who does the best job subbing

Maximo · Post by **Maximo** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 8:17 am

sorry i don't really have a reply for the topic at hand. like i said earlier i never really thought about it.

tacooe · Post by **tacooe** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 8:18 am

I ain't got anything against communism, it's good in theory but it's still confusing here.

who designed it anyway, it's lovely?

Maximo · Post by **Maximo** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 8:20 am

I guess Cat did?

CaTaClYsM · Post by **CaTaClYsM** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 8:29 am

NME did and made a thread about it in the general off topic.

KLin · Post by **KLin** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 2:13 pm

It depends. There are some domestic anime that is subtitled well and some that are not subtitled well. I will always prefer the fansubbed version of Nadesico to the ADV version. Quite a bit of humor was unfortunately lost in the translation, and also even the translator admitted they didn't have consistency in the subs. And I just can't see the 'Tulips' being called 'Chulips.' But I guess it's because they didn't know what they were doing back then, or didn't value sub quality as much for that particular project. As someone mentioned, Excel Saga is subbed very well. Those ADV Vid-notes explaining the stories behind cultural jokes and puns was both enlightening and entertaining although at times they could clutter the screen, but you could turn them off if they bugged you too much.

Some fansub groups make an effort to do that, which is good but tend to refrain from it since they have to subtitle it in as well and cluttering the screen isn't something they can make it so that you can turn them off.

I haven't seen many HKs myself, (Incidentally not all bootlegs are from Hong Kong, a good many come from Taiwan and other countries as well, I guess HK bootlegs are just more infamous or something) but again it depends, some of them are actually decent. Since Chinese and Japanese have a similar grammatical structure they are able to do a very literal translation, although that also means you will probably get an Engrish translation instead of an English translation, as the grammar will be fubared. The Chinese subtitles are better as far as grammar goes, but they often put weird Chinese words to subtitute katakana that makes a phrase not quite sound like natural Chinese.

So I guess my order would be either Domestic, fansub, bootleg or Fansub, domestic, bootleg. But as I said, it often depends.

Lonley Driver · Post by **Lonley Driver** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 3:01 pm

Tokyo Pop does nice subbing I think. They even give you an option to turn written text subbing on and off. I don't know Japanese so I don't know how accurate it is, but I think they really try and cater to subtitle audiences.

The worst subbing is by far some of the transliteration HK bootlegs. Lets take Saint Seiya, where they run around saying "boob" all day for no apparent reason. Of course, my personal favorite is Captain Tsubasa, "Do you Europe?"

-David

KLin · Post by **KLin** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 3:14 pm

Maybe people should buy Taiwanese bootlegs instead of HKs. Their Engrish isn't as horrible as that. But, I might be biased because my cousin owns Taiwanese stores that stock and sell that stuff.

UncleMilo · Post by **UncleMilo** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 3:21 pm

That's a very hard question.

The problem is that subtitles on US releases are not company based. My friend Neil is a freelance subtitler and he has done work for a number of different companies. I consider him to be one of the best translators in the anime field.

After listening to him talk about his craft, I find that I don't trust a lot of fansubs out there.

I know that some "official" translations are very bad as well and that some fansubs are very good. (For instance, long ago I got a fan sub of the original Tenchi Muyo OAV before the show came to the US and the fan sub was a much better subtitle job then the one onf the official VHS)

Anyway... I know I didn't really answer the question... but there you go.

-Uncle Milo

Propyro · Post by **Propyro** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 11:15 pm

i really don't know who dose the best subs ... but one thing is for sure .. those avatars are really starting to bug me... i really don't know much about SpPanda ... or if i even spelled his name right ... but i generaly identify you guys by your avatars first, and then by your names ... but with liek 30 people ahving the same avatar ... it gets awfully confusing at times .... and here i was thinking that unique avatars were a sort of unspoken law ... or would this be an exception to that? bah who cares ... i need sleep ... my own arguemtns are starting to not make sense to me any more ... and my bloody burning eyes ... arg!

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 11:22 pm

CaTaClYsM wrote:if you had to order the quality of each groups (Fansubs, HK DVDS, and Domestic DVDs) subbing for best to worst how would it go?

Not necessariliy answering your question, but I think Bandai does some pretty good sub jobs. I know this mainly since a friend of mine does a lot of subs (he's probably done a lot of the shows you like) and it looks like Bandai gives him the most freedom.

If you're at all concerned about translations and it's something he did, I wouldn't be concerned. He has a Master's in Japanese which is a lot more than most subbers for ADV. The translator for Evangelion has 2 years of Japanese. I've seen my friend's version (that he did for our club like 8 years ago) and it's different (although nothing HUGE). Ok, I guess that covers my plug for my friend

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who does the best job subbing

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