Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2010-02-12]
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Ryo Hazuki
Posts: 365 Location: Finland |
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How many times theme songs for live-action movies are dubbed? I have never read the reasoning behind not dubbing songs of Hong Kong movies being that the record labels believe that Sally Yeh or Leslie Cheung might break in the western music market. I don't even believe that The Terminator's obscure pop songs were dubbed in German, Italian or Spanish (correct me if I'm wrong). I can understand dubbing the songs if the show is a musical but I really don't get the Idea of wanting everything in your own language just for the sake of it. Maybe it's because I'm Finnish and am exposed to foreign languages every day just by watching television or listening to music that these kind attitudes in your and in some other posts feel so alien to me. I don't think there are that many Finnish people or at least young ones who refuse to watch anything but Finnish shows or listen to anything but Finnish language music. |
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The King of Harts
 Posts: 6712 Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia |
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Pardon? English voice actors don't have singing training? I'd like to know where you heard that information. If you read 100 biographies of VA's I can almost guarantee 80 of them would have had some type of singing lessons in their life. It's almost a necessity to have the ability to sing if you want to be an actor. Hell, it seems like almost everyone who works for Texas is or was in band. |
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Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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Yeah, those VA's did a great job in that one Ranma 1/2 episode! Only, well, they didn't. |
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Kidnicky
Posts: 79 |
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If it works in Japan it will work everywhere. That's the thought process,even if you and I realise it doesn't make any sense. |
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PMDR
Posts: 141 |
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American TV has slowly eliminated most kinds of opening titles. Look back at the sitcoms and action shows of the 60s, 70s, and early 80s. The opening title and song told you most of what you needed to know about a show. And the theme song often went on to become a hit. Starting in the late 80s and beyond, the TV networks decided that a long opening took away from the chance to sell another commercial or two (and the laws in the 80's had in fact had changed to allow more ad time anyway), and putting in an actual opening gave viewers a clue that was a good time to change channels. Channel flipping became a serious problem at the same time because viewers suddenly had dozens of options and this scared the networks. They were desperate to keep eyes glue and not give viewers time to change. It worked. So more and more shows began using hot starts where there is no open, maybe just a few notes of a theme of some sort, and then the show begins. Same for the ending: the end credits went from being another full title deal to what we have now, rolling credits over the final scene. And then the following show does their hot start with no open. The result is that in America, with a few exceptions, there is little use or need or respect for the Japanese style of opening or closing, and thus nobody thinks about how awesome it would be to do a show like that. Even old TV reruns have had their titles edited down or removed to match the modern style. With a typical anime opening running about two minutes, that's three or four ads that could be sold to make cash and help pay for the production. One reason some anime imported to the US still has titles is that other edits had to take place so the titles are used to help full what would otherwise be missing time. |
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PMDR
Posts: 141 |
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The average American TV viewer or movie goer is never exposed to any programming in foreign languages. Same for songs on the radio. We expect it to be in English; afterall we ARE the entertainment origin point for the world. (Or so some claim) There are VERY few exceptions to this, mostly some game shows that are subtitled rather than dubbed. Some cities have foreign TV stations but those tend to serve their native audiences only and don't have anything to do with other ethnic groups. The mainstream American TV network attitude toward foreign language is that we the viewers don't want to hear accents much less actual foreign words. When documentaries or other programs are imported into the US from Canada or the UK or Australia, they may already BE in English but nearly all of them will get redubbed from English into English just to give the show a comfortable American accent instead of a "strange" Canadian or British accent. It's all about mass appeal. The networks feel that anything less than completely approachable will scare away viewers. So if they have the money, they will hire an American to redub even if it reduces the quality. |
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merr
Posts: 476 |
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A) That was almost 20 years ago B) Just because they screwed up once it means that all actors are terrible singers? The dubs of later songs in the Ranma OVAs were excellent, so what exactly does that prove?
*sigh* A lot of voice actors DO have vocal training. Most of them participate in musical theater and what not, so it's not like they're just thrown into the both without any experience. Moreover, a lot of song dubs aren't done by anime voice actors but by genuine pro singers. Just look at all the Tenchi song dubs or Funi's dubs of the Sasami theme songs. All of those were done by professionals scouted by the production companies. In fact, the Tenchi songs were produced by the man who served as a Chairman for the Grammies for 17 years. Clearly these songs can be done professionally.
It's called adaptation. Very few song dubs just sing the subtitles. A good one reworks the lyrics so that a four syllable Japanese word becomes a four syllable English word. Part of the fun of a song dub is hearing how the lyricist maintains a natural sound when the song is sung in English while still keeping the heart and intent of the original Japanese songs. Besides, people have been translating songs since forever. Many of the Christmas carols and nursery rhymes we sing in English are actually singing translations of foreign language songs. There is nothing inherently bad about this type of translation. It's just extremely difficult to do, which makes it all the more fun when someone excels at it. Oh, and just for the record, the English "Sanctuary" was written BEFORE the Japanese version. The "You-u-u and I-i" has nothing to do with it being an awkward translation. That's just how Utada writes and sings in English. You can hear the exact same thing in nearly every song on "This is the One" Last edited by merr on Mon Feb 15, 2010 12:14 am; edited 2 times in total |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I have no idea how you've been coming to the conclusions you have, since this was never my point to begin with. My point is that I don't understand the mindset of Japanese record companies' executives in thinking Japanese songs would become a hit if the anime their singles are on gets exported. It has not worked even once, and I wonder why they keep trying. I don't care about the language of the music in a TV show or movie. What I wonder is why the executives have such a ridiculously ethnocentric view of the world. Logic dictates that if area A is successful doing X, and area B is successful at doing Y but not X, then it's a bad (or risky) idea to try X in area B.
