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REVIEW: D.Gray-man DVD Season One Part One


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posterior_praiser



Joined: 21 Oct 2007
Posts: 296
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 11:29 pm Reply with quote
D. Gray man was a pretty disappointing anime IMO. I gave up on it cause it went nowhere and was bogged down with all the filler stuff almost right at the get go, and just came off as well, boring.
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Kit-Tsukasa



Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Posts: 930
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 12:12 am Reply with quote
posterior_praiser wrote:
D. Gray man was a pretty disappointing anime IMO. I gave up on it cause it went nowhere and was bogged down with all the filler stuff almost right at the get go, and just came off as well, boring.


It only got good after episode 52...of which no company has the license to at the moment Razz Everything before that is essentially all filler.

and even then...it was cut off at 103 just when things got awesome and started to get to the better parts of the manga.
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championferret



Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 765
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 12:17 am Reply with quote
I know I usually complain about Casey's reviews, but I'd just like to say that I feel this one was well written: it didn't waste time on summarizing events as she often does and balances both the strengths and weaknesses of the show. (I'm not saying this just because I like the series, btw)

Anyway, I really cant understand the people that say the D.Gray-man anime is better than the manga. The anime manages to be 'decent' as far as adaptations of shonen manga go, but not really more than that. To me it's kinda the sort of thing only a fan can really like, as its nice seeing the characters moving, talking and doing a few things they dont do in the manga. But the pacing and direction is just, at times, so terrible that I dont think I'd recommend it to anyone in the manga's place. That said, I'd still like to buy this when it's available in Australia (Madman did announce a license, but not a release date).

I expected the dub to be terrible (I am NOT a dub person), and I knew they'd either give everyone annoying american accents, or annoying 'americans-trying-to-sound-british' voices. But it sounds pretty terrible. (Seriously, I dont know how Funimation was able to resist having one of the policemen in episode 1 say "Wot's all this then?!")
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JackCox



Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 386
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 12:34 am Reply with quote
Casey with Regards to the lack of British Accents, I pointedly asked the question to Todd Haberkorn who voiced Allen Walker. When they were first recording They tried Allen with the British Accent but when Chris Sabat heard it he thought Allen Walker would sound more likable without an accent.
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Fronzel



Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1906
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 1:07 am Reply with quote
JackCox wrote:
They tried Allen with the British Accent but when Chris Sabat heard it he thought Allen Walker would sound more likable without an accent.

On behalf of my Anglo-Saxon ancestry, RAGE.
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Big Hed



Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 1607
Location: Melbourne, Australia
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 1:17 am Reply with quote
JackCox wrote:
They tried Allen with the British Accent but when Chris Sabat heard it he thought Allen Walker would sound more likable without an accent.


I lol'd.

Other than that, I'm glad I resisted the urge to double-dip. I'll be sticking exclusively to the manga, for sure.
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Taiyz



Joined: 16 Aug 2005
Posts: 202
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 4:03 am Reply with quote
Kit-Tsukasa wrote:
posterior_praiser wrote:
D. Gray man was a pretty disappointing anime IMO. I gave up on it cause it went nowhere and was bogged down with all the filler stuff almost right at the get go, and just came off as well, boring.


It only got good after episode 52...of which no company has the license to at the moment Razz Everything before that is essentially all filler.
In my opinion the first few episodes were great; the animation was actually really good at the time, too.

Then it got bogged down by a bunch of nonsense and monsters-of-the-week until about halfway through the series, and by then the animation was so inferior to anything else I was watching it wasn't really worth keeping up with, especially in comparison to the manga's wild style.

I finished the series for whatever reason, and I actually would've continued watching it because of the new things that sprouted up during the final arc, but at the same time I'm relieved to be done with it.
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championferret



Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 765
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 4:22 am Reply with quote
Forget to mention this in my first post, but Casey made an error I have to nitpick over: It's Komui, not Kamui.
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doctordoom85



Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Posts: 2093
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 8:07 am Reply with quote
(scratches head) Wow, I'm surprised people are this pissed about the accents. When they said Allen would be more likable without the accent, maybe they just meant he'd work better without a fake-sounding British accent. If Funi didn't have a VA that could voice Allen's age and the accent, well that's just a loss we have to accept. I highly doubt this is meant to be an indirect attack against British accents.

Then again, people have some obsession over the issue. Lord knows when Desmond on LOST was revealed to be British, the forums were lit ablaze with "OMG, his accent is Scottish! FAIL!!!". Which wouldn't surprise me if Allen ended up sounding more like "insert other accent here", people would still complain. Best to just have no accent whatsoever and leave it at that.

Also, maybe I need to re-watch the FMA movie, but I don't recall the spoiler["our universe" Europeans having accents, but I might be remembering wrong], and nobody had a cow about that.
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Wyvern



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 1555
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 8:20 am Reply with quote
doctordoom85 wrote:
Best to just have no accent whatsoever and leave it at that.


