Reichu wrote:Probably the biggest monkey wrench for me here isn't Tree of Life or inochi no taiga, but Fuyutsuki's assertion that Eva-01 is being "reduced" to them. The Spear of Longinus has been added to the mix, so how on Earth is the result reductive rather than, er, productive? And I'm pretty sure Eva-01 has never been core-fucked by the Spear of Longinus to make a big fancy red tree before.

Did he say "reduced"? I always thought he said "restored". If he did say "reduced" it might have something to do with the scientific use of the term, which is somewhat different than the colloquial (see reducing agents, meiosis, mathematical analysis, etc. It might be as simple as reducing two elements to one).

Bagheera: The most frequently-cited use of 還元 (kangen) on Eijiro is "reduce" in the chemical sense. Sniffing around a bit in other places... "Return" or "restore" is an alternate meaning, and can be either in the sense "return something to someone" or, more relevantly here, "restore something to a previous state".

EDIT: 還元 is the same term used in 25' when Misato talks about Adam being turned back into an egg, so presumably Anno is just using it to mean "restore to a previous state". Which raises an awful lot of questions wrt Eva-01 and the Tree of Life.

Ok, this has been a rather frustrating discussion. I was hoping to get some sort of consent and narrow down the options with the help of everyone. Instead, everyone seemed to have their unique own different preferences. It helped, however, in giving me more time and perspectives to think, but In the end, this will have to be my own personal choice, I'm the one doing the subs after all. I do appreciate all of you for help.

@Bagheera
Most of the parts regarding speculation I unfortunately disagree with your views. I won't spend time debating with you the idiosyncrasies of the third impact anymore. I'll now just give a final consideration of my own on specific points that Interfere with the understanding of SOL and TOL and the line in question, but I won't debate them anymore. I appreciate if we could just agree in disagree and let the issue end, of course if there is something you really feel you must say to conclude everything, please go ahead.

Bagheera wrote:I am not sure such a thing [original TOL] exists. (...) [Or that it and the far create souls]

I'm 90% sure it does since Unit 01 is a clone of Lilith, the Lance is the original, the Souls had to come from somewhere and are NOT SELF SPONTANEOUS in the Eva verse, and that Fuyutsuki used the word "restore". I'll further elaborate it later on the post when answering Reich. Unless you ring some new evidence and breathtaking brilliant argument, this matter is pretty much closed by me.

Bagheera wrote:To me the Embryo of Life is metaphorical [to seed of life]
(...)
referring to the fact that Yui/Unit 01 is being transformed into a Seed/Source of Life.

I completely disagree. Your logic makes no sense. A doctor still calls himself a doctor even after he is retired or even post-mortis by others simply by the importance he had when he was an ACTIVE doctor. It's a title. A Nurse is not a Medic, they work in the same area but have different functions and formations. "Seed of Life" is a specific title designating the transporters of eggs full of souls. Unit 01 has never been a Seed of Life because it never was "transported", never had an Egg of souls and never will. Yui never was and never will become one such Seed of Life, in the specific meaning the term has in the series. Your interpretation goes against the pretty clear definition given by Misato herself or even NGE2. A closed issue for me.

My main objection to this is that it[embryo of souls] doesn't convey anything to the viewer, and that I feel it creates needless confusion by being overly tied to the concept of the Tree of Life in Judaic mythology. "Embryo of Life" is both accurate and meaningful,

Wait, what? "embryo of souls" is less meaningful that "embryo of life"? I have to strongly disagree. At least me, Reichu and Pwhodges agree that "embryo of life" makes no sense. Whatever sense you have taken out of it, was surely pure speculation of your part, the term by itself is near MEANINGLESS.

Reichu wrote:I don't necessarily agree with Bagheera's interpretation of the phrase, but I too am wary about transforming it beyond recognition. "Embryo", for instance, is much more evocative than the already overused "source", as it paints a clear image of something alive that is capable of developing into a more mature form.
"Souls", on the other hand, is much more specific than inochi, particularly in the context of Eva, where they are a known quantity and not just a vague metaphysical concept.
"Embryo of (a) life", then, refers to Eva-01's potential for transforming into this new Singular Being.

