https://i.imgur.com/1jsy3xF.jpg

I wanted to get around to talking about this faster than half a year after they put it out, but Earthly Subs took another stab at translating Faiz, and seeing as I've made a habit out of complaining about Faiz's available English translations on this forum in the past, I feel some level of obligation to give my opinion on it. (The rest of post comes with the disclaimer that I'm doing this all from my usual proverbial armchair, by the way.)

Faiz is really actively dialogue-driven to a level I'm not sure any other Rider show is, so for a long time, it's bothered me to no end that all the available fansubs of it are either A)the ancient work of TV-Nihon, back when they deserved basically every bit of criticism you'll see of them, or B)using that work as the starting point, and generally inheriting all the less obvious but more important problems.

As such, it was extremely exciting to see Earthly saying they did the proper full-on retranslation of this series I've wanted to see for years now. So the big question then, is whether or not much has actually changed.

https://i.imgur.com/MXl4fSX.jpg
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Just to be clear about the level of scrutiny I gave to this, I admittedly wasn't doing a lot of side-by-side comparison. I'm relying on memory mostly, so I couldn't always recall what mistakes started with TV-N, or were made by Agony, or by Earthly with their earlier scrub... but like, this stuff haunts me enough that I still remember *somebody's* wrong version of tons of lines, many of which I never even directly called attention to on here, let alone all the ones I have called out in the past, which I at least checked against those old posts.

On the other hand, the reason this took so long in spite of that is because my initial intention to quickly skim back through certain scenes to get an overall feel for things rapidly turned into me "skimming" back through literally the entire show, skipping over openings and what silent chunks of scenes I could. Which basically means I just watched Faiz again.

All of that happened because I was, honestly, quite impressed by the work I was seeing. I have some caveats I'll get to in a second, but without any doubt in my mind, this is a massive upgrade over anything else I've seen for this series.

You've gotta understand, I went in just hoping for all the very glaringly Just Plain Incorrect lines to be cleaned up, and not only were a huge amount of those finally sorted out, this is also a translation that understands translating a work of fiction is not the same thing as translating like, a road sign.

There's character voice in these subs! Kaido actually reads like he sounds! And so do most of the other characters! I didn't at all expect that level of consideration to be made, but that's by far the most consistent and commendable thing about Earthly's work here. Stuff like that, or matching the rhythm of dramatic... pauses, and all those little things that really bring out the flavor of the drama, somebody was actually paying attention to. You even get the option to have insert themes subtitled, and those translations are themselves working on the same level of quality.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows, even now, unfortunately. A lot of the wrong lines that were less important are still just as wrong as always, and some of the attempts at localization -- while they at least seem like the translator understood the original line -- don't always meet the higher standards I suddenly feel okay holding these subs to, but honestly? It's not the biggest deal in the world. Pretty much all the errors that would seriously impact a viewer's understanding of the characters ARE cleaned up, and while I occasionally felt it didn't always work out as well as it could, the dialogue sure as heck reads way better than it ever has.

To put it in the terms of my favorite corporate president in Kamen Rider, if TV-Nihon's original subs were the lowest of the low, and something like what Shout Factory occasionally blesses us with is the best of the best, then Earthly's new Faiz translation comfortably sits at the absolute best of average. But that evaluation is being strict on it simply because the areas that are still sloppy stand in such stark contrast to how much was done with such obvious immense care. It'd really only take cleaning up the remaining errors to push it into the lowest end of the best, if not higher.

So like, if you even slightly like Faiz having watched it with earlier subs, I feel pretty strongly you'll like the show way more going back to it with Earthly. It's a competent translation that's well worth your time, even if I can't help but still wish for absolute perfection anyway. Guess I just like this show too much!

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And here I was hoping that you were the mysteriously uncredited second translator for the recent Earthly subs, Fish. Dang.

Late reply..

He'd be a control freak like Kekera who also feels Keiwa is entitled to act like what Kekera wants/expects of him, lashing out at him when Keiwa saves Michinaga. Sagara was also Kouta's "supporter", though he doesn't meddle as much in his life as Kekera does. Or obviously villains commonly have low view of humanity or virtue and expect them to act on their worst, basic impulses.

Fish also made a point about this. This can be considered a good lesson too for a good amount of people, that they have to realize that there are people who are lost causes, those who are more trouble than they are worth to be lenient with, who won't ever change no matter how hard others try; the people who should be cut off and not given second chances. You'd be annoyed if one doesn't give a chance to someone problematic like Ikki to Orteca, but maybe Kaito being given a long time to not be persuaded is to emphasize the lost cause aspect. It's what many people want to see, for those who want to save everyone or have a no-kill approach, what if they're put in a situation where there isn’t any easy way out that leads to the best case scenario they strive for.

