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I am liking this anime a lot more than I thought I would (I was perfectly satisfied with the light novel). I enjoy the voices, the art direction, and the story is working so far even with all the cuts they need to make. Most importantly, I feel that the show is making good use of animation to deliver more than just a rote retelling of the novels. It's a good team!
I really enjoyed the illustrations at the end of each episode, so much that I want them on my computer. I turned them into desktop wallpapers, and if anybody else would like to do that, I've posted them here in a couple different resolutions:
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Based on absolutely nothing at all, I can guess this is what happened with the spelling of Myne's name:
With no other material to go off of, the folks at Crunchyroll decided to use "Myne" based off of the same spelling used in the LN and Manga. Episode 1 uses this spelling. I would say overall, that was a pretty good idea. Now, Episode 2 rolls around, and has Myne's name written out, and it's written as "Main" since that's what you get when you romanize the Japanese spelling. The animation studio in Japan doesn't care how we spell it, the manga shows it exactly how they animated it, so it's not an issue for them. But in the case of Crunchyroll, they must have decided that since that's how it's spelled in the show, that must be how it should be spelled, and so they changed it. This made a lot of people very angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Even so, I can't fault them entirely for what they did. Depending on the series, the quality of the subs crunchyroll produces can be extremely good, or highly questionable, and there's no way to really know what you've got until it's out. CR seems to have no quality control for their subs, and no basic guidelines for their people to go by. In this case, I think the people in charge of this series are trying their best to do what they think is right, but when you have conflicting sources, It's rough, not to mention they probably don't have much time to subtitle each episode. In this case, you have the in-series depiction of "Main" which is a direct Romanization of her name (マイン), and then you have "Myne" which is the Manga/LN localization of her name. The fact that Myne was chosen by the author makes it a far bit more important than just a translator's choice of spelling, but I don't think the people at Crunchyroll know that to be the case.
For what it's worth, I did email Crunchyroll about how dumb it was to change Myne to Main, but whether or not they'll actually do anything about it is entirely up in the air. I did get this response though:
The subtitles issue you are experiencing is a known issue for this series that is affecting many of our users. We are currently hard at work on a fix for this one and will try to get things back on track as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
Seems like a generic reply, and it doesn't make me any more optimistic that they'll go back to using Myne. Never in all my time watching stuff on Crunchyroll have I ever seen them go back and change subtitles, so the likelihood of Episode 2 ever getting fixed is pretty low, and the likelihood of them going back to Myne is probably only a little higher.
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Finally got around to watching episode 2. Nothing glaringly different from the LN. I do like how the anime is subtle with some of the reactions like blushes and Myne fainting. Chibi Myne is cute. Overall, I would say this is a fairly high quality show.
Is it me, or is the narrator the High Priest? It would be in line with the framing set out at the start of the first episode. And I love the ED.
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Is the first scene of the anime a scene that will appear in
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@goldkoron
Yes, more specifically -
Enjoyed the latest episode but don't have much to say about it other than I hate the name Main so much right now.
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Their general handling Myne's internal monologues and backstory were handled really well. The use of chibi interludes and other visual styles to convey such information really keeps things entertaining and easy to distinguish.
But Main? Gah, I am so disappointed in their decision to deviate from the LN and stated preference of the author, and it isn't even internally consistent.
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Myne's mother is Effa in the books, isn't she? It seems like they picked Eva for the subtitles. From the VAs, it sounds like it could work as either?
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@flarecde Yeah, the name is Effa. And as far as I know all the names Quof is using were officially approved by the author. It would have been nice if the anime used the same names, too.
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@terabyte They are. They started with Main in the manga and had to redo the first 3 chapters to change the names.
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@sniper_samurai
I think quof actually started with Maine not Main. -
Do the subtitle people even care? It could also be they are going with a phonetic spelling.
I'm not sure, but it's possible (I generally don't pay the closest attention to the audio while watching subbed anime.) that the romanized Myne is pronounced M long-A N silent-E or like the words Main/Maine. Me, I would pronounce it M long-I N silent-E like the word Mine. I'm probably wrong.
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@paul-nebeling I would assume the translators would be given a style sheet with character names and a few terms they are required to use, but have chosen to ignore it. Not the first time incorrect name changes have been made mid series by Crunchy either.
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They might only get the script sheets, but yeah, I've seen a couple of series (like Monster Hunter) where the names just flip one episode from the Japanese/phonetic spellings to something else, or the official English names even if they sound nothing like what the characters in show are saying.
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The third episode was better. I hope it will keep going that way. OMG this "tuuuli" that myne said was a critical hit for me!
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I think the anime so far is doing an OK job adapting the story - as a fan of the books there were some differences that really popped to my eye (and I'm not talking about the subbers ignoring the glossary quof sent them) - most of which I get why they did (time constraints), but some just really bother me - such as it's hardly noticeable when Myne has a fever or not, and it isn't really emphasized how weak she actually is (other than being unable to flip a paruecake - which I think she could do, if the oven as at a proper height for her to do so) - with most of the scenes that showcase it in the book being cut.
They also didn't really convey exactly how poor Myne's family is - they didn't show how they couldn't even afford to replace nails that were so rusted even the weak Myne could break them.All unrealistic demands (such as adapting 100% of the LN) aside, I think they're doing a pretty decent job getting the main points across, and at a reasonable pace so far (getting around 50% of volume 1 in 3 episodes). I do somewhat worry since at this pace there's no way they'll reach the end of volume 3 (it seems silly to introduce the high priest if they won't reach when he shows up in the adaptation) - though it will make sense to keep this pacing if they have a second season in the works already (one can hope)
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@cibastian I already feel like it's going a bit too fast. If they speed it up even more to cover through book 3 or farther...
License Wishlist: Kino's Journey, Crest/Banner anthology, SukaMoka
Favorite JNC Series: Bookworm, Faraway Paladin, Dendro, Grimgar, Crest/Banner of the Stars, Tearmoon Empire, Skull Dragon's Precious Daughter, Apothecary Diaries, Otome Heroine's Fight -
@cibastian The nails incident was not essential to knowing how poor they were, so why include it? The whole sequence was about how she was smarter than she could act upon, but it was not essential to showing that they were just as poor as everyone around them.
And if her fevers were obvious, why would there need to be "someone who knows her, monitoring her health"?
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@yumenokage I felt the same way, the pacing is really fast. But the story doesn't feel disjointed and quite happy with adaptation.
I think the anime would serve me as a nice refresher to the LN, especially if picking back the novel after a long a break. The production is nice and the littke skits with the chibi Myne are a nice fun addition. The background artists done a fabulous job depicting the city. Myne Apartment had so many details, and its exterior was a surprising wooden skyscraper. The layout of the towns gate office was also believable, with filling and writing tools sensibly placed.
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OK, I broke down and fired up Crunchyroll to watch the first episode, and the use of the High Priest isn't a spoiler, but a plot device. By having things as "recalling memories", you can gloss over a lot of missing detail.
I just hope Crunchroll having the streaming license for this doesn't end up like so many other streamed animes, delaying the release of disks by years, to protect the value of the streaming rights.
