www.danovski.pl mixed technique on canvas 70/100 cm

We (somewhat rightly) mock the 2000's era fansub translation notes for their otaku fixations and privileging of trivia over the media, but they should be understood as serving their purpose for a bit of a different era in the anime fandom. Take this classic:

Like, its so obvious, right? Just say "pervert", you don't need the note! Which is true, for like a 'normie' audience member who just wants to watch A TV Show - but no one watching, uh *quick google* "Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne" in 1999 is that person. The audience is weebs, and for them the fact that show is Japanese is a huge selling point. They want it to feel as 'anime' as possible; and in the west language was one of the core signifiers of anime-ness. 2004 con-goers calling their friends "-kun" and throwing in "nani?" into conversations was the way this was done, and alongside that a lexicon of western anime fandom terminology was born. Seeing "ecchi" on the screen is, to this person, a better viewing experience - it enhances their connection to otaku identity the show is providing, and reinforces their shared cultural lexicon (Ecchi is now a term one 'expects' anime fans to know - a truth that translator notes like this simultaneously created and reflected).

But of course your audiences have different levels of otaku-dom, and so you can't just say 'ecchi' and call it a day - so for those who are only Level 2 on their anime journey, you give them a translation note. Most of the translation notes of the era are like this - terms the fansubber thought the audience might know well enough that they would understand it and want that pure Japanese cultural experience, but that not all of them would know, so you have to hedge. The Lucky Star one I posted is a great example of that:

Its Lucky Star, the otaku-crown of anime! You desperately want the core text to preserve as much anime vocab as possible, to give off that feeling, but you can't assume everyone knows what a GALGE is - doing both is the only way to solve that dilemma.

This is often a good guideline when looking at old memetically bad fansubs by the way:

This isn't real, no fansub had this - it was a meme that was posted on a wiki forum in 2007. Which makes sense, right? "Plan" isn't a Japanese cultural or otaku term, so there is no reason not to translate it, it doesn't deepen the ~otaku connection~.

Which, I know, I'm explaining the joke right now, but over time I think many have grown to believe that this (and others like it) is a real fansub, and that these sort of arbitrary untranslations just peppered fansub works of the time? It happened, sure, but they would be equally mocked back then as missteps - or were jokes themselves. Some groups even had a reputation for inserting jokes into their works, imo Commie Subs was most notable for this; part of the competitive & casual environment of the time. But they weren't serious, they are not examples of "bad fansubs" in the same way.

This all faded for a bunch of reasons - primarily that the market for anime expanded dramatically. First, that lead to professionally released translations by centralized agencies that had universal standards for their subs and accountability to the original creators of the show. Second, the far larger audience is far less invested in anime-as-identity; they like it, but its not special the way its special when you are a bullied internet recluse in 2004. They just want to watch the show, and would find "caring" about translation nuances to be cringe. And since these centralized agencies release their product infinitely faster and more accessibly than fansubs ever did, their copies now dominate the space (including being the versions ripped to all illegal streaming sites), so fansubs died.

Though not totally - a lot of those fansub groups are still around! Commie Subs is still kicking for example. They either do the weird nuance stuff, or fansub unreleased-in-the-west old or niche anime, or even have pivoted to non-anime Japanese content that never gets international release. But they used to be the taste-makers of the community; now they are the fringe devotees in a culture that has moved beyond them. So fansubs remain something of a joke of the 90's and 2000's in the eyes of the anime culture of today, in a way that maybe they don't deserve.

I DIDN’T LEARN ABOUT THIS IN DRIVING SCHOOL

Stop says the red light, go says the green

Wait says the yellow light, twinkling in between. 

KNEEL, SAYS THE DEMON LIGHT WITH ITS EYE OF COAL  SAURON KNOWS YOUR LICENSE PLATE  AND STARES INTO YOUR SOUL

THIS IS ALWAYS FUNNY

@irritatedlifeguard I agree with your tags.

A Massive Crocheted Canopy Provides Shade for a Shopping District in Malaga

sorry i didn’t answer your texts. a dove wept and i had to listen

i am normal about affection (i want 2 rip my veins out & sew them 2 his heart)

Scanned from The Mysterious Miraculous Life and Tragic Death Of Saint Remedios of Málaga

…

食事

i bring a certain Soulmate vibe to every connection that most people cannot look into the eyes of for too long lest they weep from the beauty of true love, actually

I’ve got a sixth sense it’s called paranoia

Wtf is that? A storm elemental?

Ball lightning fuck me all the way up

Excuse me what the fuck is this

you literally captured whats called “ball lightning” which is the rarest form of lighting

its so rare that we dont even know how it forms other than by heat, static electricity, and humidity

storm elemental it is

look guys this is how nature-based deities and spirits come about this is ridiculous

Are you aware that the first-ever video footage of ball lightning outside a laboratory was taken in 2014 and there are only like 3 or 4 videos like this in existence and this might be the most close-up one

some crazy shit.. 

[x] 

I’m no scientist, but this shit sounds like those plasma weapons we only see in scifi, which is awesome: 

i mean.. 

THIS is yet another reason why shaming people for always filming stuff with their phones is dumb. People are documenting things we’ve rarely EVER seen, or have NEVER BEEN CAPTURED ON FILM BEFORE! It’s fantastic!

What a TIME TO BE ALIVE, folks! Ordinary people can capture footage that is of tremendous use for scientific documentation and research! I love this!

…WOW.

…I will always reblog this when it crosses my dash. :)

[bread]

Lake-Side Gallery

finally turned the Ominous Grid of Letters into a game.

Conway's game of life simulation is happening, but additionally, there is an invisible 3 cell by 3 cell square Angel that is slowly moving across the board in a steady direction.

every step of the simulation, the Angel toggles the alive/dead state of the cells she covers, acting as an external influence on the regular Conway's life simulation.

find this Angel by noticing the abnormalities in the simulation, and click on her. it will let you know when you find her.

got her!

i havent been able to stop thinking abt this since i played it a few days ago. Angels are a Feature of a simulation. Angels are hard to see where the simulation is noisy, but easy to see where the simulation is quiet. Angels reverse the entropy of a simulation that would otherwise fall into a dead or stable configuration. Angels are invisible, except for the evidence of their presence.

This is so cool. It's weird to me that I can often guess right without being able to say exactly why I knew where the angel was... It just feels like there's there. It's just a feeling.

Only the essentials