8thSin Fansubs

Some mysteries solved, and I feel there’s a lot of story development in this episode. Ayame: in this week’s opening the scene where we have the shadow of penguinhatter and a man ‘dancing’ gets some vines behind it. reminded me of utena and of the tree of life… what’s up with this symbolism? No idea what … Continue reading →

Very well-thought-out, tightly written script, directed nicely in this week’s episode. As some of you may have noticed, some Brazilian group got access to our half-edited script and leaked it this week… Well, it’s all good because I stole their timing and pasted the updated script over lol. Thx Morningspeed. Our timer was enjoying his … Continue reading →

This episode is heavily themed around “Family” and “Truth”. They got me good. I was totally fooled by Kanba’s reaction in the last episode if the beginning of this episode can be trusted. Apparently, he really was bluffing. This secret was big enough to risk Himari’s life. I can’t say we can discount the possibility … Continue reading →

So, it’s finally that I’ve been waiting for. Tabuki episode. It’s been quite a while since I saw the painting, but it’s unmistakable. A direct reference to Claude Monet’s Study of a Figure Outdoors (Facing Right). It seems like those art history classes in university weren’t complete waste of money 🙂 Music notes, however, is … Continue reading →

Fate/Zero has lots of action, but it’s a story/dialogue-driven show. It’s one of those shows that I think should be translated for absolute accuracy and detail. Each mistranslated line can cause some serious damage to the audience’s ability to understand the show, so these releases will be under extreme scrutiny for this review. Episode 4 … Continue reading →

The second novel was released last week. I don’t intend to ever be ahead at the time of writing episodic posts, so all speculations made will remain spoiler-free. I want to focus a bit on the presentation first. The composition in these scenes are absolutely remarkable. The bottle and the Tokyo Tower divide the screen/canvas … Continue reading →

Natsume on the spotlight. It was a very difficult episode to translate with seemingly endless puns and jokes, but I really enjoyed the episode, and I was pleased with what we came up with. Natsume’s signature phrase: “Gosh, I must crush him soon” was apparently derived from her childhood when she was thinking of killing … Continue reading →

Some of you may have already read the post from gg about my car accident on the way home from NYAF. The accident occurred on a rainy highway where I was driving at 120km/h (this is actually slowed down due to rain, because we usually drive at 130~140km/h in Toronto. Still pretty stupid though). My … Continue reading →

Sorry for the slow post. I was at NYC this week and didn’t have time to make this blog post. I did translate two episodes during my little vacation, but updating this blog is like fansubbing another episode, and I simply didn’t have that kind of time. It also seems a lot of viewers seem … Continue reading →

Shakugan no Shana III (Final) Difficulty 8 Perceived difficulty, rating, and liberal scale (LS) grading scales. Definitions of “good translation”, “best practices”. Other Reviews This is a pretty hard show to translate in that there are some really difficult terminology present and really characters talk in really ambiguous ways. I think the series composition / … Continue reading →

Extremely good episode again. Looks like the exposition is mostly over, and we’re getting to the good part. Unfortunately, it’s still the old OP. There has been a lot of repetition throughout this episode in terms of the entire series. It feels as if they’ve made it through a cycle, fitting for the middle-of-series episode. … Continue reading →

Chihayafuru Difficulty 4 (w/ Karuta Songs 6) Crunchyroll = B (C), LS-5 So, I was writing the subtitle review for CR, and it somehow strayed from the subtitle into the show. Needless to say, I liked Chihayafuru enough write this wall of text, and I hope it’ll help those interested to understand the show better than CR … Continue reading →

Two consecutive solid episodes? Could it really be? A lot happened in this episode despite only having 244 lines of dialog (compared to the usual 300~350). The episode is so unbelievably multilayered with 「巡る」 (Spin + ‘Round in the title) potentially meaning so many things that would fit in context. The literal translation would be … Continue reading →

Before we get to this week’s Penguindrum, there are some useful info from Ep09 comments that I thought were worth mentioning here. Ep09:This is the re-arranged picture of the door to “Hole in the Sky” annex. The mirror image of Pingroup logo. Perhaps it’s “8”, “∞” or, hourglass. In any case, it’s highly likely that … Continue reading →

