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Answerman - Subtitle Hues and Cry

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.

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.

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.

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 don't understand, but if there's any confusion as to whether or not you can sub this nicely, Vivid made it very clear in their release (please note that this is very quick easy to do): http://a.pomf.se/gpfwok.webm

Your point on giving speedsubs more leeway is largely valid, though.
Thanks for the polite reply

With all the talk of subtitles, I do have a question that I'm hoping someone here can help me out with. I've been boycotting Funi for a while, and will be for the foreseeable future, so I don't know the answer. Do they still only use a single color of subs whenever they have multiple people talking at the same time? That was always my biggest pet peeve with their subs. You would have two people talking and a wall of text on the screen, with no indication as to who was saying what. I much preferred how Sentai would use yellow for the first speaker, and then white for second speaker or background sounds (such as a TV.)

dragonrider_cody wrote:

With all the talk of subtitles, I do have a question that I'm hoping someone here can help me out with. I've been boycotting Funi for a while, and will be for the foreseeable future, so I don't know the answer. Do they still only use a single color of subs whenever they have multiple people talking at the same time? That was always my biggest pet peeve with their subs. You would have two people talking and a wall of text on the screen, with no indication as to who was saying what. I much preferred how Sentai would use yellow for the first speaker, and then white for second speaker or background sounds (such as a TV.)

Pretty much everyone does that these days. I've never seen two separate colours on Cruncyroll or Funimation while streaming.

You get used to it pretty fast though. And tbh I normally watch more Funimation dubs than subs.

dragonrider_cody wrote:

With all the talk of subtitles, I do have a question that I'm hoping someone here can help me out with. I've been boycotting Funi for a while, and will be for the foreseeable future, so I don't know the answer. Do they still only use a single color of subs whenever they have multiple people talking at the same time? That was always my biggest pet peeve with their subs. You would have two people talking and a wall of text on the screen, with no indication as to who was saying what. I much preferred how Sentai would use yellow for the first speaker, and then white for second speaker or background sounds (such as a TV.)

Pretty much everyone does that these days. I've never seen two separate colours on Cruncyroll or Funimation while streaming.

You get used to it pretty fast though. And tbh I normally watch more Funimation dubs than subs.

Hey Dark_Sage, good to see that you're still alive and kicking.

This used to be something sort of ridiculous back in the heyday of anime fansubs, but more recent developments in software have resulted in some truly spectacular work. I mean, look at this stuff.

usually very minor punctuation errors that most people would never notice.

Do they still only use a single color of subs whenever they have multiple people talking at the same time?

On a streaming site, you can just hardsub the videos with great fonts and such with no issue.

Just Passing Through wrote:

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.

Really? That sounds kind of cool that they tried though I don't know how it looked since I haven't seen that version only AoA's on blu-ray and the fansubs. Maybe it would have helped if it were red since you mentioned they were still white.

But yeah, damn what Underwater did was so damned good when I was watching the show the first time through fansubs, couldn't help but be disappointed not seeing that in the official home release since it was so cool looking on all of them, heh.

I probably hold the most unpopular opinion.

"It's an English release so scrub out the Kanji and replace it with English."

I can understand not touching street signs when a show is based in Japan, but alot of the text isn't part of the artwork to me: it's overlayed over the artwork. I miss the days when the opening credits and the title would be translated and the songs would be in English for the dub. I loved the Princess Tutu approach where the Japanese title changed into the English one.

I just want an equal product to the Japanese.