Random Comments on this Release (and Other Thoughts)

Source: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=270727

So as you may have been able to tell, the past few times we've done anime the releases have been... a bit bumpy to say the least. Since I'm the only one on the team with a good amount of experience using Aegisub and none of us have prior fansubbing experience, we're still largely playing this by ear.

Figured I'd explain some of the imperfections in case anyone was curious. Hopefully we'll be able to correct all of these for next weeks release and not have to go through a dozen revisions and re-releases.



First off would be the raw that the script was produced with. It was incredibly low quality (512x288) but it was the only one that was available at the time. Everything was timed, translated, and typeset using that raw. However there was a slight lag in the audio compared to the video, which resulted in a slight lag in our subs. The HD raw from Zero-Raws (which was used for the 720p and xvid releases) had perfect audio/video sync, so our subs are slightly out of time towards the end of the episode. I've prepared two fixes for this audio sync issue so we shouldn't have the same problem again.

Something else that's really minor is the font size and the size of the borders. I made both of them a bit too large since the raw was so small; on the 720p release the font size looks too big and the border width too fat. This is fixed on the xvid.

Next: chapters. To be honest since I never make use of chapters when I watch an .mkv, I'd completely forgotten that they even existed and that other people used them. I looked up instructions and it turns out making a chaptered .mkv is exceedingly simple. We'll do it next week.

Someone on MAL complained about "scene bleeds." I'm not quite sure what that refers to but if it means subs lingering a split second after a scene transition that was partly intentional and completely my fault. Readability is my priority over everything else so I thought longer lead-outs would be better, but I can also see why it would look awkward if the sub lingers for only one or two frames after a scene change. We'll watch the purple lines from now on.

Finally, nobody pointed this out but I thought I'd mention it: Yuuko speaks in Kansai-ben, but I decided not to translate with an accent. On the other hand, if you've been following our releases of Takkoku, you'll notice I've consistently translated Hikari's Kansai accent with an American Southern accent (as best as I could). There are multiple reasons for this difference in conventions.

First off, with a manga scanlation, the English dialogue that I write is going to be the reader's only source of information on what the characters are saying. However with anime, the viewer can get information from both the subtitles and the audio. Manga translations ideally should capture as much of the nuance of the original dialogue as possible, including emotion, tone of voice, formality, and dialect. However in anime viewers can hear the emotion in the voice acting, and even if you don't understand Japanese, if you've seen enough anime you can often tell a strong accent. That said I do try to capture a character's emotion and tone of voice when translating anime, but it's not as high a priority as it would be if I were doing manga.

The second reason goes back to readability. Manga readers can spend as much time as they want on a page, but anime subtitles have a built-in time limit and it's important that the viewer can get the necessary information from the subtitles before that time limit is up. However small a difference it would make, I figured that translating with an accent would slow the viewer down in reading the subtitles, so I focused on meaning instead.

Anyway, hopefully some people found that informative and I didn't bore anyone to death. If people are interested I've been meaning to write a few posts about how I translate and my thoughts on translation, but if that would just put people to sleep I'll refrain.