Not Red Reviews

Eva ripoff.

r/a/ge level: 70/100. Crunchyroll is doing the Japanese language a great disservice by translating untranslatable words like eishi. Everyone should know what that means.

+ Honorifics

+ Eastern/Spoken name order… probably

– Confirmed for localization/liberal shitsubs

– No opening or ending translation

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“BETA, Beings of Extra Terrestrial origin, are a very real threat to the human race.” Or something like that.

I have no idea why adversary is capitalized. The original also reads poorly on its own because it’s a fragment (consider revising). I’m not sure if the Japanese is a complete sentence, but the line is long enough that changing it into a complete sentence wouldn’t hurt. LS-6 at the most.

Disregard that. I suck cocks. It’s the official acronym, so forget what I said.

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This show has really good art if you couldn’t tell. Okay, not really. The CGI mechs are pretty cool, but the overall character designs are not. Everyone looks really derpy and fat, the hairstyles are horrendous, etc.

That’s probably the one thing I liked about Upotte!! The girls at the high school had reasonable uniforms.

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Since they explain the acronym here, I wonder if Crunchyroll should’ve held off on revealing the meaning. It would’ve built up some suspense surrounding the aliens… or something.

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I know I said I’d lay off the punctuation, but god damn Crunchyroll if you aren’t bad at this. I’m not going copy-paste my original explanation on this from the Polar Bear Cafe review. Instead, I’ll just say that the second clause isn’t explained by the first clause, so (this is the correct usage) you shouldn’t use “so” as a conjunction here.

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“To that end, the Asian Union has formed a(n impenetrable) defensive line / to prevent the BETA from invading Japan.”

“Speaking of which, is your dad still out of the country?”

“Absolute defense life” is the literal interpretation, and it sounds horrible because no true English speaker would seriously say that. A bigger problem is the main dialogue, specifically the “Yui” part. It’s kind of redundant since we know who the character’s talking to and only serves to reduce the flow. Maybe someone who absolutely insists on one to one translations might disagree with me, though.

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“Lieutenant Colonel Iwaya!”

I’d spell out the military titles just because some people might not know how they’re spelled or pronounced from the abbreviations alone. It’s not like she’s abbreviating them in her speech either, so it could do without the abbreviation. Although, I can understand why someone would choose to abbreviate it: It saves a lot of screen space and is easier on the eyes (Fansubbing with Daiz 62).

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“[You haven’t been commissioned yet, / and we’re in private,] / so you don’t have to be so formal.”

The original is awkward compared to the alternatives. That’s bad for someone who’s telling another person to act normally.

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“He told you to always push yourself when training.”

If you replace “strive” with its most common definition, this line definitely works, but it’s cringe-inducing to read. It’s unheard of to use strive this way. My suggestion is a much simpler interpretation but makes all the difference. Some may call this “dumbing down,” but I’d rather the subtitles read well and be unnoticeable, unless the situation calls for it.

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There’s nothing explicitly wrong with the line except for “and,” which could use some emphasis. I can’t stress enough how important italics can be in subtitles. They’re tools a translator or editor can use to directly affect the way a line is read.

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This line is so cliche, but I still like it. It’s a diamond in the rough. It’s a line with a lot of history. For example, “First thing you must learn is that your weapon is an extension of yourself” is a line straight out of Avatar The Last Airbender. It’s probably been repeated in a bunch of sword fighting movies, novels, whatever. Basically, the girls must learn how to use the mechs until moving in a cumbersome hunk of metal becomes as natural to them as walking on two legs.

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“You’re finished!”

“Let it be finished!”

“This is the end for you!”

“This is it!”

“It’s over!”

Imagine: Two girls struggle in cumbersome mechs, stumbling around the battlefield, swinging their swords with overwhelming ferocity. After a few strikes in quick succession, one gains the upper-hand. She’s about to slash the other and put an end to their duel. But before the finishing blow, she yells, “This ends it!”

Laaaaaaaaame. Crunchyroll completely destroyed any suspense this scene built up.

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“Keep me posted with the latest developments.”

How badass. Sounds like a real secret agent and shit.

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Fuckin’ Tim.

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What I liked:

Not much. I’m not a huge fan of the show, so I’m sure that tainted my enjoyment of the subs. They were understandable and the average affair when it comes to fansubs. Here’s to hoping another competent group picked up this show.

+ Understandable

+ Average

What I didn’t like:

When compared to other Crunchyroll scripts, this stands on the level of Upotte! or Saki. The translation really offers no character differentiation. If the lines and voices weren’t so dramatically different, I wouldn’t be able to tell the Lieutenant Colonel was any different from a regular schoolgirl. There were several lines that could’ve been heavily improved upon.

– Boring

– Lots of mistakes

– Lots of bad lines

Rating: 3 skintight plug suits… out of 5.

This entry was posted by brainchild.