>>130221
>>130231
I think it's better to use the literal translation. Part of the appeal of anime is that it's Japanese so it should be left as such.

Localisation and memes only really cause confusion anyway, particularly if the audience doesn't know the meme or that particular phrase(which happens regularly with American translations).

I personally don't know what a cat and mouse situation is and I'm a native English speaker(not American though, but it's still probably used in my country I am just terrible with such things).

there was one scene i remember from bake, the one where he ambushes snail with his creepy smile, and when she has her ragged breath while biting him at the end he says "robo choujin mitee" which is a kinnikuman reference and they translated it as "you sound like darth vader" but i think that's pretty neat as far as localization goes

>>130233
>I think it's better to use the literal translation. Part of the appeal of anime is that it's Japanese so it should be left as such.
Yeah, but the problem is that "wanting to borrow even a cat's hand" isn't a pun in English or other European languages that I know of. It does play out better as a joke in Japanese though, because Araragi also had a part in constructing it, while ANE's and MTBB's (and my own) translations makes it seem like he didn't.

>I personally don't know what a cat and mouse situation is
It means when a person is trying to pursue and capture another. Araragi was talking about using Black Hanekawa's sense of smell to try to find Shinobu, so it would work pretty well as a pun and it would be closer to the actual meaning.

>>130234
Adjusted ANE from the batch I downloaded did something interesting here. They translated it as "Warsman" which is another masked Kinnikuman character people are more familiar with. "Robo Chojin" is from the older Kinnikuman anime nobody in the West watched, but he's literally a Darth Vader reference, so MTBB's 'localization' isn't too bad in this case.

>>130239
Also, Hachikuji's pun doesn't work in English at all (but you can use your ears if you aren't retarded). ANE at least tried to do something witty with it unlike MTBB though:
ANE:
>I stuttered
>I stuttuted
>I stumbled into God
MTBB:
>I bit my tongue
>I bited my bungus
>God's might is among us

>>130233
>Localisation and memes only really cause confusion anyway, particularly if the audience doesn't know the meme or that particular phrase(which happens regularly with American translations).
This. If a pun doesn't have an equivalent with literal translation, just add a TL note and leave as is.
I don't know why fansub groups refuse to use TL notes now (it was much more common in old fansubs), which perfectly solves the localized translation problem and actively invites the viewer to actually learn about Japanese cultural subtleties rather than opaquely papering them over with nonsense localization.

>>130243
Unfortunately, Monogatari does not have any subs with TL notes that I know of. It's a shame because it would be really helpful since there are many puns and wordplay that don't translate well. With official there's always the "must localize everything for retards" mentality and fansubbers avoid TL notes probably because of stupid memes like "keikaku means plan".

>>130221
Pedantic correction: I took the Japanese transcription of her line from some subtitles I found, but perhaps her line should be framed more as a question as the ANE release frames it, given how she says her "nya" at the end with a slight upward intonation and how the original novel punctuates her line:
>「にゃはは。これが本当の、猫の手も借りたい状況って奴だにゃ!?」

>>130230
>It does seem like it's the meme by the way they react to it.
The pun being that he's literally borrowing a cat's hand isn't particularly funny, so his reaction fits that too.

>>130232
>"a cat, but it's fine".
If it were meant to come across this way instead of as "even a cat is fine", I think it would've been typeset with some kind of punctuation, space, or line break separating "neko" and "demo".

>>130238
>the problem is that "wanting to borrow even a cat's hand" isn't a pun in English or other European languages that I know of.
I recognize that that's a problem for some viewers and that that was probably the motivation for why the line was tweaked or papered over in the ANE and MTBB releases. I'm just unconvinced that the line you actually hear her say makes any reference to "a cat is fine too" or "ネコでもいいや…".

now THIS is the best way to translate media check it out

>>130234
I hate that, they should have just left it as it was.

A few differences I noticed with the MTBB release compared to official:
Shineno-bird ►►► Dying bird
Maelstrom ►►► Vortex of flames
He has a lolita complex ►►► He likes little girls

So it seems like MTBB localizes EVEN MORE than official.

>>130245
>If it were meant to come across this way instead of as "even a cat is fine", I think it would've been typeset with some kind of punctuation, space, or line break separating "neko" and "demo".
I added the comma because there's a pause in speech in English when you say that, but not in Japanese. "a cat but it's fine" sounds strange without the comma, but it's the literal translation. There's no pause in "Neko demo i ya" in comparison.

