Porphy's Long Journey Episode 18 released!

In this episode, Porphy is spending his 13th birthday on a ship headed to Italy.  He meets some new friends on the boat.

My Annette Episode 7 released!

This episode demonstrates how to make cheese.  This episode is one of my personal favorites in the series.

We suggest that you do not use this episode as instructions to make Swiss cheese.  A good set of instructions to make Swiss cheese may be found here.

Porphy's Long Journey Episode 17 released!

In this episode, Porphy finds out what happens to Mina.

You can obtain this episode from your standard anime torrent indexing sites.

Fansubbing errors

It's been a while since I've done a fansubbing post.  With the fact that I've been going through health problems, it makes for a perfect way to talk about something that is hotly contested among fansubbers, namely the concept of "quality" and "errors".

Right now, I'm probably have about half my normal amount of energy to do things.  The main reason is that I'm currently on several allergy medications, and they have two effects.  One is that they tend to knock you out, and the other is that your mind gets a bit foggy sometimes.  When both of these happen together, I tend to do things like the following when I translate:

 

Luckily, my timer caught it and put a note in to have it fixed.  I try to not translate when I don't feel 100% able to do so (which is why we've had fewer releases this month), but sometimes I do, and I end up taking a risk of making mistakes.

The best way to not have an error is to not make them.  This has nothing to do with the amount of time you spend working on an episode.  It just means that you have to be focused and alert.  When you're missing one of the two (or in my case, missing both of them), mistakes occur.

There's heated discussion about quality control in fansubbing.  Typically, a group will designate someone to do quality control to prevent things like what I illustrated from happening.  However, anyone who has done any sort of work involving the publishing industry knows that there will almost always be something that will slip by, and fansubbing is no exception to this rule, no matter how much quality control is used.

Furthermore, in fansubbing, the person who you least want to notice your error will find the error, and will publicly ridicule you, claiming that your release lacks "quality" due to the error.  For this reason, many groups no longer do quality control because the reward simply is not worth the extra effort.  In a way, it's an application of Murphy's Law.

I won't go into whether it really is worth doing quality control in this post, because this is something that has no clear answer.  I wish there were a clear answer, but those of you who actually know what quality control really means knows that the anime fansubbing concept of quality control is not really "quality control", and "quality control" has a specific definition behind it.  This specific definition is backed by statistical analysis and tools.

For the purposes of this post, I think the main things to learn from what I said is that:

1. The way to prevent errors in fansubbing is to not make them
2. It's impossible to never make an error
3. Focus and alertness are critical to good fansubbing work
4. Quality control done in fansubbing is not really quality control 

My Annette Episode 6 released!

This is the first in a set of episodes that is not in the novel.  Annette's father takes Annette and Lucien up to a little cabin up in the mountains as part of the summer foraging for their cows.

You can obtain this episode from your standard anime torrent indexing sites.

This is a reminder that Licca Fansubs is recruiting translators, timers, and editors. Please contact us if you wish to contribute your skills.

Porphy's Long Journey Episode 16 released!

In interest of not spoiling anything, we will only say that Porphy seems to always be one step behind Mina.

Porphy's Long Journey Episode 15 released!

In this episode, Porphy and Mina end up taking drastic action after Porphy finds out that they would be separated.

Porphy's Long Journey Episode 14 released!

In this episode, Porphy and Mina continue living in the temporary shelter at the church.  Unfortunately, they have to deal with a few realities of their situations, namely that they potentially may be separated, or that they still have to overcome the grief of their parents.

This is a reminder that Licca Fansubs is recruiting translators, timers, and editors.  Please contact us if you wish to contribute your skills.

Status update

We apologize for not having released anything this week.  I have not been able to properly translate or work on the encodes due to illness.

I do have a few episodes of Porphy in the pipeline ready for pre-encode checks; I will get those out as soon as I'm feeling well enough to work on them.

Porphy's Long Journey Episode 13 released!

There is a reason why the novel is named "The Orphans of Simitra".  What happens in this episode gives the novel its namesake.

You can obtain this episode from your standard anime torrent indexing sites.

We have now reached the 1/4th mark on this series.  At this point, the story is literally just starting.  The majority of the next 1/4th of the series takes place in the temporary shelter around the church.  The story took a very sudden turn in an another direction, and it will be interesting to see how these sudden changes completely changes the characters.

Porphy's Long Journey Episode 12 released!

In this episode, several things happen at the same time.  The gasoline pump is delivered, but the concrete shell for the tank develops a crack.  No one could draw water.  The animals were acting in strange ways.

In total, all these signs point to something significant happening.

