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Shelf Life - Antiques Rogueshow

Wait a minute, does Erin really think Guin Saga is more aimed at women, or was she just trying to get it to fit the "theme" of this week? I haven't seen it yet, but it seems to be more of a seinen series.

IIRC, Zac and Justin enjoyed Gunslinger Girl, at least Season 1. Is anyone REALLY going to try to argue that those two are lolicon fans? I love Gunslinger Girl for the record (only S1 though, have not seen S2), but if anyone said that automatically made me a lolicon fan, I'd try not to slap them (this isn't aimed at Erin but more the discussion at hand).

On Guin Saga, why does "high fantasy" always seem to entail the same medieval setting, typical magic powers, and so on. It's like no one wants to do anything besides rewrite The Lord of the Rings.

Unfortunately, the dub is one of the worst I've seen in years. The English dialog is nearly verbatim to the subs, with only the occasional line variation, so nothing sounds naturalistic. I realize it must be difficult to adapt dialog for high fantasy, but very little attempts have been made to clean up the dry translation. Istavan in particular says “My, my!” a lot, and David Matranga sounds odd every single time he says it.

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Unfortunately, the dub is one of the worst I've seen in years. The English dialog is nearly verbatim to the subs, with only the occasional line variation, so nothing sounds naturalistic. I realize it must be difficult to adapt dialog for high fantasy, but very little attempts have been made to clean up the dry translation. Istavan in particular says “My, my!” a lot, and David Matranga sounds odd every single time he says it.

Seriously? I'm like agape here. They couldn't have messed it up that badly, could they? ._.

Like, why were all the mansion support staff besides Sebastian incompetent to the point of slapstick comedy? It turns out there's a good reason, so good that I won't spoil it for you here.

featuring the gratingly loathsome Elizabeth

Guin Saga is one for you ladies who carry around very large books of the epic fantasy variety.

They also have a comedic rapport… until a girl from AKB48 takes the stage. Tomomi Kasai plays a minor role in just one episode. She totally ruins the all-male dynamic, and unsurprisingly, the fujoshi in the audience immediately stop squealing when she appears. Kasai gets an entire interview to herself in one of the other Extras (probably to sell more DVDs).

Forget the earthquake! Can't believe his wife let him keep all those in a typical 20 tatami Tokyo apartment!

And there's some old ones in there. Is that Kimagure Orange Road?!

Exactly, your role switched from "this is lolicon" to "this isn't necessarily yaoi". If you can't tell the difference between those two stances, then that's fine. I won't take this any further.

I think your mini-review of Antique Bakery was quite improved compared to Gunslinger Girl. You actually went over plot-points, gave a brief introduction to the main characters, and overall did the series justice.

I hope to see more of those kinds of write-ups, even if the show is targeted at some niche and not the mainstream, as they are definitely more helpful to the readers in my opinion.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who actually really loved the ending to Black Butler instead of endlessly whining about how it doesn't follow the manga. I mean, sure, it's always nice to have a faithful adaptation, but the anime end played with a lot of really interesting themes and was unusually uncompromising in its stance, at least until spoiler[the second season came around and kind of ret-conned it...]

I particularly loved the episode where spoiler[Ciel is talking with his parents in his mind, and they try to convince him to give up on his quest for revenge.] In almost any other show, their viewpoint would be the one that the audience is expected to sympathize with, and that the hero is eventually swayed towards. But not here. spoiler[Ciel's impassioned response, that he cannot give up on revenge because it has become a part of his identity, and that to abandon it would mean the end of him, is presented in a heroic, albeit tragic light that's tons more interesting than the traditional portrayal of revenge and its effects on people.] It's powerful stuff, even if it doesn't really fit within the bounds of traditional morality.

I guess the main thing putting me off reading (or watching) Guin Saga is that there's no way it'll ever be 'complete' in English.

swienke wrote:

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who actually really loved the ending to Black Butler instead of endlessly whining about how it doesn't follow the manga. I mean, sure, it's always nice to have a faithful adaptation, but the anime end played with a lot of really interesting themes and was unusually uncompromising in its stance, at least until spoiler[the second season came around and kind of ret-conned it...] I particularly loved the episode where spoiler[Ciel is talking with his parents in his mind, and they try to convince him to give up on his quest for revenge.] In almost any other show, their viewpoint would be the one that the audience is expected to sympathize with, and that the hero is eventually swayed towards. But not here. spoiler[Ciel's impassioned response, that he cannot give up on revenge because it has become a part of his identity, and that to abandon it would mean the end of him, is presented in a heroic, albeit tragic light that's tons more interesting than the traditional portrayal of revenge and its effects on people.] It's powerful stuff, even if it doesn't really fit within the bounds of traditional morality.

