Script Review: [HorribleSubs] La storia della Arcana Famiglia – 01

La storia della Arcana Famiglia is some stupid bullshit about a mafia family that’s in no way a shitty ripoff of Hitman Reborn, which itself is shit. There’s also some shitty Bakuman art style going on here too.

Look at this bullshit.

r/a/ge level: 50/100. People are watching this show apparently, so there’s plenty of room for rage. I’m sure a lot of it comes from the untranslatable titles being translated.

– Titles (honorifics) translated

– No opening or ending translation

– Name order is ??

– Italianshit is untranslated


“You’ve been caught smuggling red-handed” or “You’ve been caught red-handed smuggling” – whichever you think sounds better.

You don’t really get caught for something, but rather doing it. In this case, some characters are caught smuggling. The original isn’t something a native English speaker would say. Otherwise. we’d have such gems as, “You’ve been caught for cheating.” Sure, that phrase can work in a really, really small subset of situations, but it doesn’t fit here.


“Looks like trouble.”

Sounds so much more natural. There are many ways to phrase this, but “Looks like some trouble” is at the bottom of the barrel.  “Some” really weighs the sentence down and screws up the natural flow of the line. My eyes just want to glide across the line, but “some” is fucking that up.


The smugglers’ car is going like 40 miles per hour (~64 kilometers per hour), and Blondie here jumps on it like it’s nothing. Fuck impulse and the laws of physics. I know this show has superpowers and shit, but is it so much to ask that the physics of the world is somewhat realistic? Besides those special powers, there isn’t any reason to believe these people are super-human freaks or anything. This isn’t like a game either where a separation of gameplay and story makes sense.

Excuse this little rant if, somehow, they go full Hitman Reborn, and people start using gloves as jet engines. Until then…


“That was dangerous.”

Dante (pictured) already fired his rocket, completely obliterating the car the smugglers and Blondie were on, so this should be in past tense. I’m trying my best not to be racist here, but it’s really hard. Just look at that thing.


That explains why everyone looks like he or she came straight out of Bakuman.


“That’s something we can agree on,” “At least we can agree on that,” etc.

I don’t even remember the context anymore because this show is so bad. All I know, I took this screenshot for a reason, and the line by itself reads horribly, so I probably had the right idea. The problem is the way you (or at least I) read the line. The stress of the sentence goes on “may,” which is just terrible. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say this particular arrangement of words in real life. That might have something to do with it.


First they’re sour. Then they’re sweet. Even so, I would never call a tsundere “sweet and sour.” That just sounds retarded. If you asked me, I’d say to translate tsundere based on context.

What’s the point of this screenshot, you ask? Well, nothing, except I wanted to show how cliche as fuck this show is. You know, if that wasn’t obvious enough.


I have no idea why ojou would be translated as “princess” when she isn’t really a princess. It’s not even an affectionate nickname either, like what a father may call his daughter. I’d go with the multiple variations of “the young lady,” “milady,” “miss,” etc. There’s no shortage of female nouns and pronouns.


“It’s because you were thinking naughty thoughts.”

“Bad things” is something a five-year-old boy might say. Let’s keep up with the characterization, you know?


Listen to Nova. He knows what he’s talking about. I don’t want to hear the Italian version of the goddamn Arcana.


“Thank you for coming here today.”

Do I even have to explain this one? “Thank you for gathering here today” would’ve also been acceptable. The original is just not a very common thing to say, even though it is grammatically correct English.


“But I’ve gotten to that age… / where I’m starting/I’ve started to think about retirement.”

The second line could be an independent clause, but it flows much better when joined with the previous line.


“I won’t allow any harm / to befall our father.”

File this under “pretty much means the exact same thing but sounds infinitely better.”


“If I were to win, I’d wish I wouldn’t have to marry you.”

The original sucks. I’m running out things to say. Ugh…


What I liked:

Some jokes were handled very well by Crunchyroll, e.g., the bold-bald joke. Wait… That might be it. At least the dialogue as a whole was understandable.

+ Understandable

+ There’s the occasional (one?) gem

What I didn’t like:

There were so many awkward phrases. The translator was either incompetent or just really lazy. The punctuation, grammar, capitalization, etc. were very questionable, as was the localization, or lack thereof. For the mob boss, “Papa” just looks really stupid. I would’ve gone with something like “the don.” It would be really easy to make everything fit, including stuff like “Mama.” All it takes is some creativity and thought, which… oh… I guess this show doesn’t deserve any of that. Carry on, Crunchyroll and other groups doing this show.

– A lot of shitty phrasing

– Inconsistent and/or punctuation, grammar, capitalization, etc.

Rating: 3 Arcana powers… out of 5.

This entry was posted by brainchild.

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