Forum - View topicREVIEW: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Vol. 3 Blu-ray
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Fencedude5609
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I, quite frankly, would not give a damn about Afro Samurai regardless of language.
No, it would not. A series similar to Madoka Magica would exist, but the show I and others watched would not be available in the US. |
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Red Fox of Fire
 Posts: 345 |
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Same story, same characters, [translated but virtually] same script, same music, same animation/direction/composition/etc. Just different voices. But no, it's clearly a different show. Logic! |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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Really? Personally, I think the Clannad English dub is not bad. In fact, I liked it (especially Shelley Calene Black as Kyou). I've never watched Clannad with the Japanese dub, but I might do it to see if the English dub is really garbage. |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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This is hardly a minor change. To claim it is completely disregards the enormous effect the voice acting has on how a show is interpreted. Don't get me wrong, I like dubs (or at least I did, I don't really watch them anymore), but they are, always have been, and always will be, secondary, extra alternatives. |
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2633 |
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Are you saying if the series was only released HERE with an English dub? That of course could happen but you are forgetting something essential the series would still not have existed in the first place if it was not created in Japan for a Japanese audience with a Japanese language track. If only the dub existed here (and thankfully that is not the case) that would also be a real shame because that means fans would have no way to watch the original product & if a series like that is reviewed that should be taken into account. |
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ScruffyKiwi
 Posts: 675 Location: New Zealand |
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Agree with you there about the Clannad dub. Kyou in particular was awesome, and Nagisa IMHO was better than the original Japanese audio. Her Japanese voice actress did that 'wispy 5yo girl voice' too much. Oh .. and Fuko was awesome. My only real complaint about the Clannad english dub was that Tomoya was a little flat at times. I'm not sure why some people get stuck into the Clannad dub so much, apart from the fact that they have heard it too many times in Japanese and cannot adapt to more normal sounding female voices. Anyway .. what on earth are you lot all arguing about? Some shows get an English dub if they will sell in reasonable volume .. some don't. I remember discussing the impact of not having a dub on sales with the Siren Visuals guy from Australia and he said that they will lose 30% of potential sales by not having a dub. If that 30% is worth the cost of the dub then it happens. |
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Veers
 Posts: 1197 Location: Texas |
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Are you trying to imply that someone's personal experience with a show is somehow not a factor in how good or bad a show is to someone? Or that one version of a series is somehow automatically superior to others, to everyone, forever, no exceptions? I don't get why you keep trying to marginalize the importance of a voice track. It doesn't matter what language it is. It doesn't matter if it's the original or not. To some people, the personal experience is all that matters (especially when reading/writing a review of a show), and that personal experience will very much be influenced by something like a dub track, which is an inseparable part of the overall experience itself. That's all I'm trying to say. I'm not saying that you shouldn't critique a dub individually, because doing so is fine, just like you could criticize a book's flow or vocabulary while praising the narrative itself. But seems like you are insisting that an English dub is somehow unable to be considered part of the overall experience and thus should be isolated in the context of discussing the impact the series as a whole (which includes the dub) has on one's self, which is nonsense. The dub is part of the series to anyone watching it with the dub. Maybe you don't care for it and want to stick with the original (that makes two of us!) but to someone popping the series in and watching it in English, that dub is just as much part of the series as the Japanese dub was to us back when we first watched it. Yes, valuing the original (in this case, the Japanese dub) is fine but that doesn't make the dub any less a part of the series and the experience for people who use it, especially for people who see the show for the first time using the English dub. These people would be getting a different experience than what you and I, having watched the show already, got, but here's the thing... those people, by in large, probably weren't interested in having that same experience, or they would have already seen the show. They wouldn't appreciate the original version in the same way you and I do, and that's fine, but that doesn't somehow invalidate their opinion of what they experienced. If you're going to hang on to the delusion that a dub can't be looked at as part of a series, we don't have anything else to discuss. |
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Red Fox of Fire
Posts: 345 |
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If done well, as Madoka's is, then yes, it is pretty minor overall, with only personal preference making it bigger. The essentials that really make the show - story, character, animation, etc. - are still the same. Why do you think voice tracks are the only things ever changed (added) for international releases? They don't change elements of the story or re-animate scenes because those are much more important features as they are that really can't be changed without significantly changing the experience (and when they have done that, people have been mad). It is definitely not enough of a change to call it a different show entirely. That much is absurd.
