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REVIEW: Ronja the Robber's Daughter Complete Series Streaming




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Lemonchest



Joined: 18 Mar 2015
Posts: 1771
PostPosted: Thu May 18, 2017 11:41 am Reply with quote
The UK dub is one of the selling points for me. I must admit I've grown pretty tired of hearing the same few American voices in everything to the point that I don't bother with dubbed anime much anymore, so to here a bunch of experienced children's TV voice actors was a really nice break from the norm. Wish it happened more, tbh.

Agree with the episode count issue. The first five episodes in particular, before it becomes at kind of children's Romeo & Juliet in the forest, were really sluggish, padded out by several Ghibli trademarked young girl frolicking through nature scenes. I also thought the length meant that I was increasingly disappointed by how Ronja's mother is really just there to be the fun police for most of it, almost always tutting disapprovingly at Ronja & Mattis's shenanigans from her stove. I also thought it made the harpy lady seem like a rather redundant character, since its kind of implied (or at least, I thought so) that there's more to her interest in Ronja than just wanting to eat her, but it never elaborates on why even though she keeps showing up.

That said, as someone who remembers when kids shows were slower (The Moomins & Wind in the Willows spring to mind), I think the issue is more that it takes too long to get Ronja & Birk together, rather than just generally being sluggish. But it does feel like a 9 hour Ghibli film at times, which I can imagine trying to patience of many.

One thing I really did like, though, was that it didn't balk at depicting the violence that occasionally broke Ronja's idyllic view of their Robin Hood life. When Mattis et al capture Birk, they really lay into him, which I wasn't expecting. It helped add to the sense that we're seeing the world from Ronja's point of view & that the fun & carefree way their life is depicted is less how it is than how she imagines it, having no idea what really goes on when her dad goes thieving or the like.
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Raebo101



Joined: 17 Mar 2010
Posts: 792
PostPosted: Thu May 18, 2017 12:57 pm Reply with quote
Lemonchest wrote:
The UK dub is one of the selling points for me. I must admit I've grown pretty tired of hearing the same few American voices in everything to the point that I don't bother with dubbed anime much anymore...


You'll run into this issue with subbed anime too, y'know. But I guess because it's in another language it's not as noticeable?
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Thu May 18, 2017 5:30 pm Reply with quote
Raebo101 wrote:
You'll run into this issue with subbed anime too, y'know. But I guess because it's in another language it's not as noticeable?

There are a lot more active Japanese anime voice actors than Americans, and by and large they tend to be more versatile too. Sure, there's always someone who gets a lot of roles but that doesn't usually last for long, and in my experience most people don't even notice unless the voice actor in question has a very characteristic voice. ("Remember a few years ago when Oosaka Ryouta was in everything?" "Who's Oosaka Ryouta?") And sure, there are those who keep doing the same thing in every show (Sugita Tomokazu comes to mind) and those who just have the sort of voice that is easily recognizable, but there's probably more of those people alone than there are currently active American anime voice actors.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13541
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Mon May 22, 2017 7:51 am Reply with quote
I wonder what sub purists would favor more for a script: a faithful adaptation of the Japanese script or a faithful adaptation of the Swedish novel the anime is based off of. Personally, I would go with the latter.
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