Forum - View topicSubtitles, now smaller than ever!
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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With all the talk about the Platinum Eva vs. the classic DVDs I decided to dig up my older copies and compare them side by side. The image quality in the renewal version is so much better which was expected. What surprised me was the size of the subtitles in the original DVD pressing. It helps confirm my opinion that subtitles are getting smaller. The font size felt twice as big as a typical Funimation release. I suppose this is due to higher resolution as well as bigger televisions. The Platinum edition manages to fit more text on one line. The only other thing I noticed on the original release was how fun the French and Spanish audio tracks are!
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Azathrael
 Posts: 745 |
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Unforunately, the quality of translation remains a constant too-shitty-to-handle. They're just missing so much from the actual language.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6903 Location: Kazune City |
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I noticed the same thing about Eva's subtitles when I compared the versions--the original seems to have more "liberties" taken to fit the space, though I wouldn't call it bad.
Maybe so, but they have the limitations of writing the sub scripts for as wide an audience as possible, and they assume that this audience doesn't know very much Japanese (although the Kodocha subs and dub track do refer to the show as a "shoujo anime"). This means omission and Anglicization of name suffixes, for one thing. Sure, the fansubs write for a more hardcore audience, but they suffer from inaccuracies as well. At the risk of driving this thread off-topic, perhaps you could provide some evidence of "too-shitty-to-handle" translations in official releases, region 1,2,4 or wherever. |
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Anthony P
Posts: 227 Location: Phoenix, Arizona, US |
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When I saw this thread's title, I was for sure you were referring to the Interlude OVA. Interlude's subtitle's are eye-squintingly tiny, by far the smallest subtitles I've ever seen, and they oftentimes appear onscreen in paragraph-long portions. Then, on top of all this, every little sound the characters make is subtitled; sometimes the subtitles would read "(panting)" or "(running exertion)" when the characters were fleeing. Or screams would be subtitled, like "EEEEAAAAAGH". It's so horrible that it's actually amusing. |
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Azathrael
Posts: 745 |
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Really, it's the simple stuff that gets to me. If you really NEED examples (I thought the DVD subtitles spoke for itself... meh) here are a few: Instead of translating something like "Kouta nii-san", you'd see something like "Kouta" or "Brother Kouta". Instead of having "sensei", you'd see something like "teacher". This one isn't "wrong", so to speak, but anyone who's seen Onegai Teacher would feel a little awkward. Simply put, DVD subtitles has that unwanted responsibility of being "correct" and whatnot since it is a legitimate money-garnering product that needs to be presentable. I have no problems with it, I'm just saying they're too shitty for me to bear it any longer than needed. Even though I'm not comparing them to fansub subtitles (There's no competition, really), fansub subtitles tries to be a little more unofficial and a little more satisfying for "hardcore" anime fans. /Putting the thread back on track now... *push* 
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daxomni
 Posts: 2650 Location: Somewhere else. |
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But you hear it in the audio track. What's the big deal if the subtitles don't have it? It's true that I would prefer that the subtitles used the Japanese honorifics and whatnot. However, it's easy enough to just listen for them on the Japanese language track.
Not only is it "not wrong," it's actually correct. Feeling a little awkward about a student living with his teacher pseudo-romantically is mostly likely one of the intended reactions to this series.
You might have a strong case for bashing commercial subtitles, but you simply haven't presented much of one yet, IMO. As for the size of subtitles, it hasn't really bothered me yet. I don't like it when they're hard to see, or when they're hard-titled, or when they don't stay on the screen long enough to read, but otherwise I've been pretty happy with most subtitles thus far. Then again, I don't understand Japanese so maybe I'm missing all sorts of important clues and wordplay. |
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Azathrael
Posts: 745 |
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I don't CARE if I hear it in the audio track. I'm still going to be reading it and it bothers me. Got a problem?
I'm not feeling awkward about the situation; I'm feeling awkward about how I'm going to read it through subtitles. Are you saying there's no difference between reading the word "sensei" and "teacher"? How about hearing? Have you heard the dubs for Onegai Teacher? I actually had to rewatch the entire series over because I watched it in dubs first and felt disgusted, JUST by the word "teacher". Just because the series "intended" such reactions doesn't mean I have to take its literal meaning "teacher" by reading it every single time.
If you already know it's a strong case, I guess I don't really have to present much of one. It's not like I posted with the intention of persuading every forum user to join me in my great conquest for DVD subtitle bashing.
Yes, in fact you are. Don't bother asking for examples because it's probably every single one of them. That doesn't mean fansub or any other kind of subtitles do it justice; just that DVD subtitles are lacking in comparison to, for example, fansub subtitles. Honestly, if you're not going to disagree I have no idea what your problem is. All I said was that DVD subtitles are shitty, and it's not like you made them, yet you're at me like some hungry bitch looking for leftovers. In fact, if you're so adamant about it, why don't you come up with your own counter arguments with facts instead of refuting with your own ideas and opinions. Arguing my opinions with your opinions just makes this a useless flaming thread, which I have no interests in after about 5 posts. |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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They're translated, that's the whole point to the subtitles, and they're translated generally pretty well. They just don't selectively translate like you and other purists want, or should I say demand. But they're also not translating for the overzealous purist community, they're translating for any and every user from hardcore fan to casual fan. Now why should they transfer selectively as you demand? Since it's apparent you watch fansubs anyways like many such purists and hardcore fans, not much of a point to cater to a portion of a fanbase that in all likelihood doesn't purchase the product and has a tendency to not be happy with anything the licensors do anyways.