Anime can be - and has been in the past - recorded in English first. So yes, the series could exist without a Japanese voice track if they had chosen that path, as I pointed out with Afro Samurai (which, fyi, does not have a Japanese voice track at all). In any case, that's not really the point, and I never said released ONLY with the English dub, just a version that only had the English dub (i.e. alongside dual audio releases). It would still be the same series, just with a different voice track. |
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Maidenoftheredhand
Posts: 2633 |
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The problem is you really don't understand what I am saying at all or what I am getting at. You seem to be hung up on a person's personal experience & preferences. I am not saying dubs are inferior to subs and that is why they shouldn't be taken into account when reviewing the series' quality as a whole. I am saying the dub itself was never part of the original product and that is why it is not fair to use it to say whether a series is good or bad. The script, the music, the animation, the direction, and yes the original cast, those are the elements that came together to make Madoka the series it was in Japan: the English dub, the German dub, and the Italian dub all have nothing to do with Madoka's strength as a series, only the elements that went into its creation do. However you seem to be ignoring the fact that I am saying the dub is an important component to the purchase you made.
And so that means the English track is the original. It's a different example entirely And from what I can recall Afro Samurai was a series aimed at a Western audience. |
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lesterf1020
 Subscriber Posts: 292 Location: Trinidad and Tobago |
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Thank you for your explanation. I wasn't attempting to prove that the dub score has no purpose. I was trying to decide whether the dub score would be of use to me personally. Given your explanation the answer to that question is no. The quality of the dub is an important deciding factor for me given my anime tastes and the people with whom I share my anime. They are casual fans who could not care less about fidelity to the original Japanese, something that I myself simply find to be an interesting aside but nothing resembling a deal breaker (I am aware that this is considered blasphemy in most anime circles). I do quite a bit of research before I purchase but I often have to choose between several good options in a short period of time and for me the quality of the dub is a deciding factor since I am often already aware of the quality of the show. Finding such info on the web is tricky and it would have been nice if ANN could have helped in that regard. I have always been confused about the dub score and why it varies so much from my personal assessment but now it is obvious that the difference is not just a matter of personal taste but a completely different methodology. A methodology that is of no use to me. I will still continue to read the entire review whenever I have the time but the dub score is a wash. Thank you for your help. I agree that the scripting and acting are very important in influencing the overall experience of most character driven anime but there are several anime in which the visuals, the sound design, the direction and the action are the real stars of the show and the acting and scripting is pretty much incidental. |
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Veers
Posts: 1197 Location: Texas |
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So you're saying someone's opinion of the series is invalid until they've watched the show with Japanese audio?
We're not talking about the Japanese audience and we're not talking about the Japanese release.
I'm ignoring it because I agree with you that it is an important component of the purchased product. I also agree with you that a show's strengths, when viewed individually (such as its script, its visuals, its music, etc.) are not impacted by the voiceover track, but the overall experience is, especially for first-time viewers. In Madoka's case in particular, I think that the series is good enough to where those other elements that help make up the series are strong enough to where what I might consider weak dub work don't detract much from the show; I think there's enough quality from the combination of other elements that the series is good before even considering the dub. But again, you and I are analyzing this from the perspective of the subset of the audience who was first exposed to the show in Japanese. What I disagree with is your stance that the dub, being an addition to the original series in order to make the story more accessible to a wider audience, somehow cannot or should not be a factor in one's appreciation of the series. You're not considering the people who may be watching the show for the first time in a language other than Japanese. To them, the dub is part of what makes Madoka the series it is to them, and what kind of series it was in Japan isn't the issue. |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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While I would not go that far, precisely, they have not watched the same show I did. |
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Veers
Posts: 1197 Location: Texas |
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They're not having the same experience we did, this is true. They missed out on the speculah. They missed out on the late-night 4chan threads. They missed out on the rune cracking. They missed out on the the long wait from the flooding. They missed out on wordplay in the original script. They missed out on a lot of the fandom. They missed out on spoiler[Chiwa's heart-rending howl of despair as she pulls that trigger.] However, the dub is a mostly-faithful (some times overly literal) rendition of the original script and the plot, animation, music, and everything else that make up the show are the same. Are you saying that someone somehow can't appreciate the script, the music, the animation, and the direction the same way you do if they haven't seen the show with the Japanese audio track? |
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Maidenoftheredhand
Posts: 2633 |
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No not at all and perhaps that is where the miscommunication is happening. I am not saying someone can't have a valid opinion or can't write a review if they only experienced the dub. After all there is still other elements of the original in that dub. I am just saying the "dub itself" should not be held for or against the show. I can understand how a dub can enhance or ruin a show for someone but keep in mind that dub was created as something separate from the show itself. Okay lets put it this way if a dub is wonderful or horrible how much is that the fault of the original creators? Now I know sometimes they have a bit of hand in the dub too, but not usually the involvement they have with original language track. How much involvement do you think Akiyuki Shinbo had with the original cast compared to the English cast? |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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I would say that anyone who does not watch the Japanese tracks is inherently missing out on at least a bit of what makes anime anime, and while there are some dubs that are, in fact, better than the original Japanese track (Bacanno! for example), they are by and large exceptions to the rule. |
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