Anbu-Aone too over-rated?

[Spooky-Electric]

Originally Posted by Scy

As for ANBU/AONE taking too many projects, forgive me if I sound offensive, but why must they take so many projects?

Or better yet, why do so many fucking groups have to sub Naruto? I mean it doesn't affect me or anything as I just stick to AA, but I think it's annoying that all these speed sub groups are doing Naruto.

[kuru]

Originally Posted by The-Wolf-Of-Mibu

The real question is this.

Pin point translation accuracy that sounds flat and dull vs translation thats fairly accurate but has a little "umph" to it because it was put into an english context.

In short, you like edited anime. The approach Tokyo Pop took to Initial D and ADV some times takes with their dubs. Or Funimation is doing right now to the dub of Detective Conan:

"Let's change things.

Let's make them cool for our American idiotic audience who has trouble understanding anything different from their usual lives.

All those Japanese names are difficult for the idiots we sell these things.

Let's change names.

Tomoyo.... Is that a name ? Let's call her Madison!

Shinichi ? Who'd be able to say this ? Jimmy is his new name.

Mouri Ran ? Never. Rachel Moore!"

If you like this kind of s**** because you think is sound "cool" it's your problem. Don't ask me to like it too.

Maybe some of your favorite Naruto-subbers that make things sound cool could try this approach. How about changing Sasuke to Sam ?
No

[zindryr]

Originally Posted by boneyjellyfish

It seems like your group was formed for the sole purpose of releasing as fast a sub as possible. Now, I'm not going to comment on the fact that you guys released a v2 of your sub which seems to contradict what I'm reading here about how you release for the sole purpose of being first, but I am going to have to ask you to be careful. There are going to be many, many groups in the future that will try to be as fast, if not faster, than you. Are you content with the level of quality of your releases? Are you content that there are spelling and grammatical errors in the text, or that your subs might be mistimed? Are you content that, although your translation might be of moderate quality, the overall presentation of your releases isn't up to snuff?

If you are, then by all means continue speed subbing Naruto. Have a blast, for all I care. However, if at any time you do begin to care about those aspects, your subs will take longer and longer to release as you correct your errors. The longer it takes for you to release, the higher the chance of another group popping up just to take advantage of how painfully slow you've become (you're now releasing the night after the episode aired instead of the afternoon).

This seems to be what happened to groups like DarkAnime, Shin-Otaku, and ANBU/AonE. Rather than fight the futile battle to release first, they saw that the quality of their subs was suffering, and let's face it, speed subbing is no joyride. So, they increased the quality of their subs tenfold. Unfortunately, DarkAnime threw in the towel due to the proliferation of speed subbers that popped up around episode 60, which was just around the time they were finally getting good.

Anyway, my point to all of this is please, for yourselves, go easy on this. If it's too much for you, there's no shame in at least taking it easy and releasing high quality.

I'm well aware of most of these points. We know our video quality is horrid, (that will/has been fixed in my absense). We also know that the subs we release are not the best all the time, but that is mostly because of some miscommunications, and the fact that I, (translator), want to be as accurate to the Japanese as I can. This tends to make for some bad sentences in general, and they never get changed because I usually do some of the editing/grammar checking since we're a really small group in general. (I also was not aware that we released a V2 of a Naruto episode, as we only speedsub Naruto. I know we did in fact release a V2 of our 'other' series because we do enjoy it much more than Naruto, and would like for it to be a bit more presentable.)

I do happen to agree on most of your points though, for us this is mostly just a sort of small step into perhaps doing other things. We may fall back into the 'higher quality' groups, but that will all depend and things. Also, only one of our three releases of Naruto before I left for Germany came out the next day, (our second release), the other two came out the day it aired, if my memory serves me correctly.

[boneyjellyfish]

Originally Posted by zindryr

(I also was not aware that we released a V2 of a Naruto episode, as we only speedsub Naruto. I know we did in fact release a V2 of our 'other' series because we do enjoy it much more than Naruto, and would like for it to be a bit more presentable.)

Whoops. My mistake. I was actually thinking about Anime-Heaven when I wrote that sentence.

[smilealwiz]

Firstly, I'd like to make the point that fan-subbing is a hobby. It's not a service they're obliged to provide. More often than not, the only (or the main) reason why people start to sub a certain series is simply because they like it. So who are we, leechers that never lifted a finger to help, to complain judge and condemn whether or not they started from ep1, or jumped in at ep70, or dropped it at ep 90? (just numbers I pulled out of the air) It just sounds so ungrateful.

And if a certain group's subbing quality is not up to your standards, then just trash it and grab something else. No matter how terrible it is, the fact that *something* was released is a testimony to the fact that they tried. At least respect them for their effort and not flame them on forums.

