Haruhi-chan DVD Ep1 QC
February 1st, 2010
edit: qc is done with 
OMG. I bet you thought it’d never come. AND IT DID.
I GIVE YOU…
[Shamisen] The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan – 01 (DVD QC).mkv
(right click -> save target as)
(my own qc…)
02:11 / 02:48 / 03:00 / 03:05 / 04:09 – Line starts late
04:05 – “you’ll” -> “you shall”
04:09 – “That’s it.” -> “Indeed.”
And of course I’ll have to fix the QC credits with all of you
…and wow, if it wasn’t 2am I would totally just fix all of that BEFORE I give it to you… kinda a bad start when I have 8 things to fix… :X
How to QC
timestamp – note
Like I did above. Then I know where I need to fix something, and what needs to be fixed.
Moar eps as soon as gavers gets them to me
EDIT
“01:28 – I wanna change “sheep-san” to something like “Miss Sheep” or something, but that sounds weird… just like sheep-san does. 
Any ideas?”
I don’t intend to take out all the honorifics. I just don’t like this single one, because it seems stupid having an honorific on an ANIMAL. It seems weird and just doesn’t make sense.
* just wanted to clarify that I meant only this line, and not all the others
48 Responses to “Haruhi-chan DVD Ep1 QC”
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I can’t really see anything off from what you yourself have pointed out, but then again it’s nearly 4 am here, so I’m not in the best mindset to evaluate this stuff. However, I can chime in on the usage of honorifics:
I believe that perhaps the most important thing is that, above all, it remains consistent within itself. Like, stick with either the Japanese set, or the English set. Personally, I prefer “san” “kun” “chan” and the like compared to “Mr.” “Mrs.” “Ms.”, that’s a personal preference though.
But if you end up using the English ones, then you should probably stick to them throughout. This of course means that stuff like Nagato-san becomes Ms.Nagato, and Koizumi-kun becomes… er… well, I’m not exactly sure on that one, I think that it just becomes Koizumi, but I can’t guarantee that.
Anyways, I’ve given my two cents about the honorifics. Whether or not anyone agrees is really up to them.
Oh, I’ve forgotten to mention. Perhaps the most extreme solution would be to simply drop the honorifics altogether, without replacing them with their English equivalents. This would probably be something of a last resort though.
Citing some examples. In your resubbing of the first episode, you use Sheep-san. And you use the Japanese honorifics throughout. However, the original youtube subs drop all honorifics entirely.
I suppose if worse comes to worse you can ask what people would prefer, and their reasoning behind it. I’ve probably just made this more confusing though. Sorry about that.
I echo The Gentleman Caller’s sentiment above. It’s best that you drop the honorifics. Instead of Ms.Yuki, we just have Yuki. And Koizumi-kun would remain to be just Koizumi. That way, it would sound natural?
2:30 AM here, but I feel I should give my two cents as well:
As both an anime watcher, a TLCer and a fansubber, I consider myself a purist. As such, I prefer to drop the least amount of the original material as possible. This means roughly two things:
1) Translations are not liberal: I will not, translate “manobi” as “noob”, nor will I just insert random slang terms, such as wtf, where they are unwarranted. Back when I couldn’t understand the language, I used to like my anime subs to be directly translated, otherwise I felt I was missing out on stuff: When I watched stuff with tons of liberties, I felt like I was watching American Animation, and that certainly is not what I search for when I watch anime – the reason I watched stuff subbed was to get it closest to the Japanese language as possible. This is also the reason why I mostly dislike dubs (they take too many liberties with translations, and we end up having originally mild and calm characters, shouting things like “holy shit wtf”).
2) Original things that can be kept unchanged look better kept unchanged: That is to say, if someone is making a Virtual Novel joke, by having Kyon refer to himself as Onii-san to Yuki (this happens in episode 2), dropping it, drops both the joke and the atmosphere. This was something that the original Kadokawa translation missed and that peeved me a bit.
Anyways, those are my 2 cents.
Well, one minor thing,
01:26 Oh duh, this is a dream. => Oh duh, this is a dream!
It feels wrong when you hear him more excited than when you read it.
As for -san et. al, I prefer dropping it unless it’s an important/natural part of the dialog (like referring to the sheep as sheep-san, instead of “that sheep” or something). The reasoning is,
1. I prefer to have less to read so I can pay more attention to what they’re saying, and hear the proper mood for it
2. As per 1, I can get if they’re saying -san or -kun or whatever if I have time to pay attention
As for ‘natural part of the dialog,’ if someone is talking to someone using their last name (like when Koizumi says Nagato-san desu ka?), it would be weird if that was translated as “Hello, Nagato?” But if he said “Yuki-san desu ka,” having it translated as “Hello, Yuki?” wouldn’t feel as weird. I guess it also depends on how long the line is.
