Reserving Judgment
Given how I've been grabbing and then watching the raw of the latest episode of Index, I can safely say that this is the series that most excites me this season. The big drawback, however, is that my Japanese language ability is very limited and I often don't get the best out of the anime. The process for Index Ep 4 went something like:
Raw: Very superficial understanding. Overall impression was that the fight scene was unnecessarily interrupted by an over-long dialogue between Touma and Kaori.
Chinese sub: My Chinese reading isn't all that good either, especially for traditional (rather than simplified) characters but I did get the gist - even though Touma got KO'ed physically, he won the debate on points.
Quality English sub: Oh, this all makes sense. All that blah blah/pera pera was important background and plot information. The viewer was given the history, present situation and future to-do alongside Touma and also, at least in my case, empathy with his rejection of Stiyl and Kaori's methods.
As Stripey was telling me, in some series and/or certain episodes of some series, understanding as close to 100% of the details and nuances of the dialogue is essential to the full enjoyment of the anime. I suppose the moral of the tanuki's story was that until there is clarity of understanding, judgment reserved may be the fairest course.
Which is also why I've yet to make up my mind about Blassreiter. I've seen the last few eps raw but I will need the subs for the final arc to make up my own mind about whether the series was really excellent or just above average.
Related posts:
- The dialogue in Index is Dumb and must be Prohibited
- 2009 Moment of Anime 6: Shrinking Violet Tsun Tsun Biri Biri
- hnkd 3/2008: Lieutenant Stripey's Secret Recipe
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October 28th, 2008 - 00:33
I had the similar experience with for this ep too. With the raw, my thoughts immediately were how typically anime-unrealistic shounen series are with their useless lead trash-talking their way out of pain. However, with the sub, there was a sudden clarity of how the conversation builds up, leading to the angry then guilty Kaori.
October 28th, 2008 - 04:28
Ya I completely agree, its a great show. Eclipse are on it so we know its releases are going to be consistent and on time. When it comes to watching raw episodes you tend to perceive what is happening mostly through the actions of the characters, if you’re understanding of the language is superficial of course, but once the subs come out and you match the scenes with what they’re actually saying you might discover that what they were talking about is completely different from what you thought was going on. Thats how I got into RAW watching though, I started with knowing what the characters mean, gradually going up to understanding actual dialogue.
October 28th, 2008 - 09:44
Me and my bro got desperate last time we watched episodes 1-2 last time and immediately watched the available chinese sub for ep3 even though our Chinese is not that good either. Obviously, a lot of stuff got lost in translation because our understanding fail so much, totally relying on the english subs for this one @__@
October 29th, 2008 - 07:42
I dunno, I thought the conversation path felt a bit forced watching the subs. Touma’s willingness to dial up the melodrama to 11 with total strangers strikes me as odd; the dialogues would probably feel a lot more natural (at least for anime) to me if this was all happening a few more episodes in.
October 29th, 2008 - 15:40
@Kikaifan
You see, the problem with that is this- We’re already closing in onto the climax of the first story arc ^^; This is in fact the so-call ‘turning-point’, when the ‘truth’ of Index’s situation is revealed.
2 more episodes would be more than enough to wrap it all up and start on the second volume…
Actually, if they really wanted to, JC Staff could have added a few original episodes inbetween ep 3 and 4… But I think we all know how that might turn out ^^;