April 01, 2015

Procrastination ends

And now WhyNot just posted their version of the Bodacious Space Pirates movie...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 03:59 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
Post contains 15 words, total size 1 kb.

1
I saw WhyNot's sub was posted shortly after I read your original notification that Doremi's was up, and I laughed. I wonder if WhyNot borrowed part of Doremi's translation to flesh out whatever they were missing.

I'm going to still watch Doremi's subs though, considering they did a great job on Hyouge Mono (which wasn't an easy translation, from what I gather).

Posted by: wahsatchmo at April 02, 2015 09:03 AM (r4uXE)

2 Doremi's was impressive for a speedsub, but based on the first 20 minutes or so of each, I'd say WhyNot's is better. Also, something in the encoding of the Doremi sub made it take a good two minutes to open in VLC; I've seen this before with MKVs, and it always bugs me.

Both groups filled in a lot of things that I hadn't caught in the raw. I'd have had to pause the disc every 30 seconds to replay many of those lines several times before I'd have been able to pick out the words to look up.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at April 02, 2015 09:38 AM (ZlYZd)

3 WhyNot's translation was done months ago. The holdup was typesetting.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 02, 2015 10:40 AM (+rSRq)

4
Well now I'm torn. I guess I'll just have to watch one set of subs for 5 minutes, then switch to the other for five minutes, then continue switching every five minutes until I thoroughly ruin the experience for myself.

Typesetting subs must be an utterly tedious process, especially the karaoke subs that some groups do.  I admire these groups for the time they spend while getting only bragging rights in return.

Posted by: wahsatchmo at April 02, 2015 11:32 AM (r4uXE)

5

I've watched them both, and I do have to admit that the WhyNot translation seems better to me. If I were asked, that's the one I'd recommend.

I still have to give Doremi credit for shipping, you know. A good-enough translation that I can see is better than an ideal one that slips and slips and slips. And it took having a Doremi's sub finally become available to light a fire under WhyNot and get them to devote a few hours to finishing the damned thing. So even if Doremi gets eclipsed by the WhyNot version, they still did us a great service.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 02, 2015 12:29 PM (+rSRq)

6 I gather this "typesetting" is significantly more effort than the equivalent of putting text on a picture in MS Paint.
I don't mean that to sound snarky but I have to wonder just how hard it must be to hold things up for months.

Posted by: RickC at April 02, 2015 03:19 PM (0a7VZ)

7

No, the difficulty doesn't explain the delay. That was simple procrastination. But it's more than what you describe, at least in some cases.

The subtitles at the bottom of the page are relatively simple, but doing a classy job of translating signs and pieces of paper and computer displays involves changing the geometry (including skewing to fit perspective), picking appropriate fonts, and choosing colors that fit the scene.

That's why it took a few hours -- once they got motivated to do it. But it doesn't take months. Doremi did a fair amount of that. But from start to finish including that, Doremi finished their sub in one day.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 02, 2015 03:40 PM (+rSRq)

8 I didn't even think of signs and thing, but of course you're right that takes some extra time.

Posted by: RickC at April 02, 2015 05:55 PM (0a7VZ)

9 You'd think WhyNot kicked Steven's puppy...

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 02, 2015 07:31 PM (jGQR+)

10

It's been in the corner whimpering for weeks.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 02, 2015 08:23 PM (+rSRq)

11

My main complaint wasn't that they were taking too long, as such. The problem was that they made a high profile announcement that they were going to do this movie, which dissuaded anyone else from doing it for six months.

Finally someone else got fed up and did it themselves. But if WhyNot hadn't jumped in when and how they did, might we have had a sub from someone like CoalGirls months ago?

They claimed the territory and then didn't build on it, so for six months all we've had to look at was an empty lot.

I've had far too much experience with vapor of many kinds in my life, and it's always unpleasant.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 02, 2015 08:25 PM (+rSRq)

12

"But they're volunteers. Why do you feel you can demand anything when you're not paying?"

When they announced they were going to do the project, that (and that alone) laid an obligation on them to do what they said they were going to do.

No one forced them to make that announcement, and if they hadn't none of us would have any right whatever to demand that they do this project.

But promises should be kept if they're genuine and uncoerced, as was the case here. They said they were going to do it, so we are entitled to be upset when they didn't.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 02, 2015 08:29 PM (+rSRq)

13 ...that they were going to do this movie, which dissuaded anyone else from doing it for six months...

Because we all know that if one group is going to do it, that means nobody else can.  C'mon, Steven, you know better than that.  There's no "first come, first served" priority with fansub groups.

...might we have had a sub from someone like CoalGirls months ago?

Allow me to quote from the CoalGirls' website:  "We will do what we want, and do not care about your opinion."  If they had wanted to do the movie, they would have, no matter what WhyNot announced.  I suspect the exact same thing could be said about a dozen other groups. 


...so we are entitled to be upset when they didn't.

If you say so, Steven.          o.0

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 02, 2015 10:58 PM (jGQR+)

14 It's fair to say that it was an etiquette fail. That sort of thing happens - fansub groups have their own drama issues and this hobby is not known for the high social function of its fans.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at April 03, 2015 12:41 PM (zJsIy)

15 Watching further, there are some quirks to WhyNot's sub that I don't care for. A quick example is at 1:06:31; Marika says "iku wa yo, minna" and it is translated as "let's go, mateys!".

-j

Posted by: J Greely at April 04, 2015 07:35 PM (ZlYZd)

16

That one showed up a couple of times in the series proper, too.

Another is that the fake captain used the term saruriman to describe himself and they changed it to "Office Worker". I thought that "Salaryman" would have worked better there.

Well, nothing is perfect.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 04, 2015 07:38 PM (+rSRq)

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