I'm not sure if her parents are great or horrible people.

she passed her exam at 14, spent a year in witch training, and started traveling at 18? Did I miss something here?

>>34789
I thought she's now 18, but it doesn't explicitly say when she started traveling (presumably at 16 then?)

Which sub group are you using for this? There's a choice between GJM (who appear to be translating de novo rather than just editing the funimation script), funimation directly, and Muse.

Here's the extracted text from all three for comparison:
GJM: https://pastebin.com/raw/URsmyajt
Muse: https://pastebin.com/raw/9jt73CTN
Funi: https://pastebin.com/raw/mB0iPWqY

>>34793
Here's a sub comparison (á la crymore, although I'm much less qualified to do one) on 3 randomly selected sections:

1)

Funi:
>Oh, my...
>In order for an apprentice witch\Nto become a full witch,
>she must study under another witch\Nand have her acknowledge her abilities.

Muse:
>Oh my...
>For an apprentice witch\N to become a witch,
>she has to be accepted as\N a disciple by another witch
>and be recognised as fully fledged.

GJM:
>Deary me.
>The exam was only the start of the road.
>To be considered a full-fledged witch,
>a novice must become an apprentice \Nof an established witch.

Actual dialogue:
>Ara maa,
>Majo minarai ga majo ni naru tame ni wa
>hoka no majo ni deshi-iri shite
>ichininmae da to mitomerare-nakereba-narimasen


2)

Funi

>I'm hungry. Please make something to eat.
>What would you like?
>Let's see...
>I feel like steak.
>Isn't that kind of heavy for breakfast?
>Then, some of those weeds over there will do.
>Aren't you giving up a little too much?
>Then, bread will be fine!

Muse

>I'm hungry so,\N could you please make something?
>What would you like?
>Hmm...
>I'm in the mood for having some steak.
>Isn't that a little heavy for the morning?
>Then the weeds around here is fine.
>Aren't you compromising too much

GJM

>I'm famished. Would you whip up something to eat?
>What would you like?
>Let me see...
>I feel like a steak this morning!
>Wouldn't that be a bit heavy for breakfast?
>In that case, I'd be fine with a bowl \Nof the weeds from outside.
>Awfully far in the other direction, don't you think?
>All right, I'll settle for bread.

Actual dialogue:
>Ohayō gozaimasu
>Onaka ga hetta no de nani ka tsukutte kudasai
>Nani ga ii desu ka?
>Sou desu ne, steak ga tabetai kibun desu
>Asa kara omo-sugimasen ka?
>Nara, sono hen no zassō de ii desu yo
>Dakyō shi-sugi janai desu ka?


3)

Funi:

>We'll have a test now.
>Huh?
>Miss Fran, what kind of test is this?
>I'll have you fight against me.
>You're kidding... right?
>Okay, let's start.

Muse:

>Let's have a test now.
>Eh?
>Fran Sensei, a test you say,\N what kind of test?
>I'll have you fight me.
>You're joking... right?
>Alright, it starts.

GJM:

>I'm going to test you now.
>What?
>Miss Fran, what did you mean by testing me?
>You and I are going to battle.
>You are joking, right?
>Now then. Let's begin.

Actual dialogue:
>Ima kara, shiken wo shimasu
>Fran sensei, shiken tte nan no shiken desu ka?
> Watakushi to tatakatte moraimasu
> Jōdan, desu yo ne
> Hai, hajime desu


The general impression is that Muse subs are quite literal, also tending to use Japanese sentence ordering when possible. If you know enough Japanese to catch bits and pieces, this makes it a lot easier to follow along with the actual spoken dialogue. The downside is that you sacrifice grammatical accuracy in your subs. While this makes little difference if you are comfortable enough to pick up on the spoken grammatical cues and use the subs only for its lexical aspects, if you rely more heavily on subs this might lead to a sub-par experience. Even beyond grammatical mismatches stemming from the more literal translation though, these subs in general seem less proofread – and word-choices are at times a bit questionable.

