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Ms. Answerman and the Broken Angel


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Lordfan



Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 12
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:31 am Reply with quote
Grave of the Firefly isn't the only movie to show how things were like during WWII. I remember seeing Barefoot Gen in my Japanese I class. The teacher actually showed this to a bunch of highschool freshman and didn't even bother with a permission slip.

Just felt like saying that
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4462
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:40 am Reply with quote
I suspect that the person who told Mr. Stanhill that there is a Battle Royale anime wasn't maliciously lying, he was just thinking of the 1987 OVA series Battle Royal High School, distributed in North America by AnimEigo. It has no relation to the similarly-titled novel, Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami or the movie or manga adaptations.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15279
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 4:03 am Reply with quote
I don't think Americans don't like to read, despite our literacy rate being lower than most third-world countries. It's just a bunch of marketers who think we're too stupid to appreciate anything heard in another language. Plus we're not really taught to value education as much as money, so we view films in terms of economic value. (I.E. "subbed means it's slower and thus I get less done.") CTHD and Passion's success means you can sell a film in any language as long as you emphasize its appeal. (In CTHD's case, it's martial arts. For Passion, it's Jew-hating and getting off on Jesus dying.) As for Grave of the Fireflies, you gotta make sure your fellow students don't have relatives who fought on our side during WW2, because otherwise they might be offended and call you a "pinko American hating terrorist sympathizer" and report you to John Ashcroft.
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Iron Chef



Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 487
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 4:40 am Reply with quote
Two things here: Number one, I think I'm going to have to go against Gatsu on the reading thing. At my work, there are a couple of guys who are casual anime fans, and they both HATE looking at subtitles (which is what I prefer). The reasoning is that it's TV, so minimal effort and thought need to be exercised. Kind of sad, really.

Number two, did anyone else notice the spelling and grammatical mistakes in the letter from the "highschool history teacher?" E-cripes, don't you think teachers ought to be a little bit better than that? I dunno, maybe I'm just being picky...
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15279
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 5:08 am Reply with quote
Iron:
Quote:
At my work, there are a couple of guys who are casual anime fans, and they both HATE looking at subtitles (which is what I prefer).The reasoning is that it's TV, so minimal effort and thought need to be exercised. Kind of sad, really.


That actually supports my original argument. We, as a society, commodify art, and thus attempt to distill it for our own convenience. That it was view it as a distraction within our time window, not as something which stimulates our thought processes, and thus we settle for a "summary"(in this case, dubs) rather than an explanation.
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serenity ex



Joined: 29 Jul 2003
Posts: 7
Location: Diamond Bar, CA
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 5:20 am Reply with quote
actually, i prefer dubs when i'm not there to watch the screen, like when i'm cooking or whatnot. i mean, anime is anime is anime which is still played on tv, and i think that if some people want to relax and enjoy the anime without having to focus on the subtitles, then whatever. america's education system may be inferior to other countries, but out literacy rate is still nearly 100%. okay, perhaps many of us could use a vocabulary lesson, but when was the last time an anime used SAT words? personally, dubs are a matter of taste, not an indication of stupidity.

and hey, is it me, or can ms. answerman start cutting back on the sarcasm just a tad?
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lianncoop
Past ANN Contributor


Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 1705
Location: Indiana
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 5:22 am Reply with quote
serenity ex wrote:
dubs are a matter of taste, not an indication of stupidity.

I applaud you.
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jmays
ANN Associate Editor


Joined: 29 Jul 2002
Posts: 1390
Location: St. Louis, MO
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 5:22 am Reply with quote
GATSU wrote:
we settle for a "summary"(in this case, dubs) rather than an explanation.

Jonathan Klein made an important point to me at AX: Common fan wisdom holds that the subtitled translation is the closest to the original Japanese, and anything that's different in the dub has to be less accurate. This is not always the case. He pointed out that he was criticized for "adding" swearing to a couple of episodes of Hellsing (while the subtitles had much less cursing.) In reality, the client had requested that the subtitle track be toned down, so this time the dub was actually more "correct."

I don't know how often this happens, but it's something to keep in mind next time you're tempted to cling to the subtitles as a haven for accurate dialogue.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:23 am Reply with quote
serenity ex wrote:
personally, dubs are a matter of taste, not an indication of stupidity.

and hey, is it me, or can ms. answerman start cutting back on the sarcasm just a tad?


Yeah, but elitism basically dictates that anyone who does things differently from you is wrong or stupid. Therefore, sub-only fascists will claim until the day they die that not only are subtitles more accurate, watching them is a measure of intelligence.

To answer your second question, I didn't detect any sarcasm in this column, but there was frustration. Who can blame her?
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vherub



Joined: 12 Nov 2003
Posts: 49
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:06 am Reply with quote
exactically-

subs/dubs shouldnt be a matter of choosing sides and rooting for your team to destroy the other, if i want to watch anime on mute whilst standing on my head, reciting the statistics of professional beach volleyball players as my 5 year old cousin plays hi version of "Bang on the Drums All Day" using the "good" pots, so be it and unless you are also in the room, my viewing habits should be just that: mine.

On the hardcore Kenshin fan, that response was a little meanspirited (on both parties). The original question from last week (I took to be) a question along the lines of "there are multiple copies of item x I am interested in buying, but I am not sure which one I should get/what the difference between each of them is." The original response was not that indepth, so there was a followup this week with a more indepth answer. The tone of the follow up did have a bit of a holier-than-thou attitude, which was unneeded, but the follow up answer did then also have some underlying (and not too repressed) anger, which also was not needed. Again, we are all on the same side- that being supported/spreading/enjoying anime goodness.
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Sword of Whedon



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
Posts: 683
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:22 am Reply with quote
Fascist? Hardly

edit- was supposed to be a PM


Last edited by Sword of Whedon on Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:48 am; edited 1 time in total
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:36 am Reply with quote
Sword of Whedon wrote:
Quote:
Yeah, but elitism basically dictates that anyone who does things differently from you is wrong or stupid. Therefore, sub-only fascists will claim until the day they die that not only are subtitles more accurate, watching them is a measure of intelligence.


Facist? Hardly

It's scientifically proven. Dubs engage far less of the brain, and therefore are for the intellectually lazy.


Ladies and Gentlemen, SWORD OF WHEDON!
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Sword of Whedon



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
Posts: 683
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:49 am Reply with quote
Prove me wrong then. Not opinion. Scientific, repeatable, verifiable fact.
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Aaron White
Old Regular


Joined: 23 Aug 2002
Posts: 1365
Location: Birmingham, Alabama
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:53 am Reply with quote
Sword of Whedon wrote:
Fascist? Hardly.

It's scientifically proven. Dubs engage far less of the brain, and therefore are for the intellectually lazy.


As I recall, SoW first asserted that he suspected this to be the case. Later on he simply asserted this, without backing it up with, you know, proof.

The brain has to work just as hard to assimilate and comprehend visuals as it does to assimilate and comprehend text, so SoW's assertion is silly.
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Aaron White
Old Regular


Joined: 23 Aug 2002
Posts: 1365
Location: Birmingham, Alabama
PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:55 am Reply with quote
In the interest of balance I should point out that I agree with Sow on the subject of bootlegging as heartily as I disagree with him on the subject of dubbing.
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