Except that that's impossible. As those of us who don't live in the US will tell you, dub Allen DOES have an accent....an American one. Very Happy

I can see your point, though. If FUNi is able to get an actual English person to do the voice (as was done in the Hellsing dub) then that would defiantly be the preferable choice. I'm guessing they just have Americans and Canadians to choose from, though, in which case the question becomes "can this person pull off a credible English accent that people will want to listen to for 100+ episodes?" I guess the answer to that question was no.
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Labbes



Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 890
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 8:21 am Reply with quote
doctordoom85 wrote:
Also, maybe I need to re-watch the FMA movie, but I don't recall the spoiler["our universe" Europeans having accents, but I might be remembering wrong], and nobody had a cow about that.


Doesn't that one take place in spoiler[Germany]? I mean, nobody would want such an accent.
I also want more love for British accents.
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Peebs



Joined: 07 Dec 2005
Posts: 419
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 9:03 am Reply with quote
[quote="championferret"]Forget to mention this in my first post, but Casey made an error I have to nitpick over: It's Komui, not Kamui.[/quote]

I wondered who Kamui was! The thing that popped in my head was X/1999. It took me a while to realize who she was talking about.

What I really want is Funi to license the rest of the series. I don't want to buy the first 51 episodes if they're not gonna release the rest.
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Big Hed



Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 1607
Location: Melbourne, Australia
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 9:39 am Reply with quote
doctordoom85 wrote:
(scratches head) Wow, I'm surprised people are this pissed about the accents. When they said Allen would be more likable without the accent, maybe they just meant he'd work better without a fake-sounding British accent. If Funi didn't have a VA that could voice Allen's age and the accent, well that's just a loss we have to accept. I highly doubt this is meant to be an indirect attack against British accents.

Then again, people have some obsession over the issue. Lord knows when Desmond on LOST was revealed to be British, the forums were lit ablaze with "OMG, his accent is Scottish! FAIL!!!". Which wouldn't surprise me if Allen ended up sounding more like "insert other accent here", people would still complain. Best to just have no accent whatsoever and leave it at that.

Also, maybe I need to re-watch the FMA movie, but I don't recall the spoiler["our universe" Europeans having accents, but I might be remembering wrong], and nobody had a cow about that.


Eh? I certainly wasn't having a cow, if you were at all referring to me; I just thought the paraphrasing of Chris Sabat's reasoning was funny Razz Though I can't speak for Fronzel.
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doctordoom85



Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Posts: 2093
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 10:01 am Reply with quote
Wyvern wrote:
doctordoom85 wrote:
Best to just have no accent whatsoever and leave it at that.


Except that that's impossible. As those of us who don't live in the US will tell you, dub Allen DOES have an accent....an American one. Very Happy


Fair enough, but I only know so many American accents, and some are more noticeable than others IMHO. My cousin and her husband used to live in Boston, but when they moved to our town, my parents said you could tell they had an accent from there. I listened, and couldn't really notice. They sounded not that different from us (we live in Kentucky). So when I hear Allen, I don't think "hey, he must have grown up in insert-area-here", I just hear a young boy's voice.

But yeah, Big Hed, I was more trying to just make everyone realize it's unlikely Funi has British-discriminating employees in its staff. The explanation was probably just worded wrong, and unfortunate implications arose. Happens all the time.

So yeah, if you can make the accent believable, go for it. If not, don't, you're probably more likely to offend if you keep the "accent" then not.
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KabaKabaFruit



Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Posts: 1871
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 10:31 am Reply with quote
Even with the arbitrary stance of this review, I still find a couple of things that I don't agree with. First of all, the music is far far from forgettable. In fact, I would go on and say that Kaoru Wada's score for the series is some of the best I've ever heard not only in a Shonen series, but in anime, period. Lala's lullaby is a real tear jerker and the Millennium Earl's theme is appropriately haunting with a touch of mischief. Second, I don't think it's fair to criticize that the show just blows through everything without giving proper emphasis on the characters. Anyone who watches Shonen Jump shows know that the beginnings of any new Shonen series usually want to get right down to the action before providing a good background on each of the character's involved. You gotta "hook" the viewers with the action first and then lay out the substance as the show goes on. Hell, readers of the manga know that there is more to Allen then meets the eye (no pun intended) and to reveal it this early in the series will severely lessen the shocking impact further on. It's best that Allen remains an enigma for now so that viewers can ask questions and make theories as to who Allen Walker really is while the show slowly unravels his past bit by bit before the shocking finale.

That's not to say that I don't have issue with FUNimaton's release. The complaining of the accents is perfectly justified in my opinion considering this show's settings. It's not that FUNimation can't bring in people with good accents, it's that FUNimation doesn't want to. FUNimation pretty much has a whole laundry list of licenses that they are going through at the moment and dub perfection is no longer a concern for them so much as to meet scheduled releases. I honestly was expecting a dub reminiscent of Full Metal Alchemist but it looks like FUNimation just had no idea how to dub this series which I find absolutely surprising considering that this is the company that gave us the great Full Metal Alchemist dub.

It also didn't help matters either that FUNImation chose to keep the production of this license hush-hush for 8 months which I also found suspicious.
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