quality, but whether it can be considered translation at all.
I agree 100%. :X
Thank you, and the same to you too.
I’m sorry, you are not my father. My father is dead.
Please note, I did not authorize the v2. There will be a v3.
^LOL
I just want to bump this post because we must reach the 100 mark. Keep it erect D M!
You fool! This isn’t 4chan! You can’t bump blog entries! gt2 /b/
Oh Boy…
Well I just only watch the Omake 8 in RAW… Didn’t touch Doremi-Otome Sub yet… Well if i can wait for the V3 after i see this :/.
Well guys, remember that only Doremi-Otome is the only team who continue something with Otome… Statics give up yet or something like this (I don’t have any news about what Static done after Omake 3) so be happy that you have some subs… Even if it’s incorrect… Real DVD will be good no? So don’t complain so much :/
That is my Opinions
Cheers .
And Thanks Dorémi-Otome for everything, even if problem or error continue…
@DarkMirage: I’d like to thank you for inspiring me to do a full QC of one of Doremi’s releases. Judging from a lot of the other posts that people have made here, they all watch Strawberry Panic from them, so I’ll probably do that.
When I finish, do you want me to post the link to the PDF? It’ll be similar in format to those other PDF’s I linked to.
Let me make some clarifications here. Disclaimer: I’m not nor ever was part of the otome DVD specials team, so my opinion may possibly differ from their’s.
“Doremi was lazy.”
I’d say this is partially true; the ones who wanted the special out in the first place, i.e. the ones who worked on it were not lazy in work ethic. I can tell you this, having worked with them on prior projects. I can’t comment on the validiy of the referenced Chinese subs, but whether or not Lad (who is -usually- in the ballpark or spot on) was in err when translating, the fault, to me, still lies on QC and the LACK of TL checking; it’s just saddening.
“It was minimum effort for free brownie points. Groups like Lunar can spend the time QC’ing and get no thanks for it. For an obscure release like the DVD Special, there’s no competition anyway. Since there’s no competition, who cares about QC? Everyone who wants to watch it has to download your version anyway. And they probably don’t speak Japanese either so it’s all good.”
You can take comfort in knowing that this is *not* Doremi’s mentality; they work on something because they have interest in it, not because they want “points”. They wouldn’t have been involved in fansubbing nearly as long if such were the case. As Mentar pointed out already, Lad has done a lot for the anime world and if not for the community then certainly for himself.
o.O so many people bashing the only english fansub grp subbing the mai otome specials…just cos of a screwup they had with the latest mai otome release..
Well, whos to lose if doremi decides not to sub any more ?
the subbers? nah i dont think so. they got nutting to lose by not subbing and we got 1 less choice to choose(in Motome case,no choice at all).
Therefore, unless any1 of you dare come out and promise to sub the current mai otome specials, none of you are qualified to bash the fansubbers. correcting, maybe, but bashing is overboard.
btw if any of you self conceited brats thinks hes better(like a certain singaporean), pls produce a sub version or quit bashing like its your right to get good quality staff everytime you download from the internet. heck, you guys dont even pay for their work.
@silverfire:
Good for you then. However, I stand by my statement that folks that do the TQC work don’t need to make it right. It may be what you do (I do it as well if I’m checking a translation) but it’s not something that is regularly required of people. Besides, if the translator is so self-assured that you need to back up a claim of an error, then there really isn’t a point to having someone else check the quality of the work.
@Shouta: It’s a requirement simply because I run the group and I require it of everyone who does translation checks. The entire point of requiring backup is so that overzealous QC’s don’t go ahead and say something’s translated wrong if they just don’t have the skills. While I realize that QC’s carry most of the brunt of accuracy checking, we (meaning most of the groups I work with) have QC’s on the team that specifically focus on translation-related issues, so it’s not such a big deal if all translation checking is relegated to those senior QC’s. The translators are also open to criticism, so we generally don’t have problems like that, but I’m digressing.
Most of the groups I see with a dedicated TC also require or suggest that they offer suggestions. Maybe that’s the difference between good groups and bad ones, or slow ones and fast ones. No matter what the situation is, a group will always follow their method of operation to focus on what they want to focus on, be it speed, quality, or compromising both severely for some sort of a middle ground.
@silverfire
Makes sense. I’ve only worked with other translators on the same level or higher than myself on projects so it’s never been an issue for me. If they say something needs to be rechecked, I’ll go recheck it and the same goes the other way. I don’t have a TQC stage because of that normally or if I’m working alone, I generally meticulously check the translation several times before and after it’s inserted in a timed script or before I input it into a scanlation.
silverfire: looks like you’ve came a long way from the silverfire I knew. So, how long have you known Japanese?
