[jahsome]

As someone who doesn't watch anime, this article reminds me of when a coworker sends a screenshot with zero context and says something like "is this supposed to be like this?" Maybe it's a spectrum thing, but I find it beyond lazy and insulting.

In the article, there's zero explanation of what the actual issue is, at least in the first few paragraphs. It just seems to say the subtitles are bad with some examples and puts the burden on the reader to determine why.

Is the issue the subtitle's location on the screen ? Contrast or font? Quality of translations? Again, it's probably a spectrum thing, but without any context I find it overwhelming and overstimulating.

[npteljes]

The article is just long, and rambly, clearly from someone on the inside of the issue, not targeting complete outsiders.

The gist of it is this: Subtitles were a huge part of anime culture.

1. Subtitles were great at one point. Demonstration is this video: https://daiz.moe/content/crunchyroll/klk-underwater-1.mp4 The English subtitles are so well integrated, that they feel like they are part of the original scene. But actually, they are added in post!

In these times, great subtitles were done by a vibrant, legally grey, dedicated subculture. Subtitling, at this point, is about craftsmanship, and appreciation of culture. Anime at this point is a niche, even though becoming more and more popular in the West.

2. Subtitles are becoming more like this: https://daiz.moe/content/crunchyroll/mha-funi-hulu.jpg

Anime at this point is mainstream in the West. This is the corporate version of the same, where subtitling is seen as a problem to be solved as cheaply as possible. The culture around it seems to be dissolved, as the subtitles are now determined by corporate issues, not craftsmen, or connoisseurs.

[Daiz]

Well... the very first paragraph of the article does say with highlighting how "the presentation quality for translations of on-screen text has taken a total nosedive". And then it shows visual examples of the new bad quality and gives comparison screenshots demonstrating good quality shortly after.

[rs186]

A small suggestion: ask a friend of yours who don't regularly watch anime to read your article for 20 seconds, and see if they can explain what it is about.

I spent quite some hours on CR, yet it was maybe until 30 seconds later before I realized what the "nosedive" refers to exactly. In fact, I kept thinking "quality" refers to "translation quality" and I was puzzled I could not see obvious issues.

It doesn't need to be that. Anyone given side-by-side screenshots without additional contexts should immediately tell you what's happening, and I've read lots of blog posts like that.

More specifically, the article provides 4 bad screenshots at fitst. I actually went through 3 of them. I kind of guessed what you meant but wasn't sure. Then there is another gallery of good ones. Why? Just provide good vs bad at the top, explicitly explain what's the expectation, and if needed, provide more examples. That'll be 200% better than this.

[Daiz]

I made some revisions to the start of the article in order to make things more clear to the layman unfamiliar with anime and subtitling. Hopefully that clears things up!

[jahsome]

The addition does indeed provide the clarity I sought. For reasons I won't bore you with, I truly could not discern what the issue was. Every one of my hunches was wong.

Hopefully you can see I was disappointed because it was something I wanted to care about, I just wasn't sure what it actually was I was supposed to care about.

I appreciate your openness to feedback, and I think the article is better for it.

[jahsome]

The article says there's a nosedive. But by what standard(s)? See the questions I already posted in my original response.

Both the "good" and "bad" quality examples contain subtitles with no discernible difference. All examples contain legible subtitles. So where's the "nosedive"?

There's clearly some anime-specific context and nuance that is NOT communicated with context-less screencaps.

Perhaps the article wasn't written for someone unfamiliar with anime, and I'm not meant to understand, but it would be helpful to have the difference explained. Not to mention the improved accessibility for screen readers or folks with sensory processing issues like myself. At a minimum, marking up the image would be helpful. Circle things. Arrows. Help me understand, don't drop me into unfamiliar territory and leave me to guess.

[GolDDranks]

The difference is that when there is text on the original video material, in the good examples the translations are positioned in the proximity of the original texts, and styled similarly, which makes it easier to understand what is translation of what, and generally improves immersion.

In the bad examples, the translations for the texts are mixed with the lines the characters are speaking, which makes it harder to follow.