At any rate, as was mentioned above this is off topic for this thread. Somewhat related but still not on topic with the intended subject matter. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator  Posts: 11507 Location: Frisco, TX |
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And I'm glad ADV switched the font size from their old ones. I hate the size they used to have, as it covered up almost a quarter of the screen, not to mention they were skinny and a bit more spaced out, which made it especially terrible to read during scenes of multi-subbed dialogue (Eva being a very good example, by the way). This is part of the reason my DVD collection doesn't consist of too many ADV titles, unless they have the newer, smaller fonts. |
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LeoKnight25
 Posts: 319 Location: Puyallup, WA |
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I can't stand the size of Funimation's subtitles to be honest. They're way too small with a little bit too much dialogue, and with the timing as fast as it is, it's really hard to catch everything that's being said. Other than that, the translation is actually fairly well done and the English re-write is pretty good. ADV however is really sloppy on the english re-writes on a lot of their titles. Saint Seiya for one has really sloppy dialogue and just doesn't flow very well at all. Mazinkaiser is also extremely poor with half of the dialogue reading worse than some Hong Kong bootlegs out there. It was almost as if the person doing the translation and re-write didn't speak english very well at all. Other than that, I don't really have much of a problem with the subtitles from most of the other companies. Translations are done fairly well as well as the english re-writes from Bandai. Viz is decent as well with only a few glaring things that bother me such as name changes in the subtitles (in Night Warriors). Manga Entertainment is the worst company on the planet however. Dubtitles with bad timing, bad dialogue. They shouldn't even be allowed to release anything anymore. heh.
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Zalis116
Moderator
Posts: 6903 Location: Kazune City |
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I understand your points, and I too wish that they included more name suffixes and other terms like sensei, oniichan, etc., but once I learned enough Japanese to understand that stuff, I started selectively ignoring the subtitles for those parts. Yes, omission/changing of these things can be annoying, and causes parts of the story to be missed. However, I fail to see how this aspect makes the whole translation bad or inadequate--as far as I can tell, official DVDs don't mistranslate words or distort meanings, and provide subtitles in readable, understandable English, with some re-writing to account for Japanese word order and for screen space. (Unlike, for example, HK bootlegs, which range from choppy to incomprehensible.) Then again, I don't claim to know enough Japanese to be able to critique every aspect of DVD or fansub translation. And if you do, then why are you reading subtitles in the first place? |
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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Although I love the Funimation font size I find it funny when three people say hai at the same time they feel it necessary to print up yes yes yes on three different lines. |
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shirokiryuu
Posts: 714 Location: Northern California (SF Bay Area) |
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I have to agree... I've seen some really horrible bootlegs.. but mostly it's because it goes through a japanese --> chinese --> english process... so sometimes they use the Chinese names instead of the japanese ones or translations are used instead (like "Sunkist" for Sanji and "Cheat Cloth" for Usopp) bootlegs drive me nuts.. but i wish i that there are good One Piece DVDs without filling up the little hard drive i have (i don't download fansubs because of this reason, and also i don't have any of the codecs and stuff) *shakes fist* I'd rather just get the real DVDs alright.. on the topic of subtitles it really annoys me when things go to fast, but then i'll have to rewind and watch again, and sometimes i still fail to read it (even with my full attention to them) But small subtitles can be inconvient to someone like me, who wears glasses, but on such a low prescription that it's pretty pointless to wear it all the time and it gives me a headache. So i constantly (i know it's not good) watch close to the TV to clearly read subtitles. |
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joel_s95387
Posts: 1804 Location: California... The Village Hidden In The Porn |
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I noticed this change as well but I always thought it was because bigger TVs are more affordable and with widescreen and all that good stuff. Samurai Champloo subs look a lot bigger on a widescreen TV and smaller on a 4:3. Back in the day most TVs in our household were like 24 inches and now we have have four in the house, 3 or 40 inch and over and 1 is a small kitchen TV. I think those are the sizes I was never good at measuring without a ruler but I think I remember what it said on the boxes. Anyway thats the only reason I saw why subtitles would be smaller and with most new anime in widescreen format, the subtitles don't block the anime and it works the other way too. GITS 2 subtitles looked like crap.
Anyway it's just my theory. |
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LeoKnight25
Posts: 319 Location: Puyallup, WA |
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I never noticed that, hehe. That's weird. I wonder why they would do it like that instead of just doing like one big "YES!" or something like that. Would make much more sense to do that. |
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