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My current fave groups

 
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xo
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Joined: 09 Feb 2002
Posts: 466
Location: Los Angeles [comcast]

PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 1:44 am    Post subject: My current fave groups Reply with quote

I'm spinning this off the Gunslinger Girl thread...

My current fansub preferences are: Triad, A-E, and NLA. These three groups make up the top tier, in my mind, as far as the quality of the translations go. Triad I think of as a "super-group" and cream of the crop. A-E has been around so long, they've pretty much got it down pat. These two consistently have nearly perfect translations[1]. NLA, while definitely a tiny notch below, has yet to disappoint me. I've been extraordinarily impressed with how they translate on-screen text in Tsukihime. Flashy karaoke during opening credits are fun and all, but providing these translations of signs, letters, etc, in a way that seems like it's part of the original animation is impressive and adds greatly. I'm also quite impressed with the quality of video they achieve on such highly compressed files (they clock in around 100MB - in contrast, Inf+AFF's Last Exile had similar quality at 175MB[2]).

One other big kudo goes to these groups for using sanely sized, legible, and properly contrasted fonts for their subtitles. So many of the newer groups seem to think "cool" fonts (ornate/design/specialty fonts, you know what I mean) are suitable for subtitles. They are not! Use a simple san-serif, make it reasonably large so that it's legible on a TV and light colored with a dark border. Please. Save the fancy stuff for the karaoke, where it doesn't matter if we can read it or not.

This of course is not meant to disparage any group - just to recognize that the 3 I mention are doing superlative work, often surpassing what I expect on commercial DVDs.

-xo

[1] When I refer to the "quality" of translation, I don't mean how accurate it is, as I don't speak Japanese. Rather, I'm judging on how fluid the English is and how free of grammatical and typographical errors.

[2] I realize it's unfair to compare across series as each work has it's own challenges when it comes to encoding. Nevertheless, I make this statement as a somewhat informed viewer in that regard.
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Kai-Jinn



Joined: 29 Mar 2003
Posts: 68

PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 7:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If I had to rate them I would probably tier them, though mine would look different. In my mind, when I watch for subs I usually sort out which version I will download and keep around to watch later *really* fast.

Tier1
AonE, ANBU, Triad, NLA, Soldats

Tier2
A-E, Inf, AF-F, IYA, Live-Evil

Tier3
Anime-Keep, aX, APS, PhA, Lunar, and many of the "newer" groups that have sprung up lately and I haven't formed opinions about yet.

Tier4
AJ

Special
12K-TP, Wizzu, LMF, K-F


---------------------
The tier lists are not exhaustive... they just represent my thoughts from memory.


So, for my Tier 1 (and I'm thinking of them off the top of my head so I may have missed one or two) I have the older groups that have always given me particularly good subs. Without watching and just from experience, AonE beats out the others usually because I just have a huge stack of AonE anime and I am used to their style and I have rarely been dissapointed by their translations. I guess the fight between them and Triad will be settled once I finish DLing the GsG eps from Triad and watch 'em ;P

Tier 2 is what I pick when I can't get the others or when I want to watch the series as it comes out and not just as my favorite group subtitles it. I don't know if anyone else is doing this but I have ANBU versions of Planetes but I've mainly been watching the A-E ones? I felt that the way that ANBU described (and continue to translate as) the Half-department that they work in was superior to the A-E translation, even though I could understand what A-E *meant*.

Tier 3 is a little weird. They may not be particularly bad subbers, as Anime-Keep isn't a horrible group, but they are newer or use funky fonts or aren't as coherant as other tiers. I always choose only these groups if nothing at all is available.

