Forum - View topicFansub annoyances
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Kusanagi_Kei
 Posts: 230 |
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As we all take fansubs for granted and enjoy them a lot, they are indeed useful sources for watching anime for free. However, I'd like to point out the annoyances in them, which I've experienced over and over again.
Firstly, font and text. Don't you happen to see many anime fansubs which have used awful fonts, which you can't read, or had to focus carefully to make out what the words are? Well, I've seen lots of them. And I don't know what the fansubbers were thinking whilst picking the font. Plus, the color also matters greatly. Many fansubbers choose poor contrasted colors for outline and inside text colors. Some of which put a legend for each character whereby they assign a color for each character and they stick to that scheme throughout. Then at many scenes where the colors clash, you find the text more difficult to read. Another factor is text size. Some fansubbers choose to minimize the text size so that it covers little of the picture as possible. But in doing so, it makes the reading more difficult. Another annoyance is I think some of the fansubbing groups are in competition with each other. They aim for "flashy-ness". The more the flashy or the more the eye-candy the subtitles are, the better the fansubbing power. Some fansubbers put on totally unbelievable fonts and effects that actually distort the text itself and make it harder to make out. Why aren't they smart enough and put Arial or Tahoma, with font size 18 to 20, white color and black outline, so that everyone can read it easily? I also believe that many fansubbing groups have delayed their release of such series because (not including their student lives etc.) they spend extra time on focusing the flashy subtitles and special effects. I truly believe that the fansubbing groups want to pull more people to download their versions of fansubs by making their overall subtitle look more "eye-candy like" or more attractive. If it were me, I'd just subtitle an anime which has readable text (e.g. Arial, large enough size, with good contrasting colors), and avoid the flashy stuff. Then, another annoyance is where fansubbing groups apologize for stopping subtitling anime when they are licensed or for whatever reason, BUT redirects visitors to try elsewhere or other groups which are still subtitling the licensed series, or still ripping the series from DVD. One of the groups which I had seen this was concerning "Elfen Lied". The anime was recently licensed, and thus the group (which I am not giving away) told that they've taken down the series and suggested people to go to this other group to download the licensed title, or to go to *this* (I think everybody knows which group I'm talking about) which rips the anime and distributes for free. You know... the fansubbers put a note on their fansubs, usually during the eye-catch or interlude, saying: "this is a free fansub, please support the original works by buying the DVD", or something along those lines. But why do some fansubbing groups persist and help others obtain licensed or prohibited titles (e.g. from Media Factory Inc.)? True they are not dealing out the licensed titles themselves, but they are keeping the flow alive by redirecting people to alternative illegal sources. It's like this analogy: "Sorry, I've stopped dealing drugs and cocaine now, HOWEVER, there's this small house a few blocks away from here, which dishes out the good stuff for a good price, so you might want to check it out there." Do some of you have this view about fansubs and fansubbing groups? |
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IchigoK90
 Posts: 1634 Location: Scarborough, Ontario |
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I believe we don't have a right to complain about them. These guys take their own time to give out fansubs for free. In fact I appreciate every fansub I get so I have no problems with them.
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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If a fansub doesn't produce a work the way you like it, get it from a different group. There are usually alternatives. Don't you wish that were the case with the official releases?
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Ktimene's Lover
 Posts: 2242 Location: Glendale, AZ (Proudly living in the desert) |
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How do they do fansubs (as well as fandubs)?
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Starwind Amada
Posts: 981 Location: Easton, PA, USA |
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You need some kind of video-capturing equipment that records TV feeds to your computer as well as subtitling equipment. And a translator. For fandubs (which are VERY obscure) you just need a microphone, as well as an SFX library and the OSTs. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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The only real problem I have with a fansub is if it's subbing isn't being well-done. I do appreciate the fansubs with easier to read fonts, and I really like fansubs that give out the romanji for opening songs, but I'll live without them.
