Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2008-02-15]
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rebii
Posts: 31 |
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I guess I will start with best and worst dubs. Best dub, Cowboy Bebop, with FMA a close second. Worst dub Scrapped Princess gets a vote, and all the dubs that insist on making young women sound like witless airheads, and young men as snotty punks.
I do prefer sub, I give the dub a chance, but the subs seem to be somewhat better translations, at least from what I can tell. I tend to like Japanese VA's better than the English, Mr. Ayres a notable exception. I came to this prejudice partially after listening to the interviews with Japanese VAs on the Noir disks. Listening to them, then listening to the English VAs in their interviews led me to believe the English VAs do not take their profession seriously. Of the group there was only one who seemed to be serious about it. Do I speak Japanese? No. But I have an aptitude for languages, speaking and reading Spanish very well, and I can get by in French, and German. My Italian is not so good, and my Vietnamese , Korean and Japanese are very limited. But most of all regarding this question, what amazes me most is the remarkable incivility displayed by those holding opposing views. This includes the host of this column, Answerman. Who I realize mut get tired of the inanity of some of the readers, but there is no reason to be as vitriolic as he is at times. Answerman, I do enjoy your column, though I do not always agree with your viewpoints, keep up the good work. |
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Murasakisuishou
 Posts: 1469 Location: NE Ohio |
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...But the Taos are from Guizhou :p Plus, there was actually a British kid who showed up later, but he didn't get an accent. The whole thing was just weird, and the only semi-logical reason for giving Ren and his family British accents was because they're wealthy and intelligent. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4426 |
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I think that my favorite part about the so called "ninjas" was that they claimed that they could actually do these things and that their friends would vouch for it, as if that were actual proof. I'm pretty sure that if they could do something, they'd have better proof than claiming to have a fox spirit in them. I mean, I like to daydream as much as, if not more, than the next person, but at least I know what's fantasy and reality.
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Yuukichan's Papa
 Posts: 93 |
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On technical merits, I'll admit it's a bit of a cop out, but I'd say in my opinion the best dub thus far has been that of Cowboy Bebop's. The acting is good and the voices fit the characters well. My main gripes when it comes to dubbing are the flat, bored sounding serious male voices (which Spike and Jet avoid), and the flat, airy "I'm a little girl" female voices (which Faye, being older than average, also avoids).
My *favorite* dub, however - and therefore I can't really talk about it in technical terms - is definitely the Ranma dub. I don't know what it is, but for such an over the top show, the voices all work incredibly well for me. There is real feeling in their voices, to the extent that I would say they inhabit the roles rather than merely acting them. I will actually outright reject subtitled Ranma in lieu of dubbed. There are a couple other shows I won't mention where I could go either way or somewhat prefer the dub (and prefer the rest purely subbed), but Ranma is the only anime for which I refuse to watch the sub. |
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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I recently gave this a second chance, and it slowly grew on me. I think the biggest issue I had is Ethan Murphy, who just does NOT work as Franz, but he slowly gets less and less screen time as the story progresses. There is one scene later in the show where Albert is pounding on the Count's door screaming, and I was just blown away by how well that was performed. Some of Mercedes (Mia Bradley)'s scenes were quite arresting as well. Oh, I noticed that the encyclopedia lists Johnny Yong Bosch AND Kevin Hatcher as Albert. Anyone know which is right? The DVD credits don't break down by role. My all-time favorite dub is still Kite. Still the only dub that I've ever seen that, purely through brilliant acting and casting, has added an entirely new emotional layer to a story. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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I think the highlight flake of 2007 was definetly the one with the otakukin kids. It is a living testimony for us today that some people get really entangled with their fantasies, and we can only hope that they get out of their virtual world, or that they get some serious professional help. And Zac, I didn't know you wanted to work for Anime Castle
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ConanSan
Posts: 1818 |
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Too bad ratings were crap, thanks to Pokemon being on the WB. If the ratings were just that little bit better, we might of had a version of One Piece from 4kids that wasn't a sin against nature. |
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nightmaregenie
 Posts: 167 Location: Palmy, NZ - student central |
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 I remember that make-believe Naruto kid from before (okay so he believes rather than make-believe). The flake section needs more people like him.
Regarding the Gankutsuou dub: it's not that the VAs don't sound like their Japanese counterparts...they just...sound a bit off for some reason (maybe they just weren't as into their characters as the Japanese ones). Overall it's a fine dub, but not an excellent one. Of course, the fact that the French narrative in each episode got replaced means I'll always watch it subbed. I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Wolf's Rain dub as one of the best. A lot of forum posters seem to be in agreement over this one. |
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Roy9076
 Posts: 286 Location: California |
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Worst would be the 4Kids dub. Rest are fine expect dub hentai. Ick! Favorite dub has always been FLCL. Nearly flawless in every way! Anyways, I miss the otakukin. I was really hoping for a poorly shooped video! Also what I missed is when people just thought licensing shows were awesome and a celebration. Now it is more "bawwwwing" than before. Meh, I'll have to wait for the dust to settle down on the state of anime DVDs and otakukins and their videos. Also, to answer this week's question, what is anime? No seriously, what the hell is it?