Tier 4 explains itself ;P


I put "Special" in there because they are groups that I have only seen do one series that I have downloaded or did it exceptionally well when other subbers totally failed. K-F does One Piece excellently. 12K-TP's Juuni Kokki is also done magnificently. After the GitS thing, LMF has been the only group that I saw, when testing the eps a while back, that could actually make sense of the show and do it well with their subbing technique. I don't know if KONSPIRA or NT are better, but I continue to grab LMF's only. Wizzu is the Naruto/Technolyze group for me -- not sure that I see them do much else?
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(inc)



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 356
Location: San Diego

PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 11:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My tier one would be ANBU, Ani-Kraze and Triad -- AonE is most of the time, but seems to vary a bit more from series to series (they're doing a great job with Gokusen and Gungrave). Also, some groups seem to do great work when working with others, like HQA

Tier two would be most of the standard groups: A-Keep, A-E, L-E, R-B/Onigiri, NLA, Soldats, etc.

An interesting new one to watch is Froth-Bite

(inc)
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LaughnCynic



Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts: 105

PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2004 4:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

inc wrote:
An interesting new one to watch is Froth-Bite

I'll make a mental note of that.

I'd agree with most of what's been opined so far.

I have come to rely on ANBU, Triad, Kraze, and AonE most often in recent times I think. Keep when they work with ANBU are pretty reliable as well. The HQA-ANBU team I remember well from Witch Hunter Robin (got all of WHR by them as well as the Rice-Box encodes back when I had a fat pipe). I should say I've been happy with Soldats and A-E in the past too.

I was happilly watching the L-E encodes of Gilgamesh recently but they seem to have dropped it or stopped posting so I switched to the AF-F versions currently being consistantly posted without noticing much difference. </gripe>

The special one-off kind of groups like 12K-TP for Juuni Kokki (Thank you guys for continuing to finish off that show.) and LMF for Gits:SAC (Big Big thanks there too.) are life savers. Smile I don't think I've actually looked at any of Wizzu's work yet (have all their Texhnolyze posted so far but haven't started watching that yet). Er... No I take that back. I watched thier encodes of Blame! Log that were posted. I don't really think they're in with the one-off's. Just a newer lower volume group maybe?

On a side note: Too lazy to go look this up ATM but wasn't Triad made up of 3 groups (hence the name)? If memory serves they started (and I thought still were) A-F, Ishin, and NLA. OK, just un-lazy'd and looked it up (damn coffee kicking in...). Yes Triad is A-F, Ishin, and NLA.

xo wrote:
This of course is not meant to disparage any group - just to recognize that the 3 I mention are doing superlative work, often surpassing what I expect on commercial DVDs.

Ditto. In fact, I frequently prefer subs done by many of the better fansub groups to commercial subtitles I've seen. The translation of signs, explanation of idioms, and even the karaoke are things I kind of like having around.
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Kai-Jinn



Joined: 29 Mar 2003
Posts: 68

PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2004 8:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

Ditto. In fact, I frequently prefer subs done by many of the better fansub groups to commercial subtitles I've seen. The translation of signs, explanation of idioms, and even the karaoke are things I kind of like having around.



Heh, I am the same. The better groups out there can do a spectacular job with the shows.
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xo
Site Admin


Joined: 09 Feb 2002
Posts: 466
Location: Los Angeles [comcast]

PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2004 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here are my favorite fansub groups, sorted by best name (note: any group with the word "anime" or "fansub" as integral parts of their name are summarily disqualified):

6. Triad - it sounds ominously cool
5. BakaMX - it's got 'baka' in it and everyone knows what that means
4. Froth-Bite - cute pun. Even funnier would've been "Flost-Bite" (shades of "Lip my stocking!")
3. Sugarcube - kawaii!
2. Onigiri - kawaii to oishi!
1. Rice-Box - one letter way from Rice-Boy, what more can you ask?
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deoch



Joined: 09 Mar 2002
Posts: 65

PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2004 2:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

On a related note, this forum is dedicated to fansub comparison:
http://www.anime-planet.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=25

Sometimes it can be pretty informative... and even people who worked on the projects will post occasionally.
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(inc)



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 356
Location: San Diego

PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2004 8:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the link; there used to be something like that on anime-caravans (?), now gone. The Chrno discussion alone is a tome (and I can really appreciate it having done some *junk* like this myself on occasion).

(inc)
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