Funi subs – with the exception of the sensei/miss localization – seem to be generally ok-ish. I'd say they're what you get if you take the Muse subs and revise the sentences to be what you'd expect from conventional English. In the process of this localization, some words get elided ("It's the first time since I was born\N that words like that were said to me" -> "That was the first time I'd ever been told that"). Overall despite their infamy, if you're not too particular about the "miss" aspect, these subs also seem to be a viable option. But given Funi's past reputation I'd expect them to throw in some unnecessary localization when you'd least expect it.

GJM subs: Also an infamous "sub" group. I have no idea what they're doing in this case because they managed to outdo funimation in terms of unnecessary localization. The samples don't capture the worst of it: "I thought that if it was a witch\N who didn't know who I was" got turned into "If she isn't part of the grapevine." At best I can say that they're grammatically fluid (or at least as much can be expected of subbed dialogue), but I don't know what demographic they're targeting. Is there anyone that actively seeks out fansubs who would prefer "Deary me" over "Oh my?"

>>34820
GJM sounds terrible.

I vaguely remember gjm getting in drama on Nyaa after people shat on their overlocalized subs and instead of responding with class they just called them weeb virgins. The admins "had" to lock the comments because they were afraid people were gonna start doxing when in reality they just didn't like the criticism.

>>34820
Thanks, friend. I really need to learn Japanese.

>>34822
People who make subs like that don't exactly come across as being the most mature types.

I want to see magic look this cool more often in media. It annoys me how sometimes it's a cool light show but always pretty ineffective in the end, that is if it's a cool light show at all.
Stardust would have been so close to perfect were she not someone who could be so easily bribed.
Also sometimes the lessons she's taught feel a little inconsistent or backwards. Her mom asks her to not be full of herself but she seems pretty prideful. She's taught not to endure things too much but I also feel like teaching that to someone who can use such powerful magic isn't really wise and you should sooner teach them responsibility. Maybe I'm missing something.?

And what on earth makes them think they have the right to make such a cute design so minor?

>>34900
I think her parents were maybe worried she might grow to be over confident and bite off more than she can chew at some point? But then they seemed oddly concerned from the start. From how they were acting I expected the parents to disapprove of being a witch and eventually forbidding it. I think that might have made more sense.
The enduring thing seemed really weird to me too. It doesn't seem like a bad trait? The only downside to being someone who sticks it out when things are bad, is if they're being taken advantage of, by say, a teacher who makes them do chores for a month and doesn't teach them anything. I don't know why her parents couldn't have just thought her this stuff themselves rather than bribing someone to torment their daughter with this weird underhanded scheme. I wonder if they ever paid a stranger to offer her free candy and puppies in his van, to teach her not to take candy from strangers. Maybe they paid some drug dealers to approach her and try to get her hooked on something. If they paid a witch to treat her like garbage to teach her not to just take it, why not?

>>34901
Maybe they make an appearance again latter on? All the witches she went to see seemed over designed for throw away characters.

>>34900
>>34902
The flow in that scene was certainly rather poorly interpreted but I think the general idea is as >>34902 said, her parents wants her to not be too overconfident as to run herself into a dangerous situation. This ties into the promise she made with Elaina. I never read the source material beyond the first three chapter of the translated manga but my guess is that her mother was a witch herself and possibly even Nikeh. The thing about endurance I believe ties back into the earlier point and has more to do with knowing when to give up. From what little I've read Elaine tends to distance herself from interfering in whatever happens in that world, being more of an antihero character. I take it that her parents bribed Fran not only to teach her a lesson but mainly to take her in as a disciple.

It's weird, but from the scene where they went searching together, I was able to guess what was going on without being too far off. I think I've seen this chain of evens before a couple times in different forms but can't remember where exactly.

Interesting change of pace with the third episode.

A slightly more melancholic and pensive tone (not necessarily _dark_, just not upbeat) – and a shift to Elaina being more of a traveling observer than an active participant. Even though I only watched a few episodes of Kino's Journey, this seemed very reminiscent of that, with the MC being a passive observer and each episode loosely dressed around a given theme.