That said, I’m pretty tired and my reading skills are slow right now
Sorry to disagree with everyone, but I think the honorifics should be kept in. I hate it when subbers drop the honorifics. Also, “Sheep-san” is part of the joke because he always refers to Mikuru as “Asahina-san”. Miss Sheep/Miss Asahina wouldn’t be the same for me.
I’ll QC when I get home from work (writing this in my lunch break).
00:30 – Now that’s my sister for you. -> That’s my sister for you.
00:37 – That was for you leaving me alone all day… -> That was for leaving me alone all day…
00:49-00:50 – The “Dead from playing…” Sign flashes off then on.
00:52 – “She wanted to frakin’ kill me!” Flashes off then on and off again at the end.
01:28 – I guess if you dont like him saying sheep-san find some way to incorporate Mikuru’s name into it. To me, I think you should keep it though.
01:47 – I know, but that is not something you just say! -> I know, but that is not something you say so freely!
02:11 – “Did you really see…” line’s timing is off by a bit
02:37 – …I’m not one to be shouting. -> …I’m not one to shout. Or something, this line don’t read well originally.
03:08 – Let’s find the eggplant. -> Well, let’s find the eggplant then.
04:09 – “That was easy” sign flashes
There’s all the issues I had. And awesome news to see this project is finally underway and moving forward.
I don’t see the sign flashes? ?__?
Anyone else?
Probably because he’s using VLC. That’s the only reason I can think of since VLC clears all lines when one line on screen ends, and it restores the continuing line later, resulting in flashes.
Okay, makes sense. Thanks
Can’t believe I didn’t notice this post until now. As for honorifics, I say leave them in. This is a Japanese show here and even though you’re translating it to English, there are quite a few problems with dropping them entirely: some of the jokes could be lost; you can’t really figure out the difference in relationship between characters; and either way, one wouldn’t use “Mr.” or “Miss” between people they’re close to in real life anyways. While I do agree that you can listen to the audio and figure out what honorifics they’re using, it’s awkward hearing one thing and reading another. If you’re really desperate, make one track with honorifics, one without, like what Frostii did with the K-On blu-rays; that way, you satisfy (almost) everyone. Bit more effort, but fewer people complaining probably. QC report next post, don’t wanna trigger any spam filers.
* I want to keep the honorifics, as I did take the time to add them back in when I did the original subs. It’s just that… well, sheep-san sounds WEIRD.
Thing is, if you get rid of one, you’ll have to get rid of them all for consistency.
Or I can be a selective subber ;p
I personally prefer localization… so yeah…
As I mentioned in my original post, I too would prefer the original honorifics to be kept in, I was merely outlining all the possible alternatives that I could think of.
Also, a thought on the whole “Sheep-san” occurs. It’s bound to be awkward, because that’s part of what makes it weird. It doesn’t sound right in any language because people generally don’t run around calling cats “cat-san” or dogs “dog-kun”. It doesn’t make sense to begin with, so it won’t make much sense no matter what you try to do to it.
0:08 – I liked the font you used for the titles for the Youtube rips better, this one looks ugly and doesn’t really fit in
0:12 – Maybe move the typeset of “Episode 1″ down to above the Japanese one. It’s kinda in an awkward place.
0:24 – Line should extend a bit more, he says “samu…” after the line ends and after he gets pummelled by his sister.
0:36 – Line starts late.
0:41 – “For Shamisen?” -> “For Shamisen!?” He does say it with exclamation.
0:56 – Maybe translate the “yochi yochi” somehow?
0:59 – Same as above with the “honi” that sheep-Mikuru says. (or at least typeset it)
1:09 – This might not look the greatest, but extend this line and add a fade at the end since it echoes.
1:15 – Capitalize “where”.
1:24 – Capitalize “then” and “ah”.
1:30 – I say keep “sheep-san”. Also, line break after the “…” instead; looks better.
1:35/1:56 – Shorten “Mount” to “Mt.” (you used “Mt.” at 2:14/2:16)
1:59 – Don’t capitalize “without” since it’s the continuation of the previous sentence.
2:22 – Not sure if “god” is the right word to use here; use whatever a.f.k. used to refer to those blue beings in their subs.
