What are you Watching?

[Heero]

I've heard the college episode strips are pretty bad. I think the anime ends at the perfect point, myself.

YMMV, generally speaking, its more of the same. I think one's opinion of the college strips (and successor club) will depend greatly on if you have an aversion to adding more characters. (since they meet new friends in college and obviously the new light music club has new members) I DO think it has issues with "flow", because the Kakifly kept bouncing back and forth between the new club in high school and the old club (now in college). But many people may have agreed that it wasn't as good, since it didn't last THAT long after the original members left high school.

[usamimi]

Been watching the Ghost Sweeper Mikami DVDs I got as an early xmas gift. Almost finished with the first "set". I'm kinda disappointed that the "extras" in this series are so skimpy...it's a pretty bare-bones release (I think so far the only extras are clean opening and closing animations--which was actually pretty cool, seeing as I've NEVER seen a clean version of either for Mikami!)....but I guess I should be thankful GS even got a physical release at ALL, considering how seemingly unpopular it is with anyone under 20.

I feel that you also get a bit more out of GS if you know at least a LITTLE bit of Japanese, because they didn't try to translate some of the jokes exactly...most of the time, they just try to find a Western equivalent (which is understandable, but I've always gotten a kick out of jokes that use word-puns, for example.)

[greg]

I feel that you also get a bit more out of GS if you know at least a LITTLE bit of Japanese, because they didn't try to translate some of the jokes exactly...most of the time, they just try to find a Western equivalent (which is understandable, but I've always gotten a kick out of jokes that use word-puns, for example.)

That's good! You're coming along with the langauge if you're picking up on that. We finished the first 12 K-On episodes and watched one of the bonus episodes. We have one more bonus episode left. I am still in the mood for tackling Votoms again (My wife just calls it the "Kiriko show", but I think we may start the new GS Mikami DVDs I received because my daughter is interested in watching "obake anime."

Some of the subtitling in the K-On DVDs were a bit half-assed too. The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is how they kept translating yen to dollars. There's one scene when a girl finds a 100 yen coin, and they translate it as a "dollar coin." When they are at the guitar shop, they give the prices in dollars, too. Something I thought was pretty cool about K-On is that the show features real instruments, like a KORG synthesizer and a Gibson guitar. Gibsons go for thousands of dollars, so it's pretty incredible that Yui was able to buy one for only $500 because of her friend's connections to the store. I am used to anime purposely misspelling brand names to avoid paying royalties or dealing with product placements and such, so it's interesting to see real stuff featured in an anime.

It's interesting that Mio plays a left-handed base because she is left-handed. I am also left-handed, but I played the guitar right-handed. To me, it is easier because fingering the neck comes more naturally for my left hand, which is more suitable for such intricate work. I think it was interesting how she felt a bit left-out being left-handed in the music store, since stores generally don't stock many instruments to cater to such a minority. It must be even moreso in Japan, since traditionally it was thought that left-handedness was something to "correct." It is refreshing to see far more left-handed students here in Japan nowadays, because 12 years ago I rarely saw any. Back then, left-handedness was seen as something just as foreign as my blue eyes.

[usamimi]

I feel that you also get a bit more out of GS if you know at least a LITTLE bit of Japanese, because they didn't try to translate some of the jokes exactly...most of the time, they just try to find a Western equivalent (which is understandable, but I've always gotten a kick out of jokes that use word-puns, for example.)

That's good! You're coming along with the language if you're picking up on that. We finished the first 12 K-On episodes and watched one of the bonus episodes. We have one more bonus episode left. I am still in the mood for tackling Votoms again (My wife just calls it the "Kiriko show", but I think we may start the new GS Mikami DVDs I received because my daughter is interested in watching "obake anime."

Well, I'm nowhere nearly as fluent as some people I know, but I can at least recognize common words and piece together things sometimes. One of the last episodes of GS I watched, Yokoshima got hit in the face with a pie and in Japanese he said something along the lines of "I prefer oppai (breasts) to pie." (As Yokoshima is kind of a perv.) The subtitles were something like "I'd rather have my face shoved into something else." Which is to the same effect, but I think the original is a little cuter.

Oddly enough, they kept all the dollar amounts for Reiko's ridiculously overpriced services in the original yen amounts, and then added a footnote subtitle that would say "Equivalent of $xx.xx". Which surprised me, I'm used to seeing a lot more newer releases do what you mentioned in K-on and just straight up give dollar amounts. I guess they figured that since GS is a pretty Japanese-heavy series, casual anime fans wouldn't be the core audience?

[greg]

I guess they figured that since GS is a pretty Japanese-heavy series, casual anime fans wouldn't be the core audience?