You can obtain this episode from your standard anime torrent indexing sites.

My Annette Episode 5 and 4v2 released!

"So," she remarked, "I have come. What I can I will do; what I cannot do you must do for me. Now, Annette, turn that baby the right way up and come and show me around the kitchen."

- Treasures of the Snow, Chapter 2

We would like to start off 2012 on a good note and release something (and officially go off hiatus early).

In this episode, Annette's great-aunt arrives in town.  Even though she is a bit cantankerous, she is actually very kind, and it doesn't take Annette long to warm up to her.

We have also released a version 2 of episode 4.  It turns out the anime adaptation uses "great-aunt", which is a deviation from the novel (which used "grandmother").  This fixes that issue.

A bit of a question for everyone

This is a question not really related to fansubbing, but more of a personal question that I would like to pose to everyone.

The Les Miserables US tour is coming to around where I live in May, and I would like to purchase tickets to the performance.  As I have never went to a performance of this kind, I would like opinions about what seats I should get.

The concert hall where the performance will be held has a huge "orchestra" lower level seating, a lower balcony above this lower level that wraps around half of the concert hall, and a much higher upper balcony that is above this lower balcony.

Currently, the ticket office for this venue is not selling tickets (they won't start selling until February), but I can get tickets from other ticket vendors.  I can get seats in the back of the upper balcony for about US$70, seats on the sides of the each balcony for about US$150, and seats in front of each balcony and in the front orchestra seats for about US$250.

Basically, which seats should I go for when I purchase my tickets?  (I may purchase multiple tickets depending on what happens.)

Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Pure Episode 10 released!

In this episode, Rina learns a bit more about Masahiro.  He invites Rina to watch a boxing match where he is one of the contenders, but due to obligations in her own kingdom, Rina had to miss the boxing match, and she was unable to contact Masahiro as she did not have his cell phone number.

You can obtain this episode from your standard anime torrent indexing sites, or you may use the direct download links from Wasurenai's website.

Porphy's Long Journey Episode 11 released!

In this episode, Porphy's father proceeds to purchase a gasoline pump, and goes through the necessary steps to accomodate it.  Porphy does help out, but he forgets that he should not do things to the exclusion of everything else.

You can obtain this episode from your anime torrent indexing sites.

This is the last episode of Porphy no Nagai Tabi that we will release this year.  We will resume work on this series on January 3rd, 2012.

Hiatus will begin tomorrow

We will be on hiatus starting tomorrow, and we should be back in operation on January 3rd, 2012.

We do have a release or two almost ready to go tonight right before we go on hiatus.

I also would like to apologize for not responding to e-mails; I simply have not had the time to properly give each e-mail the attention it deserves.

Update

1.  We are approaching our hiatus for the Christmas holidays.  Currently, we anticipate having one more episode of Porphy out and one more episode of My Annette out before the hiatus.  (Due to unexpected circumstances, I have not been able to devote time to translating them this weekend, which is why we don't have that many episodes in the pipeline.)

2.  As mentioned earlier, we'll be off hiatus on January 3rd, 2012.  We may not have anything ready to release then, but we should be back in operation by then.

3.  Porphy episodes 12 and 13 will be released at the same time.  Those two episodes go together and need to be watched together in order for things to make sense.

Porphy's Long Journey Episode 10 released!

In this episode, Porphy and Mina take their American friends around Simitra while their father is getting his vehicle repaired.

Little Women II - Jo's Boys Episode 17 released!

That was the only good-bye he gave the boys, for they were all talking the matter over in the barn when he came down, and he told Nat not to call them. The wagon stood at the door, and Mrs. Bhaer came out to speak to Dan, looking so sad that his heart smote him, and he said in a low tone,

"May I say good-bye to Teddy?"

"Yes, dear; go in and kiss him, he will miss his Danny very much."

No one saw the look in Dan's eyes as he stooped over the crib, and saw the little face light up at first sight of him, but he heard Mrs. Bhaer say pleadingly,

"Can't we give the poor lad one more trial, Fritz?" and Mr. Bhaer answer in his steady way,

"My dear, it is not best, so let him go where he can do no harm to others, while they do good to him, and by and by he shall come back, I promise you."

- Little Men, Chapter 6

This episode is the aftermath of what happened at the end of episode 16.

You can obtain this episode from your standard anime torrent indexing sites.

Winter 2012 anime season

We currently have no plans to do a series in the Winter 2012 anime season.  None of the series listed meet our requirements for us to even consider doing them.

On a more short term note, we do have Little Women II episode 17 almost ready to go, with Porphy no Nagai Tabi 10 not far behind.