Absolutely sublime when it comes to translating the characters cursing each other out.
Utterly bland when not doing so.
Rock wa Lady no Tashinami deshite‘s “gimmick” is that there are these two very prim and proper young ladies, who become absolute demons when they play rock music. Each of their performances so far has led to them either slagging off each other for not being good enough, or a third party for lacking the balls to keep up with them. Such as in episode five, in which they perform together with a symphonic band, which has settled down in a comfy routine not challenging themselves. They completely burn down a haughty singer for not showing any passion, calling him a limp dicked impotent prick when they’re there rocking out with their cocks out. It’s hilarious and brazen and not something you’d expect from any anime, let alone one starring young ladies at a gokigenyou school. These scenes are the highlight of each episode.
Outside of them, the translation isn’t bad, just bland. You get the gist of what the characters talk about but that’s it. The nuances you can hear in the original Japanese, the way in which they talk to each other when not in the throws of passion, are just missing. And some of it, like the example above where Lilisa’s mother is calling her “Miss Lilisa”, just don’t work in English. Personally, I’d prefer if they’d kept the original Lilisa-san. Some effort is made to distinguish Lilisa’s more crude interior monologue from how she normally talks — using mom instead of mother e.g. — but for the most part the subtitles are functional. The very formal way of talking Lilisa engages in while at school or talking to her mother is barely present in the subtitles. For the most part I wouldn’t be able to pick out the characters from just the subs either, something that e.g. My Dress-Up Darling did manage.
To be fair, it is difficult to achieve when there’s only that much room and you only have text to work with to convey all the things dubs can do with voice and speech mannerisms etc. It’s just that the contrast with the inventiveness with which Lily and Ota’s cursing sessions are translated and everything else in the series is so goddamn high.
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