(L+CR) Akuma no Riddle (Riddle Story of Devil)

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by darkchibi07

I am shocked and awed yet quite pleased because no more crap fansubs!

http://www.funimation.com/blog/2014/...14-simulcasts/

I'll take that over what we had, for sure. Of course, that still means things like the mid-episode eyecatch will probably not be translated, because they tend to not do stuff like that...

Still preferable to what we were getting before, though.

[Master_Yoma]

Well not bad it a hole class full of assassins just seem like a bloody bracket of death

[Monoriu]

The show is intriguing but also weird. I like the mysterious tone, but the facial expressions of the assassins are a little over the top. The character similarities with Madoka Magica are quite blatent. I will be following this show with interest.

Hisako Kanemoto's voice work is outstanding, BTW.

[JiCi]

Originally Posted by Monoriu

The show is intriguing but also weird. I like the mysterious tone, but the facial expressions of the assassins are a little over the top.

What do you expect from crazy/insane assassins?

Ok, fine... a little more seriousness and a less-than-obvious murderous look, but still...

[Monoriu]

Originally Posted by JiCi

What do you expect from crazy/insane assassins?

Ok, fine... a little more seriousness and a less-than-obvious murderous look, but still...

I expect assassins to be a bit more subtle. Assassins should try to make people think they are normal people, not assassins. These girls scream "hey look we are assassins".

[GDB]

No they don't. They only scream that because we know they're assassins. What they scream is that they're batshit insane. Just because someone's batshit insane doesn't mean they're an assassin.

[zztop]

Yun Koga, who drew Devil's characters, also designed the very bishie characters of Gundam 00.

[Triple_R]

In fairness to the assassins, I get the impression that they all figure that everybody else in class knows that they're all a bunch of assassins, with the possible exception of the one target.

If so, this means two things...

1) There's little point in hiding the fact that you're an assassin by playing it cool. In fact, there can be value in trying to psyche out/test/impress your fellow assassins, so it becomes a test of who can act the craziest and most dangerous and most badass.

2) You definitely don't want to be mistaken as the target. So you want to *very loudly signal* that "Yep, I'm an assassin, just like the rest of you. Not the target. Not the target!"

[Chiaki_chan]

[MarkS00N]

Watched the series and read comments from this thread makes me comes up with a theory about Haru...

What if Haru is really target, but as the target she has different goal, that is while everyone else supposed to kill her and get reward for it, Haru must ensure she along with everyone else survive?

Maybe she failed previously because her friends end up killing each other between those that want to protect Haru (either because intrigued by her "unique" presence among assassin) and those who will kill Haru (either because they have wish to be fulfilled or simply because they are insane)...
I take the comments of this certain person (perhaps the chairman) about how she hopes Haru would entertain her means she wish to see Haru hopelessly stop each assassin from killing her and themselves...

Just a theory of mine...

[Jinkies]

In a completely unsurprising turn of events, the Funimation subs turn out to be the worst available. That's saying a lot considering how awful the other versions are. Since I wasn't able to make it more than six minutes into any of the poorly subbed versions of this, I guess I'll have to skip the show. Oh well. It looked fun.

Thanks for ruining yet another show, Funi.

[darkchibi07]

Errr, how exactly are they bad?

[Jinkies]

Funi has characters referring to themselves in third person constantly. Jinkies finds that stupid and ridiculous, and I'm sure he's not alone. In the scene where the girl's reading through the list of students in the class, they translated ever -kun into Sir and every -san into Miss. That was a new one for me. I've seen plenty of awful subbing over the years, but Funi still manages to surprise me sometimes. There were also plenty of the usual issues like stilted language, name reversal, terrible dialogue, and subbing to fit the character's personality instead of subbing the actual words spoken.

As always, some people will have no issues with any of this. If you're one of those people, that's fantastic. You'll actually get to watch the show. I'll have to keep hoping a competent group will come along and release something that's a bit less of an abomination.

[Nachtwandler]

You are mostly complaining about the things that actually make translation good and professional. Translation made for normal people not for some crazy japanophiles, so it should be adapted for English language(or any other translation made to) and stiled for characters speech.

Complaints like that make me facepalm. Really.

[Jinkies]

Could you go through my list of complaints and tell me which ones are indicators of good or professional subtitling, then explain exactly how they're indicators of such? I'm honestly curious how you think I'm so wrong that it makes you "facepalm." Really.

Edit: I just noticed that you wrote "stiled" in response to a post where I wrote "stilted." Just in case you're confused about this, "styled" and "stilted" are not the same word. They have incredibly different meanings.

