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I started studying Japanese in 2010, mostly so I could read/watch manga and anime on my own, but I also had aspirations to eventually become a fansubber. After a couple years of studying, I applied to a group and got in as a QC/editor. I stayed for a while, made some friends, and learned a lot, both about Japanese and fansubbing. I eventually got assigned a show as the main TL, and was excited to finally do some Real Translation. It was a complete disaster. I knew enough Japanesee to watch and enjoy anime without subtitles, but I didn't know enough to understand all the dialogue in a show, though I didn't really realize this until I had to do it. I ended up spending like 6 hours translating the first episode, and later ones took nearly as long. I also had to get a ton of help from translators from other groups. By the end of the show I was completely burnt out from the weekly effort and anxiety that came with being in way, way over my head. The group fell apart a few months later due to drama and internal power struggles, as all fansub groups are fated to eventually. My (mostly) failed attempt at translating a show wasn't a direct contributor, but it might have hastened the end. I was bummed at the time to lose most of my fansubbing friends, but looking back at IRC logs now, the whole situation was actually really stupid and kind of funny. Still, I'm glad I went through the experience. It made me realize that translating is more than just knowing two languages; it takes writing skill in the target language just as much, if not more than, knowledge of the source language. I've since moved to Japan and gotten a job at a webdev company in the country, so I'm still using the language, and I've done some translation (both at work and in private) since then, but I'm glad I didn't decide to pursue it as a career.
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Dec 5, 2022 06:00
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 12:44 |
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The endless torrent of lovely releases with zero effort and no quality control that still got tons of downloads was something that fansub groups complained about a lot. It seemed like people had no eye for quality whatsoever, and would just immediately download whatever released first. This is probably one of the (many) things that contributed to the decline of fansubbing; nobody wants to spend hours making a quality product for free if it won't be appreciated, and some rear end in a top hat (or later, some streaming service) who shits something out 2 hours earlier gets all the recognition.
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Dec 5, 2022 07:31
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Some fansub groups would also inject some humor into the subs in various ways. My group once added the Naruto sharingan sound effect to an episode of an anime where a yandere character got crazy eyes, and nobody noticed it (or at least nobody complained about it) until years later after the group was defunct and a thread was posted about it on an anime message board. One group, gg, was famous for occasionally trolling watchers in various ways - leaving Japanese commercials in, making ridiculously long translator's notes, or my personal favorite: putting entire blog posts into the names of chapter bookmarks. The names were long enough that they would sometimes crash certain video players. IIRC they were the creators of the famous TL note of the Code Geass chess scene that some people may have seen. 
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Dec 5, 2022 14:52
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There can be good translator's notes, but the vast majority of them are worthless weeb wank. One example of a very good translator's note I've seen was in Grisaia, where the main character is a secret agent type character working for the Japanese government. He refers to his employer as "Ichigaya". The English translation leaves it untranslated, and the first time it comes up there's a note that says something along the lines of "Ichigaya is a term used to refer to the Japanese Self Defense Forces, similar to how "The Pentagon" can refer to the US military. The term comes from the name of the neighborhood where the Ministry of Defense's headquarters is located."
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Dec 6, 2022 17:11
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