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NEWS: Arrietty Anime Film's U.S. Dub Featurette Posted


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neocloud9



Joined: 06 Oct 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:47 pm Reply with quote
Excited to see this on the big screen, but I'm still not a big fan of Disney Americanizing the human characters' names... The U.K. dub didn't do that, did it?
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lem



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PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 9:53 pm Reply with quote
lookin' forward to buyin' the blu-ray.
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icomeanon6
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 10:13 pm Reply with quote
neocloud9 wrote:
Excited to see this on the big screen, but I'm still not a big fan of Disney Americanizing the human characters' names... The U.K. dub didn't do that, did it?

I'm not sure what the UK dub did on anything, but this is one of those cases where the "Americanization" doesn't really bother me. I mean, the story's not a Japanese story to begin with; it was originally a British novel. No one in English speaking countries expects The Borrowers to be particularly Japanese. I wouldn't even call this "Americanization," it's more like simple Anglicization.

Anyway, Disney has done a phenomenal job with Ghibli releases in the past and I'm sure this will be no exception. I remember when I watched Ponyo in the theater how happy I was that there were so many five year olds in the audience whose presumably non-anime-fan parents heard about the film and brought them to it. It's so great for little kids to get see these Ghibli movies, and Disney delivers. They always get great voice talent and write excellent English scripts; I am positive that Arrietty will have an exceptional US dub.
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neocloud9



Joined: 06 Oct 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 10:46 pm Reply with quote
icomeanon4 wrote:
I mean, the story's not a Japanese story to begin with; it was originally a British novel. No one in English speaking countries expects The Borrowers to be particularly Japanese. I wouldn't even call this "Americanization," it's more like simple Anglicization.


I see where you're coming from, but it's just weird considering Disney's never done this with any of their previous Ghibli releases before. They've always been slavishly faithful to the original characters' names, even when it might make sense to Americanize them, like the bizarre "Markl" version of Howl's assistant in HMC - originally Michael in the novel.

That, combined with the fact that they've got a different team working on this dub (the only Ghibli films Gary Rydstrom had anything to do with were Earthsea and this one - and Karey Kirkpatrick hasn't done any Ghibli work for Disney ever before) and I just can't rely on Disney's past successes with Ghibli dubs as any sort of quality indicator for this film.

Which is a real shame, because I've seen the Japanese version of this film and it's brilliant - one of my all time favorites, to be sure. I'll go in with an open mind, but I'm still not a big fan of the name changes. At least we'll still have the U.K. dub if this one disappoints...
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Racheldoublemm



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PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 11:25 pm Reply with quote
I can never get over the fact that Mendler sounds exactly like Cherami Leigh....
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The Mad Manga Massacre



Joined: 15 Jul 2009
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 11:57 pm Reply with quote
I saw a poster for this film at the Galaxy in Regina and my eyes went Shocked. Super excited for this film!
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 5:57 am Reply with quote
icomeanon4 wrote:

Anyway, Disney has done a phenomenal job with Ghibli releases in the past and I'm sure this will be no exception. I remember when I watched Ponyo in the theater how happy I was that there were so many five year olds in the audience whose presumably non-anime-fan parents heard about the film and brought them to it. It's so great for little kids to get see these Ghibli movies, and Disney delivers.


As I've mentioned here before:

Saw Ponyo in a 3/4 full theater at Times Square. We didn't fully understand the resolution neither. But what's notable about that experience was that there were many moms there with their young kids. Many of them didn't even know it's anime or even heard about it. Apparently, they only found out about it thru Disney's magazines and TV ads. So at least that's a well-targeted marketing.

They did advertise Ponyo, even on TV (if you watch TV - a lot of anime fans don't much), particularly children timeslots since that's its target audience (older folks who know about it are obviously already anime watchers). Many parents in the theaters also heard about it from Disney's e-mailing lists and promos for families (they had not known anything about the movie beforehand).
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Chrno2



Joined: 28 May 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:27 pm Reply with quote
THANK YOU!!! For a minute I was afraid that the film wasn't coming until late next year. Good to know they are about getting the newer films out. Of course there is another film but that one we definitely won't see for a good while. So looking forward to seeing it. The art book is already on my list of recommendations.
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TurnerJ



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 1:15 pm Reply with quote
icomeanon4 wrote:
Anyway, Disney has done a phenomenal job with Ghibli releases in the past and I'm sure this will be no exception. I remember when I watched Ponyo in the theater how happy I was that there were so many five year olds in the audience whose presumably non-anime-fan parents heard about the film and brought them to it. It's so great for little kids to get see these Ghibli movies, and Disney delivers. They always get great voice talent and write excellent English scripts; I am positive that Arrietty will have an exceptional US dub.


