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mahoro
Joined: 31 Jul 2003
Posts: 310
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 11:17 am
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Do other anime collectors feel dvds are inadequately subtitled? I must first admit I am disappointed with many dvds I’ve purchased and I am a purist preferring only correctly translated (this includes cultural differences), timed and easily readable fonts. Yes, I have exact standards for subbing because far too often companies like Viz, Manga, ADV and Buena Vista release inferior products, rife with mistakes. IMO this is unacceptable especially since these companies claim to check for errors and pay people to do this. When I use to work with fansubbers we did labors of love and literally put out hearts and blood into the subbing. Sadly, nowadays when you examine sub quality on dvds, you discover more often than not, you get some poorly translated, mistimed, illegible fonts, and clearly slipshod inferior products.
Yes I hold these companies (I've only listed a few) accountable that make these poor excuses for licensed R1 anime dvds. For the amount of money they charge consumers, I for one expect near perfection. Overall I've discovered more and more companies are alienating their most loyal consumers the otakus and purists; this was especially obvious when vhs was king and subs cost a lot more than dubs and were released later to boot. Now that dvds are commonplace and vhs on the way to beta, has anyone else noticed “mistakes” and problems with the subtitling quality on anime dvds, or am I the only one? Following vhs, ld, and now dvds, this is one otaku who expects more from a company.
Last edited by mahoro on Tue Aug 05, 2003 6:33 pm; edited 1 time in total
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demonblade508
Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 65
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 12:19 pm
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I agree with you there man. I've watched quite a bit of anime, and I've seen some really bad subtitling. I think Manga is the absolute worst. I was just watch the Record of Lodoss Wars: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight (jeez, such a long title) but anyway, the subtitling is especially bad in that. Not the actual color of the subtitles, but the translations. Terrible. I have never seen so many spelling errors in an anime, since about 5 yeas ago when I bought my last bootleg VHS.
On terms of the best, I'd have to say Media Blasters is pretty good, and even though I just sold all my DBZ DVD's Funimation is great at subtitling. They Have/had one of the best translators. Steven Simmons. Wow he was really good. But yea, I think the subtitling needs to get better for most companies. Pioneer is pretty good, but I often find many errors.
Well, laters
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Aaron White
Old Regular
Joined: 23 Aug 2002
Posts: 1365
Location: Birmingham, Alabama
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 12:30 pm
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I'm still peeved that the Last Year at Marienbad DVD puts the subs over the picture, when it's letterboxed and they could have put it in the black frame. But that's not anime.
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cyrax777
Joined: 05 Mar 2003
Posts: 1825
Location: the desert
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 1:31 pm
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mahoro wrote: | s. When I use to work with fansubbers we did labors of love and literally put out hearts and blood into the subbing. Sadly, nowadays when you examine sub quality on dvds, you discover more often than not, you get some poorly translated, mistimed, illegible fonts, and clearly slipshod inferior products.
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I tend to notice this more with todays Digi subs then with commercial DVDS.
and come on if you know enough japanese to go "hey thats not what there saying" why are you bothering to watch it subbed anyway why not just RAW?
I can only name 2 commerical products that had crappy subs Ghost in the Shell LD (dubtitled) and The Wings of Honneamise DVD (dont get me started) other then that I dont see anything.
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Ryo
Joined: 22 Jul 2003
Posts: 62
Location: Montreal
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 9:22 pm
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Aaron White wrote: | I'm still peeved that the Last Year at Marienbad DVD puts the subs over the picture, when it's letterboxed and they could have put it in the black frame. But that's not anime. |
Maybe you'll change your mind the day you buy a 16:9 TV.
And Cyrax, I disagree with you. After years of watching anime, I'm beggining to understand what they're saying sometimes. Nowhere near perfect understanding, but I can say much to often "hey, that wasn't right". I believed a dub must be adapted to a certain extent, but subs should be as close to the original dialog as possible. That's why some DVDs have a translation track and another for the english text.
And if they think something could be hard to understand if you don't know much about anime or Japan, they just have to add translation notes. That's what they did in Rurouni Kenshin (the TV serie, not the OAV). Rika Takahashi (very good translations) even kept Kenshin's "de gozaru", whitch is a thing that most translators would have let slip.
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molloaggie
Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 578
Location: Texas
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 9:51 pm
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Since I don't speak a lick of Japanese, I can never tell whether the translation was perfect or not. However, I've never watched an anime and thought what they said was out of place. If there were changes made, they blended right in to me.
Problems with subtitling go both ways. My mother is a LOR fan. She told me that Peter Jackson fired/was going to fire the company that was subtitling the movie for Japan. He didn't like their translation or edits at all. They made the excuse the edits were necessary because people couldn't read fast enough.
