Why Crunchyroll’s Saki Subtitles Suck. [episode 1]
June 15th, 2009 by OsamuI've been planning to do this ever since Saki first aired, but got lazy.
I'm also not gonna bother mentioning "chow, pung, kong, mahjong of a discard etc"
Example 1:
Yaku are worth 1 fan each? What.
Example 2:
Translation error (Saki ron'd a 1p so it's not Sanshoku).
I actually told the translator about this around the time it first aired. He said he fixed it but looks like he didn't
Example 3:
I don't like the idea of using both Japanese and American yaku names together.
Example 4:
"The player sitting east gets double points and pays double points"
Shouldn't it be
"The Player sitting east gets 1.5x points but pays double points if someone tsumos"?
Example 5:
"One shot" is a much better name if you want to translate ippatsu.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
yea pretty much complained about this american name thingy in there website and then after some days come the underwater-mahjong sub which was satisfying enough with the original japanese terms. But then again it matters less for those who do not know the rules of mahjong and belive me there is a LOT of ppl who watch saki and do not understand what the hell is going on. Also the worst of all these examples is the 1 yaku = 1 han thing :D like yea you got dai san gen here is 1 han :D also it really bothered me that they used english terms like chow and kong. But where the real RAGE came in was the rinshan kaihou + tsumo after a kong, that was when i facepalmed the hardest and deleted the the subbed file from my computer.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:46 am
That's really like what we have when tatsuya were out.
Thanks to tenhou and various arcade games, now quite a lot Chinese (esp. Hong Kong people) get very familiar with Japanese Mahjong and we have an excellent sub for saki right now. We are quite lucky.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:03 am
It may not be the best translation in the world, but come on, cut them some slack. The way they've been putting out every episode almost immediately after the air date is amazing.
I personally prefer fast translations cases like Saki, since, for one, the anime's kinda trashy anyway - something I watch as a distraction from my dreary daily life. I'd be furious to learn if the translator had taken a couple of days longer just to improve the quality of the translation. And secondly, you still have the voice acting, so it's not like a bad translation will ruin the thing entirely as it would for a manga.
These guys do what they do as a hobby, because they love doing it and want to enable people who don't understand Japanese to watch it. Give them mad props instead of complaints I say.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Toby: Thing is, they aren't doing it for a hobby. The translator actually gets paid and people are paying for these subs.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Wow, I did not know that.
I stand corrected.
I take back everything about cutting the translator slack - if he takes cash for what he does, there's no excuse for doing a sloppy job (assuming it's a significant amount and not something like $0.98 per translation).
That being said, since I watch it for free, I still personally prefer quick and dirty.
June 17th, 2009 at 5:26 am
Saki plays at 0200. It's on CR at 0230. The subs are already there and to watch them fresh off the press, you need to get an anime subscription. They release the previous week's ep when the new one comes out.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Furthermore, it's not like the translator is wicked fast, or rather - the release time of the subs aren't an indication of work input or lack thereof. He's come out to say that he gets the episodes before the airing date so that he can translate them beforehand.
Not to hate on QB. Just clearing something up.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:35 pm
As the transalator, I am following the terminology of the European mahjong association's official riichi rules (the only certified english language set of rules for riichi mahjong there are), as instructed to do so by Gonzo themselves. If you don't like the terminology, fine, but other than the mistake in example 2 (which was corrected as soon as I was aware of it), this is nothing but a particular (small) group of tenhou players who are not used to a different choice of terminology: there's nothing _bad_ about the translation, only a difference in taste.
(player sitting east gets double/pays double is correct, as I am referring to the per player payment, not the overall score).
None of the things you point out above is a mistake at all (except the ex 2 one).
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:01 pm
i used to like cr but thes eerrors prove that the servce is a scomple te farce
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:04 pm
>particular (small) group of tenhou players who are not used to a different choice of terminology
It's hardly small...
http://arcturus.su/tenhou/gamerecords/7447/
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:37 pm
>>As the transalator, I am following the terminology of the European mahjong association's official riichi rules (the only certified english language set of rules for riichi mahjong there are), as instructed to do so by Gonzo themselves.
Okay, I guess these are my problems with Riichi rules.
>>but other than the mistake in example 2 (which was corrected as soon as I was aware of it),
No, that error was still there on the 15th.
>>(player sitting east gets double/pays double is correct, as I am referring to the per player payment, not the overall score).
Thanks for clearing that up, would have been nicer if that was clearer.
Still I think you should change the translation for ippatsu. The riichi rulebook even calls it ippatsu,
Riichi RIICHI Concealed waiting hand declared at 1000 points stake. See 3.3.12 for the
detailed rules of declaring riichi. An extra yaku, IPPATSU, is awarded for winning
within the first un-interrupted go-around after declaring riichi, including the next
draw by the riichi declarer. If the go-around is interrupted by claims for kong, pung
or chow, including concealed kongs, the chance for IPPATSU is gone.
Also, could you explain example 1 please?
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 am
The only reason that the EMA appears to have any authority over say a regular active club of 50+ members is that leisure of all kinds is over-regulated in Europe.
