So how are our tireless fansubbers doing now that the show of last season is halfway over?

[HorribleSubs] Shingeki no Kyojin – 13

This is an all-around solid, professional-grade release, at least in terms of translation. There were only a few lines where I felt I was watching a cheap fansub. The only quibble I have is that they could have qualified this sentence with “successful result” (成功者 seikousha)　 in order to contrast how he had, in fact, run into some problems.

Final Grade: A

[gg] Shingeki no Kyojin – 13

If we’re talking about big mistakes, gg had about two, this being one of them (it’s supposed to be “A promise made.” (掲げられた約束) but it’s clear that this script was done on the fly. Some lines read smoothly, others are phoned-in, paint-by-numbers-with-a-dictionary fansub lines. Other quibbles about the translations can be seen here.

Final Grade: B

[Commie] Shingeki no Kyojin – 13

Only two major mistake that I could see, one of them being this eyecatch where they put down that cannons were the first countermeasures used against the (*sigh*) Eotenas when the original Japanese text says nothing about cannons being the first of anything. As for the entirety of the script, for the most part they had a good natural flow that didn’t rely on rolodex phrasing. However, in some parts their execution failed (and I’m not talking about the Eotens nonsense). For example why did they have Levi swearing like a pirate? Translation blather for this episode can be found here.

Final Grade: B+

[EveTaku] Shingeki no Kyojin – 13

Only one real mistake in this episode. This dude here is saying ttaku mendou kaken nayo or “Honestly, do not cause problems for me!” (koku version: “God! I’m sick of your crap!”)  I don’t know what they think “pulling your leg” means, but from a normal reading of the phrase, it’s not even the same idea as what’s actually being said. Putting those aside, a lot of the script seems to be too influenced by the original Japanese dialogue and pacing for my tastes. More TL blather here.

Edit: Bumped them up a grade because the line about “flaming water and land of ice” actually makes sense in context of past episodes.

Final Grade: B+ A-

[Lag-Taka] Shingeki no Kyojin – 13

This group had two, maybe three major mistakes. Here they forgot to have this guy retort to the other guy, “What the hell are you doing?” in this line. More translation stuff here. But even if the script is totally accurate, it still reads like an average amateur fansub script.

Final Grade: B

[Hatsuyuki-Kaitou] Shingeki no Kyojin – 09

And we round out these midterms with these slowpokes, and overall they had two mistakes in this release. For example, here, the term that’s being said here is senbou no manazashi or “looks of envy.” However, it was a chore to watch this release because their script, once again, reads like a slightly-above-amateur Japanese translation than a readable script that can be enjoyed by a wide audience. They even inserted an “I can’t be helped” for god sakes.

Final Grade: B

So the conclusion here is to just subscribe to Crunchyroll and get their accurate scripts written by people who appear to have at least taken some creative writing classes.

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