If someone has victim aspects it just seems that all their blame is deflected on someone else that are worse, like Ryoma and his circle for Takatora. As already said, Takatora'd murder 6 billion people to 'save' the world. It's lesser evil to Helheim, but still just have people mostly perish in different ways. If you're only taking intentions into account, then Kaito is also wanting to improve things, by destroying the current world so he can create another one where the weak isn't oppressed, as he thinks the current world is beyond repair. Mai is a non-fighter female supporting character, so everything about her like her actions or views would be just dismissed, just an useless load (useless would mean opposite of hope or even getting blamed for making things worse like slapping Micchy thus making him 'insane').

Like what I said above, it's common for people to just blame the people around him and paint Takatora as the victim/innocent among them. The Project Ark only happens because they dismiss Takatora as naive and convince that saving everyone is impossible due to the imminent invasion and limited resources. Thus Takatora is depicted as someone who wants to save everyone just like the main Riders, but just have his plan hindered and manipulated by his circle who only wants to save 1 billion people, forcing Takatora go along with their plan. Condemning Takatora (as anti-villain), which I obviously will do, is seen as insensitive to his situation and context, but how'd you explain that he's still guilty here, particularly if they seem to have full knowledge of Helheim and that it's an impossible situation Takatora just tries best to improve as much as he can?

The context that the anti-Takatora crowd loves to leave out is that Takatora is doing everything he possibly can. If he had the time and resources, he would've made a Rider Belt for literally everyone. And the moment a possibility of saving the planet as a whole comes about? He guns for it. It's the reason Ryoma tries to have him murdered to begin with.

If one wants to say that Takatora still isn't "good" despite that, sure, whatever. But flat out evil? No, he's more complex than that.

Except that it's made clear that Micchy was crazy long before that event. Infact, his actions are what results in Mai slapping him to begin with.

I started watching, or rather listening to, the audio drama Three Dark Sisters Presents: Kamen Rider Gotchard Unfinished Plan. And a question immediately popped up in my mind. In Heisei, such comedy specials were acted out by actors; at the beginning of Reiwa, chibi animation was used, and now they are limited to only voices. Is it a disdain for Gotchard as not the most successful show, or typical Toei stinginess and laziness?
However, despite this remark of mine, the three episodes I listened to were very funny. The characters of the Sisters are very bright and listening to their interaction, not limited by villainous plans and mutual claims, is a pleasure. There are also some good jokes and a lot of behind-the-scenes information, especially from actress Clotho. I also recommend paying attention to this additional content.
https://i.ibb.co/0XyyP6B/Any-Conv-co...-Sisters-1.jpg

Feel like we need to be careful to not go into conspiracy theory mode with these kinds of things. It's just a fun little TTFC exclusive audio drama, and audio dramas are things Japan loves to do. We should be lucky that these were just gags and behind the scenes stuff lol cause Japan loves putting important stuff inside audio dramas at times.

Anyway, these were filmed consistently during the show and put out throughout multiple instances. It's likely a budget/time issue because I can only imagine how long it'd take to put them in their costumes for each and every one of these, and also they have to film the actual show alongside whatever events are going on at the time. So instead having them get pictures taken of different portrait shots and the three likely just sitting in a room and voice recording together is probably the easiest way for this to be a consistent thing.

This explains the abandonment of the game's execution, but not the animation that was used in Zero-One and Saber. Although, considering that their comedy specials have half as many episodes, I`m not even against this decision.

I'm assuming you're referring to the chibi anime that Zero-One, Saber, Revice, & Geats have all had.

Because they have been doing chibi anime episodes for Gotchard as well. This is just another additional minor project.

Ok, I see.

I mean, seems that other well-intentioned extremist type of characters would also be generally like that too, they also think they're stuck in a shitty situation and would prefer to save everyone, they already tried anything they possibly can, but they feel they have to take extreme measures to save the world and that their method is the only choice, including looking down on the ones who oppose them (e.g. the heroes) as naive.

No one says he's flat out evil, but indeed well-intentioned extremist characters who believe in ends justifies the means and do bad things for the greater good are common in media. And yes people often justify them as being right because their intention is good, as if anything they do would be righteous by default for that.

Like, if Ryubee learns about a way to effectively prevent humanity's extinction without robbing their individuality by melding them with Earth, without harming anyone, it's possible he'd have chosen that too?

I agree with this, I'm just expressing frustration over people's low view on certain type of characters. I do want to have these kind of people seen as heroic more, for their morals and caring nature, not only about if they contribute the most in saving the world like being the strongest one to beat up bad guys.