>>130279
>Maelstrom ►►► Vortex of flames
okay but what's the jap word here?

>>130282
Good thing you asked. I already had this shot taken beforehand. Pic related. "Kachuu" means both "vortex/maelstrom" and "in flames". Official subs translated it as just "maelstrom" and then mentioned Tsukihi engulfing things in flames later. MTBB opted for a more 'direct' localization instead.

>>130284
which episode and timestamp is this at i want to see the full context

>>130286
Vs official.

>>130286
>>130287
oh, it's homophone wordplay
doesn't really make a difference

homophones are for homos

>>130290
Yeah, but MTBB is localizing more than official subs taking this into consideration.

>>130293
yeah, true, the vortex is only there for 渦中 (same 渦 as 渦巻/uzumaki)
my dictionaries give for 火中 the simple definition of 火の中, so in the middle of fire, just that

Another great episode. This time centered on Nadeko-chan. And more Yotsugi being baka and making things worse.

This was a foreshadowing this whole time.

>>130242
>bited my bungus
Here we see a clear example of a bunch of ESLs attempting to make something for English audience. The sad part is about 11 people sign off on this stuff being okay.

>>130243
>This. If a pun doesn't have an equivalent with literal translation, just add a TL note and leave as is.
This is what I always go with. I'll try to make it work. But I'm not going to shoehorn in a stupid meme or something that makes no sense just to avoid the TL note.

>I don't know why fansub groups refuse to use TL notes now
You have to understand that the two primary groups that gatekeep access to all fansub communities are made up of two kinds of people; People working for CR and people trying to get hired by CR. They all toe the line because they're all friends with each other. It's actually worse now than it was years ago because you have two big groups doing this. While everyone else is either denied access to an audience or actively censored. Now add in the fact one of these large groups is ESL (because anyone not ESL is in the other one) and you start to understand the problem.

It's better to do a TL note if there is no equivalent in the language you're translating to. Especially if it's some pun or common Japanese trope. In time the audience learns those words and puns and you don't have to leave large TL notes anymore. Take the word "eroge". I do not have to translate this anymore or explain it. Anyone downloading it already knows what it means. Same is true for things like "Onee-chan" and all the other honorifics.

MTBB actually got huge backlash a few years ago when they first started flooding the trackers with releases for over localization. Their solution was to offer a "honorifics" subtitle track. But it doesn't do anything but add -chan, -kun, and -san here and there. They leave the rest of their bad localization in there. They actually monitor and shill themselves on places like /a/ to. They'll claim they don't but it's very obvious that they're doing it since they talk so openly about it. They dumped something yesterday that got some backlash and they've been out in full damage control since.

But I digress...

>>130244
TL notes are a thing you want to have but can't rely on. Otherwise the translation isn't readable. What bothers me is no one does what we did last year. We released companion videos with TL note explanations. I think that kind of thing is the way to go. Old VHS fansubs used to include little booklets with them that would explain TL notes and concepts. This allowed you to keep a bunch of crap off the screen.

You want to limit your TL notes where possible. Doing it like that allows you to use them without it becoming painful.

The worst part about groups like this is the fact that they discourage other groups from doing the same show. No matter how much time you spent working on this show or how much effort you put into it you'll never get it listed in the "best fansub for this series" chart since they're the ones controlling it. Further more, it would be nearly impossible to have an open discussion about another group's work. Since these people not only shit up discussion everywhere normal people hang out but they actively moderate it.

For example, I released three shows that aren't listed in any of those charts because they claim the encode is worse or something. Turns out their justification for the encode being worse is the fact that they combined CR's crappy web stream with the BD. Why? They claim the colors aren't right on the BD. But how would they even know? They only claim the CR one is right because they saw it first. If you exclude that everything else about anyone else's release is better. Especially the most important part: The translation.

But what can you expect from people that write fansub guides that start with:
>Translator: optional.

For whatever reason. There is a large group of people now that do not produce their own scripts. Then they go around trying to argue about quality. You can see it on nearly everything they release. They'll drop a diffcheck and claim their script is better. But how would they know? They can't understand Japanese in the first place.

Which is why they probably don't translate puns. They can't understand them. They're going off of whatever official English script they found.

I know this isn't bitch about fansub general. So I apologize if these long winded post bother you guys.

>>130416
>TL notes are a thing you want to have but can't rely on. Otherwise the translation isn't readable.
I can just pretend I'm watching Tatami Galaxy and have to pause to read the subs sometimes. More people should do the same.

