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Quote:

Originally Posted by BagJo

I guess I just don't "get" what makes them so bad? I don't speak Japanese, I just know a few words, but are they really sooo inaccurate? I mean I remember watching Over Time for Drive and they got tons of stuff wrong.

Most of the complaints I see are about not translating things like Nii-chan or Oba-san, or some clunky wording.

The main difference between TV-N and other groups is that TV-N focuses on doing a direct translation. That means going one-for-one with the language as much as possible. This leads to some really awkward grammar, as well as situations where they leave things unchanged because there is no direct counterpart (Onii-chan, itadakimasu, nekojita, etc.). The waters do get slightly muddied with some shows. Den-O, in particular, is a really bad sub where they leave things untranslated just because it sounded cooler ("Ore sanjou!") and had some definite mistakes in either their listening or translating skills ("banana new shoes").

Other subbing groups do a localized translation. This approach goes one-for-one as much as possible, but also adjusts the language in ways that make it read more like standard English. This does mean some things are less precise (Kyoryuger had a lot of puns that Over-Time reworked into similar English ones, for example), but the general idea of the original language is maintained. It can lead to some awkward moments, though, based on how the translator chooses to localize some things ("Gotou-chan" as "Brotou" in O-T's OOO sub, for example). This is how most professional translation works, though.

I will also say this: the last time I watched something new from TV-Nihon, it read a lot better than their older work. I think that having competition has forced them to step up their game and be less of an early-00s fansubbing group.