So I guess the difference here is that American television gets its revenue from a wide variety of sponsors whereas Japanese anime (not sure about its other programming) gets sponsorship from the record company that wants to promote whatever song is in its opening. I know that I definitely get bored seeing the same intro over and over. This goes for anime ones too. I get annoyed having to sit through so much during those times that the whole thing IS put up, like on Adult Swim. I guess Japanese viewers don't find it so repetitive. I actually don't see it as so awesome, to be honest. It's nice seeing it the first time, and the second and maybe the third, but after that, I just want the whole thing skipped. Some channels, I've noticed, do squash credits instead of overlaying the credits as subtitles in the final few moments of the show. Very few channels do an actual credits sequence anymore. Squash credits are the worst. You can't read what it says, and the network is quite obviously telling me, "I've messed up the viewing experience of your credits" in the shows that DO have stuff going on in them. Cartoon Network sometimes kills two birds with one stone by displaying a squashed opening sequence next to the squash credits of the previous show. |
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Ryo Hazuki
Posts: 365 Location: Finland |
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I already questioned that kind of reasoning. Pick any DVD that has an alternate dub track and try if the songs are also dubbed, not counting musicals. Do you really think that the Chinese theme song of Once upon a time in China isn't dubbed in English because the Hong Kong record company believes it might be a hit in the west or could you possibly imagine there might other reasons for not dubbing it? |
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myc
 Posts: 4 Location: Denver, Colorado USA |
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I am a neophyte to the Anime genre so forgive my ignorance as to whom responsiblity for this tirade belongs. Would it be the producer/production company that is at fault for so many excellent beginnings being unfulfilled?
I am of course refering to the number of times I have gotten hooked on a series only to find that ....Thathahathat's All Folks! What do mean there is only going to be 4 volumes of Fruits Basket?! When do we find all of Sakura's feathers? What th h*** are the Blade Children!? You guys are killing me. Thanks for letting me vent. I wish I could say I feel better but, I'm going now to go break open my latest box set from BestBuy to get all hot and bothered and then prepare myself for another round of "Animus Interuptus" |
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Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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That they had a big 'oh shit' moment there? That song was the first thing that came to mind when people started talking about the singing voices of Japanese and American VA. And even if many VA have had vocal training to learn how to sing, it does not mean they have pleasant singing voices. I know that there are dubs out there in which some characters have two VA's, one to do the singing, one to do the talking. (And some of those have singers who shouldn't be acting, right Alex?) Anyway, I don't have much experience with dubbed anime songs, but I've heard a ton of them in RPG's. Some are good, some aren't, but do you know what's really annoying? Removing the Japanese voices from the song. Some stand well enough on their own with some small changes (Wild Arms 2), but other songs just sound boring (those J-pop Tales openings?). Oh, but I love what they did with the American Tales of the Abyss opening! That guitar rocks! But I guess good things happen when you let the actual band take care of it instead of just ripping out the voice. |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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There may be standards for English majors but there is no single universally accepted standard for English grammar. And yet somehow you've still managed to more or less communicate you're both knobs.
Imported vocabulary is really a no man's land, isn't it? I certainly would never pluralize a Japanese word in my English, however the majority of English speakers aren't privy to knowledge of Japanese grammar. It's also worth noting that despite the greater degree of exposure the average Japanese person may have to English they make plenty of odd appropriations of English vocabulary into Japanese as well. On the other hand this is someone who cares enough about manga to debate its conjugation on an internet forum. It's also worth noting the English the words moose, sheep, swine, and bison among others are irregular plurals that are the same as their singular forms. Manga being imported vocabulary is hardly "regular", wouldn't you say? Furthermore, the supposition that manga is analogous to comic books ignores the matter of it being borrowed in the first place. We would have no need of the word unless it were to fill a gap; not unlike how we use anime to describe Japanese cartoons, manga is a convenient way to say "Japanese comic books". |
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Scaramanga
Posts: 134 Location: San Diego, CA |
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This is a bit misleading. While English doesn't have a governing body the way other languages do, there IS a universal standard for English grammar (regional variations notwithstanding.) |
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sevenbark
 Posts: 3 |
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Well, presumably it's online somewhere. How about providing a link? |
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merr
Posts: 476 |
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There's a thorough discussion of English grammar on Wikipedia. Like Scaramanga said, there's no official "Rules of English Grammar" book, but that article covers all the basics of standard written English. |
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