Forum - View topicAnime you think that are worth/not worth dubbing?
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Dark Paladin X
 Posts: 268 |
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There are a lot of anime out there. Some that are worth the effort of dubbing either due to high DVD sales, a large audience/fanbase, or high demands from the fanbase/audience; but there are some anime that aren't worth the effort since it "won't sell," the fanbase/audience isn't really large, or unable to "break even."
Here is the thing, suppose you came across a subbed anime you watched online and you enjoyed, but you realized that anime has either haven't been licensed yet in North America or it is licensed but was released subbed instead. So what anime you think that is worth the time and effort to dub and an anime you think that is NOT worth the time and effort to dub (and if possible, provide one in each category)? Please give a detailed explanation if you can. Bear in note that licensors subbing an anime and later dubbing an anime sometime later is a very rare practice, but it does happen in the past as dragonrider_cody and Prede points out (and was even surprised the ADV Films started their anime business subbing and later on went back and dub the ones they subbed). Best example is Gurren Lagann, Bandai Entertainment first release the anime subbed and later dubbed it. If you ask me, here the an anime I think it is worth dubbing and an anime I think it is not worth dubbing: Worth dubbing- To Aru Majutsu no Index: Although I'm still watching this anime, the series have nice character development and the level of fighting/magic/action kinda fall between Kyo Kara Maoh! and Bleach!. Not a lot of controversial contents with the possible exception of the first episode spoiler[where Touma used his anti-magic right hand on Index robes and ended up stripping her naked]. It does use some Christian symbolism and incorporate them into magic like Neon Genesis Evangelion. Not to mention, there is a decent amount of audience/fanbase for this anime that is worth selling. If I want a specific licensor of this anime, I would either want Funimation, Viz Media, or Disney (I lost all hopes on Bandai). In addition, I think the anime is also a great opportunity for James Arnold Taylor to get a major anime role ever since Animatrix. Of course, when I shared some of my ideas at AnimeSuki forums, they had a very pessimistic view on seeing it dubbed, but that is just them. Not worth dubbing- Hidamari Sketch: Okay, I think most of you have already heard about Section23 Films (anime studio that is considered to be the successor of ADV Films) obtaining the rights to distribute Hidamari Sketch subbed. As a person who prefer dubs, while I think Hidamari Sketch does have some potential for a dub, I don't think it is worth the effort to dub it for several reasons. First, Section23 Films was formed this year. Since it is a very new company, they won't have enough money and resources to dub an anime (heck they are still even trying to set up their official website). Another reason is that the audience/fanbase for Hidamari Sketch isn't really that large when compared to other slice of life anime like Azumanga Daioh! and Lucky Star. And even so, slice of life genre usually have a small audience when compared to other genres in anime. Bear in note that this is NOTHING to do with the 4chan's "nutbladder" internet meme. While I have strong disgust towards this meme (as well as finding it to be sick and unfunny), memes in general aren't usually the main factor of the time and effort of an anime being dubbed. But there are some memes that damage the reputation of an anime like the "nutbladder" I've mentioned (which I will create another thread whether or not memes of an anime would damage the reputation). Although I could say, I am looking forward to the release of Hidamari Sketch subbed in the U.S. Last edited by Dark Paladin X on Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:21 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Actually, I believe that was the plan all along. They released a subtitled version initially for people who wanted it quickly and didn't want to wait for a dub. |
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Mr Adventure
 Posts: 1598 |
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With Funimation's recent acquisitions of Cassern SINS and Eden of the East. IMO, Cassern SINS should be a sub-only season box set and Eden should be a dubbed to be a 3 DVD single release with a series box with Volume 1.
Why? Cassern is going to have limited appeal over here, so getting the whole thing cheaper and in one shot is good for the success of the series. Eden has far wider appeal, and can follow typical release structure, cause its going to do well regardless. Honestly? If all anime went Sub-Only + Season Box sets, and overall prices dropped as a result I would be sooooooooooooo happy.