[Random Wanderer]

I suspect this:

In the scene where the girl's reading through the list of students in the class, they translated ever -kun into Sir and every -san into Miss.

...is the most obvious example of what he was referring to. That particular change is not a big deal, and in fact represents the spirit of why she was alternating "kun" and "san:" several of the characters in the class have boyish names, so Haru thought they were boys (not having met them yet), and used the appopriate honorific for that. Putting in "miss" for "san" is to make it clear that she thinks those are the girls, rather than just have her listing their names.

You could demand that they leave the honorifics, but they won't. The subs are intended to be for everyone, whether they know enough to know what "san" or "kun" means or not. And, as someone once pointed out to me several years ago when I complained about a series' translations doing something similar, that really is a rather petty complaint, all things considered.

Funi has characters referring to themselves in third person constantly.

By any chance did they do it with characters who actually were talking in the third person? Because that is a verbal-tic that exists in Japanese much more so than in English. If not, then they were probably attempting to imply something about the character's personality.

[Jinkies]

I actually screwed that up a bit. They translated -san into Mr., not Sir.

The biggest issue is that we're talking about school kids, not adults. How many school kids call each other Mr. or Miss? I'd guess somewhere pretty damn close to zero. How can you defend a decision that makes characters speak in a way that's completely unnatural in English?

I'd also never demand that they leave in honorifics. That would be stupid. They should just do what 99.99% of translators who attempt to remove all traces of Japan from anime do - just drop the honorifics. Calling a student in your class Bill is fine. Calling him Mr. Bill is idiotic.

The characters were in fact referring to themselves in third person in Japanese, since that's a very common aspect of the Japanese language. What sort of inept translator would leave that in when translating into English, though? The only people I've heard speaking in third person in English are professional athletes.

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Jinkies

I actually screwed that up a bit. They translated -san into Mr., not Sir.

The biggest issue is that we're talking about school kids, not adults. How many school kids call each other Mr. or Miss? I'd guess somewhere pretty damn close to zero. How can you defend a decision that makes characters speak in a way that's completely unnatural in English?

I'd also never demand that they leave in honorifics. That would be stupid. They should just do what 99.99% of translators who attempt to remove all traces of Japan from anime do - just drop the honorifics. Calling a student in your class Bill is fine. Calling him Mr. Bill is idiotic.

An English speaker would recognize that Bill is a boy's name. A Japanese speaker would recognize that Azuma is a boy's name. An English speaker would likely not recognize that Azuma is a boy's name, nor note the significance of Haru mistaking several of her classmates for boys because of their names. Thus, the translation convention in that scene.

The characters were in fact referring to themselves in third person in Japanese, since that's a very common aspect of the Japanese language. What sort of inept translator would leave that in when translating into English, though? The only people I've heard speaking in third person in English are professional athletes.

In that case I applaud them actually leaving certain elements of Japanese culture in place. Speaking in third person has very specific character traits associated with it in Japan which are worth recognizing. It's true it has a different interpretation in the west, but I can't think of an easy way to convey what it is meant to convey in normal translations. I think they're better off leaving it in, and I'm glad they did.

[Jinkies]

Man, you have a fascinating view of what makes for good translations. Neat.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Jinkies

The biggest issue is that we're talking about school kids, not adults. How many school kids call each other Mr. or Miss? I'd guess somewhere pretty damn close to zero. How can you defend a decision that makes characters speak in a way that's completely unnatural in English?

Completely different context. What you're referring to is not a formal conversation.

In this case however, it is.

Originally Posted by Jinkies

I'd also never demand that they leave in honorifics. That would be stupid. They should just do what 99.99% of translators who attempt to remove all traces of Japan from anime do - just drop the honorifics. Calling a student in your class Bill is fine. Calling him Mr. Bill is idiotic.

False analogy. In Haru's case, she called them by their last names.

Calling someone just "Smith" instead of "Mr. Smith" would be just as idiotic as your poor example. The only cases where I see that happen on a regular basis is a coach talking to his athletes or an officer talking to prisoners. In both cases, they are speaking from a superior position, looking down at the person they are talking to.

Originally Posted by Jinkies

The characters were in fact referring to themselves in third person in Japanese, since that's a very common aspect of the Japanese language. What sort of inept translator would leave that in when translating into English, though? The only people I've heard speaking in third person in English are professional athletes.

It's common in Japanese language because many first and second person pronouns have informal connotations, making the speaker sound rude if (s)he uses them improperly. So, kids are told not to bother for the time being and just to stick with the third person.

For immature kids, speaking in third person is feasible even in English.