I do find it annoying when they flash three long sentences in a blink. I can't believe the character is saying THAT MUCH in such a short time.
I had heard or read somewhere that it costs more to subtitle a movie than to dub it. Is that really true? It sounds backwards to me.
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Ryo
Joined: 22 Jul 2003
Posts: 62
Location: Montreal
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 9:57 pm
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People who don't read fast enough should watch Excel Saga or Puni Puni Poemi subbed. That's some extreme training.
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Godaistudios
Joined: 12 Jun 2003
Posts: 2075
Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment)
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 10:58 pm
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molloaggie wrote: | Since I don't speak a lick of Japanese, I can never tell whether the translation was perfect or not. However, I've never watched an anime and thought what they said was out of place. If there were changes made, they blended right in to me.
Problems with subtitling go both ways. My mother is a LOR fan. She told me that Peter Jackson fired/was going to fire the company that was subtitling the movie for Japan. He didn't like their translation or edits at all. They made the excuse the edits were necessary because people couldn't read fast enough.
I do find it annoying when they flash three long sentences in a blink. I can't believe the character is saying THAT MUCH in such a short time.
I had heard or read somewhere that it costs more to subtitle a movie than to dub it. Is that really true? It sounds backwards to me. |
Looking from a logical standpoint, I can't see why it would cost more to sub a film... in both sub and dub, you still have to have a translator and somebody to do the script. With dubbing, you have to hire actors, directors, pay a studio for the recording session, etc.
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cyrax777
Joined: 05 Mar 2003
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Location: the desert
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Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2003 12:11 am
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Itr doesnt cost more to sub something but they sell more DUBS. therefore dubs tapes were cheaper.
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Ataru
Joined: 04 Jan 2002
Posts: 2332
Location: Missouri (Strikeman)
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Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2003 3:30 am
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Ryo wrote: | People who don't read fast enough should watch Excel Saga or Puni Puni Poemi subbed. That's some extreme training. |
With the Menchi Pop-Ups too. *L*
I think the main reason why they don't really worry about fixing up the subtitles is about the same reason why back in the VHS days, dubs costed less then sub becasue there was alot more people watching the dubs. I hope they wake back up to that Mid 90's way of thinking and realise that people do still watch subs.
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Hellomojo
Joined: 26 Mar 2003
Posts: 225
Location: Orlando, Fl.
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Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2003 6:54 am
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I think people are to hi end about subs and dubs. you have a right to ***** when they change the whole meaning or story, but rearanging words that untimately mean the same thing, please... I can understand if you are upset if the timing or the spelling of subs are bad. But to get angry because the japanese said "today, lets go to the train station" and they change it to lets go to the train station today" Does it ruin your story? No Does it change anything other than a measly sentance no.
Oh yea... purist may be loyal but the majority of people watching use dubs. I'm gifted and they make me read long long long booooooring novels. when I watch Anime I want to relax and chill, just watch and enjoy. Not get my glasses to read teeny tiny letters and miss out on the visual aspect of anime.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher
Joined: 29 Dec 2001
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Location: Do not message me for support.
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Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2003 1:20 pm
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cyrax777 wrote: | Itr doesnt cost more to sub something but they sell more DUBS. therefore dubs tapes were cheaper. |
Actually, although I remain very skeptical about this, I've heard more than once from industry people that a professional sub does cost more than a professional dub...
Find it hard to believe, but that's what I've been told.
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zaphdash
Joined: 14 Aug 2002
Posts: 620
Location: Brooklyn
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Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2003 1:59 pm
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mahoro wrote: | Do other anime collectors feel dvds are inadequately subtitled? I must first admit I am disappointed with many dvds I’ve purchased and I am a purist preferring only correctly translated (this includes cultural differences), timed and easily readable fonts. Yes, I have exact standards for subbing because far too often companies like Viz, Manga, ADV and Buena Vista release inferior products, rife with mistakes. IMO this is unacceptable especially since these companies claim to check for errors and pay people to do this. When I use to work with fansubbers we did labors of love and literally put out hearts and blood into the subbing. Sadly, nowadays when you examine sub quality on dvds, you discover more often than not, you get some poorly translated, mistimed, illegible fonts, and clearly slipshod inferior products. |
Since I'm not fluent or anything close to it, it's pretty rare for me to notice big translation mistakes. I do notice some things, though. For instance, I'd be really interested in seeing where ADV came up with some of the names they're using in Dunbine. I find it absolutely mind boggling that they could get "Elmelie" from a name that was spelled either "rimaru" or "rimuru" (I don't remember which right off hand and I don't feel like checking at the moment) in katakana.