2:38 – The first sentence here is really awkward. Maybe something like “I was thinking that I shouldn’t be the one to jab.” Either way, “shout” is a bad translation for “tsukkomi”.
2:54 – Might not want to do this, depending on your view on notes, but people who don’t understand even a bit of Japanese aren’t going to get this joke. I guess you could just add a note here on the blog. Also, two exclamation marks is bad, use either one or three.
2:56 – Typeset this maybe?
3:17 – Add an exclamation mark
3:37 – Use one/three exclamation marks, not two.
3:46 – Add an exclamation mark. I’d say don’t scene time this, line ends quite a bit too early. That, and it kinda stays on screen for too short a time.
3:52 – Add a comma after “But”.
4:05 – Line break after the comma.
4:17-4:19 – Same as the “yochi yochi” and “honi” thing from before.
4:29 – Maybe change it to “I already said don’t do that!” or something.
4:34 – Sign looks awkward, align them so they’re all in the middle, not sloping to the right.
4:45 – In the credits, the hyphen in the URL is a box, might wanna use a different font.
Holy CRAP I did not expect it to be this long ._. Sorry.
Honi isn’t a real word, so it can’t be translated (well, to be fair, there exists a word honi, but she doesn’t use that: she used honi more-so as some onomatopoeia rather than an actual word) – in this case, it’s just a questioning exclamation.
As for yochi yochi, from my understanding that’s a play on words for “there there” (“yoshi yoshi” – something you tend to say to animals), or it could be yochi yochi itself (an onomatopoeia for steps). I can’t figure the exact translation, unfortunately: translating it as “there there” would be wrong, and “step step” makes no sense.
Lastly, as for 0:24, in the original translation they had left the complete sentence on, even though Kyon never finished it. I just felt it more proper to cut it off as he had cut it off. ^^
Hmm… Okay, I guess that makes sense. As for the line at 0:24, I meant for the timing to be made longer, so make the line end later. Sorry for the confusion.
Well, considering that we didn’t have a public QC on this before~
1:15 – Capitalize “where”.
My personal stylebook says to leave it lowercase after… since most of the time, it’s just a pause, not a new phrase.
1:24 – Capitalize “then” and “ah”.
^ nope.
1:59 – Don’t capitalize “without” since it’s the continuation of the previous sentence.
Very rarely do I leave it lowercase.
Another of my personal peeves – like in poetry, I think each new line should have a capital
But “Eh” and “Uh” are just interjections, so they’re technically their own sentence. But I can live with this; not like I’m the one making decisions anyway.
2:54 – Might not want to do this, depending on your view on notes, but people who don’t understand even a bit of Japanese aren’t going to get this joke. I guess you could just add a note here on the blog. Also, two exclamation marks is bad, use either one or three.
http://shamisen-subs.com/episode-notes/haruhi-chan-episode-01/
…
Whoops. Been waaaay too long since the original version of the episode was released.
0:24 – Line should extend a bit more, he says “samu…” after the line ends and after he gets pummelled by his sister.
Gonna leave it because it’s kinda hard to hear over the pummel, and I’d prefer a scene-timed line over one that you can’t really hear.
Oh yea, and in response to your own QC, I’d say leave the last two points alone. They’re fine as they are. “You shall” sounds a bit weird, same with “Indeed”.
Later on in the series, I tried to get rid of Yuki’s usage of contractions. I need to rectify that for earlier eps.
I just realised that I don’t know Japanese, so I can’t help much with QC. However, I hope you’ll release xvid avi versions of these. Even though the video quality is awesome in these, the signs go a bit mad.
See http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/6007/signsexplosion.png
So I always stuck to the avi releases. If it’s just me, then don’t bother. I’ll stick with it >_<
WHOA. They work fine on Windows with CCCP, but I guess that’s because there’s no proper support for ASS on a Mac. Should look something like this: http://i49.tinypic.com/2po6w4n.jpg
Interesting. o_o
To be honest? neither of them looks good, should try other font, or ordering or something, it’s just… weird.
also adding {\be1} would make it much smoother.
Except the box is covered by \bord so can’t do a \be
you can separate the lines, make one white line to hide the background and one text line with \be for smoothness (is that even a word?)
btw: sent you an e-mail with episode 2, hopefully better encoded than the first one
Aaaah so much work. I’ll see about it.
*downloads ep2
My $0.02…
I have always preferred to see Japanese onomatopoeias translated (examples currently escape me), as it enhances my knowledge of and immersion into the anime. My treatment of choice would to place “(steps)” near “yochi yochi” in a similar color, angle and style.