To use the terms "over-rated" and "under-rated" is really quite meaningless (and extremely hurting to the fan-subbers in question) because such a thing like translation is, in itself, a very subjective matter. And saying things like "Anbu-Aone all the way" or "S-O all the way" etc, no matter how true it may be for yourself, it is simply untactful on a forum. It certainly isn't constructive at all, and definitely doesn't help relations between different fan-subbing groups. It can only hurt people's feelings. So why bother to say it at all?

Just my two cents worth.

[ChoBaka]

Originally Posted by smilealwiz

And saying things like "Anbu-Aone all the way" or "S-O all the way" etc, no matter how true it may be for yourself, it is simply untactful on a forum. It certainly isn't constructive at all, and definitely doesn't help relations between different fan-subbing groups. It can only hurt people's feelings. So why bother to say it at all?

When people do that, it reminds me of kids flashing gang signs in the street...

[Kidd]

EDIT: Please remove this post, I accidently missed an entire page of posts and I can't find a "delete post" button ^_^x;;

[SirCanealot]

I personally think anything with "ANBU" in the name is over exagerated. Nothing I see from Crustol and Torgan has been as perfect as it could be. They're filled with not what I'd say "bad grammar", but, countless examples of stiff and awkward English, which considering the context of subtitled anime - in which it tries to reflect 'normal' speech styles, I would never say was good editing.
I've actually been watching some Naruto recently, and there was around half a dozen lines per episode that annoyed me (none of which I can remember, or find again, but I'll NOTE down examples if anyone wants to challange me, so I can fully explains my reasons - I'm catching up with it now, since it's easy to watch ^^). There was many examples of things that could simply be phrased better; as I said, the key-word is 'awkward English', at least in my opinion.
There's also the ANBU lines which just make me go 'eh?', as if to wonder if anyone HAD actually edited the script. Luckily, there hasn't been many of these in Naruto, but it still annoys me in some other serieses.
And also, yes, I also find translations VERY stiff, sameish and literal, but I don't mind this as much. I'd still prefer a little creativity here and there though - as that's exactly what humans are with English: creative.

Although, I have to say in AOne/ANBU's favour, they do push the 175 meg contrainer on what can be a high-motion series like Naruto, and in terms of pure screw ups, they seem to be pretty much null. They also seem to have stolen a god of encoding 'mf' recently, which has resulted in a smooth 24fps op/ed. Har, har, har.

However, I think the main reason I stick with AOne/ANBU is because I know exactly what I'm getting out of them. But, I'm just like that: I just like to stick with the big groups, because I know what I'm getting, even if other groups MAY be better. And I wouldn't really shake a stick at AOne/ANBU's Naruto, but I wouldn't say it's the best thing since sliced bread either.

[ichido reichan]

to add my 2 cents on this:

sure, fansub is free and they can do whatever they want because they are doing a voluntary work.

but...

if you enter in the "competition" game and start subbing a huge pop title like naruto where other 5-6 groups are also working on it, you cannot stop the comments between the versions, so yes...competition here is fair.

so do it, criticize, bash, favor your favorite group and promote it, where there is variety on the same product there is also competition and the final prize is .... the praise of the fans.

[monir]

When did this thread move here from the Naruto section? Those sneaky mods!

Originally Posted by Shadamehr

I don't understand this. Some fans just want to watch the first available real sub and don't care about quality. So now, because their wants differ from yours, they "deserve" to have their bandwidth and time wasted on a joke sub? If these fans have a want, and there exist groups willing to cater to that want, it's perfectly fine, they don't "deserve" punishment of any sort. Now when some group makes a joke sub, and it gets mis-represented as a real sub, that's an injustice to the people who downloaded it thinking it was real.

You big fat liar! You understood perfectly. You just didn't quote the second line that followed the one you quoted. Yes, those fans that downloaded FF version of the Naruto episode and then later complained (rather threw tantrum; some were ready to "fire" GHDpro for misleading them by listing it in ASuki, and some even appeared to have gone to "labor"; oh the pain, the suffering) in a certain FF thread; are Spoiled, Impatient, and much deserving of their disappointment. I am also resisting the urge to add other appropriate adjectives. May be I should elaborate with some facts:

BakaSan - The fastest and well established fansubber subbing Naruto at the time. A few times he even managed to release his version a few hours after the raw for the recent episode came out. Most of his releases came out the same day the Raw was available. He was even SirCanealot's universal ownage list. BakaSan was "Real Sub" as you have aptly put. Naruto fans (those Minor-Group) should have been contented, right?

FF - They managed to release even faster than BakaSan in their one-and-only ever release. Reaction of those minor group of Naruto-fans: "Yeah baby. We gonna pahtee tonit." Here is the joke. FF managed to release their version many hours before any Raw for the latest episode was even available.