I assume that this is the direction that the rest of the episodes will take (hence the murmurs from those who had read the source that this would become more "dramatic." While the shift isn't offputting, I'm personally not keen on it either and would have preferred a continuation of the first two episodes, with Elaina's more active involvement in the plot.

When ep2 had come out, it was already giving me some Kino vibes, but it sure has gone hard in that direction now. Not sure how I feel about that. I've seen enough of kino and other media to successfully guess where each of the stories in ep3 were going almost as soon as they started. The end results were 'slightly' more tame than I expected at least.


With the flower girl, I thought it would be a toxic plant that spreads like a weed and would kill people with the fragrance it puts off. Although I thought the girl might have been a plant in human form there to trick people.
Kinda surprised Elaina didn't do the time reversal spell or something on those two, but maybe at that point she felt it was pointless.
I'm also surprised that zombie army popped up when the locals seemed to be so cautious about the problem. How did they let so many people get infected like that?

The second story was about what I expected too. The lead up made me think they kidnapped some girl and were torturing her and/or treating her like a sex slave. I was a bit revealed when they showed she wasn't missing any limbs, but with how the dad was acting I think there was probably some sexual abuse going on for sure.

People complain that Elaina is cold and heartless, but she probably sees and hears about this sort of stuff a lot on her travels, and has probably come to realize it's just how the world is. What can she even do? free the slave? Where would that slave go? Run away slaves probably aren't treated too well in this world, and I doubt Elaina could easily end slavery itself.

ep4: The majo travels to Kings Landing.

Not a half bad ep, although I think the intro may have given away a tad bit too much.

Gilgamesh...

>>35049
...Would be impressed.

I didn't particularly enjoy ep.3 but I thought 4 and 5 was pretty good. They seem to especially put quite a lot of effort on ep.4. And it seems like my hunch on the witch Nike and Fran was right.

A bit full of herself isn't she. I was wondering whether her "who is that beautiful witch doing ___" phrase was tongue-in-cheek, but she does seem committed to it. That despite her mother telling her not to think she's better than others.

I like to think she's a narcissistic apathetic bitch as part of a character ark, and that hopeful at the end of her journey she'll learn some humility.

Part of me wonders if she isn't going to get horribly disfigured by the end, and that these are her stories from before that happened.

So I guess it's okay to lie as long as you think you're being honest?

>>35137
I suppose there's no way for the magic to know whether something's objectively true, so I guess it works on a psychological level instead.

ep6 was pretty pretty shitty. It felt like a huge shift in tone and writing style. It's weird seeing our main character go from "Not my problem" mode, to raiding a castle, fighting off guards, and attacking the king of the nation. All to solve the problems of a "weird" witch and some people she just met.
Far as I could tell the nation had only been living like this for a few weeks so far, maybe a couple months at most. Hardly seemed like enough time to really change the cultural mindset and let people truly get used to the idea. Given enough time I think the society could possibly change for the better.
If people hated it that much, wouldn't they revolt or leave? People didn't seem to be suffering. Two guys fighting over a girl is hardly news worthy stuff let alone grounds to call the project a failure.
It's also so weird that our main character who's been very blunt and unkind to people so far, isn't spouting off insults left and right here like everyone else. If anything she seemed to change for the better while acting like a fairly normal person. That too made me wonder why not being able to tell a lie for some reason means blurting out regrettable statements. I for one take pride in my honesty, but that doesn't mean I'm calling everyone ugly stupid retards all the time. It's really not that hard to tell the truth and not be a dick, I don't know why stories like this try to make it seem impossible.
I suspects that sudden personality shift in Elaina could be because the witches in this world are supposed to look out for each other. Seems as if it wasn't for that jobless witch, Elaina would have gladly never gotten involved. But then again she turned down helping that other witch fight the dragon up till the last minute.
That resolution with the king was pretty bad too. Is the king so weak willed and impulsive that he would change his mind after just a few words and a little smack around? And why did they give that with her job back instead of, you know, executing her for helping to attack the king? And while being lied to may have some benefits, they way they explained it to the king was pretty shit. I'd point out how any king worth his salt should be able to tell when people are lying to him. To be surrounded by people who never lie to him would dull his social diplomatic skills with neighboring countries and lead him to be easily taken advantage of by those who can and will lie.

