Some thought on Bleach subs.

[ahnaha]

I know this series has been going for month, but I've only started reading the manga in the last few weeks. The manga seems good enough for my taste, so I decided to give the anime a shot. Besides, the latest episodes from my anime watch list hasn't been seen subbed yet & I'm getting bored. :p

Anyway, I was wondering, what's your thought on the Bleach subs from this groups: A-Keep, IY4Ever & Lunar. Just want your opinion before I download from one of them.

Basically I'm looking for most of this:
a. Most accurate translation. Preferably, the name of a move is left in Japanese with a little explanation on top. If you've seen K-F subs on One Piece, you'll probably know what I mean.
b. Nice-looking & easy to read font. A karaoke of the OP and ED is definately a plus. Most of the good groups always have the karaoke, although some group didn't have them.
c. Generally, quality is much preferred over speed. If the quality & speed comes in 1 package, all the better. If I can wait for AonE releases, I certainly can wait for any group.

A-Keep & IY4Ever are 2 of my favourite groups, so they're are the most likely that I will download from.

Lunar, I haven't seen any of their series. So, I can't really comment on their work but they're currently the fastest. If the quality is good, I would like to give them a try.

If you have any other group that you prefer, please give me your opinion. Thanks!

[Rein Masamuri]

I'm not bad at japanese so sub quality doesn't really matter too much.
Generally I can figure out what happens when it happens, and I only use the subs for certain things that are more complex.
Chihiro generally gets them out faster and Lunar seems to be more accurate. I don't think the other two has continued their subbing of Bleach.

[ahnaha]

Well, I understand a little japanese too, and will most likely understand what happened especially since I've read the manga. Subs just makes it a whole lot easier. :p

Chihiro doesn't seems to have a good reviews on AniDB, plus they didn't start from the first episode. I like to have a full series from a same group, if possible. For consistency sake.

A-Keep & IYF are still subbing them, but they're a little slow since they want to produce a good quality.

I think I'll download 1 or 2 episodes from all three of them and try to decide for myself which I will keep. I'll probably download the latest episode from Lunar first and replace with the other group releases when they come out. That is if I decided to have their releases as my collection.

[Rein Masamuri]

Each sub group has a different name for the soul-reaper people so it does get kind of confusing.

[abbad0n]

Since I don't speak a word of Japanese (I consider myself monolingual) I can't help you on accuracy. However I've seen all of the lunar released eps and enjoyed them. Didn't have a problem understanding any of the scenes so far. But since I've had "friends" describe my English (and world view) as "twisted", "quirky", and "bizarre", you may have a different experience with the subtitles. :)

[xtrasuperaw]

Chihiro has decent encode quality and the subs are pretty good. Although I don't agree with the shinigami term translated into English by Lunar Anime. They do a great job and all, but Death God? Seriously, Soul Reaper is a more approiate English translation.

As for Anime-Keep, everything went downhill when crustol retired from fansubbing. I personally downloaded the first 5 episodes from A-Keep & ANBU. After that, I downloaded the rest from Lunar Anime. Don't get me wrong here, Anime-Keep is doing a good job on Bleach. I never did download an episode from IY4EVER. They take too long to release anyway.

Overall, when you download Lunar Anime's fansubs, just pretend whenever they say Death God, think of it as Soul Reaper. That's what I do.

[Slayerjammer]

I like how Naisho & TW does Bleach, even though they are really slow. I think their translation are fairly accurate since TW did the Bleach manga until it was licensed.

[xtrasuperaw]

Ah, I had forgotten about Naisho & TW. For shinigami, they put Angel of Death or (pshh, I forgot the other). So when characters say shinigami, they just put shinigami. So you can think whatever you like in their fansub.

[ahnaha]

Well, I finally saw the first episode from Lunar, A-Keep and IY4Ever. Man, that was bored! I mean, seeing the same episode 3 times in row, you'll get bored eventually. :p

Anyway, personally, I think I preferred the translation from A-Keep & ANBU. IY4Ever came close in 2nd. But overall, I prefer IY4Ever releases better, they have most of the things I'm looking for. Plus, they left Shinigami as Shinigami (they put the meaning on top when it first appeared).

As for Lunar, I'm not really sure what to make of it. The translation seems okay. As for the quality of the video, IMO, A-Keep & IY4Ever is better than Lunar. But they do released them the fastest, so maybe that why the quality suffers a bit.

Well, that's my opinion based on the 1st episode only. So, I think I would keep IY4Ever releases as my collection. For latest episode, maybe I'll use either A-Keep or Lunar and replaced them with IY4Ever when they come out. Plus, IY4Ever is the most likely to continue subbing in case Bleach get licensed. So, that's another reason.

Thanks for your input everyone.

::Edit::
Hmm... After watching the 1st episode for the third time, I can positively say that I like IY4Ever translation better than A-Keep.
::End of Edit::

[Rand0mz]

I dont quite understand Lunar's translation of shinigami either. But at this moment they are my prefered sub group for bleach.

[xtrasuperaw]

I dont quite understand Lunar's translation of Death God either. But at this moment they are my prefered sub group for bleach.
Apparently I don't get their translations for shinigami too. But I'm not gonna go into it since it's a touchy subject for translators.

[maohayato]

well maybe because they translated the term 死神=shinigami literally as death+god.

according to my sanseido 現代新国語 dictionary: しにがみ　「死に神」　<名>　人を死にさそうという神。 a god/deity that invites people to death if you would translate that roughly.

best thing to do is just watch the show and apply your own definitions.

[gundamjehutykai]

I prefer the Anime-keep definition of shinigami. They use the term soul reaper which i think is more appropriate in this particular case. The literal Death god translation really doesn't sit well with me. Luckily, I'm not a massive bleach fan so I'm willing to wait for the A-keep subs