Best subtitles for Evangelion TV series?

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Best subtitles for Evangelion TV series?

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Postby hersuri » Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:20 am

Hi,

I've only ever experienced Eva with the ADV subs and dub - after comprehensively reading the EvaGeeks commentary project, it has lead me to believe that these subs might not be entirely accurate or consistent with the series. Have there been any other groups that have provided more accurate or fitting subtitles?

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Postby Deepak » Thu Oct 06, 2011 8:18 am

platinum subs are accepted by most people, though is has some error. The literal translation project is also a very good resource.

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Postby Dr. Nick » Thu Oct 06, 2011 9:49 am

View Original PostDeepak wrote:platinum subs are accepted by most people, though is has some error.


Such as?

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Postby gatotsu911 » Thu Oct 06, 2011 12:26 pm

The Platinum subs are functional, though I can't help but feel that their academic dryness frequently undermines the emotionally loaded comtent and eloquence of the show. It'd be nice if there were subs that were similarly accurate but prosaically superior.
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Postby bobbyfischer's ghost » Thu Oct 06, 2011 1:52 pm

very good topic , I have only the platinum subs to go on, but they work just fine for me. I think the concern with both the sub's and dub's is localization of the translated text in that regard all translations of eva suffer from this, my advice would be just to go with the newest translation.
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Postby Deepak » Thu Oct 06, 2011 5:15 pm

View Original PostDr. Nick wrote:Such as?


One I remember mentioned was the line in 23' "No antibiotic substance from the 16th Angel has been found thus far. We will continue searching." The kanji that 'Kousei' was written in means 'composition' not dealing at all with antibiotic substances. Reichu translated the sentence as "The 16th Angel's constituent material is still undetected. In the process of resuming the current search." Notice how the reference to antibiotics has been taken out. 'Kousei' in different kanji starts off a few kanji compounds referring to antibiotics so that is probably why ADV made that mistake.

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Postby Trajan » Thu Oct 06, 2011 8:26 pm

Nitpicks aside, ADV's dub is marginal at best but the sub translations are pretty faithful overall. It loses some of its eloquence, but everything does when you translate it into a different language.
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Postby gatotsu911 » Thu Oct 06, 2011 9:26 pm

I think the dub, like most halfway-decent ones, deserves credit for reworking the translated script into dialogue that sounds reasonably like stuff real people might say, even if it did have more than a few flubs. (Also keep in mind that they were working off an older, rougher translation than for the Platinum subs; I recall reading that Matt Greenfield said if he were to do the dub over again he would script and direct a lot of things differently, and some particularly erratic lines actually were re-recorded for Platinum, though I don't have details on exactly which ones.)
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Postby Trajan » Fri Oct 07, 2011 10:37 pm

The dub is actually quite good considering the era in which it was made, it just doesn't hold up very well today.
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Postby hersuri » Sat Oct 08, 2011 10:44 am

So Platinum is the way to go for subs?

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Postby gatotsu911 » Sat Oct 08, 2011 12:40 pm

View Original PostTrajan wrote:The dub is actually quite good considering the era in which it was made, it just doesn't hold up very well today.

Personally I would amend that to, "By today's standards it is uneven as fuck, but it still has its moments."
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Postby Ornette » Sat Oct 08, 2011 12:56 pm

View Original Posthersuri wrote:So Platinum is the way to go for subs?

yes, it's pretty much the best one available for the TV series.

And a reminder that this topic is about Best subtitles for Evangelion TV series.

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Postby hersuri » Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:54 am

Is there any particular resource to acquire deviating/varying subs from?

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Postby Deepak » Mon Jan 09, 2012 8:50 pm

View Original Posthersuri wrote:Is there any particular resource to acquire deviating/varying subs from?


Some links to get you started.

http://www.evacommentary.org/misc-files/transcripts_platinum_v3.zip
This is the Platinum subs.

http://www.evaotaku.com/html/screenplay.html
Bochan_bird's translation of End of Evangelion

http://plaza.harmonix.ne.jp/~onizuka/literal/evangelion.html
Literal Translation Project for Evangelion.

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Postby Reichu » Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:17 pm

Those are all transcripts and not sub files per se.
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Postby Bagheera » Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:27 am

View Original PostDr. Nick wrote:Such as?


See recent discussion here.

OT: The Platinum subs are the best. I don't know what people are on about when they say they're dry or stilted, since they read as well as the dub ever did to me. The LTP is another matter, of course.
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Postby symbv » Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:50 am

View Original PostBagheera wrote:OT: The Platinum subs are the best. I don't know what people are on about when they say they're dry or stilted, since they read as well as the dub ever did to me.

Potential issue is we are not entirely sure how accurate it is as translation of the Japanese scripts.....
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Postby Bagheera » Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:55 am

View Original Postsymbv wrote:Potential issue is we are not entirely sure how accurate it is as translation of the Japanese scripts.....


True. It is the best available, but that does not mean it is perfect.
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Postby symbv » Tue Jan 10, 2012 11:04 am

View Original PostBagheera wrote:True. It is the best available, but that does not mean it is perfect.

As long as we bear this in mind...

One day perhaps EGF could tackle it and do the fandom a service. It may make a deeper impact than a fandub project....
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Postby Azathoth » Tue Jan 10, 2012 2:36 pm

Heh. How long has the EGF commentary project been running again? I realize that project presents its own specialized difficulty but seriously, one should not expect much productivity from Eva fandom...the fact that this show which has been out for seventeen years has not already got a "canonical" subtitle project speaks volumes by itself.

Plus, any new attempt to subtitle the series will inevitably disintegrate into the proper interpretations of lines that even Anno doesn't understand, and probably break up the subbing group into lol opinions and general bad feeling. Maybe if you got like the very best of the fansubbing community to work on the project for half a year you could get something done, but it's probably more sensible to just wait for the BD release some time ninety years from now.
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