Lazy fansubbing is something I hate. I recently was watching a fansub of the live action adaptation of the manga Mars and was really annoyed with the poor quality of the subbing. Any scenes that were flashbacks to early scenes were not subbed. The recaps of the last episode were not subbed. Sometimes entire lines of dialogue were just not subbed, and the timing was sometimes atrocious. I do appreciate that it takes a lot of work and effort to put a fansub together...but if you're going to do all that, wouldn't you want to make sure it was worth the effort, that you had an actually good final product? Luckily, most fansubs do not have these issues, from what I've seen. So I like most of them, though there are some I prefer. But generally, only that one real problem with them. |
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Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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To expound a bit. What happens is, someone in Japan records the show when it airs (except in cases of DVDs which are ripped). They then post the RAW (called so because it is has no subs) as it is known, online. A designated person from whatever fansub group downloads the RAW, and sends it to the Translator. The Translator makes a translated script, which is then gone over by the Editor and Translator. The script is then given to the Timer, who sets the exact time a particular sub line should appear and disappear (Always a short amount of time before a person actually starts speaking, for instance). From there, it moves to the Styler or Typesetter. Somewhere in there it should be edited again. From there it moves to the Encoder, who encodes everything nicely (usually). Generally after that, it's given to one or more people to QC (check for errors). After that, it gets posted online for the masses to download. |
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ShellBullet
 Posts: 1051 Location: I hit things, with my fist. |
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That's the way it should work, but when we see these next-day subs, I somehow doubt that all those steps were followed in detail. |
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Kazuki-san
Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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No, it's not always done that way. But there are actually quite a few next-day groups (good ones mind you), that are able to follow the system, because they have the timing scheduled. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6903 Location: Kazune City |
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Since I'm a grammar Nazi, I don't like seeing fifth-grade-level English errors in subtitle scripts. If their translator is, for instance, a Japanese native speaker who isn't completely knowledgeable about English, they had better have an expert editing for them. Some examples of these mistakes would be "Your pathetic, Negi-sensei" or "for a human, it's power is pretty amazing" (referring to a special attack) . [Should be "you're" and "its."] And these are from the groups considered "good" or "official" for the series from which I'm taking these quotes. Basically, any dumb word confusions would fall into this category, like who's/whose, there/they're/their, then/than, and so forth. (And this isn't limited to fansubbers--Funimation managed to put "but their's is a serious case" in Fruits Basket when even a computer spell checker will tell you that "their's" should be spelled "theirs." Same goes with other nonwords like "alot."
And this last bit is a suggestion for fansubs and official subs alike--don't go "over-literal," and have a little variety in the translations for some overused Japanese words like "yokatta" (That's good/I'm glad/Thank goodness/What a relief) or "ganbaru" (commonly translated as "do [one's] best," "try hard"). Still, I'm more annoyed by the way people treat fansubbers, like saying "Waaa, when's the next episode coming out, you're slow, you're all stupid, I know you're holding back to 'punish us' . . .", especially because I've translated, timed, and edited an episode myself before: it's not easy. |
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Kusanagi_Kei
Posts: 230 |
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I'd like to point out another annoyance.
The way they slap on their whacky nonsense screen names onto the opening sequences of the series. Indeed it is usual for us to not give away our real names otherwise we would be confiscated, etc. So it is normal for them to put nonsense names like "999_noname". E.g. timing: guud_boy, typeset: zxhuld5, encode: Forgetme123. No one really wants to acknowledge those screen names, for sure. Do you want to take in those names? I wouldn't. Although it doesn't hurt for them to do that, I'd like to see romaji conversions of the kanji names which are shown during the opening sequences. That way I can at least know who designed this or scripted that, and they are actually real anime creators. I see some groups starting to do this, (i.e. putting romaji of the credits in opening). And it's a good thing of course (for me anyway), so long as they don't use an out-of-this-world font and text color. I don't want to have to pause every time a subtitle comes on and take time to make out what the hell the words are. Oh yeah, one fansub of which the subtitles had poor contrast with the background would be "Full Moon o Sagashite". Since that most of the anime had light backgrounds, the colors of the subtitles had to match in scheme with the character and thus it was so conflicting making the contrast very low. |
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Luminescence
 Posts: 33 Location: New York, NY |
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I've only had one truly bad experience with a fansub, and that was because the sub was so inaccurate that I couldn't understand what was going on.
And I'll also admit that I have a problem with grammar and spelling errors in fansubs. Then again, many "official" releases have some errors in them, too. So I usually don't let it bother me, especially since I am the non-paying beneficiary of these people's hard work. |
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nakama
 Posts: 32 |
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i wouldnt compare drug dealing with fansubing 
you know fansubing is free so there is no point complaining about the flashyness and unreadble subtitles its like if you found a doller on the street and got pissed at how bad it looks fansubbing gets to much bad press around here its the best thing about the damn internet and makes your internet worth while |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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But it doesn't make it worthwhile for the company producing the anime you're not paying for and makes them cut their budgets back for future productions.
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Seif
 Posts: 458 |
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Isn't this like complaining that your free food doesn't taste good enough for you?
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