I think it is not true that fansub groups are not paid.
They are not usually paid with money, yes. But they are paid with recognition. Whether it is worth anything is another business.
I don’t get the logic that I have to produce something better to criticize an existing problem. If that was how the world worked, politics would be an awfully boring field of discussion.
I seriously dislike the first version now!! I am indeed angry with the bloody nonsense of translation.
Fansub groups should really have at least 1 who is good at speaking and listening to Japanese language in order to ensure no mistake OR minor mistake on translation is made on the subtitles.
Imagine if there are some kids here watching some animes and they learnt all the wrong stuff… when they grow up and speak on their own, they will embaress themselves.
DarkMirage gets paid in newbosity points. 100 newb points to you, you are getting close to the grand prize! n_n
We have made a decision to recall the v2.
I’m posting here and not on the other post because I want this thread too hit 100 too. XD
It is important for the people involved to know the reason why some of us can’t stand a poor release. Yes, I’ve watched Doremi’s subs on Mai-Otome, and they seem reasonably accurate. But that’s what makes this poor release even harder to stand. The fact that you guys have done a reasonable job so far means that people have become accustomed to your standard, and as such they expect at least this standard of work from you guys in the future. So when this sub came out, some of us felt cheated.
Yes, you are doing a good job by subbing something that other groups don’t. We, the viewers, get used to your reasonable levels of translation. Thus, we put our trust in you to deliver subs of this level. Yes, it is also our fault for being angry due to the poor quality of the sub, as we have no right to be. Still, that is only human. What I am trying to say here is that people expect a certain level of work from you, and when the quality drops below this level, people feel betrayed. But that is what happens when you give services to the public. It’s unfair to you, but the world isn’t fair to begin with. ;)
I’m not saying that Doremi sucks or that you guys should stop subbing. What I personally feel that you could do is to pull a good v3 or make sure your next sub is back up to reasonable quality to prove that our trust in you is not misplaced. I will still continue to watch Doremi, so I hope that quality will be back up to normal. :D
On the other hand, I believe that some of the people who criticise DM for his post should review their stance carefully. Some of you claim that you should only be allowed to criticise if you can propose a better solution. As DM has said in a post already, that is wrong. I can understand your mentality, but does that mean if there is no better solution people should stay happily ignorant of the problem. No matter what kind of problem it may be, it will surface eventually. Alerting people to the problem is important even if you do not propose a solution to it. Yes, DM may have been a little too harsh in his post, but still, the problem cannot be avoided. Perhaps he cannot stand that people who do not understand japanese are being cheated as he has been through that experience before. His post helps to alert people to the existing problem of flaws within this translation process in general. But that does not mean he should be compelled to go back to subbing just because some of you feel that his talents could be used that way. That is being unreasonable. Just because you have the ability to do something doesn’t mean you must.
For those of you too lazy to read through, this is the summary: 1. It is unfair to fansubbers in general that the public expects good work from them, but it is unavoidable. 2. You do not have to propose a solution to a problem if you want to criticise the situation. 3. DM is a person too. He is entitled to choose what he wants to say and do.
@thunderance
i must say your post is quite well written, presenting both sides of a argument but nope, i did not propose a solution and i did not say that their talents must be used in certain situations. all i meant was why bash a fansub group so harsh, this will result in lost of passion and low morale, leading to loss of self esteem, thus instead of correcting their mistakes, they tend to give up at what they are doing. therefore when that happens, which party stands to lose out the most? the subbers? the bashers? or the general public? whose to be responsible to the public if that happens?
Yea DM is a person too, he is entitled to say what he wants, do what he wants, this i acknowledge, but bashing a fansub before requesting them to correct their sub is ethically not right. The translator is too a person, people makes mistakes and should be given a chance to redeem themselves before the bashing starts. imagine, a teacher asks u to do a project due next week. He gives you a piece of crap example to you and refuses to help you. U,of course, handed up a piece of crap work to him, instead of correcting you, he bashes your work infront of the class and throws it in a bin. how would you feel?
@darkmirage
yea politics would be extremely boring, wonder why PAP almost always wins an election? if not,mayb you should watch discovery channel’s HISTORY OF SINGAPORE to understand why…
Editor: Please direct further comments to here.
And wthis: yes, I do agree that politics in Singapore is really boring because you can only earn the “right” to criticize the government if you can do something better than what the PAP is doing. I also agree that America politics is much more interesting because you can say anything you want without having to much your words with actions.