They probably also didn't grow up playing Where the Hell Is Carmen Sandiego on the Apple IIGS in grade school, either! People need to realize that foreign countries have different currencies. Sure, 1,000 yen may sound like a ton of money to someone who is ignorant (understandable), but that is what liner notes/footnotes are for. I think they did a good job with providing notes in releases such as Rurouni Kenshin and GTO (and pretty much every AnimEigo release for that matter).

Then again, my philosophy is to use anime and whatever other medium as a way to educate people. "Knowing is half the battle" and all that.

[usamimi]

I totally agree! I wish more people would take a page out of Animeigo's book regarding liner notes/on-screen explanations of things. While I know that for some series that could be TOTALLY tedious, I think most people that buy anime realize that yes--these shows are from another country. There are gonna be things that are totally foreign concepts to most Americans. But most anime fans genuinely want to LEARN those things...so why not tell them?

Though I do think that a lot of series won't get released here simply because it WOULD be too hard to explain a lot of that stuff...or it wouldn't be easy to do a dub because of them. (Like Chihayafuru, the series about competitive Karuta. A dub of that would be REALLY hard, considering all the Japanese words and poetry involved.)

[greg]

So I watched the first episode of GS Mikami last night, and I was really unimpressed with Sentai Filmworks' subtitling. It was good that they added footnotes and such, but daaaaaang, is it really necessary to puke text all over the screen like that? For footnotes that require a lot of explaining to do, just put them all in the extras section of the DVD! And whenever there was any kanji on-screen, they tried to cover it up with text. I mean, really? I know these guys are basically AD Vision, but haven't they learned anything? IF this was done by AnimEigo, I could choose to have dialogue subtitles only without sign translations and such, or vice versa. But with these DVDs, it's all or nothing. Like Reiko had a seal in which she could trap spirits, and they felt the need to just put a translation subtitle RIGHT ON TOP OF THE KANJI. The could've put that off to the side or stuck it in an appendix! Another time when the ghost is tricking the boy---Yokoshima, is it?--- and asks him to go get the medicine from the store, there's a sign outside that says くすり and they put a subtitle on top of it that says "MEDICINE." No shit, sherlock! Perhaps someone with an IQ over 10 could just infer what that meant?

My wife was perterbed with all this crap on the screen and gave up watching it. I don't know if she'll want to watch more tonight. ADVision has again reared its ugly, unsophisticated head in its totally unsubtle approach at translating. Smooth move, Ex-Lax.

[greg]

So we watched three more episodes of GS Mikami. I'll rescind some of my complaints. While it is annoying that the translations are obtrusive, I will say three good things: 1. at least these aren't hard subs, 2. they aren't like earlier ADV in which they freeze frame and redo the intro credits by removing the original credits, and 3. I'm just glad that an older show got a decent release. At least it isn't on the level of the dumb, half-assed Galaxy Express 999 release.

[usamimi]

I didn't notice the subs covering kanji, but then again when I watched the first few eps I was also working on sewing some things at the same time, so I might've missed that. But yeah--again, their translation isn't anything to write home about.

[llj]

Many companies have their warts. I think Mikami is a unique case that showcased Sentai's subtitling warts more because it's so kanji heavy compared to other anime. Since Animeigo doesn't do anime anymore (BGC kickstarter excepted), there's only Funimation, Discotek, and Nozomi to compare them to now. Most of Discotek's properties don't require much sign translating. I generally like Nozomi the best, but the stuff of theirs I own aren't kanji laden as well. Funimation edits pretty much all their titles' OP and ED sequences. Viz also isn't great.

I generally like Sentai these days, although they have certain QC issues at times. But their older titles are generally well handled I feel.

Anyway, I managed to snag a used BD of Sentai's Patlabor TV 1 yesterday (used anime BDs are really rare around my area, and when you see them you have to consider getting them if you like it, since new anime BDs are still the most expensive BDs on the market). It's interesting how having Sunrise animating the TV series makes the characters look a bit more like mid 80s Gundam character designs, although you can see the beginning of the 90s style starting to creep into Noa's design here as well. In some ways, it's a more attractive and professional looking production than the OVA which was animated by Studio DEEN, but I don't know if playing it too straight design wise exactly fits the tone. But it's definitely nice to look at.

I'm also near the stretch run of Captain Harlock TV. I just finished the first appearance of Tochiro and Emeraldas....you can see the Matsumoto universe begin to really take shape in the 2nd half of the series. It's funny how there are so many different versions of Harlock and Emereldas' origin stories. In this version Tochiro just dies and you assume his ghost is haunting the ship, but in GE999 and some other versions, you see Tochiro actually sending his soul to the Arcadia through some machine.