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Post by dvewlsh on Mar 14, 2018 23:01:41 GMT 1
My pleasure. Hard to get into fights if you don't understand where the fighters are coming from. Thank you! Both for the comment and the humongous wall of translation above it. Some people are mainly interested in the quality of fights/fighters and there's nothing wrong with that, but for me that approach doesn't really work as it feels a bit distant and sterile if that choice of words makes any sense. I really care a lot about the stories behind the fighters and stories behind matchups. Have yet to read the Takeru interview, but will comment as soon as I get it done. Narrative ALWAYS enhances fights. Always. |
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Post by karaevfan on Mar 15, 2018 5:06:27 GMT 1
Next up is Koji's interview. The biggest heel in K-1 Japan faces Hirotaka in QF1 of the tournament.
Turn on closed captions for subtitles
Not too much time today, but hoping to translate the following up until the event
- Fighter interview vids for tournament participants (Komiyama, Goshyu, Suarek remains. I'll exclude Takeru cause I did the super long interview)
- Text interviews of other participants
- Do the 'ONE DAY' documentary for Hiramoto as he preps for vs. Kaew
- Masato's breakdown and tournament winner pick
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Post by fartsmeller on Mar 15, 2018 11:03:15 GMT 1
Hahaha, great job. I had no idea he was funny. VTRs can tell you a lot just through visual storytelling but man, you really don't get it until you understand the language.
I know they don't care at all about broadcasts outside of Japan, but maybe you should pitch the idea of subtitling some of their promo material to trial an iPPV for next year's big show or something?
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Post by karaevfan on Mar 16, 2018 4:57:40 GMT 1
Hahaha, great job. I had no idea he was funny. VTRs can tell you a lot just through visual storytelling but man, you really don't get it until you understand the language. I know they don't care at all about broadcasts outside of Japan, but maybe you should pitch the idea of subtitling some of their promo material to trial an iPPV for next year's big show or something? You're kind to say, but I'm not nearly good enough as a translator or consistent enough in terms of putting in work to pull that off. Back in the FEG days, I'd been pouring over k-1.co.jp and could pump out a fan translation for their interviews on the day they were posted (at least before they started doing the HDNet stuff and translating things on their end). These days, I have all these a-dult time crunches. Speaking of which, I'm already running behind so no new stuff up today (fail!) but I promise to tag back double-duty for the weekends. |
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Post by karaevfan on Mar 16, 2018 5:59:14 GMT 1
...and I lied. But did a low effort fun one. The Koji vs Urabe Hirotaka Presser which was comedy gold
I noticed that K-1 Japan actually allows community CC subtitle submissions. I've uploaded a version of the video on my channel unlisted while the approval is going through, but hopefully if they approve my CC contributions that means I can just add to their content directly.
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Post by JustBleedFan on Mar 19, 2018 6:48:24 GMT 1
I watched most of the K-1 Japan tournament cards last year after the fact on YouTube and enjoyed them to a limited degree. But I have to make my obligatory ethnocentric comment here: Now that even Kunlun has English commentary on Fite.tv, either live or on delay, there is no excuse for K-1 Japan to not offer an iPPV to the rest of the world interested in kickboxing who don't understand Japanese. Also, let's be honest, twenty-something fights and a nine+ hour broadcast is too much, come on.