And a good thing too. The ONLY reason I gave Gurren a shot, is because it was super cheap as a sub-only (sub only + 9 episodes + 16 bucks = Sweet Freaking Deal Ya'll) Great show I would have missed had Bandai held off and only did the dud release in its current format. |
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lesterf1020
 Subscriber Posts: 301 Location: Trinidad and Tobago |
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Yeah I was pretty surprised that Casshern Sins got licensed and shocked that it was going to be dubbed. I love the show but limited appeal is putting it mildly.
I will go with a couple of recent ones. Sora no Otoshimono and Kanokon should be dubbed and will fit right into Media Blasters catalog next to Ikki Tousen and Queens blade. Bakemonogatari should be subbed only since it is VERY Japanese and is essentially a bunch of conversations in various places often between only 2 people. I can't even imagine how one would dub this. Guin Saga should be dubbed and given to Funimation. While it does not seem to be doing well in Japan the fact that it is a cross between Conan the Barbarian and Lord of the Rings with decent animation, lots of combat and politics and intrigue with a dash of romance is gold as far as I am concerned. Properly marketed and advertised this could be a sleeper hit. Kemono Souja Erin is a long shot for licensing but if it does get licensed it should be subbed only. Any attempt to dub a 50 episode slow moving character piece aimed at children is doomed to financial failure. |
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ninjapet
 Posts: 1517 |
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I agree with Bakemonogatari sub only thing. I mean as much as I would love a dub the flashing walls of text and heavy Japanese themes would be tricky if not horrible to dub over right.
I think Natsu no Arashi! should be brought over and dubbed, as great as having it on Crunchy roll streaming for free subbed but, it could be dubbed over fairly easy and it would have appeal to a large fan base. Or at least it would appeal for the School Rumble fans. |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Any attempt to distribute a show intended to include children in the audience needs to be dubbed. Parents are not going to sit with their children and read each line, nor would the kids find that especially appealing either. I'd put Chi's Sweet Home/New Address in the same category. I suspect the same problems apply to shows like Dennou Coil. They're too unusual and complex for a wide audience, but again you'd need dubbing to enable it to reach younger viewers. Unfortunately dubbing adds a lot to the cost, so an excellent show for children like Tweeny Witches ends up costing nearly $100 for the boxset. (I wonder how well that's been selling; I'd be surprised if it has covered its costs even, or especially, at that price.) For that matter, why don't dubbed kids shows like this one appear on American television? (That's a rhetorical question; I have some ideas but pursuing them would require going off-topic.) My prime candidates for sub-only releases (hell, any kind of releases) are Nodame Cantabile and Bartender. Both of these shows would have to be pitched to the older end of the audience, and in both cases you'd have to expect the kinds of limited sales volumes that only justify subbing. I presume we've never seen Nodame here in R1 because licensors think, probably rightly, that mainstream anime viewers in this part of the world aren't all that interested in classical music. (Where, for instance, can anyone watch reruns of Bernstein's remarkable Young Peoples' Concerts on television these days?) Bartender has two strikes against it if you're looking to reach the typical anime audience: it's a relatively slow-moving slice-of-life show, and it features a lot of characters over the age of forty. Now that Brains-Base has sold Baccano! to the R1 market, I'd be interested in seeing both Natsume Yuujinchou and Kure-nai released here as well. Neither of these have the kind of built-in appeal to American audiences that a show about Prohibition-era gangsters has, so they, too, would probably end up as sub-only titles. (Given how licensing decisions get made, we're probably more likely to see Akikan here; I'd leave it in the "kan" myself.) Bakemonogatari would only work if the licensor invested the time and money to subtitle the texts. Just translating the dialogue would miss a large portion of what goes on in that show (not to mention the constant use of Japanese puns). I'll be curious to see whether Section23 makes the effort to translate the texts in Hidamari Sketch, although in that case they're lucky in that a lot of the texts are already in English. (Titling signage is one of the areas where fansubs tend to be better than licensed versions.) |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16983 |
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Right off the bat 2 titles that unequivocally deserve dubs would be Emma and Aria. These 2 are simply story driven series without any sexual or pointless fan service. They go purely by the power of the plot and the characters themselves. There is more character development and character relations in these 2 shows then most in the past few years. The fact neither got a dub from a company is simply unbelievable and a pure shame. I love Ikki Tousen and other ecchi shows but I'd gladly sacrifice those dubs, all of them, for just those 2 shows to get a dub.