I explicitly said that I didn't want to alter "embryo". Only pwhodges wants to alter it with source, which I disagree since it shifts the meaning too much and overlap with "minamoto" when Fuyutsuki refers to the Egg of Lilith just earlier. My only problem is with "LIFE". I thought I was pretty clear about that.
Regarding the specificity of “souls” vs “life”, I think is not a bad alteration. I disagree that “embryo of LIFE” refers to Unit 01 becoming god, It hardly makes sense, I believe "embryo of LIVES" refer to the exclusive ability of the TOL to create life, (souls) from NOTHING. I believe it refers to the function and ability of the Tree of Life, which is generating life, or better yet: HUMAN LIVES: SOULS. Considering the metaphysical meaning is a stretch.
As we are well aware, souls are very special entities that can't be created by man or even SoL. There is a finite number of Souls in the Chamber of Guf, and the one responsible for creating them, is the Tree of Life or god itself.
It's important to understand that The Tree of Life is described in the Talmud as BOTH THE SPIRITUAL PATH TO GOD, as well as THE ENTITY RESPONSIBLE IN CREATING SOULS AND PUTTING THEM INTO THE GUF.
They are the manifestation of god itself. God, in old Judaic Mythology, is much differently from the Christian god, it is very impersonal and much more spiritual, with its manifestations affecting every elements of the Talmud.

it recently occurred to me that this whole Tree of Life business might actually refer to Eva-01's status as the ultimate recipient of humanity's complemented souls (something that is made a bit more clear in NGE2). The Tree of Life presents the path by which humanity can "unify with god" -- which, here, means becoming one within a vessel that is equivalent to a god.

Something which I totally agree, since the Tree of Life is the complete merge of both Fruits, giving humanity's knowledge direct access to the infinite power of the S2 engine. I have theorized that this is what "god" was in the Evaverse, The Tree of Life itself, even before I started lurking Evageeks back in 2004, was one of my earliest theories.

Reichu wrote:Fuyutsuki's assertion that Eva-01 is being "reduced" to them. The Spear of Longinus has been added to the mix, so how on Earth is the result reductive rather than, er, productive? And I'm pretty sure Eva-01 has never been core-fucked by the Spear of Longinus to make a big fancy red tree before.

I never had a problem with that. For me, it was always obvious that he wasn't referring literally to Unit 01, as it's obvious that Unit 01 is a new entity that never had another form unless you consider it ORIGINATED FROM LILITH. It now strikes me, after realizing that in the Judaic Mythology there are MULTIPLE TREE OF LIFES, not a single one, that EVERY SEED OF LIFE IN EVA could have been a Tree of Life seeding their own eggs when their Lances separated from them back in the Eden. If every Seed of Life have their own lance, and Unit 01 (Lilith) merging with Adam's lance becomes a Tree of Life, then this was always a purpose and function of the Lance of Longinus: To form Trees of Life.
Every SoL could have been equal to god, a Tree of Life.

Anyway, I'm almost closing it all down to "embryo of souls". The translation note may be enough to clear up any lost ambiguity by explaining that the original term was "inochi".

sephirotic wrote:I'm 90% sure it does since Unit 01 is a clone of Lilith, the Lance is the original, the Souls had to come from somewhere and are NOT SELF SPONTANEOUS in the Eva verse, and that Fuyutsuki used the word "restore". I'll further elaborate it later on the post when answering Reich. Unless you ring some new evidence and breathtaking brilliant argument, this matter is pretty much closed by me.

If you're closed to discussion there's not much to be done, but the main evidence here is the fact that the human population has varied dramatically over the years, as well as the fact that life itself has existed for billions of years. If Lilith's Chamber of Guf is empty then the simple fact that human beings can reproduce (and they do reproduce, even after the time when it's confirmed Lilith's CoG was empty -- we do see babies and children throughout the show) it follows that souls must be generated just as people themselves are.

Wait, what? "embryo of souls" is less meaningful that "embryo of life"? I have to strongly disagree. At least me, Reichu and Pwhodges agree that "embryo of life" makes no sense. Whatever sense you have taken out of it, was surely pure speculation of your part, the term by itself is near MEANINGLESS.

"Embryo of souls" is linguistically nonsensical, as it involves a singular somehow becoming a plural (a single embryo becoming multiple souls). "Embryo of life" is necessarily metaphorical, but at least it's self-consistent (since "life" can be read in many ways).

It seems to me that since no one can agree on a coherent meaning for the Japanese, we are ending up using the individual words to construct a similarly meaningless phrase in English. Maybe that's preferred to trying to provide a semblance of meaning for the poor viewer! I can see the argument both ways, but incline towards trying to make things easier for the viewer watching what is after all a pretty confusing scene. I remain unconvinced that using the word "embryo" does anything for the viewer other than confuse.

There is one more option which has not been considered - to use the phase "Tree of Life" but to omit the descriptive phrase which is causing such confusion, leaving the viewer to insert their own understanding of the term. (I'm pretty sure that not a single contributor to this discussion will see that as a serious option, though!)

pwhodges: Omission is probably the worst option. The translation should be presenting the information in the Japanese to the best of its ability. Selectively removing something because it's "too confusing" is the domain of hyper-streamlined dubs, not what are supposedly the "most accurate subs ever".

sephirotic: I think you are undertaking a bit too much interpretation (some might say "fanwanking") of your own, making the theological concepts referenced by the show also canon to the show, rather than just treating them as things the show happens to be selectively borrowing from for its own purposes.

