K-onic Sans MS

“If music be the food of love, K-On.”

Last Thursday’s film class involved watching some stock footage compilation called something like Poyahniskwazzi. It was depressingly boring. If this is pure cinema, I’d rather wallow in the mud of the latest Hollywood action flick.

Thankfully, this bout of anti-tainment was followed by a visit to my local anime society, whose antics are usually enough to keep me amused for the rest of the week. Our weekly showings go something like this: Attendees are allowed to bring in anime episodes. The congregation then votes on what they would like to watch, and the four or five shows with the most votes get shown – barring any (annoyingly common) technical difficulties. Hardware aside, one particular flaw in this system was demonstrated to me during the most recent showing: There’s no quality control. People are free to bring any anime in any format, regardless of whether it’s a 5-year-old fansub¹ or a poorly-mastered DVD Video (although DVDs are generally discouraged at the society due to the aforementioned technical issues). Last week, when the first episode of the frighteningly popular anime series K-ON! was voted in, us anime society denizens were treated to this:

That's "Just not to join any club will turn into a home dweller?" for those of you with images switched off.

Yep. Awkwardly phrased English, low video quality, annoying subtitle typesetting – they didn’t even include the title theme or ending credits!²

Comic Sans MS is the much-loathed font used in this fansub. Much media attention has surrounded the Ban Comic Sans movement in recent weeks; the abundance of the typeface and its usage in unsuitable situations are the points of contention that they seek to put a stop to. What would you think if you went to an up-class restaurant and discovered that the menu was written in the very same cartoon font used on banner ads and office circulars? Thought so.

Comic Sans may be a discredited font, but that’s not the worst of this particular fansub’s problems. See for yourself in these undoctored screencaps:

"Stop the nonsense!" "Once we've become professional, the ticket profit share will 3/7 split, OK?"

"We have to keep her stay by all means!"

o(`ω'*)o

There will always be bad translations. And, if a series is popular enough and some other bright young translators make the effort, there’ll be good translations out there as well. It’s up to you, the consumer, now: DO THE RESEARCH. Don’t just grab the first file you see on Tokyo Toshokan. Download only from accredited fansub sites like AnimeSuki. Make use of fansub comparison websites. Download and compare several different versions yourself if you have to. Just, please, don’t subject us to any more of these failsubs. Yes, that’s right. I said failsubs. ㋼

1. A fansub is a film or TV show subtitled into a different language by fans of the series. The quality tends to be a lot more hit-or-miss than professional translations, and there are different translation and presentation styles that can cause one series to be fansubbed by different parties. [↩]
2. The opening theme (OP) and ending theme (ED) are more prominent in anime than their equivalents in foreign TV shows. They usually run for at least a minute and feature a catchy, mass-marketable song that may or may not be directly related to the show itself. In the case of K-ON!, the OP and ED music CD singles went straight to the top of the Japanese charts – quite a rarity for an animated TV series. [↩]