[jahsome]

That makes sense. Thanks very much for the clarification.

[Blub2121]

Basically they are intending to limit their own options of how subtitles can be displayed. The limit of not being able to position multiple subtitles at specific position is the biggest thing imo. To go with the first screenshots the post has:

For the first it is translating the info box on the left and just adding it above its dialog subtitles. This has a few problems. First the text overlaps the text in the box, not the worst thing here but that can sometimes make things hard to read and imo doesn't look good.

Second it can make it hard to know what is being translated if there are multiple text fragments on screen. Take this screenshot from the article https://daiz.moe/content/crunchyroll/dumbell-funi-4.jpg how are you supposed to know which belong to which muscle? Or this where only one of the rows is translated and you don't even know which https://daiz.moe/content/crunchyroll/mha-funi-hulu.jpg

Third with two dialogs to translate (like tv in background plus people in foreground) you could probably better indicate where what is coming from with the ability to position it.

[jahsome]

Thanks, very helpful examples.

[KevinMS]

I agree, I didn't see that much of a difference between the good quality and bad quality examples. Is it the fonts, or the translation, or the placement of the text?

[jahsome]

Thanks for the response. I was feeling a little crazy. The rest of responses to my comment so far are either dismissive or don't seem to understand what I was trying to communicate, but you seem to have the same issue I have.

[rs186]

The article definitely could be improved. I kind of guessed what the author to say at the beginning, but it was not really clear until much later. Had the author shown a side-by-side comparison at the beginning, it would have helped.

[jahsome]

I think that was the intent, but my point was that even a side-by-side isn't worth much to someone truly clueless who doesn't know what to look for.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, it's extremely difficult for me to determine which of those thousand words are applicable, and without guidance introduces a ton of noise.

[HelloMcFly]

> I find it beyond lazy and insulting

I cannot imagine how much more difficult of life you make yourself with this kind of reaction to someone writing extensively on an article nobody forced - much less even asked - you to read.

[jahsome]

Did you mean to imply autistism-driven sensory overload is something I'm choosing in interpersonal communication?

I did not mean the article was lazy, I meant that specifically about hypothetical co workers.

The article was at the time reminiscent of said hypothetical co workers, but not at all the same thing. My wording was charged, but not really unclear. The first paragraph is about one subject and the second paragraph was about another.

[HelloMcFly]

I will take my badge of Reading Comprehension Failure for the day, thank you. I hope you will accept my apologies.

[jahsome]

No need for an apology. I certainly could have been clearer. In any case I could use more empathy for my fellow humans who lack communication skills, so your point is still valid.

[wodenokoto]

My understanding is, people who only get subtitles from anime have very particular subtitle preferences.

As someone who grew up where 90% of TV was subtitled I find the “bad” anime subtitles much better.

[GolDDranks]

I also grew up where 90% of TV was subtitled (Finland, where, incidentally, the author of the article is from too), but I find the "good" anime subtitles better – for the simple reason that they make it easier to see which translation corresponds to which text.

Note that anime has generally more text on the screen that many western shows, so I think subtitling practices of some subtitle-heavy western countries, while informed and proven by time, don't necessarily represent optimal practices for anime.

But I think you are correct about the subtitle preferences of anime fans. The "general wisdom" of audiovisual translations is that great translations manage to convey the important point very succinctly, and a professional translator knows how to shave off the fluff to achieve subtitles that are quick to read and "fade in the background" in the sense that you don't even realize that you are reading them.

However, many anime fans actually LIKE so-called foreignizing translations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_and_foreignizati... ). I think this plays into the fancier subtitle preferences too.

[prmoustache]

Ultimately what one would really want is not better subtitles but a localized version with on screen text replacement by overlay. The kanjis would simply disappear. A lot of shows were successfully translated and localized in the 80's and 90's in various countries, there is no reason we couldn't do that anymore. The only reasons they aren't doing it anymore is cost reduction.

[aoeusnth1]

I think the before and after screenshots are pretty stark.

