Script Review: [Underwater] Ozma – 01 This entry was posted by brainchild.
With a show like Ozma taking place in a ocean of sand, you’d think Underwater would be out of its element. (Dohohohoho!) But that’s where you’re wrong!
Leiji Matsumoto is talking about how his work seemed to be depicting the distant future, but now he sees it all coming true. That's right, guys. Oceans of sand.
r/a/ge level: 90/100. It’s almost a week late, it has honorifics translated, it’s a Crunchyroll rip, and Daiz of all people is involved. The only thing that could induce even more r/a/ge would be if Daiz used H.265.
Dark_Sage’s script review (NYI)
EighthSin’s translation review (NYI)
Ji-Hi screenshot comparisons (NYI)
Awkward. It reads awkwardly because I don’t know anyone who would say this. Crunchyroll’s original line with a “hey” at the front would’ve been sufficient. So, “Hey, come over here for a sec.” “Over” could be omitted to sound even better. Add a couple heys, Sams, or hey Sams as needed to fill out the time.
These people live on a post-apocalyptic Earth covered in an ocean of sand. Shit’s gotten scarce, I’m sure, so not everyone is going to be able to keep up on literature. Survival takes priority, so how does the chef know about a mythological aquatic creature?
I also just don’t like the mermaid description. Because of that, I would’ve said, “Where’d you pick up a pretty girl like her?” Revolutionary, I know. SFW called her a “hottie” or something. But even so, there’s nothing wrong here. It’s probably the actual translation for the line.
“It’s” doesn’t have to be capitalized. It’s all in the interpretation.
“On the house” could’ve (and probably should’ve) been connected to the previous clause. There’s no pause in the audio, anyway.
You’d use “aren’t” here if you follow British English conventions and “isn’t” for American English. In general, users of British English usually consider noun phrases such as “your kind” to be plural, whereas American English advocates using a singular verb for such phrases. Consistency is what matters, though, so this isn’t a problem (yet).
This line has been a problem in every release. SFW used ladder, which didn’t make me do a double take at least, but it’s still wrong. No one knows what a “gangway” (the ramp to enter a ship) is apparently. These people are military, so surely they’d be formal about it. I would’ve said, “Lower the gangway. That’s an order!”
No one else got it, though, so I’m not going to unfairly penalize Underwater for it, but I have a piece of advice for all editors: If you encounter something that doesn’t seem right, look it up.
The previous line was, “The Doppler radar!” Having the line be “It’s picking up something around the sand pirate ship!” probably would’ve been better.
“Doppler” should be capitalized. It’s named after Christian Doppler, after all.
What I liked:
From what I saw, every error in the prosubs was fixed, and many lines were reworded to sound more natural. Overall, I liked the rough and casual language a couple of the characters were using. I’d play with the language and tone even more because, hey, these guys are living on a shitty post-apocalyptic Earth (and star in a shitty post-apocalyptic anime).
What I didn’t like:
Some changes have been suggested, but there is nothing obviously wrong with the release. There were actually some lines in SFW I liked better, e.g., “Shit! Shit! Shit!” “Hey, Pops, […]” etc. Underwater also released pretty late, so while I recommend Underwater for the quality, you wouldn’t be doing yourself a disservice or lose out on much by watching SFW instead. In the end, some of the lines I pointed out were very minor and could be argued as stylistic differences, so Underwater gets…
Overall Grade: 5 days late… out of 5.