Offer To Fully Sub 65 Deltora Quest Episodes

[Draculestia]

Hi there,

I originally started watching Deltora Quest in 2007 when it aired, read the books in 2004 and met Marc McBride in 2005. I had given up on episodes being fully subbed in English some time in 2010, especially with the god awful dubbed version hitting Cartoon Network. As a result, I ended up missing the subbing work of DQA Fansubs. My intention has always been to sub this anime myself, but there has also always been one problem - I don't understand enough Japanese to handle that on my own. I didn't let that stop me last year though when I began commissioning a person to write a transcript of the episodes. As of this moment, the first 8 episodes have been completed so far, the slow pace mainly due to the life circumstances of the person I'm commissioning.

I'd like to directly address the person behind DQA Fansubs. I was wondering if you would be interested in doing the same thing; writing up a transcript of the episodes in English and leaving the grunt work of subbing/timing to me. I've gotten pretty fast at it now, and because I'm pretty confident in my command of the English language, coupled with my basic understanding of Japanese, I think the quality of my subtitling would be pretty good. The cost of commissioning the translation of these episodes is quite frankly disturbing when you multiply the individual episode cost by 65, so I thought if you were as passionate about Deltora Quest's Japanese version as I was, we could collaborate under the DQA Fansubs name (or something else if you would prefer) and get this happening in a big way.

I will be continuing down this commission route at the expense of my wallet for as long as it takes for you to return to this forum, because for all I know you won't be interested in my idea, or you won't return at all - so I will continue with this commissioning for now. In the worst case scenario, I'm willing to see this commission route through to the very end. If you would like to talk about this more privately, feel free to request my email or PM me (if such a thing can be done on this site).

I hope to hear from you soon.

- Draculestia

[DQA]

Hi Draculestia! I'm not working on subtitling DQ anymore. The ideal route would be to have an official English subtitle release, but I don't know if that's possible given the English dub international licensing and what company would even be willing to do that... But good luck to you, the Japanese dub truly is the superior version. If you have any general questions about learning Japanese I'd be happy to help.

[Draculestia]

I'm very sorry to hear that, but thank you for the reply. The previous offer I have made to DQA Fansubs extends to anyone else reading this as well, but for now, I will have to continue working on the translation as I have been doing it so far. Regarding an 'official translation' being made for the Japanese anime, I would say that the chances of this are basically zero. There is no money in it whatsoever because the Japanese Deltora Quest is basically dead and will eventually be lost to time, and the vast majority of Western interest is satisfied with the English Dub. With that in mind, I will be committed to eventually finishing the translation that I'm working on.

[Ashley Kosaka]

I’m also have seen Deltora Quest since 2007, but also hoping if anyone can make english subtitles from a japanese dub, because I’m more to japanese than english dub. Though that recently dqa fansub’s episode videos were unavailable, I’m looking forward to you or anyone else who is continuing to make english subs for deltora quest japanese dub. You have my support, and I also can hear japanese on average level (except kanji). Once again, I’m looking forward for anyone who is still interested on making eng subs on DQ japanese dub. 

[Namine17]

So sad that there won't be any other subbed episodes. I've been keeping my eye on this forum every now and then since I joined it's nice to see other people have a passion for this amazing anime. I can't translate but maybe I could help in other ways please respond when ever you see this Draculestia.
And also you gave it your best effort DQA I still love the episodes you put so much time into subbing I guess I just need to learn Japanese if I truly want to experience this gem. Happy New Year!!! I hope that some day this dream will come true.

[EvilPony]

Let me know the progress if you like to man. Love the anime and love what you're doing. Also though I don't know Jp or know how to typeset but if there's anything else I can help you with, I'd be happy to help. For now good luck, your work has made someone very happy. 

[EvilPony]

Hello Draculestia it’s me again. If you see this reply could you message my email? I’m very interested in the new turn of this project and want to ask you a lot about it for I’m having a project concerning DQ as well. But since I have no way to privately contact you on this site, I would like you to hear me out through my email which is below my username (oc if you absolutely want to). Your help would be tremendous to my project and by all means I hope at least I could help you with something in return. Looking forward to your reply. Cheers 

[FallowPls]

How goes the subbing project? I'm totally new to Deltora Quest and I've made my way through 30 episodes of the English (which I love~), and would like to be able to watch a subbed version too (isn't the Japanese one longer?). ^ u^  I'm really sad I was introduced to it so late as now this forum is basically dead. Wish I had gotten here years earlier. Oof.

[EvilPony]

Yes the Japanese version is truly the superior one in almost every way. Sadly I’m only to episode 22 due to the fact that there’s only sub to that extent.

[FallowPls]

I found where someone subbed 53-the rest of them, but they were taken down I think. Idunno about superior, though. I can't stand Fallow-kun's Japanese voice. Does not fit him. At. All. XD His English voice is teh smex. I think the English in general has very fitting voices. Mainly just wanna watch and understand the rest of the series.

