The epic quest for fansubs

[jeffbert]

I am certain the clock means bootleg. How are the subs, though?

[sgupta]

I haven't watched the copy of Eternal Boy I have yet all the way through (I'm not up to that episode number yet and I'm very systematic lol) but I have checked out several scenes just to see if I could understand the subs. They look to be okay. Not exactly natural English (for example, a line read "She flied out the window."), but understandable enough to work it out. Probably not quite as good as the Korean version's subs from what I've seen. If you'd like to see for yourself, here's that copy of Eternal Boy for download - assuming the subs are the same (they look it to me, even though the letters are different, but I'm judging from that single screenshot), that should give you an idea.

At any rate, I figure a bootleg quality Japanese version with reasonably okay subs for all of the episodes would be a lot better than no copy of the Japanese version and no English subs. ^.^

[MangaBottle]

Baddie, I will bake you a fresh batch of choc-chip cookies every week for the rest of my natural life if you pull this off

[Dragonrider1227]

You will win the Internet for a lifetime if you pull this off!
and sgupta, thanks for the link

[AstroBoyGF]

do you want to do a dub? like a fan dub? cause if you do i wanna be astro!^^

[happymoments]

do you want to do a dub? like a fan dub? cause if you do i wanna be astro!^^

Bad usernames means subs, short for subtitle. Basically putting the dialogue in (in this case.) in english in a audio in a different language. (probably either japanese or korean.)

[Bad Username]

I'm going for Japanese audio with English subtitles.

Amazon's Japan site wants $23 to ship Volume 1 to the US (putting the final cost around 10 dollars more than I can afford). This is making me reconsider my "no donations" policy, but begging for money/wishlist purchases would leave a bad taste in my mouth. I'll have to wait another couple of weeks, unless a miracle occurs (which it may; the details are TL;DR).

About the only way I can think of to justify donations would be to ship the physical DVDs to the people who help the most, or give the fansubbed episodes to donors first, or something like that. Even then, I don't think it would be fair to everyone.

[sgupta]

Okay, so I received my bootleg in the mail today. About what was expected on here (so not great - can't really recommend).

It comes in actually quite cute lil box (looks quite official; even little authenticity holograms and such lol!) with Astro sitting on a bed (more like medical table) looking bewildered with hoses and such all over him.

It really is only 2 DVD's, and it really is all 50 episodes. Quality (video/sound) is slightly less than a decent analog TV signal. Watchable but certainly not DVD quality. Whoever suggested it was probably taped off TV nailed it. In fact, I've noticed between episodes the aspect ratio even slightly changes (never looks particularly distorted, but you can tell from the "episode title" box each ep starts with). The subtitles are for the most part pretty terrible. lol. Some are decently understandable, many understandable (but not natural sounding), while many others are just off the wall nonsensical.

I didn't pay much for it, and it's not a total loss - the eps are the uncut versions with the extra Japanese minutes, intro, ending, and music. So I'd at least be able to see what was cut from the US version I have on DVD for every episode. And I might even be able to understand the gist of some of the cut stuff since even bad subtitles are something. But don't think this is anything definitive or very useful for this project.

It's got me curious if any of the bootlegs are worth it. I've noticed a few others (one 6 DVD's and one 7 DVD's) that have different languages available for subtitles and look like different releases (some claim very high quality video/audio), and if cheap enough, I'm considering checking them out and doing a bootleg shootout of sorts to see if any are truly worth having or if all are duds. But then even if they are cheap, I'm not sure if it's worth it either. I'll consider. hehe.

I'm also still working on getting the first 24 eps on the Korean set as I guess those subtitles are awesome (it's just too bad that to my knowledge the other 26 never got to exist for that set, or it would be close to the definitive one).

[Bad Username]

The Korean subs are pretty good for the most part, judging from the parts I could watch. There are a few lines here and there that could use a rewrite, but it seems to be pretty faithful to the original dialogue while maintaining readability. I should be able to order the first volume in a little more than a week, so there might be some fansubbed episodes available in time for Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice/Mithra/Saturnalia/etc.

[sgupta]

Sounds good. I've made a play for the Korean DVD's (long story - the site isn't exactly reliable as far as inventory availability) so if I can get ahold of them, those will at least help with the subtitles for half the series. I take it the discs you're looking at are the original Japanese versions (since you had mentioned the Japanese DVD extras would be interesting)?