There's honestly no way of knowing exactly what the hell such a vague phrase as inochi no taiga means without consulting the guy who wrote it. So, if you want to be "accurate" I would err on the side of leaving things up to personal interpretation as much as possible, rather than narrowing the possibilities down via your personal conceptions as you seem to be doing. You didn't want a literal translation due to repetition, and you refused a proposed alternative (using "vitae embryonis" to go along with "taru" being somewhat archaic), so... Shrug?

Do we even have any inkling of what in Anno's eclectic reading he might have been alluding to? It might be some tortured Japanese translation of something Kabbalistic for which an alternative English rendering might exist.

Bagheera wrote:If Lilith's Chamber of Guf is empty then the simple fact that human beings can reproduce (and they do reproduce, even after the time when it's confirmed Lilith's CoG was empty -- we do see babies and children throughout the show)

Souls DO SPLIT, tough. Babies are split from their own mother. Yes I understand this is speculation, but the main evidence here is the line from Ritsuko on episode 23: When they tried to make a clone from scratch, it didn't develop (received) a soul. (Rei).
But that is again, of course, speculation.

"Embryo of souls" is linguistically nonsensical, as it involves a singular somehow becoming a plural (a single embryo becoming multiple souls). "Embryo of life" is necessarily metaphorical, but at least it's self-consistent (since "life" can be read in many ways).

That's not nonsensical, can't a "singular" zygote become 4 humans? Keep in mind that Japanese has no plural so "inochi no taiga" could very well be: "embryos of lives". Given how life can often be interpreted as ALL LIFE, it would be a surprise to me if the term was actually referring to a single life: Unit 01.

Reichu wrote: I think you are undertaking a bit too much interpretation (some might say "fanwanking") of your own, making the theological concepts referenced by the show also canon to the show, rather than just treating them as things the show happens to be selectively borrowing from for its own purposes.

Well, after reading that passage from Judaic Mythology everything makes so natural sense to me I didn't even need to make extrapolations to fit the role of the Tree of Life. The main aspects being that they create souls, human lives, and that exists multiple trees of life. Which makes perfect sense given how exists multiple Lances and SoL, exactly the combination we need for having a ToL. I'm not going any further trying to explain things, here. Is just that considering Eva is an anthropocentric show, it makes sense to me substitute life for souls.

But I'm still considering keeping it literal and stylistically wrong too. Actually, with no one supporting my "embryo of souls" Idea, I'm actually more inclined to keep it "embryo o life" anyway. I'm deciding in alter the standard sub to "embryo of souls", and keep literal on the honorifics.

Mr. Tines wrote:Do we even have any inkling of what in Anno's eclectic reading he might have been alluding to? It might be some tortured Japanese translation of something Kabbalistic for which an alternative English rendering might exist.

That's precise my point. The term "embryo" is even present on the passage I quoted from the Talmud. The soul that falls from the ToL into the Guf is actually refereed to as "embryo" when it's selected to descend to Earth. I can't stop thinking Anno read all that and just fastidiously rehashed the terms he saw in a way that didn't make much sense since he himself didn't even understand much of them properly. I wonder how good is the Talmud translation to Japanese, anyway.

I attempted a Google search for 命の胎芽 and, from what I can tell, none of the web pages surviving to the current day attempt to explore what it means, aside from a single one suggesting that 大河 (also taiga, but meaning "river/stream") was actually intended. (This entails assuming a level of error far beyond accidentally inputting the wrong kanji: 胎芽 is handwritten on the storyboards. The line of thought can be ruled out, methinks.) I'm somewhat tempted to get in touch with Numbers-kun and ask him if he can dig up anything on the subject. Alternatively, my Japanese might just be passable enough to ask Japanese fans about it directly, though offhand I'm not sure what the best venue would be...

It occurs to me that a lot of the conversation happening in this thread would actually be better suited for Discussion. I'd honestly be interested in pursuing the matter of what the Tree of Life represents within the NGE universe, free of the constraints of what is supposed to be a thread about translation.

If Numbers would be willing to lend an ear that would be most welcome. I'd be very interested in his take on matters.

Also, a review of the use of religious iconography in Eva in general, as well as its (lack of) meaning, might be a helpful Discussion topic.

I went over some of the lines near the beginning of #25' today, from the Gendo and Seele conversation. Some comments...

> With the Lance of Longinus now lost,

Should be "Spear of Longinus". This is not only onscreen, in English, during the conversation in question, it's also resurfaced as the translation of choice in the new movies (in other words, there's consistency).

> That's different from Seele's scenario.

The original Japanese here has Gendo trailing off, looks like. Should that be kept?

