Shoutout to the old fansub groups that actually translated the signs and notes in backgrounds

I was rewatching an old show from 2007 on Crunchyroll the other day and it hit me how modern official subs just skip over all that text on signs and posters, something fansubbers used to spend time translating 15 years ago, and I wonder if anyone else misses that level of detail.

2 comments

2 Comments

paul33019d ago

Used to be one of those people who said "oh it's just background noise, who cares" but honestly watching an old fansub of Gundam 00 from like 2008 really changed my mind. There's a scene where a TV in the background has a news ticker about a ceasefire and the fansub actually had it translated, gave the whole scene way more weight than the official release where it's just garbled text. Same deal with a show called Dennou Coil where all the AR interface stuff had translations overlaid on the actual screens, you could actually read what the characters were seeing. Makes me feel like the newer official subs are cutting corners even if the translation quality is better overall.

kevin_sullivan19d ago

Wait, are you saying official releases just leave that stuff untranslated now? That's actually wild lol.