Looking for feedback regarding future Transformer fansub projects

[karyuudo]

Hi everyone,

Our team (Karyuudo Fansubs) is looking to get some feedback from the Transformers community in regarding future projects.

We wanted to see how everyone would feel if we set up some kind of donation system to help support our translators and fund future projects. We feel that our translators (several who are pro's now) have proven their value with several highly sought Transformers series being finally translated (Car Robots / Beast Wars II / Beast Wars Neo).

As most of you are aware, we have never asked for money. And while working on projects may be fun, at the end of the day our translators have bills to pay. Any support provided would go directly to them since they're making the magic happen here.

So what do you, our fans, get out of it?

Well, many fans have reached out asking if series like Q-Transformers or the Japanese G1 Super Robot Lifeforms Transformers series could be fully translated. So, if you had a say on which series would be translated next, would you support this initiative? The time it would take to translate also would be technically a lot quicker since this wouldn't just be a side project for our translator.

Those donating would have timed access to the subtitles for the series as we finished each episode, and before it would be released to everyone else publicly. Donations would also be limited to the episodes that are being funded. If you, the fans, didn't want to see a certain episode be funded, then it wouldn't happen.

If everyone could please take some time to click on the link below to our poll, and feel free to comment, we'd appreciate the honest feedback.

Poll

We truly appreciate the support that our fans have given us over these years.

 

[Sabrblade]

The poll link redirects to some blogger list.

 

[karyuudo]

The poll link redirects to some blogger list.

Thanks! Fixed it.

 

[sprocket]

I know there are differences in dubs, especially stuff like Beast Wars and Prime, but it's not really something I'm clamoring for
I appreciate you guys doing those couple of episodes though: Japanese Depth Charge was not what I would've expected lol
As for Q-Transformers, the ad-libbing the series relies on has got to make that a nightmare to tackle, but if you think you can do it, go for it!

 

[Sabrblade]

I know there are differences in dubs, especially stuff like Beast Wars and Prime, but it's not really something I'm clamoring for
I appreciate you guys doing those couple of episodes though: Japanese Depth Charge was not what I would've expected lol
As for Q-Transformers, the ad-libbing the series relies on has got to make that a nightmare to tackle, but if you think you can do it, go for it!

Man, they're translating Kiss Players of all things right now. If they can handle that, they can handle anything.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I'd love to see a properly translated Superlink sometime. I'm sure it's still not a classic but I'd at least like to understand it.

 

[karyuudo]

I know there are differences in dubs, especially stuff like Beast Wars and Prime, but it's not really something I'm clamoring for
I appreciate you guys doing those couple of episodes though: Japanese Depth Charge was not what I would've expected lol
As for Q-Transformers, the ad-libbing the series relies on has got to make that a nightmare to tackle, but if you think you can do it, go for it!

Q-Transformers is definitely part of the realm of possibility. It's also something I think our translator, Ume Murasaki, wouldn't mind tackling due to the short lengths of the episodes. I think the biggest hurdle will be the region specific dialogue and how to properly convoy that in English.

 

[karyuudo]

Man, they're translating Kiss Players of all things right now. If they can handle that, they can handle anything.

Yeah we're almost done that series and should have something out soon. Be prepared to get creeped out.

 

[karyuudo]

I'd love to see a properly translated Superlink sometime. I'm sure it's still not a classic but I'd at least like to understand it.

If I remember correct TV Nihon did a fairly decent job with subbing.

 

[Powered Convoy]

Yeah we're almost done that series and should have something out soon. Be prepared to get creeped out.

Very much looking forward to it!

 

[Sabrblade]

If I remember correct TV Nihon did a fairly decent job with subbing.

It was one of their older releases and uses a lot of untranslated Japanese words that could have easily been translated into English. Same with Galaxy Force (which also used TV rips instead of DVD ones).

But the one they subbed that really needs re-subbing the most is The Headmasters. Every subbed release of that show (either by TV-Nihon or any official DVD releases) is pretty lousy in one way or another.

Though, TV-Nihon's subs for Masterforce and Victory are fine.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I remember Victory being fine. There's a few untranslated words, and some captions explaining the occasional idiom, which I do appreciate in subs.

 

[Sabrblade]

I remember Victory being fine. There's a few untranslated words, and some captions explaining the occasional idiom, which I do appreciate in subs.

The Masterforce and Victory subs from TV-Nihon did still use some untranslated Japanese words, yes, but were otherwise quite good. And were further refined when they were used for the subtitles of the UK and Australian DVD sets, getting rid of the untranslated Japanese words to use appropriate English equivalents.

 

[Sabrblade]

Like, here's an example of how subpar both the DVD and TV-Nihon subs were for The Headmasters.

I found the Russian dub of the final episode on YouTube, and turned on the English auto-translation of YouTube's closed captions to see if Fortress mentions rebuilding Mars, which was mentioned in both the original Japanese version and in the Omni Productions dub, but neither the DVDs nor TV-Nihon caught this and so fans were led to believe that Mars's later appearances in Victory and Beast Wars II were an error, since Mars had been blown up earlier in The Headmasters. Sure enough, the Russian dub mentions it. Here's a comparison:

English auto-translation of the Russian dub: "We have a lot of other work rebuilding the planet Mars and restoring peace in the universe."

UK/Australian DVD subtitles: "We still have work to do making the universe a better place."

Whatever TV-Nihon was smoking: "All the the woes of the universe that began with Mars... There is much for us to do."

(That "the the" was not a typo on my part)

 

[karyuudo]

At this point we've had 11 responses, with 6 of those in favor of supporting a donation drive to sub some future series like Q-Transformers.

I'll probably leave this open for another few weeks to see if we get some more responses.

 

[Fero McPigletron]

Just saying THANKS a TON for BW2 and Neo!

Saw that you had Micron Legends subbed on your YouTube channel a d had to look up the episode where Starscream died (Cramp ep48). I really didn't expect that the scene with Alexis grieving was originally silent. Yow.

 

[karyuudo]

So it's been several weeks since I posted the poll and we've got at least 9 people who are interested in doing some crowdfunding. Once Kiss Players is complete, I'll post something in this forum to see if we can come together as a group and agree on a project to fund. First thing comes to mind is Q Transformers since all episodes are around 90mins in total. Feel free to drop some other ideas in here on what you're interested to see translated.

 

[Sabrblade]

Feel free to drop some other ideas in here on what you're interested to see translated.

The three Japanese Beast Wars clip shows. They are original stories made up for the Japanese dubs of Beast Wars Metals and Returns.

I watched the second Metals clip show recently, and found a Japanese description of it that helped me to understand it better since said description explains a lot of its meta-humor... and it's a pretty crazy story about the Maximals and Predacons searching for what the Covenant of Primus calls "Legendary Banana Seeds".

 

[ZakuConvoy]

It seems like you're more interested in a cartoon or video series...but I'm still going to mention something else I'd like to see translated one day.

Transformers Cloud.

Transformers Cloud - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

Now, the first handful of chapters DID get a translation, but not the rest of it. There's not even a summary for the later chapters up on the wiki. Most of it seems to be archived online, though.

This...might be too big of a ask, though. Since, guessing by the sheer amount of text, this might even be a bigger project than Q Transformers. And I'm not sure we even have scans of comic entries in the story. Still, it'd be nice to see it translated one day. Maybe something to keep in mind for later.

 

[Sabrblade]

And I'm not sure we even have scans of comic entries in the story.

TFWiki has all of Cloud archived (both the raws and what little has been translated) and has been considering asking Karyuudo about translating Cloud too.