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Post by karaevfan on Mar 19, 2018 7:12:18 GMT 1
I watched most of the K-1 Japan tournament cards last year after the fact on YouTube and enjoyed them to a limited degree. But I have to make my obligatory ethnocentric comment here: Now that even Kunlun has English commentary on Fite.tv, either live or on delay, there is no excuse for K-1 Japan to not offer an iPPV to the rest of the world interested in kickboxing who don't understand Japanese. Also, let's be honest, twenty-something fights and a nine+ hour broadcast is too much, come on. I would imagine the excuse is "translation and hiring a commentary team is a lot of work, especially for a 15 person company whos media team has far bigger priorities (e.g. actually getting a TV slot in Japan, selling out Saitama Super Arena)". Heck its so much work I've barely been able to keep up with just translating a few interview clips here and there Why would K-1 Japan offer an iPPV for this? Its a 9 hour broadcast in the midst of the night on a Wednesday for most of the English speaking community. Charitably speaking they might sell a 100 iPPVs. Yay, an extra $2K. I'm sure it'll cover cost of commentary and English marketing. There exists such a thing as return on investment and effective prioritization. K-1 Japan fucks up a lot of stuff, but that isn't one of them. And lets be honest. If your reaction to this card is "its too much, come on" then really you're probably not the target market. That's fine. I watch maybe one UFC card a year live. But that doesn't mean they're effing up in so far as they have a huge fanbase that watches their Fight Pass events or Facebook events or what have you. You're free to say that K-1 Japan isn't reaching out to someone of your demographics, but the reality is that they're probably gonna get +1M viewers tomorrow and they've just sold out Saitama Super Arena as of today.  |
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Post by JustBleedFan on Mar 19, 2018 7:44:29 GMT 1
I watched most of the K-1 Japan tournament cards last year after the fact on YouTube and enjoyed them to a limited degree. But I have to make my obligatory ethnocentric comment here: Now that even Kunlun has English commentary on Fite.tv, either live or on delay, there is no excuse for K-1 Japan to not offer an iPPV to the rest of the world interested in kickboxing who don't understand Japanese. Also, let's be honest, twenty-something fights and a nine+ hour broadcast is too much, come on. I would imagine the excuse is "translation and hiring a commentary team is a lot of work, especially for a 15 person company whos media team has far bigger priorities (e.g. actually getting a TV slot in Japan, selling out Saitama Super Arena)". Heck its so much work I've barely been able to keep up with just translating a few interview clips here and there Why would K-1 Japan offer an iPPV for this? Its a 9 hour broadcast in the midst of the night on a Wednesday for most of the English speaking community. Charitably speaking they might sell a 100 iPPVs. Yay, an extra $2K. I'm sure it'll cover cost of commentary and English marketing. There exists such a thing as return on investment and effective prioritization. K-1 Japan fucks up a lot of stuff, but that isn't one of them. And lets be honest. If your reaction to this card is "its too much, come on" then really you're probably not the target market. That's fine. I watch maybe one UFC card a year live. But that doesn't mean they're effing up in so far as they have a huge fanbase that watches their Fight Pass events or Facebook events or what have you. You're free to say that K-1 Japan isn't reaching out to someone of your demographics, but the reality is that they're probably gonna get +1M viewers tomorrow and they've just sold out Saitama Super Arena as of today. Sorry, but I don't buy that excuse that it's not cost effective or too difficult. If other companies like Kunlun or WFL in kickboxing and KSW in MMA with relatively limited staffs who heavily cater to home markets in their respective China and The Netherlands and Poland can work with the likes of streaming platforms like Fite.tv or Cleeng, there is zero excuse for K-1 Japan not to broadcast their cards to the rest of the world in English addition to their home market. The old K-1 did it too, let's not forget either. Maybe they'll see the wisdom of it eventually or maybe not for some weird Japanese cultural reasons. Doesn't help that despite the fights often being good K-1 Japan's tv production is so sterile and boring on top of everything else. As far as the time thing, yeah, no way can anyone defend such a marathon. It's too much in a sitting. I regularly sit through 12-fight six to seven hour UFC cards every week including a pre-fight and post-fight show and post-fight press conference, but 9+ hours and twenty-something fights is really challenging the audience to turn something that they enjoy into a chore that they have to soldier on through bleary-eyed at some point. Reminds me of a couple of years ago when the UFC ran two cards back to back from different parts of the world like Germany and Brazil in one day. I made it through the thirteen or so hour ordeal, but I'm glad they're not doing that again. |
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Post by Shadess on Mar 19, 2018 12:34:26 GMT 1