I dunno, man, you could easily make the argument that Ciel is a pitiful character BECAUSE he can't let go of those things-- I mean, after all, it doesn't matter how cool the demon is, he still SOLD his SOUL and that's one of those can't-really-deny-it's-a-bad-thing situations. I like Ciel, I really do (though a good deal of people can't stand him, I think he's actually got a lot going for him), but I don't think the message of his story is "It's okay to get caught up in a cycle of revenge and hatred." It'd be like saying the ultimate message of Death Note is "genocide is awesome! ... if you have a demon on your side!"

Anyway my view on season 2 is that it's just as much fun as season 1, and rather than complain that they should have never made it, I think they should never have given season 1 that crap-tastic ending at all :\

The dub is extremely faithful to the translation, but I don't really find that a downfall. In fact, I find it interesting how some people are upset when a dub trails to far from the translation (like High School of The Dead) and then some find fault when it stays too close (like Guin Saga). I guess no matter what someone will be disappointed.

Some of the dialogue isn't the most natural sounding, however it seems to fit with the old school feel of the anime and I've heard far, far worse. I think saying the dub is one of the worst in years is a HUGE stretch, particularly for the reasons that were given in the review.

The dub is extremely well cast and the performances are quite good. David Wald is pretty good as Guin, and I thought David Matranga did an excellent job. I would gladly take this dub over the one for Black Butler which came across extremely uneven with stilted performances to me. However, dub quality is in the ear of the beholder, so the best thing is to try it out yourself.

I've generally been pretty disappointed by most dubs within the past couple of years (since the move to boxsets and the shorter recording times required), but I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The only thing that bothered me was Guin's lip flaps, but that issue was present in the Japanese version as well. The animators made no attempt to make the mouth movements natural, so syncing any language to it would have been impossible.

I can agree the dialogue is a little dry, but that's a fault of the source material, not the dub itself. Also, don't forget that the Japanese have final approval over the script and translation, and considering the size of the Guin Saga property in Japan, I doubt Sentai would have had much leeway even if they had wanted to change it significantly.

For example, I thought starting off right away with what happened to Tachibana as a kid was sloppy storytelling.

I think saying the dub is one of the worst in years is a HUGE stretch, particularly for the reasons that were given in the review.

I would gladly take this dub over the one for Black Butler which came across extremely uneven with stilted performances to me.

The only thing that bothered me was Guin's lip flaps, but that issue was present in the Japanese version as well. The animators made no attempt to make the mouth movements natural, so syncing any language to it would have been impossible.

Blake Shepard sounds good enough as Guin, although I have to admit that watching it in English draws my attention to the fact that Guin’s jaw doesn’t always sync up with his dialog. Sometimes he moves his mouth, and sometimes he seems to speak through a mask. It looks like an intentional choice, but it just seems awkward at times.

It'll never be "complete" at all, considering she was still writing when she passed away. I'm actually curious to know how they handled volume 130, since she was working on it when she became too ill to write (and then passed away).

Mages who start with Meteor Swarm in round one (as a warning shot) and scale up from there, a world where 99.99% of the population is unaware of the dangers around them (and unable to affect them if they were), powerful magic items left over from lost civilizations of Olden Days, main characters shrugging off attacks that level the buildings behind them... but a modern setting and Clarke's-Law-in-reverse magitek? I'd still call that "high fantasy". (Your choice of the My-Hime or Nanoha franchises.)

I almost included a line about this in my review... here's what I was going to say, but it was running a little long:

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Blake Shepard sounds good enough as Guin, although I have to admit that watching it in English draws my attention to the fact that Guin’s jaw doesn’t always sync up with his dialog. Sometimes he moves his mouth, and sometimes he seems to speak through a mask. It looks like an intentional choice, but it just seems awkward at times.

Also, don't forget that the Japanese have final approval over the script and translation