After that Reminscence, my urge to use those other appropriate adjectives has risen considerably. I am sure you have made the connection by now. And please, do not presume I did/do not watch any other fansubber other than Anbu/Aone version. In fact I have watched every legit fansubbing group that has, had, and are done/done/doing Naruto respectively except the Yomp & Axp version. I was disappointed at the undiplomatic title for this thread and how the author of this thread reasoned his/her case at why "anbu/aone was overrated?" My question to you, were you one of those fans that downloaded FF version with a 56k modem?

To refer back to my restaurant example, it would be like if some people ate at McDonald's and got fed rat-meat, and then people who eat at steakhouses said they deserved it for eating at fast-food.

I really hope McDonalds do not serve Rat Burger, especially in their chicken sandwich. By the way, I have yet to see anyone else can successfully and clearly connect an out of place example with the topic at hand other than Raikage. He once provided an example of a corporate bean-counter to relate to the topic of: "providing akatsuki had a leader, does he/she necessarily need to be stronger than the other members?"

[DekaMaster]

Originally Posted by ichido reichan

to add my 2 cents on this:

sure, fansub is free and they can do whatever they want because they are doing a voluntary work.

but...

if you enter in the "competition" game and start subbing a huge pop title like naruto where other 5-6 groups are also working on it, you cannot stop the comments between the versions, so yes...competition here is fair.

so do it, criticize, bash, favor your favorite group and promote it, where there is variety on the same product there is also competition and the final prize is .... the praise of the fans.

If they are doing it for the praise of the fans they shouldn't be doing it.

[LordBrian]

Originally Posted by zindryr

We also know that the subs we release are not the best all the time, but that is mostly because of some miscommunications, and the fact that I, (translator), want to be as accurate to the Japanese as I can.

If you want to be as accurate to the Japanese as you can, then you can sub the entire episode in Japanese. Poor English does not make the translation any better, or more accurate.

[Kidd]

Originally Posted by LordBrian

If you want to be as accurate to the Japanese as you can, then you can sub the entire episode in Japanese. Poor English does not make the translation any better, or more accurate.

Come on, that was a little harsh wasn't it? :\ Even if you don't appreciate someone else's work I'm sure you know that he has worked on it a lot, and I'm sure his aim isn't to release a "real shitty version" but a fast release that makes a lot of sense.

[DekaMaster]

Originally Posted by Kidd

Come on, that was a little harsh wasn't it? :\ Even if you don't appreciate someone else's work I'm sure you know that he has worked on it a lot, and I'm sure his aim isn't to release a "real shitty version" but a fast release that makes a lot of sense.

Fast releases 9 times of 10 are shitty.

[Imazul]

I think A-A should drop Naruto and concentrate on their other fansub.

I mean tons of people are doing Naruto, why waste a good fansubbing group on it..

[DekaMaster]

Originally Posted by Imazul

I think A-A should drop Naruto and concentrate on their other fansub.

I mean tons of people are doing Naruto, why waste a good fansubbing group on it..

Because to some they are the only good group doing it. They take their time and don't rush out releases to please the masses.

[ubb]

I think the thread is starting to get too off topic like usual threads do when they hit page 6. Concerning how literal the translation must be, I agree that the state of the situation is essential to the editing process(editing is fixing grammar, spelling, and rephrase what the translators wrote in their script so it fits the meaning of the dialogue if you don't know), and that AA does tend to translate it too literally at times. However, when people say translation should be done so loosely that sometimes japanese words should be used and just stick a translator note explaining what it is, or better yet, no translator notes at all(Just ask the naruto fanboys concerning which one they prefer more, subbers writing kage bunshin with no notes or shadow clone technique), there is this burning anger inside me. And I just can't help but point out that YOU ARE SAYING YOU WANT THE FANSUBS TO BE DONE IN JAPANESE, AND YOU ONLY WANT THE NAMES IN JAPANESE BECAUSE YOU UNDERSTAND THE FUCKING MEANING. Now when they said that there are things that should be kept in japanese like onii-chan, they'd probably assume that everyone knows what japanese names mean. The point of fansubbing is to make non-japanese viewers understand wtf is going on, fansubbing an episode on the premise that you think your fans knows a bit of japanese and you can just leave a few translation out is just being plain lazy. When you do learn japanese you'd probably find the names sounding almost as ridiculous as english. I mean, would swirling fishcake sound so much better and makes more sense in japanese?

As for the current topic which is complaining about speed subbers, I personally don't care how they sub an episode, there are people who prefers speed subs and there are people who prefers waiting for quality subs, and I have no quarrel with either choice. People have the freedom to choose how they manage their time, no one is obligated to sub at a professional level. But one thing though, I believe that if you really want to do something, you should do it right, and if you don't have the motivation to do that anymore, then don't force yourself.

The doubt for new naruto subbers isn't just about speed, or whether or not they have subbed the show from ep 1. The question is, can they actually sub more than 30 eps without quitting.

