Forum - View topic

NEWS: GKIDS Licenses Studio Ghibli's Full Catalog for Blu-ray/DVD Release

Kosaka wrote:

I hope GKIDS will announce whether or not the Disney dubs will be on the new releases, or whether that's yet to be determined. If Disney has rights to the dubs, I would guess that GKIDS would have to negotiate a separate deal with Disney, if both parties were interested in making such a deal. If Ghibli has full rights to the dubs, then GKIDS would presumably be getting those dubs and they could announce that fact.

I think Disney still has the rights to the dubs -- they did, after all, produce them. And yes, they WILL be retained on the BDs.

FLCLGainax wrote:

Yes, Kiki's dub was commissioned by Ghibli for those flights. The Porco dub was also produced for the same purpose, but Streamline may not have been involved with it.

They weren't involved with the previous dubs of either Porco Rosso OR Castle in the Sky. Both were done very quickly and primarily for Japan Airlines, which explains both turned out the way they did. (Seriously, here's a comparison clip of the JAL dub of Castle VS the Disney one: https://vimeo.com/30591046) I know Magnum did the first Castle dub, but I'm not sure who did the first Porco dub. Either way, both pale compared to their Disney counterparts: the former suffers from many laughable and stilted bits of dialogue: "Now say bye-bye!" and the latter is just plain bad all around: "The dirty rotten sc-u-u-u-um" and "Buzz off, sausage breath!"

[Edit]: ditto.

^

They are using the Disney-produced dubs. They are not redubbing the movies. The dubs are well-respected and well-liked, and there's no reason to dub them again.

Proof: look at the latest cover art posted.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Nausicaa-of-the-Valley-of-the-Wind-Blu-ray/184138/
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Castle-in-the-Sky-Blu-ray/184134/
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/My-Neighbor-Totoro-Blu-ray/184137/
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Kikis-Delivery-Service-Blu-ray/184136/
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Princess-Mononoke-Blu-ray/184140/
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Spirited-Away-Blu-ray/184141/
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Howls-Moving-Castle-Blu-ray/184135/
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Ponyo-Blu-ray/184139/

See? Now put this issue to rest.

If you want to believe that, go right ahead.

But there's no reason to assume that it's going to happen.

A friend of mine actually emailed GKIDS asking a few things about their releases...

^Straight from the horse's mouth there. "We are using what is Ghibli-blessed as the "studio approved version". Ergo, they are not making a new dub. Though interestingly, another comment from them on Twitter said that they'd be using specifically what's on the Japanese BDs, which probably means that the English track for Laputa will be using the reorchestrated, expanded soundtrack from Disney's first releases of the movie. The one that they themselves stopped using in subsequent releases. Because yeah, the Japanese BD of that movie still has that soundtrack, in an actually unique mix of the dub that's also removed much of Disney's added dialogue (which Disney themselves also removed in subsequent re-releases, but there was never a Disney release with the revised soundtrack that didn't also have all the extra dialogue).

The only Ghibli dub that has any connection with Streamline Pictures is the original Totoro English dub.
In the Carl Macek audio interview that ANN did years ago -- might have been one of his last before he died --, he was very clear that this was the only Ghibli title he supervised the dub on.

The dub was done on the behest of Ghibli for the Troma Pictures' theatrical exhibition of Totoro theatrically in the US.
Yeah, it was THAT Troma -- the guys who produced the Toxic Avenger movies!

Among anime distributors in the US, I've noticed very few companies bother with releasing alternate English tracks on their releases aside from the limited DVD releases of the first two Gatchaman dubs/edits. Discotek has had alternate English dubs for the Lupin III features that had them (Castle of Cagliostro, Secret of Mamo) and Media Blasters also released both dubs of Giant Robo -- the original Manga Video version and their own in-house English dub. The most recent example of an alternate English dub made available is the Funimation release of Akira which brought back the 1988 dub. That's the first US release that had both English dub tracks on it.
There's probably upwards of at least a half-dozen other theatrical features or OVAs that have at least two existing English dubs. The best known aside from Akira is probably Vampire Hunter D -- that OVA has dubs from both Streamline and Section 23.