×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
NEWS: New Generation Pictures Opens Shanghai Studio


Goto page 1, 2  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5459
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:21 am Reply with quote
Ooooo, I wish them luck on this new endevor especially if it gives them more work. I mean the only anime they're dubbing right now is Hellsing since I heard they're already done with Ergo Proxy.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address My Anime My Manga
Aresef



Joined: 22 Jun 2005
Posts: 909
Location: MD
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:48 am Reply with quote
If the end result is better dubs, more power to them I guess.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
LordRobin



Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Posts: 354
Location: Akron, OH
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:55 am Reply with quote
Aresef wrote:
If the end result is better dubs, more power to them I guess.

On the other hand, if this results in more Shanghai dubs like Karin...

I want to trust New Gen on this, I really do. But I just have a really bad feeling about this.

------RM
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Richard J.



Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis.
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:10 am Reply with quote
LordRobin wrote:
On the other hand, if this results in more Shanghai dubs like Karin...
Karin's dub is from Odex and they are in Singapore, not Shanghai.

God bless New Generation Pictures for trying to save English dub fans like me from subtitle-only releases (and make some profit for themselves at the same time.)

God bless you Mr. Klein.

*Edited because my dyslexia is kicking in again.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
khryoleoz



Joined: 21 Apr 2005
Posts: 158
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:28 am Reply with quote
What the...

So now we are also outsourcing our dubs? Not that I've been a big fan of New Gen dubs, but why deny the Los Angeles staff who live and work and pay exorbitant taxes in California their due revenue for what is highly "acclaimed" work? Please rethink this outrageous plan and close that location!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
LordRobin



Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Posts: 354
Location: Akron, OH
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:55 am Reply with quote
Richard J. wrote:
LordRobin wrote:
On the other hand, if this results in more Shanghai dubs like Karin...
Karin's dub is from Odex and they are in Singapore, not Shanghai.

My bad. I confused one Asian city beginning with an "S" with another. And I know that it wasn't a New Gen dub -- I didn't say it was. Still, my worries are the same: moving an English dub to a country where the primary language isn't English.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. New Gen has shown themselves to have very high standards. But until the day comes that I watch that first Shanghai dub, I will continue to be uneasy.

(And I'm also uncomfortable about yet another US industry moving to China.)

------RM
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
luisedgarf



Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 656
Location: Guadalajara, Mexico
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 10:35 am Reply with quote
Well, at least the Americans are not the only ones that suffer about voice-acting being outsourced to another country: Many Latin American Spanish dubs are outsourced to South American countries like Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Argentina
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Richard J.



Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis.
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 10:51 am Reply with quote
LordRobin wrote:
My bad. I confused one Asian city beginning with an "S" with another. And I know that it wasn't a New Gen dub -- I didn't say it was.
I didn't say you thought Karin's dub was a New Gen dub either. I was just pointing out it was Odex, which given some of their flawed production methods, explains the quality issues in and of itself.

LordRobin wrote:
Still, my worries are the same: moving an English dub to a country where the primary language isn't English.
Normally I'd agree, but the point made in the interview about people from English speaking countries living there and their willingness to fly people out there speaks to this issue. I think they've got a plan that might actually work.

I'm certainly concerned on some level about this and I wish they didn't have to do it, but if people over here won't support the DVD releases and if the costs of doing business are so high in LA that they have to do some of their work overseas, I'd rather see them expand to include an overseas facility. It's not like they're shutting down the LA facility, just giving themselves a way to remain competetive. Better to keep them around than to see them go away.

Maybe if the cost of doing business in LA wasn't so insanely high, they wouldn't have to do something like this. (Seriously, property costs alone are madness. My backyard is bigger than the entire estate of some celebrities and that's completely nuts!)

I don't want to see English dubs become a thing of the past and that's the way things are headed for several of the smaller anime companies if a few things don't change. (Look at Media Blasters right now.)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
JackCox



Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 386
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 10:59 am Reply with quote
Anything to get New Generation Pictures back on the map is a good thing. They do their anime dubs really well.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
rpgmaster1



Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Posts: 23
Location: Lawrecneville, Georgia
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 11:04 am Reply with quote
Sounds to me like they're outsourcing their dubs. The majority of anime being licensed is still growing, but much slower because shows are more expensive to dub. Media Blasters is a good example of licensing subbed-only anime. Dubbing them seems to cost a lot more, especially in California. VAs still use aliases to work just to get by, but obviously the studios want to try a different approach.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
khryoleoz



Joined: 21 Apr 2005
Posts: 158
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 11:34 am Reply with quote
Okay, shows are expensive to dub. So what? Isn't that why I paid $20K for all 761 of my domestic anime titles? I don't think that this move will result in lower shelf pricing by any licensor who picks New Gen for the dub.