> Humans should evolve into a new world.

Always thought this sounded really weird. He's saying susumu, not shinka suru. "Advance to a new world" would be IMO preferable.

> We are not willing to go so far as to discard our human form just to enter into the Ark called Eva.

Perhaps this reflects a limitation of my skill, but I can't figure out how anyone is getting the translations for this line that they are. Far as I can tell...

「我等はヒトの形を捨ててまで、エヴァという名の方舟に乗ることはない」

ヒトの形を捨ててまで = until we've abandoned human form. エヴァという名の方舟に乗ることはない = will not board the ark called Eva. So all together: "We will not board the ark called Eva until we've abandoned human form." Granted, I'm not sure why they would be saying this under the circumstances, but that goes for every other translation of this line that I've seen...

> This is merely a rite of passage

There is no "merely" in the original Japanese. (これは通過儀式なのだ。) I suppose it's a creative interpretation of "nanoda", but maybe there's a better way. That suffix is supposed to be emphatic rather than minimizing.

> to free humanity, whose rebirth has been impeded.

Nothing here about "freeing humanity". The line literally says, "For rebirthing humanity, which was obstructed/impeded." (閉塞した人類が再生するための。)

> A sacrament to unite God, humans, and all other life forms in death.

No mention of any "sacraments". Straight translation is, "So that god(s), humans, and all life eventually become one through 'death'." (神も人も全ての生命が『死』をもってやがて一つになる為に。) The emphasis on "death" is unusual and I'm not sure how that would be conveyed. By capitalizing death ("Death")?

@Mods I still don't quite understand the criteria of "omnislashing" that resulted in a warming for me before, if my following quoted response is not adequate, I ask to just orient me in how I should post instead of punishing me:

Reichu, thank your for your time in commenting those lines, here are my considerations:

Reichu wrote:I went over some of the lines near the beginning of #25' today, from the Gendo and Seele conversation. Some comments...
> With the Lance of Longinus now lost,
Should be "Spear of Longinus". This is not only onscreen, in English, during the conversation in question, it's also resurfaced as the translation of choice in the new movies (in other words, there's consistency).

Indeed, the screen actually reads "Spear" not Lance. I'll change it although I don't think is that important of a change since "Spear" and "Lance" have both the exact same meaning, one is from Latin (which would be more correct, old-testament-wise) the other is from old Saxon. I may have missed it as in my language we only have the word "Lança", anyway, which is derived from the Latin.

> That's different from Seele's scenario.
The original Japanese here has Gendo trailing off, looks like. Should that be kept?

You mean, adding ellipsis? I think it's ok, I'll alter.

> Humans should evolve into a new world.
Always thought this sounded really weird. He's saying susumu, not shinka suru. "Advance to a new world" would be IMO preferable.

It's an adaptation but I suppose being more literal is more accurate in this case, I'll change.

> We are not willing to go so far as to discard our human form just to enter into the Ark called Eva.
Perhaps this reflects a limitation of my skill, but I can't figure out how anyone is getting the translations for this line that they are. Far as I can tell...

「我等はヒトの形を捨ててまで、エヴァという名の方舟に乗ることはない」

ヒトの形を捨ててまで = until we've abandoned human form. エヴァという名の方舟に乗ることはない = will not board the ark called Eva. So all together: "We will not board the ark called Eva until we've abandoned human form." Granted, I'm not sure why they would be saying this under the circumstances, but that goes for every other translation of this line that I've seen...

My Japanese skills are much more limited than yours, mind you, but allow me to interject. I've spent a lot of time in this specific line, I decided to adapt it (also after reading other translations and Japanese speakers) due to the "made", which in my understanding give the idea to "go as far as", not of "until" as a conditional like in your suggestion. I believe a conditional in Japanese would have been more explicit. The former makes more sense too.

> This is merely a rite of passage
There is no "merely" in the original Japanese. (これは通過儀式なのだ。) I suppose it's a creative interpretation of "nanoda", but maybe there's a better way. That suffix is supposed to be emphatic rather than minimizing.

"Merely" was an adaptation from the pompous way Seele speaks, just removing it would leave the line kinda of dull, any other adaptation suggestions?

> to free humanity, whose rebirth has been impeded.
Nothing here about "freeing humanity". The line literally says, "For rebirthing humanity, which was obstructed/impeded." (閉塞した人類が再生するための。)

This is another particular line that is kinda of "empty" and ambiguous in the original which led me to need to adapt to a easier line to understand.
Indeed there is no "freeing" but it relates to removing the "blockage". Re-read your suggestion, it reads very badly and doesn't make much sense to what "Obstructed" means. What was obstructed? From what? The more obvious interpretation is that the rebirth was impeded by something. How to proper adapt it? One way was by "freeing (humanity from) the obstruction". If you still don't like it, I will have to ask you a easier line to understand and read and less transliteral.