[jahsome]

In what way? They both have subtitles. The issue with "quality" is not clear to at least me, and I'm guessing that's because I don't watch crunchyroll or much anime.

[Nexxxeh]

"...I find it beyond lazy and insulting." Using the words "lazy" and "insulting" in this way sounds rude, insulting, entitled and arrogant.

They are very negative words and it is rude to use them when referring to someone else's work or things similar to that work.

TFA is certainly not lazy (and it's very obvious to an NT that a LOT of effort went into it).

We should ideally all be producing content in an accessible way when possible. But doing so is difficult and is a learned skill set.

Making things accessible to NDs can be difficult because normal written English heavily utilizes things that NDs can be unable to intuitively process.

There is also often a trade-off involved in making work accessible. Aesthetically specifically, artistically generally, or in terms of brevity or convenience to others.

Your inability to read the context clues and process the visual information is your inability to do something. A thing that the vast majority of people can do. TFA clearly wasn't intended as insulting and your interpretation of it as insulting is unfortunate.

Your very specific needs are not the needs of the vast majority of people who are reading it. If you cannot see the difference in subtitles between the two sets of examples and tell that one is bad, then you are not the main target audience.

The new generation of subtitles are bland and poorly integrated with the context.

Previous subtitles were attractive and well integrated, with colours, typefaces, orientations and locations picked to best suit the content. Everything (including background signs) are translated with attention paid to details.

The article uses a lot of visual examples to explain this. It is written in a way that is intuitive and easy to digest for most people. I can literally skim this and understand it.

If you wished to write your comment in a way that wasn't rude to the OP, you could provide the same important information without using negative language:

"I am autistic and don't watch anime. I've read the first few paragraphs and I'm finding it overwhelming and overstimulating to precisely identify the problem.

What is the exact issue? The subtitle's location on the screen? Contrast or font? Quality of translations?"

Relevant parts of TFA that explain are:

>...translations for dialogue and on-screen text aren’t even separated to different sides of the screen – everything is just bunched up together at either the top or the bottom. Lots of on-screen text is even left straight up untranslated.

>The amount of it varies from series to series, but almost every anime out there makes use of on-screen text at one point or another, with some featuring downright ridiculous amounts of signs (what on-screen text is called for short). With all this on-screen text, it is also very common for there to be text visible on the screen potentially in multiple positions, even when characters are speaking.

>At bare minimum, when subtitling anime, you should be able to do overlaps (multiple lines of text on the screen at the same time) and positioning (the ability to freely place subtitles anywhere on the screen).

>Overlaps and positioning are really just the bare necessities for dealing with on-screen text in anime though – ideally, you should also be able to use different fonts, colors, animate text in various ways, etc. Making use of all these possibilities is an art unto itself, and this art of on-screen text localization is commonly referred to as typesetting. Typesetting is important even when dubbing anime, as all that on-screen text is going to be there in the video all the same!

>[Crunchyroll started] mangling subtitles with typesetting into something compatible with the awful subtitling standards of the general streaming services [Netflix and Amazon Prime].

[jahsome]

Seems like you were so quick to jump to the defense of the author (who likely doesn't need your white knighting) you completely misunderstood or are misrepresenting what I said was lazy and insulting which was the hypothetical coworker example, and NOT the article itself.

With that in mind, I don't have the energy to read the rest of your reply. I appreciate you taking the time to respond, and I'm sorry if my phrasing wasn't clear. I'm sure it's a great article, and I meant in no way to insult the author.

I'm just not equipped to gather much meaning from it the way the information is presented.

[Blub2121]

Dude no offense but they just read what you wrote. Maybe it isn't what you intended to write but you can't blame them for not reading your mind. Applying "beyond lazy and insulting." to coworker and article is the normal interpretation.

[jahsome]

I disagree with your assessment but allow me to clarify so there is no room for misunderstanding.

Yes I do believe the type of coworker who uses a screenshot to communicate instead of describing an issue is indeed lazy and insulting.

The article on the other hand clearly isn't lazy. It's obviously quite thorough, just at the time was not well organized.