Fansub groups: the good, the bad and the ugly

I've been watching digisubs for awhile, but never got a real chance to compare the quality of sub vs. original. Which would you consider the better groups, and which are the ones doing it solely for the fame?

- 5parrow

'5parrowhawk' wrote ...

In terms of what?

Translation's the only one I might comment on - but I'm not going to name names :-P

I've come across a few translation mistakes (the Japanese doesn't mean what they thought it meant) and a few translation decisions that I don't agree with, but as I've never done* a fansub I'm not keen on ranking those that have.

* And couldn't really yet do.

First, 'good' by my standards means that I can use the subtitles to understand what the spoken dialog means without being distracted from the action. So with that in mind, the better groups I've found are:

Elite-Fansubs(Kanon, Abenobashi) NLA-Ishin-AF,AKA the Triad(Azumanga Daioh) Hikari no Kiseki(Princess Tutu)

I also remember BakaMX and Soldats as being pretty good, although I haven't watched any of their stuff lately. Rice Box is also okay, although I don't think their subs flow as well as some others.

Well, judging from the comments on the below page, AnimeJunkies is supposedly among the *worst* groups out there. Good translations, encoding, editing, and manners sound like they're in short supply there currently. Evidently the only thing they have going for them is speed and quantity.
http://www.envirosphere.com/groups.php?gs=37

However, I don't use IRC myself, nor do I download multiple versions to compare, so I can't verify this for myself. However, given that the 'ban people who compare subs' story is pretty consistent, I'm going to forgo AJ releases on the basis of impoliteness. Seeing as how I'm on dialup anyways, I can wait for decent releases. The good series also get picked up by someone else, anyways.

Jonathan Fisher who has *no* idea who has the most legible fonts, which would otherwise be his primary criteria...

Now with more horsepower and better gas

Yeah, that sounds about right. Their subs are fairly readable, but you can tell that they don't spend much time on making things sound good. However, they are the best group currently doing Gundam Seed, so...

Fame??? LOL!!! The old famous fansubber - a tried and true American icon. <chuckle>

Only if by 'best', you mean 'fastest'. Some of their character name romanizations alone are awful. Raul Kuruuze? Moorer Fraga? They're only surpassed by the ugliness of the actual Sunrise English spellings. =)

My notes (> means 'is better than', ~= means 'about the same':

nla ishin a-f >> e-a aone hqa anbu > e-f a-e anbu aone >> af-f r-b > aku r-b ~= hqa etheria > a-k af-f > a-kraze ua > wizzu chikara > ah a-k ~= si-aoshi-ag k-f ~= optp solar-aoshi > keep-anbu a-fansubs > ahaven ahaven = bad akupixel < uta = crap a-j = crap ssxanime = crap

'Adam Haun' wrote ...

In which case my 'tip of the day' is don't download 'Magical Princess Creamy Mami'

Not because of the Fansub group - except that I question their judgement in choosing the series in the first place.

It could be worse... Live-evil could have done Full Moon wo Sagashite. O_~