> A sacrament to unite God, humans, and all other life forms in death.
No mention of any "sacraments". Straight translation is, "So that god(s), humans, and all life eventually become one through 'death'." (神も人も全ての生命が『死』をもってやがて一つになる為に。) The emphasis on "death" is unusual and I'm not sure how that would be conveyed. By capitalizing death ("Death")?

In this case I agree that the adaptation may have been too far to as to add "Sacrament". The adaptation, however, was probably made as to make the meaning of the line as independente as the original. Your suggestion doesn't work very well: "So that god..." This "so" gives an idea of link or conclusion to the previous line, which makes no sense. I'd have to ask you for a different suggestion for a stand-alone line.

sephirotic wrote:Reichu, thank your for your time in commenting those lines, here are my considerations

I find the repeated criticisms of my rough translations a bit curious. The intention of the post was just to point out places I found problematic. Of course the translations in large part aren't supposed to be finalized. That can always come later.

You mean, adding ellipsis? I think it's ok, I'll alter.

｢せーレのシナリオとは違いますが―｣

Not just adding an ellipsis would fix the problem, since Gendo isn't saying "That's different from Seele's scenario". I thought the translation "While different from Seele's scenario..." got the point across fine. (Ending a sentence with "ga" means something like "but...", so putting "while" at the front accomplishes the same thing.) Still have no idea why Gendo says this, though.

My Japanese skills are much more limited than yours, mind you, but allow me to interject. I've spent a lot of time in this specific line, I decided to adapt it (also after reading other translations and Japanese speakers) due to the "made", which in my understanding give the idea to "go as far as", not of "until" as a conditional like in your suggestion. I believe a conditional in Japanese would have been more explicit. The former makes more sense too.

Your translation reads, "We have no intention of giving up our human forms simply to enter the Ark called Eva." So where, in the original Japanese, is the "no intention of..." part? Where is the "simply"? With "エヴァという名の方舟に乗ることはない" basically meaning "will not board the ark called Eva", using the "as far as" meaning of まで doesn't yield a complete sentence that actually makes any sense. Unless there is something about the koto wa/ga aru formation that I've been completely unable to find, which is entirely possible.

...I'll probably ask Numbers-kun about this line when I contact him since the discrepancy between the translations and the meaning I'm capable of deciphering is so broad.

"Merely" was an adaptation from the pompous way Seele speaks, just removing it would leave the line kinda of dull, any other adaptation suggestions?

Nanoda is a pretty common ending and I would hardly call it "pompous". Anyway, something like "after all" ought to work. "This is, after all, a rite of passage."

Indeed there is no "freeing" but it relates to removing the "blockage". Re-read your suggestion, it reads very badly and doesn't make much sense to what "Obstructed" means. What was obstructed? From what? The more obvious interpretation is that the rebirth was impeded by something. How to proper adapt it? One way was by "freeing (humanity from) the obstruction". If you still don't like it, I will have to ask you a easier line to understand and read and less transliteral.

Well, remember it is 閉塞した人類が再生するための. The emphasis of the sentence is on the rebirth part, not on the obstruction part. The latter is just modifying "humanity". However the translation goes, it shouldn't rearrange things so much that the ための is reassigned to 閉塞, as it is in the translation I cited. "To bring about the rebirth in those who are imprisoned" is, in some ways, closer to the right idea than "to free humanity, whose rebirth has been impeded." This one is tricky. I'll have to think about it some more.

In this case I agree that the adaptation may have been too far to as to add "Sacrament". The adaptation, however, was probably made as to make the meaning of the line as independente as the original. Your suggestion doesn't work very well: "So that god..." This "so" gives an idea of link or conclusion to the previous line, which makes no sense. I'd have to ask you for a different suggestion for a stand-alone line.

Why are you saying that it's a stand-alone line? The whole thing ends in 為に ("for the purpose of..."; "as a result of..."), ergo it's elaborating upon something already said -- and assuming the audience can figure out WHAT from context.

Reichu wrote:I find the repeated criticisms of my rough translations a bit curious. The intention of the post was just to point out places I found problematic. Of course the translations in large part aren't supposed to be finalized. That can always come later.

Ow, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to sound excessively critic. I thought you were already suggesting (near) final alternative lines.
Since I'm not English-native, (although I do have a very good interpretation) all the alterations I've done to the subtitle I relied with the help of native speakers, delegating to them the task of composing a sentence that sounded natural and that I felt was correct with the Japanese. I'm sorry if I sounded bossy, shouldn't have assumed you would be ok with that.

I'm a little bit picky with accuracy but I try to avoid being excessively transliteral too, trying to find a balance which I personally believe is good enough is rather difficult and subjective. So I have to trust my feelings on this. In my experience in taking inputs from other people is that our feelings may be in accord on some notions but most of the time they are not.