Are these guys following Elaina?

>>35140
They're traveling wizards.

It was only a matter of time before someone grapped Elanina.

>>35164
Would it not be "graped"?

>>35164
I like how she got shit faced and graped the whole town right back.

Somehow there ended up being a huge tonal shift from the character presented in the first episode to the narcissistic witch that appears from then onwards. And other than jerking off about how beautiful she is, the only other expression she seems capable of showing is detached apathy.

I'm more interested in Saya's brief appearances and arcs at this point.

>>35167
Indeed. She's not the most likable protagonist.

>>35167
I saw that coming from the first episode but I was hoping I would be wrong for once. I guess even if she's the usual smug witch at least she isn't the lewd type too.

I can't believe these guys were okay with letting random people completely deface and ruin the wall.

>>35121
>and that hopeful at the end of her journey she'll learn some humility.
I guess you were right. It only took her witnessing a murder in front of her eyes to get her to realize that perhaps she isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now the question is whether the remainder of the series is going to change tone appropriately, or whether this is going to be forgotten by the next episode.

Nice heartwarming episode this week.

>>35121
Wasn't the whole-fucking-point of the first episode the instillation of some amount of humility into her smug brain?

>>35219
Yeah, and they failed.

It was at this moment I knew exactly where this was going, and what a cringy episode it was.

>>35221
I was hoping that they would discover it is impossible to change the past, possibly through becoming the killers themselves as an ironic accident, but that went out the window with the explanation of time travel. Too bad.

>>35227
Like Elaina said, it seemed really pointless the way they explained it. If all it does is create another time line in which those events never happened, that means alternate timelines/realities exist in their universe, and if alternate realities already exist, realities without those events they're trying to stop must already exist, probably in a massive amount too.

bakayaro!

I'm surprised stardust didn't just go looking for another teacher.

That was pretty disappointing ending, almost frustrating in fact.
I mean like, the character seems to have a lot of issues, narcissism being a big one. It might have been nice to see her acknowledge these parts of herself and address them in an attempt to better herself and grow as a person. Some self reflection might have been nice, which is almost frustrating because during that body swap scene the girl in her body was basically trying to fuck her own reflection. It felt like a weird sort of irony considering how in love with herself Elaina seems to be. Characters looking at their reflection in anime typically represents a moment of self reflection, makes me wonder if this wasn't an intentional dismissal of that trope.

Then she goes and confronts other versions of herself along the places she visited, but everything about it felt wrong.
They don't address any of her issues and instead reinforce the idea that she's really truly perfect, the ep is more of a freak show to say "thank god she didn't get up like those other versions!" They aren't really parts of herself but instead her from alternate realities? The whole thing seemed like a real missed opportunity.
It's really weird too because during the 12 ep run there were times when she flip flopped in personality so hard she seemed like a different person all together.
The last ep could have been a great way to explain that, but nope. If nothing else they could have explained that we saw another version of her at those times when she seemed to be a different person. One episode she doesn't lift a finger to help someone who's dying, later she's crying and screaming about not being able to help someone. One ep she doesn't want to get involved with the princess and her battle, latter she's storming a castle and fighting off guards while attacking the king.
In the end I think this just wasn't particularly well written and it seems like it just gets by on having a pretty girl for a main character.

>>35263
They mentioned that "a protagonist doesn't need any special characteristics" but that only works if you're making some sort of harem show. Not in a slice of life where the personality is one of the core defining features. I also sort of see what they were trying to convey where a series of "choices" could have each led to a different Elaina, but the presentation left a lot to be desired.

It's also not a good sign when the side-stories: Saya and Stardust were more memorable and interesting than Elaina's own.

To me this anime was pretty good. I thought Elaina being narcissistic was funny, it gave her a unique personality that you don't see often in sol anime. I liked how the story was a lot more darker than I anticipated, like Nino who Emil had a crush on and probably made her kill herself.