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Yuukichan's Papa
Posts: 93 |
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I completely forgot about the FLCL dub. That is definitely up there among the top dubs. I have an FLCL poster from Fanime 2003 that's signed by Kazuya Tsurumaki, Hiroki Sato, Kari Wahlgren, Jennifer Sekiguchi (who is really cute), and Hiroyuki Yamaga (only because he happened to nonchalantly wander into the room after the panel was over and was surprised I recognized him). I got pictures with them all too, it was awesome. |
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Raoh
 Posts: 357 Location: Florence, OR |
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Its funny how Ninjaboy supposably asked Zac questions, yet I see no question marks verifying this as truthful.
Oh, wait, its because he didn't. He claims to be a super ninja, but he hasn't learned Question Mark no Jutsu? Amateur. 
When I was younger I knew a kid who thought he could transform magically into animals (like a shapeshifter). After I told his parents, his Father beat that out of him. It may sound cruel, but it honestly needs to be done. People have the right to thier own beliefs. But if your beliefs are completely outrageous and idiotic, don't expect to ever be taken seriously. |
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MorwenLaicoriel
 Posts: 1617 Location: Colorado |
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Technically, they're BOTH right. But Hatcher is the one credited on the DVD, if that makes sense. (Basically, Hatcher is Bosch's pseudonym.) And I..totally forgot to write in this week. ^^; Oh well...my personal favorite dub is Princess Tutu. That probably won't come as a surprise to anyone who's seen my posts here, but I absolutely love the dub--the cast was perfect (I wouldn't change anyone, even the minor characters!), the script flowed well but is very very close to the sub (and when it deviates I actually think it sounds a little better), and the acting is wonderful. I even think some of the actors in the dub are better than the Japanese version, particularly Drosselmeyer, Autor and Fakir (although all three were excellent in the Japanese dub and I'd highly recommend either cast to anyone). I also really like Full Metal Panic!'s dubs, as well as Spirited Away and Fullmetal Alchemist--I have to give credit to those three, they were the dubs that made me such a big dub fan in the first place! (I feel a little bad that I can't list many dubs with Californian actors...I like that group too, but I tend to watch ADV and Funimation's releases more for whatever reason.) As for the worst...I don't think I've ever seen a dub that made me absolutely hate a show as much as 4Kid's One Piece dub. Now that I've seen some of Funimation's dub, I actually could see myself ENJOYING the show--something I never could with 4Kid's version. |
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Tortoiseshell Tabby Girl
 Posts: 153 |
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Hmm...I haven't noticed anyone mentioning the impressive Haibane Renmei dub. That dub is just absolutely gorgeous to me. The voices made me forget it was animation and a fictional world because they felt so real, sincere, and natural. A lot of times when I watch dubs I kind of imagine the voice actors in the booth during moments when the dub feels off because those moments pull me out of the "trance" of the fictional world for a bit, but with Haibane Renmei, I really felt that the dub voices belonged to the characters. Not "fit," but "belonged." I wonder if maybe the dub is part of the reason that I felt comfortable with the characters right from the first episode and was immediately delighted by each of their idiosyncracies. It was so easy care and worry about them. And it was so easy to cry and feel pain over them. Of course, wonderful plot, character development, art, etc., were part of the equation, too.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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And if fansubs "half-ass" translations and subtitles, I've seen official subs with mistranslations that simply should not have happened given that the companies have professional translators and access to the episode audio and the Japanese recording scripts. And then there's cases, like the ones documented (unofficially) on the AoD Forums where subtitles for Geneon/BangZoom releases got outsourced to some company, or maybe just three random jokers, resulting in subtitles that were professionally accurate, but just sounded terrible. It can't be a good thing when subtitles remind me of the English dub for Garzey's Wing, but when I read lines like, "You're just not easygoing, are you?" in Fafner, I can't escape the connection. Fansub groups may make a few mistakes here and there, but the good ones at least try to do the best possible job when it comes to flow, enjoyability, and context. Just look at The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya -- some people who are less favorable to fansubs than me noted Bandai/BZ's subs as clunky and over-literal. There were some mistranslations and editing errors in the fansubs, but I'd challenge anyone who's seen both to tell me that line-for-line, the fansubs weren't more fun and enjoyable than the official version. (Episode airing order aside.) Again, I don't think that fansubs are more accurate than official subs. But there's a lot more to subtitles than accuracy, and my point is that the gulf between legit and fan-made is not so much "Perfect --- Trash" as it is "Extremely Good --- Pretty Good." But to some extent, it doesn't make a bit of difference (guys) which one is better. As I learned in the world of fast food, "Perception is Reality," and people perceive that fansubs are better, so that's reality to them. It's probably not based on real or assumed knowledge of Japanese -- it's "fansubs have honorifics and leave the Last-First name order intact [and all this other stuff] but DVDs don't, so fansubs have better translations." A flawed analysis, yes, but that's the philosophy that's out there. Which is why I think companies should work with (competent) fansub groups, or at least adopt some of the practices of fansubs as much as possible under DVD technology limitations. Disclaimer: The preceding statements were my personal opinions and are not representative of Anime News Network, its editorial department, or anyone else other than myself. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Given how utterly militant you are on this and how often you defend fansubs, I'm pretty sure this isn't true. You can think what you think and express your opinion but please don't expect us to swallow this bitter pill without gagging, thanks. Just be honest. |
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