Not just adding an ellipsis would fix the problem, since Gendo isn't saying "That's different from Seele's scenario". I thought the translation "While different from Seele's scenario..." got the point across fine. (Ending a sentence with "ga" means something like "but...", so putting "while" at the front accomplishes the same thing.) Still have no idea why Gendo says this, though.

I see, I understand how the particle "ga" works and I (kinda) agree with you, but since I have no idea either of what Gendou would say next, I'll think on something else not that much explicitly suspended.

Your translation reads, "We have no intention of giving up our human forms simply to enter the Ark called Eva." So where, in the original Japanese, is the "no intention of..." part? Where is the "simply"? With "エヴァという名の方舟に乗ることはない" basically meaning "will not board the ark called Eva", using the "as far as" meaning of まで doesn't yield a complete sentence that actually makes any sense. Unless there is something about the koto wa/ga aru formation that I've been completely unable to find, which is entirely possible.

...I'll probably ask Numbers-kun about this line when I contact him since the discrepancy between the translations and the meaning I'm capable of deciphering is so broad.

"no intention + going as far as" is yet another fluid adaptation to "made + nai", I know it's not accurate but I think its much more natural than the options we have so far without altering the overall meaning they are trying to convey. But I'll be looking forward if you come with other ideas. Also for the line of the "Impeded rebirth".

Why are you saying that it's a stand-alone line? The whole thing ends in 為に ("for the purpose of..."; "as a result of..."), ergo it's elaborating upon something already said -- and assuming the audience can figure out WHAT from context.

Not exactly "stand-alone" line, but not syntactically directly related to the previous line nor complementing or further elaborating its idea. This is a line that needs to be considerably adapted from the Japanese not to sound too abrupt. Even you added a "so" to kinda of make it flow better, I was just commenting that "So" adds a connection with the previous line which I personally believe wasn't adequate. Once again, I'm sorry to assume you were doing anything more than just "rough" suggestions. I'll take my time working with the inputs you have provided, please don't stop and take all the time you feel like puting in it at your own pace.

I've now had a chance to see the first TV episode from sephirotic's definitive "(almost)perfect" series batch, and it has serious issues with screen clutter and added memes (of the visual variety). Is there any hope for a clean batch? I'd be even willing to donate money towards that purpose.

Dr. Nick wrote:I've now had a chance to see the first TV episode from sephirotic's definitive "(almost)perfect" series batch, and it has serious issues with screen clutter and added memes (of the visual variety). Is there any hope for a clean batch? I'd be even willing to donate money towards that purpose.

Added visual memes? I don't know what are you talking about. Are you referring to the English subtitles? I have just reused RX's TS of the original ADV subtitles. I have watched the whole series twice in English and haven't found any single added lines so I have no idea what you are referring, Unless you are talking about the signs positioned on top of some objects such as the "Look here!" From Misato's photo that should have been at the botoom left of the picture. But that isn't really what "added memes" mean. RX was kinda lazy with the TS but I don't really blame him since syncing the position frame by frame of signs seamlessly on shaking cell animation is extremely time consuming. Or would you rather have a version of the subs with no sort of signs and translation of Japanese text on the screen whatsoever?
I honestly don't know what you are referring to.

It refers to the things that are wrong during the opening animation. The reason I'm pointing this out is because opening and ending animations are often the best-animated and most iconic parts of their respective shows, and thus preserving their artistic integrity should be of the highest priority. Here's the breakdown:



1. On the bottom, song translation using a neutral font. So far so good.

2. Vertically on the right, moonrunes. This addition has no utility, and it's a visual meme practice from the bad early years of modern fansubbing, equivalent to sprinkling memes to the dialogue translation. (It also was not there in 2D4U's release, so you actually took the time to make your release worse in this respect.) If you wouldn't use "lol u tk him 2da bar|?" in your subs, you shouldn't do this either. It only serves to block the visual field during an incredibly iconic opening sequence. You want to maximize the unblocked visual field in order not to detract from the art. What you're doing now is erecting a culture shield between the anime and the viewers.

3. On the top, romaji with karaoke effects. There's a little bit more gray area here, but this is a good litmus test: Does the original opening have sing-along lyrics (some old shows do!)? If not, then the way to replicate it is not to have karaoke in the English version either, because that keeps the function the same. You must remember, an accurate translation not only requires an accurate translation of the text but also the replication of the experiential aspect. Even if you have the best subtitle translation in the world but the visual experience differs needlessly from what it was in its original context, then the translation as a whole is not accurate. This is a central tenet of audiovisual translation. However, since you know how to create multiple subtitle tracks, make use of that function! A secondary track can be visually inaccurate and have an experiential aspect that differs from the original, thus catering to people who wish have karaoke. If it's on an alternate track, the karaoke can even be as flashy as you want it to be, whereas text effects of any sort are almost always off-limits in a standard translation, because of the cognitive reasons explained below.

