I'm wondering if anyone has tried watching Shirokuma Cafe with Japanese subtitles? It seems like a perfect anime for me, and I'm really digging it, but I'm running into an odd problem.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that some of the subtitles are wrong.

I would assume that these were ripped straight from a digital broadcast or something, so they ought to be accurate. Or is it common for typos to exist in these?


I discovered the issue because there were several lines in the script that I couldn't make heads or tails out of, so I tried looking up an English translated version to see what the lines meant. Interestingly, the translated version based the translation off different words than what are written in my Japanese subtitles.

For instance, there is a line that says 呼び相談におします in regards to a job posting. I have no idea what this means.
But, if it were 曜日相談におします now it makes sense as meaning that the days of the job can be negotiated.

Another example was on the line immediately following it. It says フリアイ動物園 What the heck is that?
フレアイ動物園 on the other hand means petting zoo, which sort of makes sense.

Are these subtitles jacked up?? Is this something I might expect to find with other shows as well? Or am I just mistaken about this?

Oh man! I just wanted to say how disappointed I am about this since I am currently reading the manga and was planning to watch the anime in the near future. Where did you find these subs? I want to avoid getting the shirokuma cafe subs if possible.

I've run into anime subs mistakes before (mostly a Chinese group using inappropriate kanji), but nothing like your problem. It looks like the script was badly OCRed, which I guess could be possible with some cheap/bootleg release outside of Japan. Or maybe even if the subs were based on the manga? If you have access to some chapters you could do a comparison.

Looks like the shirokuma cafe subs were done by kamigami, a chinese group that transcribes the japanese subs from the audio. The quality of these varies tremendously. Jsubs ripped from the broadcast or dvds/bds (for anime) are usually pretty accurate though.

Of course, checking English translations oto understand more than broad meaning of an entire scene is also fraught with problems as english sub quality also varies tremendously, and the degree to which individual translators prefer literalness to naturalness ranges broadly (and is a very contentious topic in the anime and sub community).

(2016-01-30, 11:17 pm)kendo99 Wrote: Looks like the shirokuma cafe subs were done by kamigami, a chinese group that transcribes the japanese subs from the audio. The quality of these varies tremendously. Jsubs ripped from the broadcast or dvds/bds (for anime) are usually pretty accurate though.

Of course, checking English translations oto understand more than broad meaning of an entire scene is also fraught with problems as english sub quality also varies tremendously, and the degree to which individual translators prefer literalness to naturalness ranges broadly (and is a very contentious topic in the anime and sub community).

Wow, that explains it then. I figured that they had just based their chinese subs off legit Japanese ones, and it never would have occurred to me that they actually just transcribed it. It did seem to be mostly accurate though. I'll just have to be careful going forward.

(2016-01-30, 11:47 pm)Zarxrax Wrote: Wow, that explains it then. I figured that they had just based their chinese subs off legit Japanese ones, and it never would have occurred to me that they actually just transcribed it. It did seem to be mostly accurate though. I'll just have to be careful going forward.

The original Japanese captions if you get them are also not identical to what is being spoken. They are mostly but not entirely 'error free' in terms of accidental differences, but they frequently have different phrasing between the captions and the spoken dialogue.

(2016-01-31, 12:50 am)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: The original Japanese captions if you get them are also not identical to what is being spoken. They are mostly but not entirely 'error free' in terms of accidental differences, but they frequently have different phrasing between the captions and the spoken dialogue.

Are you saying there are original captions for this particular show, or just in general? If for this show, and tips on locating them?

I found Japanese subs at http://kitsunekko.net/

(2016-01-31, 11:27 am)Zarxrax Wrote:

(2016-01-31, 12:50 am)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: The original Japanese captions if you get them are also not identical to what is being spoken. They are mostly but not entirely 'error free' in terms of accidental differences, but they frequently have different phrasing between the captions and the spoken dialogue.

Are you saying there are original captions for this particular show, or just in general? If for this show, and tips on locating them?

Probably both, as I've seen this for drama subs before, and the other subs for Shirokuma on kitsunekko not Kamigami -- pointed out by Rawr -- do have Japanese captions, but they're not batched.

(2016-01-31, 11:32 am)RawrPk Wrote: I found Japanese subs at http://kitsunekko.net/

Ah, I see they have both versions there. I had originally got the kamigami subs from there, and I assumed they were the same as the other ones, just packed together.