Convention panel changed how I watch subbed anime

I went to a fansub panel at Anime Boston back in March. The presenter showed timestamped screenshots proving how much gets paraphrased in official subs. After that I started checking two different sub groups for the same episode. The differences were huge, one was way more literal and lost the jokes. Now I only trust certain groups for specific series. Has anyone else started comparing sub groups after seeing something like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

garcia.miles25d ago

Four different groups for one episode of a show about high schoolers playing badminton, and each one had a different line for the same joke. @river183 hit on something real, I watched one group make a deadpan character say "this is fine" and another made him say "I'm literally on fire right now." Spoiler alert, the guy was not on fire. Now I just pick whichever group has the better track record for crying scenes, because apparently that's where all the translation weirdness shows up. Went from trusting one site to keeping a spreadsheet on my phone like a lunatic.

river18327d ago

I read something last week about how the whole sub vs dub debate is actually way more about translation style than people think. One group will add a ton of flavor to make jokes hit, another just goes word for word and it's flat as hell. Idk, once you see those timestamped examples it's hard to unsee it.