Otherwise, this has been ONE thorough public QC. Good luck, all.
But Haruhi doesn’t *mean* steps. :< I guess I didn’t explain well enough (sorry, I had just woken up – I fixed the wording on the post now, though): yochiyochi means (literally) wobbling [walk]. I don’t see at all how that fits with the scene – it makes more sense as “there there”. But if so, Haruhi does not exactly say “there there”, she says something like a “cute” version of it. But even then, I can’t be sure that’s what is meant, as I had never prior heard anyone pronouncing yoshi yoshi as yochi yochi, even though it *is* very possible. I asked some friends (who also speak Japanese) about it at the time, and they said likely she was implying some sort of sound that one direct at an animal (much like herders sometimes click their tongues to move a herd).
Trust me, before I TLC anything I try to be 200% sure. It’s the level of quality I try to achieve here
You know, when I first watched it, I thought it was sheep-Mikuru saying it; it seems closer to her voice, but I guess either one saying it would work. If it was Haruhi, then it would be “There, there” while if it was Mikuru, then “Step, step” or something like that.
Wait, it isn’t Sheep-Mikuru saying yochiyochi? I thought it was?
I just put on my best headphones on and put the volume up to “ludicrous”, and listened to it 5 times. That being said, I can’t be sure if it’s Aya Hirano in a soft voice, or Yuuko Gotou in an energetic voice. But I guess I’m leaning towards it being Mikuru now. So I guess that line should be changed to “totter totter”.Disregard that. I checked the manga: it’s Mikuru that says it (http://i.imgur.com/DiMmJ.jpg). It can now be changed to “totter totter” without a shadow of a doubt. Sorry about that one, guys. >.<
I dunno. To me, sheep-san sounds natural and cute :3
So I guess we have translations for the onomatopoeia now? “Totter, totter” for “yochi yochi” and “Hmm?” for “honi” I guess?
Do you guys realize how much extra work that’s gonna be?
._.;;;
“Sheep-san” should be kept the way it is for a simple reason. It’s what Kyon says! Don’t change it! X-/ In my oppinion anything BUT sheep-san would sound unnatural and wrong, and I like it the way it is, so please don’t change it. Also, no offense, but translating onomatopoeia is stupid. Leave them alone. We can hear her saying “yochi yochi”, and that’s enough. “totter totter”, “there there”, “step step”, they all sound awkward to me, so I don’t like any of them. no, better to leave them alone. Same goes for “honi?”. It should stay untranslated.
And most importantly guys, “I’m beat” has become “She wanted to freakin’ kill me!”? o_o Um, wtf? Anyone with even a tiny bit of knowledge of japanese can clearly hear him saying “I’m tired/beat”. “She wanted to freakin’ kill me!” is a waaaaayyyy too liberal translation, and I think it makes no sense! >.< Bring it back the way it was please. Allthough less serious, that includes the box as well. It should remain "Tired from playing with his sister until she fell asleep", not "Dead from playing with his sister until she fell asleep". I really, really dislike this change.
The “I’m beat” is still there (疲れた – 00:47). The next phrase after that *is* “she wanted to kill me”(これならつれてったほうがま しだった – 00:50) which is what Kyon says. This change was a literal change. The prior one was liberal. Pay attention to the phrase before you question my Japanese skills: it is extremely rude, especially considering all the time I spent re-translating the episodes due to the major mistranslations by Kadokawa.
Some clarification: What I mean by rude is not questioning my translation. You’re free to do that, as long as you don’t start the sentence with: “wtf? Anyone with even a tiny bit of knowledge of japanese can clearly…”
I don’t mind constructive criticism, like: “Hey PC, I think you may have mistranslated this part, I think he meant [X], not [Y].” Just come on: I do this stuff for free on my free time, and it’s a lot of work – the last thing I need under my already stressful schedule is someone calling me a fake.
I never see anyone complaining to *****-subs about their many wrong translations, and someone comes up to me and rudely complains about a right one I do. Un-be-lie-vable.
EDIT: Subbing-group removed, as I don’t want to start a subbing-group war.
Um, sorry, I didn’t really mean to offend you, actually, I just thought it was just a really weird line change. But it wasn’t even the right line, and the one I talked about is unchanged like you said, so I’m really sorry, I misunderstood. ^^’. I didn’t watch the qc episode, I just looked at that screenshot, and didn’t remember that there was a line after that one, so I just thought it was weird how it was changed,but obviously it wasn’t changed at all. So sorry. And I don’t question your translation skills in general, I find them to be quite satisfying really.