The two people in the initial group who are still in NNL today are Reikoku, the primary translator, and GipFace, the secondary translator and webmaster of the site. A number of other people have come and gone during NNL's life. Currently, the only other active members of NNL are the people working on the ef project. We have self-evaluated our earlier works to be quite rough in terms of accuracy and polish. Almost all of our fansubs produced before 2005 contain one or more flaws. However, we improved our methods over time and believe that our most recent work will earn your seal of approval. No Name Losers initially retired on September 28th, 2007. We came out of retirement in order to complete the ef project, and the ef project only. Therefore, we will not be taking on any new projects unless someone else takes charge of NNL and decides to continue its legacy. We used to have a public IRC channel but not anymore. We shut it down because it was a tremendous time waster. People also never talked about NNL itself, either. I had a hunch that #nnl would never survive the life span of No Name Losers itself, so the IRC channel info was never in any of our fansubs. The best way to contact us now is to e-mail us at enenel <at> gmail.com. In addition, we've been at every Anime North since 2003. minori fanboys The reason we started fansubbing bishoujo game openings was that no one had done them. Wind was the first one, and the rest is history. minori will always hold a special place in our heart for being the company whose games most influenced NNL's direction. So yeah, we're the ultimate minori fanboys! Translation style
To better understand our past and current translation stances, we first have to define the different styles of translation. The left end of the line leans toward conveying thought with less effort, while the right end leans towards precision at the expense of readability. Going from right to left, we first have grammar hell. This is where each word and particle is defined and interpreted in order. However, Japanese is a subject-object-verb language, unlike English which is subject-verb-object. Translating grammar hell style may be useful for anyone learning a language, but otherwise it's a terrible idea. Virtually no fansubs today use this style. Formal equivalence, otherwise known as literal translation, attempts to provide a word-for-word translation after taking all grammatical rewordings into account. However, this can create awkward sentences and more translation notes than necessary. Some people prefer this translation style. They believe that it is the purest form of translation. A good example of formal equivalence is the King James Bible. It's accurate, but extremely hard to understand for the average joe. Another example is the usage of "you" (anata) in Japanese. It is not used for two people who know each other, yet it is used all the time in English. Translating a name as-is instead of using "you" is formal equivalence. Many fansub groups use this translation stance. Dynamic equivalence, otherwise known as figurative translation, will reword sentences using idioms, different word order, and synonyms in an attempt to boost flow and readability. Using the example earlier, translating someone's name as "you" is dynamic equivalence. This situation happened many times in Wind, where the protagonist is constantly called by name. Removing honorifics may seem like butchering, but since it is not pertinent information most of the time, most localizers see it as an acceptable form of dynamic equivalence. Most R1 DVDs use this translation stance. Localization substitution is the other extreme, where sentences are reworded to the point that they cannot be re-translated back to the original language. There are varying degrees, and contrary to what many people believe, this may not be a bad thing. In the Ace Attorney series (featuring Phoenix Wright), many names utilizied word play. Since they can only be translated literally, the translation team came up with new names that worked in English. However, most people are up in arms when this is used to simply dumb down the translation and nothing else. Many localizations from 4Kids are rife with localization substitution, such as in Pokemon The First Movie: "They mostly live in Minnesota." was used in response to someone noticing some vikings. When NNL first started, we believed that formal equivalence was the key to a good fansub. However, our fansubs contained nothing but note after note after note. We noted "omatase" for crying out loud! These fansubs have not aged well with time and reek of suckiness. After Mizuiro 2003, we decided that formal equivalence simply wasn't the way to go. We slowly leaned toward the left as we tried to attain our goal of having the most fluid translation. It was the Wind project that made us realize how repetitive the Japanese language could be. The current build of our Haru no Ashioto demo was our last fansub to fall victim to a mountain of notes, but if we revise it, they will be integrated into the text. Today, we minimize honorific usage but do not take it out entirely. The current stance is to not use honorifics unless the person is being directly addressed. Indirect addresses that absolutely require a title will use an English equivalent (sempai = senior). We feel this is the best compromise. Sentences are regrouped in order to maximize flow and minimize disruption. Synonyms are used for oft-repeated words such as "warai" (smile). Therefore, we are close to dynamic equivalence but do not match it. We believe that this is the best translation style, since it satisfies those who are looking for a translation with kick but want to keep obvious cultural characteristics such as honorifics. For the ef project, it is our goal to have zero translation notes. Any remaining cultural characteristics can be easily searched for on the internet. Karaoke effects don't matter Starting with Clannad Op, we have two opening methods. Either we sub them with no karaoke timing since it takes less pain and suffering, or we use scrolling two-liners for those who actually want to sing along. As far as I know, we were the first fansub group to utilize scrolling two-liners, which is also how most karaoke bars present their songs. It works, and it achieves something that those fancy-schmancy karaoke effects cannot: practicality. LordBrian of Triad has an excellent rant on the matter. Read it and bow down to him. Links Wikipedia: Resources (fan): Resources (commercial): |