And since they admire any support they can get in China, they'll call the basic game sequences pung, kong, and chow. That doesn't make them the indisputable reference in mahjong, just an organization propping nashi-nashi, red five with exotic language refering to the fundamental blocks of life in the wrong language.
Besides, propping the no-no-fives ruleset is most likely a subliminal economic measure to buy more sets.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:14 am
Well, I sent in a corrected script for episode 1 immediately. Whether CR uploaded it to their servers or not is not really my problem.
As for 1 yaku = 1 fan (which is a bit of an oversimplification), the way I am interpreting the scoring rules is that fan = point doubling score, and yaku = special hands.
There are a number of classes of special hands worth 1-5 yaku, which give you 1-5 fan respectively. Dora also count as extra fan.
This makes a bit more sense to me linguistically, as a hand that is "2 yaku" is a "specialler" hand than one that is "1 yaku", or one that is "5 yaku" is only beaten by one that's a "yakuman" (a sort of "uber yaku" hand). Essentially "# yaku" serves as a classification system, not as a scoring system, and the way you map it to a score is by converting # yaku to fan for each yaku you have and adding them all up, then adding in extra dora.
One point of difference is the couple of yaku which are worth more when concealed etc.... You can either claim that those yaku are still, say 1 yaku, but give an extra fan if concealed (so count as 2 fan), or you can say that it is a 2 yaku hand when it's concealed. I am choosing the latter interpretation, as it makes more sense linguistically (yaku = special hand, so being concealed is "special" hence extra yaku.)
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 pm
I am choosing the latter interpretation,
==
"I don't know what the hell I'm talking about but since it seems close enough"
June 24th, 2009 at 5:31 am
They're perfectly equivalent, and my way makes more linguistic sense in English and matches the European Mahjong association's ruleset.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Quarkboy: Saki doesn't use EMA rules and you're completely wrong about yaku and han.
Yaku = the "patterns"/hands
Han = "multipliers" or whatever you want to call it.
ex:
Tanyao is a yaku that is worth 1 han.
June 24th, 2009 at 7:03 am
Nobody will ever be happy, ever.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:34 am
What I said:
"the way I am interpreting the scoring rules is that fan = point doubling score, and yaku = special hands."
What you said:
"Yaku = the "patterns"/hands
Han = "multipliers" or whatever you want to call it."
And the difference is?
June 24th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
One could say that a hand has 3 yaku, for example chinitsu, toitoi and tanyao.
But it'd be 8 han.
It could get confusing when talking about hands.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding you.
"There are a number of classes of special hands worth 1-5 yaku, which give you 1-5 fan respectively. Dora also count as extra fan." - Are you saying that chinitsu = 1 yaku, 5/6 han? Tanpin = 2 yaku 2 han?
Also, in episode 2 you put a note saying "double riichi = 2 yaku, ippatsu = 1 yaku." So I assumed that (at that point?) you were getting them mixed up.
Sorry.
June 24th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
sure is QQ MOAR thread
June 25th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Chinitsu = Full Flush = 5 yaku
Concealed Full Flush = 6 yaku (or technically 5 yaku + 1 yaku for the concealed part)
Tanpin = Abbreviation for Tanyao Pinfu
Tanyao= All Simples = 1 yaku
Pinfu = 1 yaku
Oh, and the "double riichi = 2 yaku" is a bit confusing in retrospect... basically it'd be "riichi = 1 yaku", "double = 1 yaku", "ippatsu = 1 yaku", so a "double riichi = 2 yaku" might have bit a tad confusing (but not inconsistent).
This is really all just straight from the european mahjong scoring ruleset I've been using as the basis.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Chinitsu is a yaku, worth 5 or 6 han. It's not 5 yaku. Tanyao is a yaku worth 1 han, pinfu is a yaku worth 1 han. Tanpin would be 2 different yaku, worth 2 han total. Double Riichi is not a yaku itself - it's noted as 懸賞, or just simply "bonus" - thus Double Riichi has a value of 1 han (for the riichi), plus 1 han (for the "double" part), equaling a yaku worth 2 han.
Yaku are just patterns, that have a different han value. If you look at Tenhou's manual, you'll see a list of different yaku, sorted by han value. The EMA score sheet - which is shit for other reasons - do not support your theories. If you look at it closely, it says:
One yaku - Iihan yaku (Ryanhan yaku, and so on, for the others)
This is their stupidity shining through - Their romanized japanese name of it even supports "One-han Yaku", but they've decided to list them as "One yaku" instead, for some inexplicable reason. So, EMA's scoresheet has a mistake which you base all your information off.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Like drob says, EMA ruleset is nothing absolute, not even close to. There are mistakes in romanization and translating (like above "One yaku")... Also in every japanese ruleset I read you get -1han for melds (in yaku such as sanshoku, chin'itsu) not +1, so why EMA changed it? If it was to make it more simple, they made it more complicated instead.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Should have just pretended you never read it, but you had to try some kind of defense =3=
July 21st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
quarkboy sux, ramus sux, forger of skies is the king, samuel knows his jet jong
(´з｀)y-～