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PurpleWarrior13



Joined: 05 Sep 2009
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:41 pm Reply with quote
I very much enjoyed this. I love hearing stories and learning about pretty much anything relating to the entertainment industry, including voice acting, and Sailor Moon's production here has always been an interesting tale. I love how passionate Roland is about working on this show, and I love that. There's nothing more rewarding about working on a show you and everyone enjoys, and there's NOTHING wrong with being proud of the work you made. The Sailor Moon voice acting (at least in the DiC episodes) WAS really good for the time, better than anything that had come before it, even if the writing and censorship had issues. I honestly think it's reception would be VERY good today had it been left unedited, but this was 1995. The anime industry hadn't taken off, and there was no market for uncut anime on home video, other than the occasional movie or OVA like Akira and Bubblegum Crisis (both with terrible dubs at the time). Ranma 1/2 was the first actual anime TV series to be marketed with a straight dub on home video, as is the norm today. Back then, it was unusual, and it wasn't expected for anime to be made available for adult fans uncut. The Sailor Moon dub is a product of it's time and forever will be, and now that the new one is coming out, I find it pointless to complain about the DiC dub. It's like complaining about the Saban/FUNi/Ocean dubbed episodes of Dragon Ball Z (another case of great voice acting nailed with horrible writing and editing).

I personally see no problem with Terri Hawkes preferring the word "woman" over "lady." It's a minor thing, and I certainly would not have fired the lead actress (again!) over something like that.

Sailor Moon is indeed a children's show in Japan (I guess the 7-14 demographic), but making that one mistake is really no big deal. At least he doesn't think all animation is for kids. He clearly DID take his job and the show very seriously.

BTW, according to the DVD/BD box, Viz's rating for the series is TV-PG.
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:48 pm Reply with quote
PurpleWarrior13 wrote:
The Sailor Moon voice acting (at least in the DiC episodes) WAS really good for the time, better than anything that had come before it, even if the writing and censorship had issues.


Quote:
I find it pointless to complain about the DiC dub. It's like complaining about the Saban/FUNi/Ocean dubbed episodes of Dragon Ball Z (another case of great voice acting nailed with horrible writing and editing).


Please. Even Streamline Pictures English dubs had better voice acting than anything DiC or Funimation did with Sailor Moon or DBZ (at least until DBZ Kai's dub). Bad writing was just part of the problem. Voice actors who couldn't act to save their lives is another. Unnatural, stilted, forced, and comically bad. Like random people who were just pulled off the streets for an afternoon and shoved into a recording booth. I was surprised SM even had auditions. That means those terrible voice actors were actually APPROVED. But, then again, it is "Do It Cheap, Do It in Canada" as this guy said.

This guy actually said "Molly" moved people to tears in the booth! Did somebody die that day, besides the personification of acting?

Maybe if the SM cast had played those same parts for twenty years they might have improved like the DBZ dub cast, but those would have been a painful couple of decades. You know, like with the DBZ dub. Those VAs are fine now, but it was a pretty long journey.

I'm tired of hearing "for the time". One, by today's standards, it's awful. Two, by that day's standards, it wasn't great, either.


Last edited by penguintruth on Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PurpleWarrior13



Joined: 05 Sep 2009
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:57 pm Reply with quote
I have my opinion, you have yours'. Rolling Eyes
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Cptn_Taylor



Joined: 08 Nov 2013
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 11:38 pm Reply with quote
CCtheImmortal wrote:

You can throw around the idea about an 'actual' target, but you don't put a show that you want to target to little kids on a primetime slot. That would be like trying to put My Little Pony in the current incarnation of Toonami matched up with shows that are generally in the TV-14 range, what would be the logic behind doing that exactly? And if you want it to appeal to children you don't put it on during the primetime, you put it on during the daytime slot.

[cut]




You're so wrong. Now maybe it's true in the US that children programming (including teen programming) is not to be aired during primetime but I assure you it's a cultural thing. Different countries have different rules as when to air kids programming on tv.
There was a time when anime in France and Italy got the 19:30 time slot. If this is not primetime I don't know what is. Can you imagine Grendizer on tv right before the 8 pm news ? Adults didn't watch it, kids did. With time things changed, but there is no sacred rules that states kids can't watch tv in primetime. Rolling Eyes
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Angel M Cazares



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PostPosted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 11:44 pm Reply with quote
Great interview Zac!

I had little exposure to the original English dub of Sailor Moon, but compared to the Mexican dub (the first version of Sailor Moon I watched), I could tell that DIC had made annoying changes.

After hearing this interview, I have a better understanding of why the original dub butchered part of the series.
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samuelp
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 12:03 am Reply with quote
I can state definitively that Sailor Moon's target demographic was young girls.

You can tell by the advertisements and the merchandise being sold at the time it was aired on TV. It was aimed at exactly the same target demo as the Pierrot magical girl series from a few years earlier (Creamy Mami, Persia, Emi, etc...), which all also aired during prime time.

