Forum - View topicPile of Shame - Special Duty Combat Unit Shinesman
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deathfromabove1993
Posts: 120 Location: Chicago, IL |
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Not much of a Sentai/Tokusatsu fan myself, but this seems like a show right up my alley. Maybe I'll try to find the DVD somewhere.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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We need another title for the column besides "Pile of Shame" (whatever happened to "Buried Treasures", or is that someone else?)
The dub is still a historic birth-of-anime textbook lesson in how to capture the spirit of an anime comedy for a US audience, even if you don't slavishly capture every word translation. And yes, the original JP was one-idea unfunny, and the dub's comic timing still holds up with even what we know from Funi and ADV today. ("Tough words, Mr. Failed-His-Driving-Test-Three-Times..." "What?" "Nothing.") |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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That's odd. I was an anime fan by 1996 (though barely), and I had never heard of it. Even at my high school, we watched and discussed stuff from then-new releases to early 80's stuff, and I still had never heard of it until now.
The Internet wasn't big back then though, so I guess I would only really hear about the anime my circles would be talking about. I suppose as a parody, it didn't sit well with some of them, as it'd make fun of the things they loved (kind of like how my father hated Mystery Science Theater 3000 with a passion because he was a B-movie fan). |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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I'm not very familiar with sentai besides watching some US Power Rangers when I was in elementary school like every other kid at the time so maybe I'm just lacking context, but every sentai parody I've ever seen has been pretty flat.
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silentjay
Posts: 304 |
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It's a very gentle parody, and is more "laughs with" than "laughs at." |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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No, was more the case that by the late 90's, when we started getting dub and sub VHS--but not both, as with DVD, so you had to "take sides"--as far as the core fans were concerned, dubs were Evil because of Sailor Moon and Pokemon, and that was that. No true fan would be caught watching a low-grade dub-release VHS, as those were for "traitors" and clueless idiots.
Also, nobody really knew how to do dubbed comedy, apart from some of the titles coming out of CPM, with Project A-Ko, Dominion, and Beautiful Dreamer, and dubs were either clumsy reciting of the faithful sub scripts, or just made up over it, like the Team Rocket scenes on Pokemon. To tell a core sub fan that a dub release was actually funnier was to challenge them to a bar bet that they were sure you were going to lose. And yet, like Disney's Doraemon today, the dub demonstrated that just changing the delivery of the jokes to something more "American" doesn't mean you have to change the jokes themselves, a la Sgt. Frog. (In one scene, as the Shinesmen are caught in a trap, the ladies'-man of the group in the JP thinks, "I must live, if only to love again!"--The dub tweaked it to the immortal line, "I can't die, I've got a date with Turkish twins!") Not to mention finally establishing Coastal Carolina as the one early dub studio that Showed Us How To Do It, and helped shape the future of dubbed comedy, as the Ocean Group later moved on into Viz's Ranma 1/2 and Funi's DBZ. I wouldn't say Shinesman was the "Jackie Robinson of comedy dubs", but it did break down a lot of barriers with fans, and help open up the community's mind about anime's future in the mainstream. |
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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While I agree with some of your overall point, Viz's Ranma 1/2 dubs predate this release by around 3 years. There were more than a handful of good comedy dubs before this, such as Streamline's Neo-Tokyo: The Order to Stop Construction, Dirty Pair specials, Ocean's Project A-ko sequels (so-so OAVs, but decent dubs), and the Manga UK dubs that CPM released. Urusei Yatsura, a NYC-based Matlin Recording dub from '98, came out around the same time as this.) |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Wow, was this show really that big among anime fans of the mid- to late-90's of the English-speaking world?
Ah, I get what you mean then. I decided to check the TV Tropes article for "Superlative Dubbing," and this show is not listed among them. Maybe, then, it's well-known in some circles and not in others, since before the Internet became popular, I would imagine anime fandom kind of existed in bubbles largely independent from each other. |
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wonderwomanhero
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Whatever happened to Scott Simpson anyway? Is he still around?
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belvadeer
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This show has been on my "Want to see" list for a few years now. I need to get around to acquiring a copy.
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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Ah, I remember this. Its a good viewing with friends, but doesn't overstay. Had the VHS dub back in the days, I think. Its been so long my memories don't hold.
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jr240483
 Posts: 4374 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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and considering the timeline where dubbing was not up to snuff, it definitely should be a buried treasure and not pile of shame. that category goes to every series that 4kids dubbed.
seriously? cause i really really doubt that. if it was the 1989 theater version and not the pioneer version of akira, then i could believe that cause there are some anti dub otakus that liked that version of akira. |
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staab99
 Posts: 123 |
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I love this OVA, the first time I saw this was one of my old anime club presidents showed this to me (i was the vice president of the club at the time) and I thought it was hilarious, we decided to show to club one day and everyone was laughing and quoting it afterwards. Still to this date they still show it once a year (it's a yearly tradition we showed in club along with Golden Boy and Castle of Cagliostro) up at Northern Arizona University Anime Club. But there are people who think it's really lame, of course those people can get in the glowing green square for all i care.
 
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2544 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I saw this for the first time earlier this year, and I immensely enjoyed it. Unlike Justin, though, I found both audio tracks to be enjoyable. Coastal's dub was indeed very amusing & self-referential, which worked for what it aimed for, but I also found the original Japanese version very funny. It's probably a cultural thing more than anything else, but I've seen the concept of treating ridiculous things as normal used in Japanese productions before, with the joke itself being that everyone is taking such inanity seriously. Here in America that kind of humor tends to not work for most people, but I personally find that kind of humor hilarious; there's just something amusing about a group like Shinesman taking themselves seriously when it's obvious that they probably shouldn't.
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noigeL
Posts: 149 |
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Every single time. Someone just has to say this. Every. Single. Time. |
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