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Ktimene's Lover
 Posts: 2242 Location: Glendale, AZ (Proudly living in the desert) |
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Psycho, there is a dub for Emma but it is an Animax dub. From what I understand, the reason they might not release this dub into the USA is both pricing and questionable dubbing to the ears.
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kyokun703
 Posts: 2505 Location: Orgrimmar |
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Agree with Psycho101, Victorian Romance Emma should've gotten a dub. I'm a hardcore sub-only fan, but even I think that should've gotten a dub, with British VAs. This one I would've liked to try out with British dub, since the setting is SO English (due to the love of detail and accuracy that the artist was going for).
Of course, Nozomi probably would've lost money on it, so I completely understand why they didn't do it. It's just really too bad. |
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Dark Paladin X
Posts: 268 |
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@ yuna49's comments: Yeah, I've read the Hidamari Sketch manga since Friday online, they use/reference a lot of English text and words. It would really difficult for North America licensors to dub an anime that use English phrases and words liberally in the Japanese version. Apparently, the best bet is to sub the anime instead of dubbing while keeping the Japanese honorifics and phrases while translating the subtitles. I mean, Azumanga Daioh got dubbed and I'm just curious how ADV Films manage to work around Yukari-sensei being an English teacher. Slice of life anime usually don't have large audiences when compared to other genres. I would be really surprised that Section23 decides to dub Hidamari Sketch several years after they released it subbed. Even if they do so, Jessica Boone/Tara Strong would be a good candidate to voice Yuno while Monica Rial voices Miyako.
I checked the descriptions about Dennou Coil and Chi's Sweet Home. Although I haven't watch those yet, it appears the story behind these two anime seems to be suitable for a very large audience from parents and children alike. Any films made by Miyazaki are always worth dubbing since the stories he create in his films give a broad appeal to the audience for all ages (with the exception of Princess Mononoke and Nausicaä, even though both anime were dubbed). I'm not sure about the rest you mentioned, but I'll have to watch a few episodes of the said anime myself before I can make my own judgment. For Dennou Coil, I think this may be another anime that James Arnold Taylor may take a voice acting role in. On the other hand, Dokuro-chan is an anime that shouldn't be really worth dubbing. The number of episodes are very small, the plot mostly involves a high school student getting beaten up by an angel in a near daily basis, which gets VERY repetitive and boring (want to know the reason why Matt Stone and Trey Parker stop killing Kenny after a while). Hayate the Combat Butler is an anime that is worth dubbing by Bandai mainly because the manga has been released in North America for a while and there should a decent fanbase to see it (although there is an English dub already, you'd need to go to Singapore or something like that to see it, and I heard it sucks). Bandai decided to release it subbed however (and that is when I lost all my faith of Bandai distributing To Aru Majutsu no Index). Any anime that have a sexual related internet meme before it gets an official release isn't worth dubbing (like the "nutbladder" jokes around Hidamari Sketch). Any doujin anime isn't really worth dubbing because as the name applies, it is mostly done by an independent person or "amateurs" (like Touhou Musou Kakyou, despite me having interests in the Touhou series). Side note: I read somewhere the Chi's Sweet Home is a seinen anime! I mean, why is it an anime about a cute kitty is reserved for adults? Is there something sexual about it? |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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As much as I can understand this desire, what you propose would be too expensive to produce. Due to the prevalence and convenience of R1 companies, UK anime dubbing ceased to exist a long time ago. 'Shipping in' the appropriate voice actors to an R1 studio would therefore be required. It seems unlikely that going to such lengths would be profitable. |
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Dark Paladin X
Posts: 268 |
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As far as I concern, Axis Powers Hetalia may or may not be worth dubbing. But I would my bets that this series isn't worth dubbing at all. Mostly because the series uses a lot of personification of countries and is highly political in nature (in other words a character in the series represents a specific country). Not only that, judging by the title, it appears that the person who made the series tries to portray the Axis Powers from World War II a positive light (even though it suppose to satirize foreign policies of different countries, particularly between World War I and World War II). Also, you have ultra-nationalists from different nations who may find this to be offensive (particularly the Koreans) and any English VA may face death threats for political reasons if they dare voice a "nation" in the anime series.