>>130417
I mean yeah that's always an option. But I'd much rather have something like;

>TL Note: see companion video/book entry #7 for explanation of this pun
versus a multiple paragraph TL note covering over half the video. I'd also prefer:
>TL Note: The next exchange relies on being well versed in Japanese history. See companion video/book entry #9.

Instead of quick TL notes one after another attempting to explain what is different about each line. TL notes got a lot of hate back in the day because they were overused. The issue is now things have gone the other way and they aren't used at all anymore.

The episode we released this morning has 2 or 3 TL notes total. They're short. They are to the point. They aren't happening one after another. I think that's acceptable.

Imagine if you will a fansub that uses a TL note every time someone calls someone "-chan". Or changes the honorifics they're using for the same person. Or changes them to speak to different people. This would be highly annoying. But the reason we don't have to do that is because the audience is so accustomed to what honorifics are already. People that don't know either don't care or will get curious enough to look them up. So it's fine. As worse they'll just assume it is part of someone's name until they notice the honorifics changing when different people are speaking to them.

I guess the main difference is some people assume the audience is retarded where others assume they have at least a bit of common sense. That's the difference really. I also suspect ESLs producing English content for other ESLs make many bad choices both because they don't understand the language natively and they assume most of the viewers don't either. The "bingus" example seems to be something like that.

>>130418
>The episode we released this morning has 2 or 3 TL notes total
Are you talking about this post: >>130405 I'm also the poster that replied to it. It would be cool if you guys attempted Monogatari as well, but I guess it could be very time consuming.

>Imagine if you will a fansub that uses a TL note every time someone calls someone "-chan". Or changes the honorifics they're using for the same person.
Yeah, you don't have to use it for stuff that should be obvious to a regular anime watcher. It's not much of a problem when official subs omit honorifics though, because I can just use my ears for that.

>The "bingus" example seems to be something like that
It's "bungus" and it's a real term apparently: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bungus it means "wack". "Bited" is obviously grammatically incorrect however. "I bit my tongue" is the most literal translation possible for "失礼 噛みました" (shitsurei kamimashita) I think though. Official subs translated it as "Sorry, I flubbed" (pic related). "I stuttered/I flubbed" is probably okay under certain contexts though, but when it has to do with like, a pun of Hachikuji biting Araragi then it should be "I bit my tongue".

this shab just bited my bungus

>>130418
Outside of the people trying to play to the stupid drama wars between memesubbers and MTL-tier hyper-literal subbers, most seem to have settled on a healthy use of tl/n's. That includes official subs. The truth is that over-reliance on notes is just as much a crutch for incompetency as rewrites are, it's just that one is more useful for people who don't really know Japanese while the other is more useful for people who don't really know English. If there is an English equivalent to whatever the original is trying to convey, you should find and use it. Notes are an unfortunate necessity of asymmetrical languages and cultures, not praiseworthy additions.

There are official manga volumes with several pages at the end explaining cultural things that readers may not know, including fairly basic things, as well as localization choices to give readers a better understanding of the original without ruining the experience.

Anime practically never does this because it would necessitate extending the video, but you do see a fair number of short notes to explain wordplay and fewer outright rewrites as before. Anime has the blessing/curse of being able to hear the original script, but the real unique consideration is that the video has to keep playing and you only have so much time. Generally, if someone is having to pause to read the subs, they are not good subs and you're not going to enjoy watching them. In extreme cases even the actual dialogue may need to be slightly altered to fit in a span of time, so there's not a lot of wiggle room for also fitting in notes. That's a big part of why, outside of puns and titles, it's often easier to find a concise English equivalent than it is to write a concise note.

>>130446
I agree with you. But one thing I find odd is the official subtitle script for PaniPoni Dash! It's praised for being so accurate and with so much attention to detail. But it's impossible to watch it without pausing the video every few seconds. Otherwise you'd never understand anything or be able to read all the crap that's on screen. Go give it a look sometime (the DVD subtitles in R1). Most of the time there is more yellow text on screen than actual content.

But if you did that with most shows people would riot. But this one in particular gets a pass for whatever reason.

The real solution is a happy medium and maybe two subtitle tracks so users could get what they prefer. The issue is people producing such things seem to skew heavily into the localize everything camp. They're also the same ones that would always put a dub track first no matter how awful it is or how the average viewer feels about it. Which I find odd. We're to a point where the average viewer that wants Japanese audio and a subtitle track with honorifics and somewhat literal translation is a second class citizen. This was not the norm in the 80s-2010s. Unless you counted over localized content bought in a store. Pretty much everything fansub wise was a happy medium between localization and literal.