[Draculestia]

Hi guys, thanks for showing interest in the project. Things have unfortunately not really progressed since August of last year when I last posted because it seems that my translator has disappeared; no contact for the last four months. I've completed the subtitles for the first 7 episodes so far and I'm currently working on Episode 8. I have translated transcripts up to and including episode 9. As much as I wanted to continue from episode 22 or so with the translation, I felt that it was necessary to do all of the episodes leading up to that as well - I still feel that way. I'm going to work towards getting a new translator; one that's a little less busy and maybe not quite so damn expensive. As far as sharing what I've already worked on, since there are subbed versions of Deltora Quest up to the 20s, I don't really want to put my work out there in actual completed form until I've at least done that much as well - I need to do a few titles/finishing touches and consolidate the video and subtitle files before they're ready to be uploaded online. I probably won't be uploading those to Youtube either due to copyright issues and such, but we'll see, I might just do that anyway.

For those who have Discord and want to follow my work really closely (because I'm on Discord at all hours of the day when I'm awake), then feel free to join the server that I've put together for it. I'm currently operating under the project name of ToranSubs. The name is possibly subject to change but it seems good enough, so I'll probably roll with it. https://discord.gg/FCBWwyn This is the invite link to it, and hopefully DQA doesn't mind me posting it. I plan to start ramping things up pretty soon, and once I get that new translator, things should be well and truly up and running again. I'll keep updating you all here regardless, as this is a good platform to talk to people about Japanese Deltora Quest.

Stay well.

[Draculestia]

Well, I wasn't expecting an update to come so soon, but here I am. A major update to my ToranSubs project has just been finalised, and it's good news for both myself and those of you who are eager to see a fully subtitled Japanese Deltora Quest during this year. My previous non- responsive translator has been dropped for a new translator who is also willing to handle subbing and timing at a fair price. He works very efficiently compared to the last translator (who led a very busy life), and he works at about the same speed as I do when it comes to subtitling, yet with added monetary incentive. Previously, I was handling the subbing and timing on my own, and I will continue to do that for episodes 8 and 9 considering that I do have transcripts for those episodes from the last translator, but episodes 10 through until 65 (if things go well with the new guy) will be translated, subbed and timed by him. What will I be doing from that point on you ask? I'll be handling proofreading and ensuring that everything is book- friendly. Needless to say, this guy isn't in any way familiar with Deltora Quest, so it's very important for me to have a hand in the final product. I'll also be fine- tuning various aesthetic aspects to the subtitles as well, but the major point is that the big job of writing up everything into the subtitling software and timing it to the speech of the characters is no longer needed of me. I will instead be able to jump in and make edits to text that has already been written and timed, and while I do feel a little sad that I won't have such a personal hand in the project (because the time allocation for subtitling and timing is massive), the written text will still be my end product (as his English isn't perfect, so I'll be making lots of grammatical / sentence structure changes), so I do still have that going for me. Plus, it's hard to resist the temptation to have that huge workload lifted from my shoulders.

The previous rate that the project was moving at was horrendously slow, to be honest. 7 or 8 episodes in two years is far from acceptable when you have a total of 65 to work on; we'd be here waiting until 2025 or something. What it means to have this person on board with the project is that episodes will be 'completed' within the span of 7 days, 14 at the absolute maximum, which translates to a reasonable estimate of the project being done by late 2019. That is phenomenally attractive to me, and I'd like to think that it is for you as well. Once again, for those of you who are interested in being updated immediately when it comes to this project and who use or are willing to use Discord, then click the link in the post above to join the ToranSubs server. At worst, we'll be able to chat about Deltora Quest together anyway

Good times ahead!

[Draculestia]

It has been over a month since my previous update and things have been going extremely well for the project. At the time of my previous writing, I hadn't even gone so far as to make a fully completed subtitle file that was worth sharing - I've now done 12 of those, soon to be 13. In other words, I'm 12 episodes in to the subtitling of Deltora Quest and I have no doubts that I'll be able to work with my new translator to get all 65 episodes of the anime completed; he's very good at what he does. I still have a big hand in the production of each episode; I'd say the work is split 50/50. For those of you who are not interested in joining the Discord channel to download the episodes, I do have a YouTube channel now where I am beginning to upload the episodes. The video quality is the same, but the visual quality of the subtitles in the YouTube uploads matches that of the video, which is a lower resolution to the subtitles that appear in the softsubbed .mkv files that I have available to download on the Discord server. The YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjSLg3lQ6zgGIdKw97SX5jg/videos?disable_polymer=1

I probably won't make another update here unless something really major happens with the project, or it is completed. Thanks in advance to those of you who show interest in the project and support it!

[Ashley Kosaka]

This is awesome! Thanks for continuing the subs Draculestia! I haven’t completed my japanese learning skill yet unfortunately, so I was unable to make subs as well due tmy disability on translating.  I’ve subscribed your channel and I’m looking forward for the next episodes!