Side note: I kind it find it surprising that there would be an anime series that focuses in World War II. Mainly because the history of WWII (as well the act of imperialism of the Axis Powers) is considered to be a taboo in Japan, Germany, and Italy (and it is just as big as a taboo in China and Korea, as these two countries were hard hit during the Japanese occupation). I mean, you'd be better off discussing about same-sex marriage in Japan than World War II or nuclear power. |
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ninjapet
Posts: 1517 |
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I'm agreeing with Hayate needing a dub
I'm a big fan of both the anime and manga, and besides all the jokes about anime and manga the series would be fairly easy to dub over. To bad Bandai is releasing it sub only I would love to have a dub on it I mean I would have a reason to buy more of the DVDs for it. |
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Maryohki
 Posts: 526 |
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Please kindly remove yourself from this discussion (not referring to the entire thread, but just the specific topic of this series), as you clearly don't have the faintest clue what you are talking about. I can tell you don't know a thing about Axis Powers Hetalia. 1.
If you only are capable of judging by the title, then you really shouldn't be judging at at all. Especially considering that, even if you judge by the title, you're wrong. "Hetalia" is a word combination of "Italia" and "hetare". Italia's meaning should hopefully be clear, but hetare? Pretty much equates to "useless". So how on earth you think "Axis Powers Useless Italy" is trying to sympathize with the Axis, I do not know. It is true that Hetalia doesn't demonize the Axis. Honestly, that is how it should be. While it's true that some not-so-good people were in control of the Axis powers, you can't say that the entire nations of Germany, Japan, and Italy were populated by nothing but horrible people. That's just not true. Besides, while the focal point of Hetalia is WWII, the series tackles history from all sorts of different time periods. So these characters don't represent Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperialist Japan. They represent each country as an entire nation for the entire timeline of their existence. In Hetalia, there are no nations that are seen as "good guys", nor are there any portrayed as "bad guys". The series is a comedy and a satire on bad political choices, anyway, not a big lesson on morals. As for your side note, why does this surprise you? Haven't you heard of Mecha Musume and Afghanis-tan, both of which predate Hetalia and are about risky themes (cutesy, moe WWII transport vehicles, and Middle Eastern nations respectively). Or is that okay because it's moe girls and not moe boys? As for the actual question presented by the OP? I have my own answers. Deserving: Rose of Versailles. This anime is a beautiful story that deserves as much recognition as possible. Why no one ever picked it up baffles me, and I wish above all else for this to get licensed and dubbed. As for one that actually HAS been licensed and dubbed, most definitely Seirei no Moribito. It got such a good dub, too. Undeserving: I'm not really up to date with what all has been licensed, etc. I know this one hasn't been, but I still feel as though Chi's Sweet Home should not be dubbed. I adore the show and I'd love to see it get licensed, but not dubbed. I just can't see how an American dubbing studio would find someone capable of playing Chi's part well AND sounding like a kitten. Digging back, another undeserving dub that actually happened was Tsukiyomi: Moon Phase. That just was not a good anime, and the dub that it shouldn't have even gotten made it even worse on top of that. |
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Dark Paladin X
Posts: 268 |
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Sorry Maryohki, I tried not to get too political here, but I think Axis Power Hetalia probably isn't worth dubbing. I haven't really read the manga, but I think the series is a bit too controversial to air. I think the level of political and historical satire nearly equates to that of the Boondocks (an animesque series I watched), but I don't think Axis Powers Hetalia have enough appeal to western viewers.
On the other hand, I think the kodomo anime Doraemon should have an official English dub in North America, but other may argue the series isn't worth dubbing due to heavy use of Japanese cultural references and many young children in America may get confused. The series has been around for over 30 years and yet there still isn't an official release of the series in the U.S. (not even a sub). If I want a company to pick up Doraemon, Disney should be the one distributing it in Disney Channel. |
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