I have actually come across certain people who absolutely DETEST the Disney Ghibli dubs and say that all of them are "consistently bad" and that all the dubs are badly miscast and horribly acted and/or abominations to the original. I seriously don't understand where those people are coming from; every single Disney dub has been a winner to my ears. I have yet to hear a bad one.
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GhostShell



Joined: 25 Jan 2011
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 5:47 pm Reply with quote
Sorry, after listening to the samples of the U.S. dub and the U.K. dub, I'm still thinking the English U.K. accents fit the story better. I'll still wait until after I've seen both versions to make a final decision as to which version of the BD to buy, though. And again, not sure why Disney felt they couldn't just leave the title as Arrietty. At least they're putting the marketing into it. I'm looking forward to seeing any version of this movie on the big screen.
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TurnerJ



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:15 pm Reply with quote
GhostShell wrote:
Sorry, after listening to the samples of the U.S. dub and the U.K. dub, I'm still thinking the English U.K. accents fit the story better. I'll still wait until after I've seen both versions to make a final decision as to which version of the BD to buy, though. And again, not sure why Disney felt they couldn't just leave the title as Arrietty. At least they're putting the marketing into it. I'm looking forward to seeing any version of this movie on the big screen.


Oh great. Here we go again. Another case of a Disney dub about to be compared unfavorably to another existing dub. Why can't we just appreciate both versions on their own terms?
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Alexis.Anagram



Joined: 26 Jan 2011
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:32 pm Reply with quote
neocloud9 wrote:
Excited to see this on the big screen, but I'm still not a big fan of Disney Americanizing the human characters' names... The U.K. dub didn't do that, did it?

I'd feel a lot better about it if they were at least using the names of the original book characters. The way they're doing it, it hearkens back to the arbitrary rewriting that went on with a lot of old dubs (obviously, Sailor Moon comes to mind, although that went beyond simple character renaming). I could see them trying to "localize" or "anglicize" it in terms of restoring some aspects of the source material, but it's unclear what their aim is here. This dub is already complicated by the fact that there will be two English-language versions; perhaps Disney is trying to set theirs apart with the character names? I'm a bit disappointed, though. I didn't realize until now that they were making this kind of alteration. I can only assume this means they're relocating the story to the US. I'm not sure if that presents any difficulty in terms of the script or story since I haven't seen the Japanese release yet, but it doesn't seem like a wise move, regardless. It'll definitely be a thorn in my side when watching the film-- and it's also reinforcing my preference for the UK dub (which I've also only seen the trailer for), provided they haven't made similar changes.

icomeanon4 wrote:
Anyway, Disney has done a phenomenal job with Ghibli releases in the past and I'm sure this will be no exception.

I beg to differ on a couple of points. Their Totoro dub didn't do it for me (although I appreciate that they got Satsuki's name right, unlike Streamline's SATSOOOOOOKI) and I thought Claire Danes was pretty boring (if tolerable) as San. I won't disagree that they've definitely gotten better, recently.

GhostShell wrote:
...not sure why Disney felt they couldn't just leave the title as Arrietty...

The Japanese title of the film wasn't just Arrietty, either. I think this does have to do with separating the different versions; since it's being released in the UK as just Arrietty I think Disney doesn't want people mistakenly thinking it's the same film. Well, it is, but it's not. There might also be a rights issue, although I somehow doubt Disney would lose out to anyone in that regard. Anyhow, I kind of like how it sounds, and everyone will probably just refer to it as "Arrietty" regardless, so no harm no foul.

The Mad Manga Massacre wrote:
I saw a poster for this film at the Galaxy in Regina and my eyes went Shocked . Super excited for this film!

I walked into the theater I worked at the other day and saw a poster for this on the wall. Had to do a double take. It's the first poster I've asked to take home once we're done with it since I got hired...and found out my anime loving coworker had already claimed it. Luckily, we have two! :'D
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 12:12 am Reply with quote
Alexis.Anagram wrote:

GhostShell wrote:
...not sure why Disney felt they couldn't just leave the title as Arrietty...

The Japanese title of the film wasn't just Arrietty, either.


The Japanese title is 借りぐらしのアリエッティ aka Karigurashi no Arietti or The Borrower Arrietty.
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TurnerJ



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 481
Location: Highland Park, NJ
PostPosted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 1:04 am Reply with quote
I personally liked the Disney dub of My Neighbor Totoro. It's not the same as the FOX dub, true, but that doesn't make it bad. I thought the Fanning sisters did fairly well, although Elle was clearly the livelier of the two. The only misstep of the dub was the OP & ED songs which were less gung-ho in the FOX dub, but otherwise I can't find anything wrong with it.

As for Claire Danes' San, there were a couple of places where she didn't always nail her lines, but otherwise, I liked her performance as well as the whole dub of Mononoke. As far as I'm concerned, the Disney dubs have always been good. Whether they've gotten better or worse is totally subjective and up to the viewer, but personally I think all of them are pretty terrific.
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Alexis.Anagram



Joined: 26 Jan 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 2:58 am Reply with quote
enurtsol wrote:
Alexis.Anagram wrote:

GhostShell wrote:
...not sure why Disney felt they couldn't just leave the title as Arrietty...

The Japanese title of the film wasn't just Arrietty, either.


The Japanese title is 借りぐらしのアリエッティ aka Karigurashi no Arietti or The Borrower Arrietty.

Correct. Hence, not just Arrietty.

@TurnerJ: Of course, it's all just subjective. And, really, what matters is that people are enjoying Studio Ghibli in whatever fashion they are so inclined to.

Personally, I swoon every time I hear Willem Dafoe's Cob in Tales of Earthsea, so I'm hardly one to solicit judgment.
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