Well, no.

People often get incredibly caught up in the minutia of translating names that they don't actually look at whether or not the dialogue was accurately replicated. Which, with Shout's, they are. (TV Nihon makes a lot of grammatical, translation, and context errors)

Anywho, I'd say support the official release, it's a fairly inexpensive product. As to which is better, they both had a professional translator working on them, so you can't really go wrong with either.

Agree. I want translations of everything so I know what it means, not what sounds cooler. I want to know Kachidoki means Triumph but I will always refer to it as Kachidoki. I'll always call Uchu Sentai Kyuranger a Uchu Sentai but I want to know it means Space Sentai. Everyone on this board says Henshin but I don't want barriers for new people getting into the show not knowing what Henshin means. Translate everything, if people want to call stuff by the Japanese name they can make a mental note in their head, which is much easier than Googling every untranslated Japanese phrase in TV-N subs.

This ^^^

A good example can be found in Hikari Senshi's Gekiranger subs (which I was coincidentally just talking about in another thread). I will always call the show Gekiranger -- but knowing that Gekiranger literally translates to Wildranger adds to my enjoyment and understanding of the show. Call me crazy, but I like understanding what I'm watching.

That actually might not be the best example. I can't speak with too much authority on the matter, but the kanji used for the word "geki" throughout the show is 激 which literally means something like "violent" or "extreme". Of course, wild is a perfectly acceptable translation, given the context.

Anyway, while I echo Aoi Kurenai's sentiments that the most important thing in a translation is making sure your sentences don't sound like clunky nonsense, I also really hate the idea of treating anything as "untranslatable".

I think a lot of people who are big fans of anime or whatever but don't speak a lick of Japanese tend to treat the language like it's some mystical thing to be worshipped but it just isn't the case.

The word "henshin" is not special. "Transform" is the kind of perfect 1:1 translation other words and phrases don't always have too, so I really don't think it's worth getting upset about.

The "Uchuu" in "Uchuu Sentai Kyuurenjyaa" is not a special word, nor is the "Doubutsu" in Zyuohger's name. They're bland, ordinary words that any child watching the show in Japan instantly understands the meaning of, because they're meant to tell you the premise of the series.

Honorifics don't get "left out" just because you can't see them in the translated line. If the translation is competent, the lines are written to reflect them. Nobody complains that first person pronouns get translated.

And so on and so forth. I don't mean to sound too high and mighty, since I'm not a professional or anything, but this stuff fascinates me a bit, so I have strong opinions on the matter. For the record, I'm not inherently opposed to leaving stuff "as is", but I think "context" is the word of the day when it comes to translating anything.

I just find it annoying when fansubbers pepper their work with mild profanity.

It just feels like their trying to make it "more mature" or something. And it's pretty unnecessary in my opinion, you don't have to make the dialogue filled with damns, hells, shits and bastards when dangs, hecks, cruds and jerks suffice.

Which brings me back to my point about context. When you're putting f-bombs in shows for small children, you've f***ed up.

Shout!'s translations are just as accurate as GUIS. However, SHout!'s an official release and GUIS is not. Oh, and because they are on physical discs, you will get better video quality.

Yes, Shout!'s release does have an occassional spelling or grammatical error, but they did a wonderful job and it includes a panel from Power Morphicon.

I do want to note something.
People who bring up that shows should be directly translated never really do point out that Sentai is often left as just "Sentai" :lol
I don't see anyone lobbying for Kyuranger to be translated as Space Task Force Kyuranger :p

Like Fish Sandwich says, I really think this is more about context than anything. Overdoing it can definitely be a sign of trying to artificially add "maturity" to a show inappropriately (I'm reminded of the subs I watched of Digimon Savers in which the mc went around calling people bitches and shit). But it's also true that real people in the real world don't go around yelling "crud" or "heck" or "dagnabbit." Depending on the context, depending on the speaker, profanity can be entirely appropriate.

For example, having all the characters in a toku show go around calling each other "bastards" left and right is obviously excessive and gratuitous. However, when you have big old edgelords like Taiga in EX-Aid, it's entirely logical. Trying to keep him at anything below a PG-13 would be doing a disservice to his edge.

But that's just my opinion.

Nonononono, that's Space Task Force Nineranger to you.

Because it's in Katakana, you could argue that キュウレンジャー is whatever the heck you want it to mean for quite a while. Does it mean nine? Does it mean sphere? Does it mean moxibustion? The world may never know.