Agree and disagree a bit with you both Doing commentary themselves just for fite or something could be worth trying out maybe but I get that not being any kind of a priority though. buuut K-1 has a good enough product that they could get it aired somewhere in English for little effort on their part. You quite simply cannot tell me like a FightBox for example wouldn't broadcast them and they do the commentary. K-1 probably wouldn't get a ton of money from that but it'd get the already good product out there more whereas now for many beyond Asia at least it's still like K-1 went bankrupt and never came back. Not entirely sure how the Kunlun English commentary is done but AFAIK they mostly do that because of Fox Sports Asia and by good luck for us we're getting it streamed on fite now too. Think TopKing has the same guys as Kunlun doing English commentary as well so assuming it's through whoever has a hand in those productions. Maybe Topking is also on Fox and it's through them? Never get their product in English even if they do do it Point is there's someone out there who would do the commentary for K-1 without it being a huge hassle for them and since the product is good enough they'd at the very least get their money back and spread the product more. K-1 either can't really broadcast beyond Japan for some contractual bs or they're morons when it comes to this is basically what I think Being moronic seems entirely possible looking at how the Chinese promotions have mostly just ignored even trying to spread their content. Slapping on an English commentary track is fairly trivial in 2018. |
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Post by fartsmeller on Mar 19, 2018 13:10:23 GMT 1
I'd be happy paying to watch K-1 Japan with either no commentary or Japanese commentary. Honestly the most memorable fight I ever watched in the time I bought It's Showtime shows was Robin van Roosmalen vs William Diender, which for whatever reason had absolutely no commentary but had all the ring noise.
I realise the economics of iPPV are shitty, they're a small, lean company, and that Japanese shows take place at a time that is flat out bad for the biggest part of the Western audience (North America). I'd accept a zero effort product just to be able to see it without jumping through hoops.
Great news that they sold out Saitama though. Any idea how many seats they had it configured for?
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Post by karaevfan on Mar 19, 2018 15:14:46 GMT 1
Great news that they sold out Saitama though. Any idea how many seats they had it configured for? Best guess is 18K. Either of those seem plausible. I could easily imagine they're tangled up by commitments on both the media (Abema) and the ownership (K-1 Global) side. Then again I've also met some of their press employees. They seem just worked to death in general. |
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Post by K1power on Mar 19, 2018 20:48:39 GMT 1
Going to limit myself to some quick notes to keep myself from pouring 3 hours into writing another novel:
I would definitely like K-1 events to be more accessible to fans outside of Japan: only us hardcore fans are willing to put in the extra effort to overcome technical hurdles to watch. Easier access means more eyes. It's that simple. At the same time I fully understand K-1 staffers - as things currently stand - have so much shit on their plate they really can't be bothered to put effort into getting the product to people outside of their main market of Japan. Get their shit together before doing anything that's essentially supplementary.
Who knows though: maybe K-1 Global and/or FEG consequences are keeping K-1 from going outside of Japan.
As far as commentary goes: English (and/or any localization) would be cool for everybody who wants/needs it. My personal favorite is still the Japanese commentary though. It's part of the experience of enjoying K-1 and J-events in general. It's somewhat comparable to 'Subbed vs. Dubbed': the original is always better as far as I'm concerned.
I will say though that I love Fred Royers' commentary as it's hearing him commentating K-1 on Eurosport is what got me into it to begin with. While I'm talking about EuroSport: How cool would it be if K-1 went back to its European 'roots' of EuroSport? Both K-1 and SuperKombat making a combined comeback on the network would be very much welcomed by me.
And yes, 9 hours is a long, long ride and definitely not for everybody. Keep in mind though that the first chunk of those 9 hours is undercard stuff. Since K-1 actually knows matchmaking and pacing you have the realistic option to skip those fights to focus on the main ones which are scheduled for the main portion without the risk of missing a high quality fight.
Still have to read/watch all the promo stuff and things karaevfan prepared for us, but I figured I'm gonna do a hype-festa-marathon tomorrow night as I really want to take my time for this!
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Post by K1power on Mar 19, 2018 20:58:07 GMT 1
Also..
happening this Wednesday!
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Post by fartsmeller on Mar 19, 2018 21:00:04 GMT 1
Also.. happening this Wednesday!Tuesday and wednesday, depending on your timezone |
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Post by K1power on Mar 19, 2018 21:04:36 GMT 1
Lol, yeah I forgot about US viewers my bad.
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