[Khar]

Originally Posted by kuru

In short, you like edited anime. The approach Tokyo Pop took to Initial D and ADV some times takes with their dubs. Or Funimation is doing right now to the dub of Detective Conan:

"Let's change things.

Let's make them cool for our American idiotic audience who has trouble understanding anything different from their usual lives.

All those Japanese names are difficult for the idiots we sell these things.

Let's change names.

Tomoyo.... Is that a name ? Let's call her Madison!

By the way, let me point out that the editing this entire thread was about, and the editing I was refering to back when I first posted in this thread is totally different than what you're talking about. What we're talking about it simply adding emphasis on to the literal English translations, making things sound cooler than the literal, without changing meaning. That's the difference from let's say "It is bad. " (which is a very literal Japanese-to-English translation that often appears in Naruto) and "This doesn't look good". Sure, both are grammatically right. But situation, time allotment, and character who's speaking dependant, it may sound better the latter way. It's also the difference between Sasuke screaming "Stop playing around.", which he did say literally in the episode where him and Itachi go at it) and "What the hell are you doing?!", which is just what I edited that phrase to. Sure, both are grammatically current. One admittedly strays a bit from the literal. But, in my humble opinion, the latter represents Sasuke's extreme anger and emotional state a LOT better. As I've said before, these are just my thoughts, and obviously make their way into S-O's subs, seeing as I'm the main editor and such, but you don't have to feel the way I do--I'm just stating my opinion as far as that goes. But still, that's a hell of a lot different than the whole Naruto/Nate conflict you're talking about. That's not the type of editing fansub groups do at all (at least, to my knowledge; it's not an intention at least). That's American dub companies, and not all of them at that.

[Kasshin]

I don't see what the point of releasing subs superfast is. If a group's releasing subs at a consistent, weekly rate, which I think ANBU/AonE is (I don't watch the Naruto anime at all so I don't know for sure), then there should be no problem at all. Just think about it. No matter how fast the subs come out compared to the time they come out in Japan, you'll still be watching them weekly. Does it really matter that much if you watch it on, say, every Tuesday as opposed to every Friday?

They seem to have very reliable and fast staff on the Naruto team anyway, so I wouldn't expect delays unless there's a new opening/ending. As a Karaoke-r myself, I can guarantee you that it does take quite a bit of work for new opening and/or ending songs. Especially if you do special effects. I'd give them at least 3 full days to work on them. Now, some may say that karaoke is pointless. But, remember, that's just some of you. Subbers that put quality ahead of speed will definitely make sure EVERY one of their releases are as high quality as possible. Therefore, high quality subbers will definitely try to please all viewers in terms of quality, by subbing the new opening/ending song fully. Also, another quality issue is to be consistent, so I emphasize "fully", meaning it will have all the effects/styles that the following eps will use. If I ever watched a fansub that don't have karaoke on any of their releases, or have subs only on a new op/ed and added karaoke on a later episode, I'd stop watching them instantly. That alone is proof that they put speed ahead of quality.

Another issue I have major problems with is when groups start subbing in the middle when another is already putting out consistent releases. Why would you do it at all? I see no reason at all. Anbu/AonE puts out weekly releases, and does not lag behind. None of the groups have a higher quality release than Anbu/AonE's release in any aspect (arguably). Okay, you say you really, really love the anime. Great. Start from episode 1 then. Then you say that you won't be able to catch up, and nobody will download your releases. So? If you love the anime so much, why care about people watching it at all? Hell, sub it internally among a group of friends if you're doing it out of loving the series.

As for the discussion on translation/editing, I won't comment, since I have no knowledge of Japanese, and I don't watch Naruto at all, much less compare every release for each episode. Personally, I'd check out a comparison among the groups, done by someone who DOES know Japanese fluently. Anime-Planet has a nice forum for fansub comparisons, if you didn't know. Although since ANBU/AonE are the only ones who have started from ep 1, I wouldn't encourage anyone to watch any version besides a group that has done that. Though (near)perfect translations may not be what you're looking for, but then I suppose that'd be a different topic to discuss.

[zindryr]

Originally Posted by LordBrian

If you want to be as accurate to the Japanese as you can, then you can sub the entire episode in Japanese. Poor English does not make the translation any better, or more accurate.

Most of the poor English mistakes in episodes we released were due to a typo or slight mixup when I was actually writing out the scripts. Other than that, the English sentences were most likely grammatically correct, but may have sounded awkward in some areas. As for the entire "Poor English does not make the translation any better, or more accurate", I wasn't saying that it did. I was saying that in trying to most of the nuances of the Japanese language into English, (which is what I try to do as much as I can as a translator), can make for awkward sentences, but I would rather have those awkward sentences that I either can't fix, or forgot to upon looking back at the script (more likely), than a sentence that leaves things out.