I'm an amateur recording/mix engineer myself. Having interned at a small project studio that pathetically could not support its own weight due to fierce competition and the proliferation of DIY pre-production via "personal studio equipment", I am very sympathetic to the LA studio(s) that will be losing revenue as a result of this move.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
halo



Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 356
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 11:44 am Reply with quote
I won't get into the semantics argument on whether this is going to be 'expansion' or 'outsourcing'. We simply won't know until they build it and start production. I don't really care where the dubs are produced if they're done well but like others, Odex's horrid dubbing comes to mind.

I would like to point out there are plenty of places in the USA other than LA or NY where you can find a lot of talented actors without the overhead of the big entertainment meccas. Why not build in Cleveland or Seattle? I'm really skeptical that they can find that much usable talent in Singapore.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Dargonxtc



Joined: 13 Apr 2006
Posts: 4463
Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 11:55 am Reply with quote
Quote:
The decline in anime DVD sales over the last few years, combined with the ever-increasing costs in acquisition and licensing of new anime titles, has created a difficult situation where many of our anime distribution clients in America have had to find cost-effective solutions to keep their operations profitable. One of the simplest ways to do that is to cut production costs. As a result, some companies have elected to simply not to dub anime and make subtitle-only releases. Some other anime distributors have asked their production company vendors, like New Generation Pictures, to reduce their prices on their English dubs to help keep costs down.

Or in other words, if that price still isn't good enough, and they have to have a dub, they choose a crap company to do a crap dub for them. It is sad that after all this time, and dubs have finally come to a certain level of respect, that companies will just all of a sudden alienate a large portion of there fanbase. Don't they realize that producing crap will not win any new fans over, and may even start turning many old ones away. If you need to cut costs then license less anime and do an expected level of quality job on it, instead of cutting costs on major features that fans clamor for.

As for the move, I don't have a problem with it, "overall". Without going into to much detail I think it will be a net positive, on many different levels, and allows for more options in a changing market place. the biggest problem for us is if they will be able to do a 90% quality job of there Los Angles home. Which would be good enough I think. We'll see.

Quote:
New Generation Pictures has a reputation for producing award winning, high-quality anime dubs, and we didn't want to damage that reputation by going down either path. So we looked at how we can lower production costs and still maintain quality.

Quote:
Clients who want that level of quality that our Los Angeles productions have to offer will still keep using our services here. But now we have a lower-cost alternative when perhaps the anime distributor's budget on a niche title can't justify doing a dub in America.


I don't know, seems like a contradiction there.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
Rin Tohsaka



Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 39
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 12:20 pm Reply with quote
I think this is quite brilliant, actually.

This could be the start of concurrent bilingual releases in the R2 market. Think about it this way: how cool would it be if both the Japanese language version as well as the english dub were released at the same time? With the new Shanghai branch, I'd assume NGP would have quicker access to scripts and clients.

Also, this puts NGP at the front of releasing English material into the Asian market. I remember a few months back, there was an article in Newsweek (I think) which said there was a fansub scene in China where American shows like Lost and Heroes were being fansubbed for the Chinese market. This could be NGP's chance to be the translators and do ADR work for new shows coming out of the pipe.

Also, I hope this means Geneon drops Odex and uses NGP East for shows.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
CaptainAvatar



Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 381
Location: Saint Louis, MO
PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 12:46 pm Reply with quote
Its a cost saving measure, yet you can fly VA's to China? How does that save money? I'm skeptical, to say the least. However, the times are making these moves inevitable. Just look at how much work Odex has got lately, compared to New Gen - despite the fact that not long ago on Geneon's podcast they admitted that their Odex dubbed titles (though not linking it directly, just mentioning shows like Zipang and Law of Ueki, both Odex dubs) are selling poorly. It is sad, really.

Then again, if this led to Bandai Visual starting to offer bilingual releases (a possibility) I wouldn't mind that.

If economics are a factor, I wouldn't mind ADV doing more dubs like they are doing for Warner on the new Appleseed. They obviously can turn the dubs out for less, and while not a perfect dub studio, they are a far sight better than Odex, and I hate seeing business go to China.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group