Sailor Moon is an example of a shoujo anime whose target audience is young girls (i.e. the same target audience as the manga), which aired in prime-time because back then families would all watch anime together. Today you still have examples of that in Detective Conan, for example (but prime-time anime is an almost extinct breed...)
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 12:21 am Reply with quote
And even if it wasn't for little girls, it would have still been at least for tweens of the day. Interesting interview, but it's still an archaic dub that's no longer required.
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InsomniacOwl



Joined: 15 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 12:41 am Reply with quote
penguintruth wrote:
"In Japan, this was not a children's show." BZZZ. WRONG. Sailor Moon was absolutely a children's show. It's just that the Japanese trust their children not to be complete sociopaths. Well, used to.


I can't be sure, though I think he was talking about it in passed context, how it was viewed back in the 90's, in the 90's the series was really taboo to many people because it had a lot of things in it that weren't nearly as acceptable as they are today, such as things like lesbianism, and violence. If he's speaking in the context of today, it's still more along the lines of a children show, you get into Shojo Beat or Shonen Jump, the series is definitely targeted towards kids, but I could understand some of his line of thinking when it comes down to nudity, violence not so much, but nudity, I could understand why his view would be much more conservative.

penguintruth wrote:
Excuses, excuses. If the translation was rough, they should have hired a bilingual translator. If you have to change the story so much, you shouldn't have taken on the project to begin with.


The only issue with what you said here is by this line of thinking they should bother taking anime that are adapted from series that aren't finished yet because they would have to add in filler. While I kind of agree, since most filler can be bad (though there are some good ones out there), that isn't something that's going to changed and hasn't changed even today. The idea of taking it and putting it out though was an odd one since they didn't have a single clue what to do with it after, they put it out and it failed the first time around, same happened with DBZ, was put out and it failed on it's original run. It was a learning process for them, but eventually they figured out what to do with it. This of course was during a time when things were more limited and I could only imagine how much they were given to work with, especially with the amount of time it took to finish, 4 months for 65 episodes? That is pretty insane.

penguintruth wrote:
And the voice acting, what horrible work that was. Horrendous voice acting, even for the time. And Hawkes had a problem with the word "lady"? You should have told her to do the job or walk.


Opinions, opinions, I admit to having some trouble with the dubbing, but not so much with DiC, Can say Hawkes was perfect in the position as Sailor Moon, sounds right, hit the marks on the comedy and could be serious when the time came. Also many find the word "lady" to be sexist, many don't like being called girls when they're woman, can't say the exact reason, though I figure that it's become "lady" makes someone seem more delicate and more child-like than the word "woman" which is more empowering. As he mentioned it wasn't that big of a deal and he was fine with allowing it to go through, it's not that huge of a deal, it's a switch of words to make the voice actor more comfortable, which is what you want when working with people, you want them to feel comfortable because it allows them do perform much better and more loosely.

Quote:
You'd think this guy produced the Cowboy Bebop dub the way he talks up the quality. You don't hear the Ronin Warriors folks bragging like this, and they had a much better English dub than SM's. Seriously, Maya the Bee and The Noozles had better voice acting. And were probably more accurate. Also... "Pokeyman". Rolling Eyes


He talks about it because he's passionate about the series, invested time into the series and has admitted to enjoying the experience, this isn't some kind of shoot where he's going to bash everyone around them, hate on the series and the work as a whole. He talks up about it because he is proud of the work he's been able to put into it and the success that the series has brought him, he even flat out says he came to love the series, and it shows, when he talks, so of course he's going to act like he produced the greatest thing in the world, because to him, that's what it was, it was fun, it was enjoyable and it was on a series that he has now become a fan of, that's what most of this book is going to be about, what happened and what it was all like for him, what it was like for him, why he is so passionate about the series.

Quote:
The reason the "Sailor Says" Segments were because the american channels it aired on have a FCC requirement for a certain amount of "Educational" television.


That I do recall hearing, pretty funny actually, but it makes a lot of sense... if only those "Sailor Says" segments made sense half of the time though. Very Happy

Quote:
All depends on how you define children, but young adults and teenagers I don't really considered children, they are teens. Hence the show went from a more teen-oriented feel to a more kid-oriented show.


Well, Japan does define them differently than we do, in the US, you're an adult by the age of 18, in Japan the age is 20. The term "young" gets thrown around a lot, especially when describing magazines like Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat, despite them being targeted toward "young male and female" readers, they are the definition of a kids magazine according to Japan, thus anything in them is really considered a kids show. Shonen and Shojo themselves are genres targeted to young males and females around the ages of 7-14, although history has shown that these genres have brought in many older fans, the series are still very much made for kids.

Quote:
As for Crystal and it's current marketing that's a whole other thing entirely. Toei's banking on nostalgia for it given they already have Precure as their big magical girl series for kids, and so their trying to target the people who grew up with the series as opposed to a newer audience. It's also why the show is currently online only there and while it has the laughably bad budget it currently does.


