The question, I think, is: how do we introduce accountability into fansubbing? That’s a sticky question that I’m not prepared to answer. (It’s made even more complex given how rampant trolling is in the fansubbing fraternity already. When you put systems of accountability in place, you’re basically asking for people to come up with their most creative ways to abuse them.)

And that’s not even getting into what “good” is. In fact I would say that even if I agree with you that a “good” translation is highly lossless and get at the nuances, that’s not always the case for every translation that is good….I don’t even know if that is often the case when it comes to translating anime and manga.

@Tamashii
Well, I guess I’m still trying to figure out just what the underlying values shared in examples of “great dialogue” are, since the examples themselves, even in this discussion (most of which I agree with) are rather diverse. Until someone can isolate those qualities, then it is very hard to define “great dialogue”, just as it is to define “moe” (the challenge with defining “moe” is that it’s different things to different people, which may also be the challenge in defining “greatness” in the context of dialogue and other anime-related things which are usually judged subjectively). Maybe someone should attempt to come up with a set of criteria with which to objectively judge dialogue. I’m not sure I want that responsibility, personally.

@TIF
Concise, structured, well-paced… there’s aren’t exactly Shinbo’s strengths. I almost see the plot in Bakemonogatari as an aside to the character interactions. I mean, the plot itself isn’t revolutionary… it’s about a main character who goes around helping people who have problems of the supernatural variety. If you take the simplified premise, it’s one that’s has appeared in a raft of different types of anime, with Kanon at one end and Natsume Yuujinchou at the other. The character interactions and the fierce verbal exchanges are, for me, the hook of the show. I’ll tolerate the snail’s pacing if the other stuff stays as interesting as it is.

@rev
A powerful line… although probably not a particularly elegant one. Needless to say, manly tears were shed.

@omo
Well, yeah, no dispute about the last part, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for subpar translations. I mean, without the aid of a translation, I might be able to understand 70% of what’s going on while watching anime, because of context, visual cues, tone, etc. With a half decent translation, one might be able to understand 90%, but you probably wouldn’t get nuances and subtleties, things like that. A particularly good translation gives you a chance to access some of the more subtle things about the dialogue. The fact remains that the viewers are forced to rely on the translation they watch. There’ll inevitably be something lost from the original in translation. How significant that “something” is depends on the translation itself. I’m not particularly advocating that subbers should go above and beyond for the sake of absolutely lossless translations. The philosophies behind what makes a “perfect” translation aren’t even concrete to begin with. I’m just saying that translators should be striving towards writing translations that are “good”… whatever that means.

However the verbal communication aspects of an anime is just a fraction of the total communicative construct, and all parties–editors, translators, concerned fans, OCD fansub weeaboos–should take the whole work into account.

Gankutsuou has the benefit of Dumas’s once-in-a-century ingenuity. I can’t even point out which parts that I dislike – too much of good moments in the adaptation.