#i'm so ridiculous but i wanna use my dvds darn it ugh the struggle is real

[marshmallowgoop]

Maybe it’s foolish, but I am so desperately hoping that Crunchyroll adding remastered versions of the first 123 episodes of Detective Conan/Case Closed means that they’ll eventually host the entire show on the site. Or Discotek Media will sell English-subtitled Blu-ray or DVD sets, maybe like the German ones or FUNimation’s old seasonal releases, with 20-30-ish episodes per box.

Or something. Like literally any way I could get my hands on the hundreds of episodes that have never been officially subtitled in English and/or released for home video.

Because goodness gracious. I am struggling right now.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret importing over 150 Detective Conan DVDs from Japan. It’s kinda amazing to physically own more than 750 episodes of the same anime and have that on my shelf. 

And I am constantly beyond impressed by the English softsub files that Conan fans have put together over the years. As someone who captions videos as part of her career, I am continually astounded by what fansubbers have accomplished. The beautifully timed and formatted karaoke for openings and endings, the fantastic English-text edits right in the caption file... it’s absolutely stunning. I wish I could subtitle like that!

[Image descriptions: Screenshots from Detective Conan episodes with English softsub files attached. The first screenshot, from the opening to Episode 168, has the song’s lyrics written in romaji for viewers to sing along to. The current part of the song is in a bigger, glowing white font, while parts of the song that have already passed are in light blue, and parts to come are in red. An English translation for the lyrics are at the bottom. In the second screenshot, from Episode 134, a chat room conversation originally written in Japanese is translated to and animated in English. End image descriptions.]

However, the gap between English-subtitled episodes on Crunchyroll right now—from Episodes 124 to 753—is huge. There are only so many English softsub files in existence, and many were created via OCR, Optical Character Recognition, using the officially(!) English-subtitled footage from United Television Broadcasting (UTB), which aired the series years ago in Southern California.

And I am very grateful to have any English subtitles at all for my Japanese DVDs! But OCR is far from a perfect process, and I dread when my only English subtitle option for an episode is an OCR’d UTB file. While episodes such as those contained in “The Desperate Revival” have been quality checked and edited, going from something like this...

[Image description: A screenshot from Episode 189 of Detective Conan, with an OCR’d English subtitle file attached. Heiji sits on Conan’s hospital bed, holding a bouquet of flowers, and Conan speaks to him. His dialogue is written as, “I’m askin ou a ain...” End image description.]

To this...

[Image description: The same screenshot from Episode 189 as above, though a different English subtitle file is attached. This one reads, “I’m asking you again...” End image description.]

The majority of these files have not been vetted. I’ve watched dozens of cases using .srts riddled with errors.

And I do want to stress: the translations are still largely understandable. I am glad to have them. Sometimes, they can even elevate otherwise dull fillers because I have a horrible sense of humor and find some of the mess-ups hilarious. No joke, I have genuinely fallen to the floor and cried with laughter at a few of the more outlandish goofs in the subtitles.

Okay, maybe that was more tiredness than anything. But still. For unimportant episodes, I generally don’t really mind if the English translation is a bit wonky, even if comprehension is occasionally severely impacted, like below:

[Image descriptions: Screenshots from Episode 283 of Detective Conan, with an English OCR’d subtitle file attached. In the first screenshot, Inspector Yokomizo says, “Ayaka! Please tell us the truth.” In the second screenshot, Ayaka’s response is written as, “LO LL Le aru, vin, ov dainiuiiiila 5 tiauguniet.” End image description.]

I totally understand, Ayaka.

But that said, it is painful to use such unreliable translations in crucial, plot-related episodes, and it’s especially painful when I do have stronger captions available... but they’re for remastered versions of the cases, which often cut or add scenes, and are thus usually totally incompatible with my DVD footage without enormous amounts of editing. 

And I did edit remastered captions to better fit my DVD once before, with Episodes 217-218, “Megure’s Sealed Secret.” But even though the remaster was near identical in terms of content to the original, it did cut out the tiniest little things, like characters repeating what another character had said, and as a result, the timing was just slightly off all over the place. The editing I had to do was so intense that I basically spoiled the entire story for myself just messing with the captions in Subtitle Edit. I decided then that such drastic editing wasn’t something I wanted to do anymore, at least not before watching an episode.

Now, the next case up for me is “Contact with the Black Organization,” Episodes 309-311, and it’s the same scenario: the remastered subtitles don’t work at all with my old DVD footage, and so I’m left with the OCR’d UTB .srt. And it kills me because, as shown above, sometimes you can’t tell at all what’s supposed to be said!

So, like, tl;dr, I love having the show on DVD, and I’m so thankful for and impressed by the folks who put English softsub files out there, even the OCR’d UTB ones! But it’s undeniable that accessing this series in English hasn’t been the easiest, and even with what I already own, I would buy any official English releases for the missing episodes in a heartbeat. Translations already exist into the early 400s! I’m absolutely dying for them to be put on DVD or Blu-ray or Crunchyroll or wherever! And I so hope that Crunchyroll adding more Case Closed, and Discotek Media announcing more Blu-rays, means that they will.

Please I am struggling.

[Image description: A screenshot from Episode 288 of Detective Conan, with an OCR’d English subtitle file attached. Ran and Shinichi, holding umbrellas, look up. Shinichi speaks, and his dialogue is written as, “See, it’s caught on the railing O 10Sses airs a wie ng.” End image description.]