And finally, even if you were to keep a plain romaji there in the primary, accurate translation, the current positioning is wrong, because we want to keep the extra eye tracking to a minimum. It's unfortunate how little-known nuclear secret this is (something even 2DFU/RX782 got wrong), but there's really just one proper way to position the romaji, and it's this: tied to the translation of the lyrics so that the viewer's gaze doesn't needlessly wander..

(4. And I must wonder why the ending song is subbed in English at all, which is another departure from 2D4U's version. Same issue with Thanatos in 25', even on your "clean" primary track. Surely it can't be for the hearing-impaired because the episode translation itself is not catering to them. Your clean track has Komm, süsser Tod correctly unsubbed, so there's not even internal consistency. And in any case, even if you had a HoH subtitle track, it would never be the primary track.)

The proper standards and practices for minimizing clutter stem directly from what the human visual system is cabable of, and the cognitive bottlenecks therein. They need to be followed because you cannot beat your own brain in a fight. They're part of the visual fidelity of an accurate audiovisual translation, so if you go through great pains to preverse the original film grain, shouldn't you spend the same effort to preserve this level of fidelity as well? (And trust me, I greatly appreciate your efforts with film grain preservation, even if I'm not a bitrate-counting HiFi freak.)

I know I'm probably sounding overtly critical here, but you have to understand that I'm not holding these things against you. You're clearly a self-taught guy, and translation theory is a kind of an obscure field. That's why you didn't know about the meme thing. Furthermore, anime fansubbing community has crazy amounts intra-clique inertia, and that's why many people take meme sprinkling and other bad practices for granted. It took an absurd amount of arm-twisting before we could have proper versions of even classics such as Gunbuster and Macross DYRL. The good-looking releases we have today had to be built on a pile of various earlier thoughtlessly cluttered versions which did not have visual fidelity and thus experiential accuracy. But that's why I'm bothering to take the time to tell you about these things, because you've said your stated goal is to create the ultimate subtitled edition of the show. And to assist in that, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and pay you for an additional corrected patch, if that's what it takes to have an artistically respectful be-all and end-all English-subtitled version of NGE. So please PM me if I need to lubricate you with cash.

Ow you were talking about the Karaokê.

I'm actually fully aware of ALL the arguments you presented against it and I agree with almost all of them with the exception of double line for romanji+English translation. As we discussed some time ago, I'm aware of some studies in the marketing/communication field regarding eye-tracking, (I'm an ex-videographer myself with a communication/TI bacharel although I'm not a professional subber like you are). I actually tried this method you suggested early in the process of making the subs, but was quickly unsatisfied with the results, finding it polluting more the screen on that way: You can see how the edges of the TV episodes are kinda of devoided of visual information because of the original intended overscan compensation of the composing of the series for the analogic 4:3 TV era. Thus I aligned the lyrics on top and bottom inside the overscan area without covering the Japanese Kanji credits, this pollute less the center frame area of the video and I deemed a bigger priority than eyetracking since we already have plenty of top BG lines. This, of course, doesn't apply to the EoE, If you watch the PT-BR subs for the EoE, you will notice I used that scheme you claimed the best for the Komm Susser Tod Lyrics.

Is important to note that I myself am not very fond of karaoke. I was considering not doing it entirely, but since I was going to do a V2, I decided to hear the opinion of the majority of people regarding what they would have wanted for a collection of Eva. I actually even created a strawpoll on 4chan and Reddit regarding the karaoke if I should add it or not. And the results was around 65% in favor of it. I've adjusted many aspects of the collection according to the feedback I received. Some particular opinions, even tough majority, I disconsidered in favor of my own technical knowledge (8 vs 10 bit) but regarding the karaoke I ended up favoring the option of CHOICE: You can always disable the subs quickly by taping shift+s if you want to watch the OP without skipping it or just open the creditless Opening in the BD extras if you want to enjoy the animation fully. Not adding it would let people WITHOUT choice.
I actually also like to watch subs with honorifics and indirect name order for my own particular reasons, ideally I'd have done the same thing I did with EoE and having two options of subs, one with indirect name orders, non honorifics and no karoke, and the other the opposite, but I didn't because It would be simply too much work.
There is even an extra argument in favor of trying to please a large amount of people which is not appropriate to discuss here, but I think your argument of "Erecting a Culture shield" very pertinent. I was actually expecting people to NOT WANT to have karaoke on the subs, but I was surprised when I saw the positive results. The kinda of new casual watchers of the series that would have been affected by this issue you presented will just go for the "CBM version" for reasons I think you know why and I think is not relevant to explain here. Anyway, I think this whole discussion is not appropriate to this forum in the first place, it's offtopic and indirectly referring to "sharing" of the Episodes which I think is boderline the limit of the rules. (If any moderator think this has stepped out of line please don't warm me and just delete this response. I'm sorry if my judgment wasn't good enough for this reply)
Also, since I personally skip the opening altogether 95% of the time, I deemed that a non-issue catering to the preference of the majority that wanted a "high quality collection".
As a curiosity. initially I actually removed the Karaoke for the DC due to the fact the opening on episode 21 having a very dark prologue and the whole tone of the series gets more serious, nevertheless, several people complained that this was "inconsistent and they wanted karaoke in all episodes" and that "the song is already awkward high-spirited anyway".
Ideally I think the voice of Evageeks would have been the ideal to follow but a strawpoll here would be prohibitive for various reasons.
Anyway, this all sums ups in one word: COMPROMISE. I couldn't possible please anyone, I can only lament this is a big issue for you.

