Postby Apolloncrash » Thu Sep 11, 2014 9:10 pm
Way back in the day I used to watch Bleach. I ended up not being able to put up with its descending quality anymore and dropped it, but at some point I decided that when it was all out over here I would buy it and see it through to the end.
A little while ago Madman released these behemoths:
I couldn't resist, so I bought them and stuck them on a shelf, planning to just forget about them until the other one came out. However, during the worst parts of my recent run in with illness, completely unable to game, I started watching them.
I forgot how great Bleach is early on. The world is interesting, the characters likable, the music is absolutely spectacular (Bleach OST #1 is one of my favourite CDs I own) and it is consistently quite funny (funnier than most comedy anime actually). I even love little things like the episode title cards.
One thing that is interesting is the subs for D-Tecnolife (the second OP). I've seen the english part just before the final line interpreted quite a few different ways before (it is pretty hard to hear clearly), such as "You and me. Two have spoken." or "You only... to have spoken". However the official subs have it as "Who are we to pass through you?". I have rewound and relistened to it over and over again, but I just cannot hear anything even close to that. It's odd that, even though fansubbers cannot seem to agree with each other (or even themselves, as I have seen the same group change their mind) about what is said, their interpretations seem to all be kind of similar, however none of them are even close to the official subs.
Which brings me to my next point, the official English script. These subs are terrible. They are way, way too liberal with the translation for my tastes, but I admit that that is a subjective thing. However, beyond that they are just very unprofessional.
Firstly, they are very inconsistent. With honorifics, sometimes they will attempt to translate them but other times they leave them as is (or just ignore them entirely). They seem to be completely random with nicknames as well. For example, when people say "Chad", they sometimes sub it as "Chad", but often use "Sado". The reverse holds true as well. The same problem crops up with name order as well, albeit less frequently.
Secondly, there is quite a bit of dialogue that they just ignore. Almost anytime that more than one set of dialogue going on at once they just pick the one that is in focus the most and ignore the rest. That's just plain bad.
Thirdly, with terminology (things like Zanpakutō and Konsō) it seems to be completely arbitrary which terms they localised and which they left. In some cases they even change their minds. For the first disc or so they were calling Pluses "Wholes" for some dumb reason, but then stopped.
Finally, they obviously didn't proofread anything as there are regular spelling/grammar mistakes and missed words. Some of the lines are only on the screen for a split second (and not for good reason). That's all I need to read it but I know for a fact that for many people that is not the case.
Now, I cannot condone piracy, but these subs are so poorly done that if anyone wanted to get into this series I would recommend buying the DVDs and then watching fansubs. I can't believe I said that but... that's how it is.
Don't Die.
.