Then, of course, everyone has a few typoes slip in here and there. FUNimation and Bandai have, in my experience, been the best at avoiding those. Typoes are irritating, but as long as they're very few and far between, I can forgive them, since everyone makes that kind of mistake here and there.
cyrax777 wrote: | and come on if you know enough japanese to go "hey thats not what there saying" why are you bothering to watch it subbed anyway why not just RAW? |
That works for the people who are fluent in Japanese, but that doesn't make mistakes excusable. Just because the rest of us, who aren't fluent, don't notice the mistake doesn't mean it's okay that there was a mistake. If companies want to slap a $30 MSRP on these DVDs, they damn well better be worth it.
Tempest wrote: |
cyrax777 wrote: | Itr doesnt cost more to sub something but they sell more DUBS. therefore dubs tapes were cheaper. |
Actually, although I remain very skeptical about this, I've heard more than once from industry people that a professional sub does cost more than a professional dub...
Find it hard to believe, but that's what I've been told. |
Not to sound like I'm shooting the messenger here, but that seems pretty ridiculous to me. Aside from the translation, which obviously requires someone fluent in both Japanese and the language into which it's being translated, any idiot with a computer, a raw source, and the right software (freeware, very easy to come by) can subtitle something. Granted, that wouldn't qualify as "professional," but aside from quality control, I can't imagine there are any extra steps to the process when you're subbing something for an official DVD release vs. anything else (fansubs or whatever else you want to apply subtitles to). Industry people or not, I find that *really* hard to believe.
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mahoro
Joined: 31 Jul 2003
Posts: 310
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Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2003 11:25 pm
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My original complaint stemmed from the inferior quality of commercially released subtitled anime. Many of you have added interesting comments, thanks.
hellomojo -this is not a flame, just an observation- I wouldn't completely agree with your comment, "Oh yea... purist may be loyal but the majority of people watching use dubs'. I cannot say I agree with you on this. Consider that dvds now contain on average both the Japanese and English audio versions. This bilingual format replaces the formerly asinine commonplace delayed release of subs on vhs. Due to this, few people truly know with certainity that dubs are watched more than subs (and vice versa) on dvds. However, we do know from years of vhs sales and marketing data that dubs sold better, partly because they were released first and sold cheaper than subs. But despite this data, we still don't know how well or poorly vhs subs might've sold, if released at the same time and priced the same as dubs. That being said, one thing few people can dispute is the poor quality of commercial subs on dvds. As such, IMO it is extremely important to be aware that well-done commercial subs on dvds is essential for companies to maintain good relations with their most loyal and best paying fanbase. IMO on average the otakus aka the hardcore anime fans stay with this hobby for at least a seven to twelve years, the same cannot be said about the newbe or someone who watches dubbed anime -it is common for these viewers to dropout of anime after college-.
This is just my opinion, but watching anime in the original Japanese language is completely different than watching a rescripted -more often than not mediocre- English dub. When most animes are originally created the Japanese audiotrack usually is done first and the animation is crafted around it. Generally animes aren't created for redubs in English, so when you watch dubs, haven't you noticed the lipsyncing is atrocious? Now you know why.
On a similar note, if you've ever watched foreign films from countries such as Russia, India, China, France, and Italy, you know that these films are rarely dubbed in English when they make their way to the U.S.A. Why? Well, in other countries it is not expected that foreign films will be dubbed over in the native language strictly for the convenience of the viewer. Subtitles are commonplace and acceptable. People who have difficulty reading subs merely lack practice. And with time and enough practice, you too will come to appreciate quality subs for preserving the original language of the film and anime.
Last edited by mahoro on Wed Jan 14, 2004 2:10 am; edited 1 time in total
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LuppyLuptonium
Joined: 18 Jul 2003
Posts: 139
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Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2003 11:36 pm
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Hellomojo wrote: | I think people are to hi end about subs and dubs. you have a right to ***** when they change the whole meaning or story, but rearanging words that untimately mean the same thing, please... I can understand if you are upset if the timing or the spelling of subs are bad. But to get angry because the japanese said "today, lets go to the train station" and they change it to lets go to the train station today" Does it ruin your story? No Does it change anything other than a measly sentance no.
Oh yea... purist may be loyal but the majority of people watching use dubs. I'm gifted and they make me read long long long booooooring novels. when I watch Anime I want to relax and chill, just watch and enjoy. Not get my glasses to read teeny tiny letters and miss out on the visual aspect of anime. |
I tend to watch both... I never expect the dub to be exact (that is just disturbing). But I expect the sub to be what the japanese people are saying... I may use the dubs but I never consider a DVD fully "watched" until I see both. If the accusations I have heard in this discussion are true (not sure because they are lacking evidence) then I will be greatly disturbed.... Possably enough to send a lettwr which no one will read and will be tossed into the emptyness of the internet abyss.... Thus is the way of the otaku.... (Man I eat way too much paint flavored Pocky)
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