Again, please remind this thread is specifically to the discussion of the translation and subs of the EOE, not of my "version of the series". Unless some moderator think it's ok to have a thread just for that which I doubt, but then again, the "release is already out" so it wouldn't be very useful at this point.

Now going back on topic: Regarding the Lyrics for Thanatos, I was planning to initially make a karaoke for it, but the result was giving a bug in the .ass script so I ended up giving up on it. I decided to keep just the lyric anyway for other reasons: Because some non-native English speakers while able to fully understand the English text, have more difficult to understand the lyrics while listening to it, and a third factor is that even if there is no timed animation for the lyrics, having it present still help to those that want to sing it and don't fully remember all the words. Keep in mind that some standards for television translation doesn't apply for the internet, many people that watch anime in their computer and seek English translations over the internet are not native in English. But I agree, Maybe I should have removed the Thanatos lyrics from the "standard" subs.
The logic for FMTTM is pretty similar. While I did create a timed animation for it, I decided to remove it altogether because of the different timing variations in every different episode.

sephirotic wrote:Thus I aligned the lyrics on top and bottom inside the overscan area without covering the Japanese Kanji credits, this pollute less the center frame area of the video and I deemed a bigger priority than eyetracking since we already have plenty of top BG lines.

Well, that's a well thought-out point, but considering how Eva's opening is famous for its rapid cuts, I would've stuck with minimizing eye tracking.

Is important to note that I myself am not very fond of karaoke. I was considering not doing it entirely, but since I was going to do a V2, I decided to hear the opinion of the majority of people regarding what they would have wanted for a collection of Eva. I actually even created a strawpoll on 4chan and Reddit regarding the karaoke if I should add it or not. And the results was around 65% in favor of it.

There's your problem. You don't poll non-experts how to do a job that requires expertise. And since those are sites that are heavily into meme culture, it's not surprising that the users would prefer added memes in their subs.

Is important to note that I myself am not very fond of karaoke. I was considering not doing it entirely, but since I was going to do a V2, I decided to hear the opinion of the majority of people regarding what they would have wanted for a collection of Eva. I actually even created a strawpoll on 4chan and Reddit regarding the karaoke if I should add it or not. And the results was around 65% in favor of it.

I decided to keep just the lyric anyway for other reasons: Because some non-native English speakers while able to fully understand the English text, have more difficult to understand the lyrics while listening to it, and a third factor is that even if there is no timed animation for the lyrics, having it present still help to those that want to sing it and don't fully remember all the words.

Making these sorts of detailed assumptions about your audience is an occupational disease of fansubbers, and it very often leads to compromised fidelity. You have no way of telling what percentage of those people who download your version end up actually being meme-loving channers (or Evageeks members for that matter), and some hypothetical non-native speakers and clumsy karaoke singers should be entirely inconsequential. Surely the primary subtitle track should just be a standard, textually and functionally accurate translation, and any bells and whistles beyond that should be optional accessories. That's how choice works in a sanely designed system; it's built on a consistent baseline product.

But anyway, this whole discussion became moot today, since instead of trying to commission you to create new subtitle tracks for each episode, which would probably be really bothersome even if you got paid to do it, I started thinking if I could just remux the tracks myself. And I was astonished to find how easy the modern Matroska-tweaking tools are to use. I've already cleaned a good bunch of the openings, and this way I shall have non-cluttered versions for my personal collection. In fact, now I can clean any fansub fuckery I come across should I find it necessary, and it makes me feel powerful. So that's it.

I'm sorry but I can't seem to get the subs to episode 26 to work, no matter what. Even though episode 25 subs work perfectly, both the standard and honorific versions of episode 26 just don't show up. I watch EoE using VLC Media Player, in mkv format.