With the fabulous max episode last week, I did expect things to slow down a bit, but this could be the weakest episode so far. Gotou Keiji, you disappoint me. This is the ugliest episode thus far… I guess not everyone has what it takes to handle all major production roles by himself. The song … Continue reading →

Japanese blogs and boards have been hyping this episode as an upcoming 「神回」 (godly/epic episode) for weeks. I guess those who read the novel knew it was going to get an art house treatment. Long story short, it delivered. Storyboard, episode direction, animation direction, key animation all by Takeuchi Nobuyuki, who was the visual director … Continue reading →

Chicken and eggs symbolizing her desire to bear Tabuki’s child? And yes, she snuck in buck naked. Please get crazier, Ringo. Oh, wait, she did. WTF, the penguins ate a wild bird?! I think this is the first time they actually ate living things… Maybe it means their owners have become corrupted. “The ends justify … Continue reading →

This is episode represents a major obstacle for Ringo’s pursuit of Tabuki. There’s some uh… pretty messed up scenes too. The title 「タマホマレする女」means “A woman doing tamahomare”, where 「タマホマレ」(tamahomare) is a made-up word. Well, a Google search returns a soya bean breed of the same name, but it can’t possibly be related. The name “tamahomare” comes … Continue reading →

We get an awesome Ringo episode after a 2-week wait. Let’s get this thing rolling! First, I want to bring back the ED images here, because there are quite a few icons here explained in this episode. I’m not sure what this is. Possibly the fact that Ringo is living below Tabuki’s feet? We will … Continue reading →

Tomorrow’s Joe (2011), DVD release date: Aug. 19, 2011 Based on Ashita no Joe manga. directed by Souri Fumihiko, who also directed Ping Pong (2002), which I consider to be the greatest sports comedy of all time. Starring, Yamashita Tomohisa, Karina, and Kagawa Teruyuki etc. The cast is star-studded. There’s already an English subtitle floating … Continue reading →

About [gg]_Mawaru_Penguindrum_-_05_[86845EF7].mkv Stop crying about commercials in our releases. They are freakin’ amazing, and commercials pay for anime. In fact, subscribe to the Bandai Channel, buy Yamaha or Red Baron motorcycles right now, and pre-order ‘Arakawa Under the Bridge’ live-action BDs even though they suck. And yeah, I forgot to go back and translate the … Continue reading →

No ‘Mawaru Penguindrum’ this week, so I used the time to TLC other groups’ subs (lol) for another fansub comparison. The title of this post is something I’ve been wondering for quite some time. Crunchyroll and Funimation simulcasts about half anime shows worth watching every season now, yet some fansubbers continue to translate these shows … Continue reading →

Much of this episode concerns Ringo’s fruitless pursuit for Tabuki. This is the first time that fate actually seem to be working against Ringo. Seriously, what is this? They’ve been showing these shining forehead since ep2… Is this just done to emphasize her not wearing the penguin hat? #2 appears to be quite a glutton. … Continue reading →

This is the curry episode, sort of a running gag by Ikuhara in Shoujo Kakumei Utena. “Curry” is pronounced “karee” in Japanese, and there are quite a few words with similar pronunciations used as puns in this episode, such as 「彼」(kare) = “him”, 「加齢臭」(kareishuu) = “old person smell”, and 「華麗」(karei) = “flamboyant”. I think I … Continue reading →

The second episode is a huge drop in production value in terms composition and presentation. However, the attention to detail persists. 「演出」 (director in charge of presentation) is different for every episode, but the overall artwork quality from Ep1 to Ep2 has not suffered nearly as much as most anime series I’ve seen. Abstract seabed … Continue reading →

Mawaru Penguindrum episode 1 – The Bell of Fate Tolls is quite possibly the most engrossing opening episode I have ever seen since Bakemonogatari in anime. It excels in virtually every factor criteria for what makes for a good first episode: The premise, direction, art, music, pacing, depth, detail, effectiveness as introduction episode, and its … Continue reading →

‘Mawaru Penguindrum’ is, in my opinion, the best new anime of the season so far, with the potential to become the best show of the year. It seems to have meanings to every line of dialogue, and hints or symbolism in every single scene. We’ll never know if they’re intentional or I’m just seeing things … Continue reading →