In my mind there is no point in consuming foreign content if you don't want to learn about the culture itself. If you aren't into that you might as well watch a native cartoon. Maybe Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi instead of PaniPoni.

The sad part is we could have good English dub tracks and good localized subtitles as an option. But the industry has proven for the last few decades that no one is willing to pay for it. With the actors guild it's impossible to cast good voice actors. So you end up with the same people doing the voices for every show sometimes for multiple characters in those shows. They phone it in during one take and call it good. Most of them admit they don't even like anime or the work they're doing.

Manga is easier of course because it's a book anyway so a couple of extra pages don't matter (or using the margins). Video doesn't have to be that hard though. You can do something similar with video. Where you have multiple video tracks and the option to switch between them. The problem is no one takes advantage of it.

Really the main issue is anyone that has the time and wants to put in that kind of effort is probably working on something that pays them better than translating anime for free. I'd happily remaster, translate, time, edit and even direct a dub track in my native language for a lot of shows. But no one is ever going to let me do that kind of thing. I don't know why. But it seems like the people working in the industry are the exact types of people that shouldn't be. Everything from the video mastering to the translation is usually bad. No one seems to care because fans keep buying it anyway. Even the BDs and DVDs released within Japan have a lot of obvious errors that could easily be avoided. Especially considering all the storage they have on the average BD over there with so few episodes on each one.

For Monogatari in particular the best thing to do would be to track down all the original fansub scripts from when it was first airing. Then touching them up a little bit and combining them with fresh encodes. This is basically what these ripping groups are doing but for whatever reason they always decide to pick up the worst scripts and edit them badly. Their main claim is they "improve" the video portion of the content. But honestly, all they're really doing is descaling then re-upscaling the frames and maybe running them through a handful of other filters anyone can learn how to use in a day. It's debatable if they "improve" the content at all honestly. 99% of viewers won't notice the difference.

Coincidentally Monogatari (the anime series) is also becoming 15 years old. For Nadeko it has only been a single year, but for us it has been 15. I literally grew up with this series since I started watching right as when it came it out. It's what connects my past imageboard experience with the present.

You guys might find this enjoyable.

https://disk.yandex.com/d/UwtI6mQk8aEdB
https://disk.yandex.com/d/GJ79ATtD3MbqmZ

It's from the old typesetting guide. Over half hour of someone making signs for the 2nd season.

hm
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Coincidence? (yes)

We finally got an OP. I was afraid they were going to drop the openings in this season.

It's a testament to their skill and style that the OP with its various 3D still looks very good. In a still shot you can easily see the 3D, but in motion it's generally quite well "hidden". The usual giveaways of the "dense" areas like hair and hands are there, but the bounciness of the animation is just so good.
I wonder how Toei would do in this situation if it was trying at a more pure 2D look instead of its open 3D EDs in Precure.

Oh, and I really liked the first half of episode 3. Very vibrant and pretty with great imagery, but then the second half lost me. It's like they front-loaded all of the spectacle. Still nice, though.

>>131687
I'm still shocked the 3D/CGI is so bad in average anime when Arcsys works has had a nearly perfect way to do 2D characters in 3D for over a decade now. All they need to do is adapt their Guilty Gear engine.

Arcsys uses unreal engine. It's just that they got a good direction on how to approach 3D in a 2D space

>>131689
Most people do. It's heavily modified. They're the only ones that have a decent cel shading set-up in Unreal.

>>131688
It's been a while, but from what I remember seeing the way they do things is a lot of work and they use all sorts of crazy shaders and other stuff. I think it's simply a technology animation studios aren't going to be familiar with. And, well, ideally they wouldn't be because they're devoting themselves to 2D. But, yeah, obviously that's not going to work for most of them.
Each game company involved in 3D will have its own required programs and workflow and then there's stuff like proprietary scripts and shaders and all that other stuff that heavily conflicts with contracted animators jumping between different studios, which is increasingly common these days. A universal "engine" is probably what would be needed, so people can just learn it before they even have the job.

Can't stop thinking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcxeENnM0yI when I listen to the first few seconds of this...

I see that you're gangster. I'm a bit gangster myself.

Did the next episode get delayed?

>>132842
Maybe, they did weirdly do 2 eps in one with a recap so it's possible production on 9 was delayed?

>>132843
Good old Shaft mismanagement.

>>132844
oh god how horrifying