I do think you're being a little critical here, I don't think this is all just done on nostalgia. There were moments when they could have kept the money train rolling if they wanted to, but they didn't, they froze the rights to the series to ensure that it couldn't come out internationally. I believe there were also some issues with Naoko all the while that led to the freezing of the series, though that now seems to be all settled considered Naoko is said to have a some influence on these things.

Of course they're in it to make money, but I don't think it's something they're completely banking on, they always had the option to keep going I'm sure, and they didn't, they held out for years until Viz finally obtained the rights from the and the series was officially confirmed with Naoko's blessing. Naoko is involved in this, so I don't think it's all about money, she's been very well known to be a big fan of her own fans (she is a big supporter of anything creative they can come up with, from fanfiction to fanart), the budget could be a few things. Also, the show is airing online because that is the best place to go about it, as numbers have been showing, it's always one of the most popular episodes on Hulu days after it's been posted and numbers according to NicoNico have been high, it's getting a world-wide release because the series has a world-wide audience and reception.

Quote:
BTW, according to the DVD/BD box, Viz's rating for the series is TV-PG.


The original Sailor Moon season was rated TV-PG, though the series as a whole has been rated TV-14 through a Viz press release.

http://www.viz.com/node/1006124

"VIZ Media has licensed all 5 seasons of the original SAILOR MOON anime series (rated ‘TV-14’), spanning 200 episodes, as well as all three feature films. Included is the long-running show’s fifth and climactic final season “Sailor Stars,” which has never-before been licensed for North American release. As part of the return of the series, VIZ Media is producing a fresh and uncut English dub with an all-new voice cast, will present SAILOR MOON for the first time digitally, and also plans DVD and Deluxe Blu-ray edition sets for release in time for the 2014 holiday season."

The original season was pretty tame outside of the ending, though as the series continued it started to get more and more risque, I would estimate that R would hit a TV-14 rating, S would as well, Super S would have a TV-PG rating, and Sailor Stars would definitely have a TV-14 rating, this is just an estimation. Star is a definite though, since the violence, sexuality and nudity was toned up quite a bit compared to the other seasons, R and S are a toss up, but the series as a whole they're rating TV-14, it's just up in the air what the ratings for each season would be, but the original Sailor Moon season was definitely TV-PG because of how tame it was, outside of the ending of course...

Quote:
Bad writing was just part of the problem.


No, I think it was majority of the problem honestly, the dub itself sounded very campy, in fact many people have admitted to how campy the older series was because of the writing, the jokes and one-liners especially, I thought the group themselves did pretty decent with what they had to work with, the only person I have any issues with was Luna sounds like she was 80-years old, and much later when Cloverway took over and made Linda, Usagi (biggest mistake I've always felt that they made, total miscast), but, to each their own.

Quote:
This guy actually said "Molly" moved people to tears in the booth! Did somebody die that day, besides the personification of acting?


I'd believe it considering the amount of people I've heard crying over that very scene, that was one of the main scenes I've heard people mention they've cried over because of how sad it was made out to be.

Quote:
Sailor Moon is an example of a shoujo anime whose target audience is young girls


Shojo anime itself is an example of a series that targets to young girls, though the argument could be made because of it's rough marketing to 10-18, it still literally means 'little girl'.

Quote:
And even if it wasn't for little girls, it would have still been at least for tweens of the day. Interesting interview, but it's still an archaic dub that's no longer required.


I think it could be kind of fair to say the series could work with both, I know that Naoko has mentioned before that when she created the series she wanted it to appeal to young girls, tweens and even woman. It's easy enough to see why, since the series has things that each of them can relate to, school, boys, friendship, trust.

Though another thing that comes to mind, now that you've brought this up, they're all around the 14 range, which is an important moment in any girls life and one that almost anyone could relate to, older woman who've been through it, and younger girls that look forward to it. But as mentioned, since shojo can cover from 10-18 (roughly) and even around the ages of 7-14, it's not too uncommon for the genre as a whole to appeal to multiple


Last edited by InsomniacOwl on Fri Aug 15, 2014 4:11 am; edited 5 times in total
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penguintruth



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 12:44 am Reply with quote
Passion isn't that valuable if the results are poor. I'm not looking for "passion" that results in a terrible product. I'm looking for whatever produces a good one.
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LonelySoul 8515



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 12:51 am Reply with quote
I just finished listening to the podcast. Love the dic dub or hate it. I'm thankful for dic for bringing sailor moon to the United States, coming from a 7 year old age at the time. This was my 1st taste into anime, hell am still watching anime to this day.

Sailor says helped me grow up and taught me how act in front of other kids and people also helped me stay off the streets, I was living in downtown L.A at the time until I moved. Recently I went Anime expo I saw and met the original cast, I was so happy to see them in real life. They were very nice when i saw them. I will always have a special place in my heart for Sailor Moon.
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Cutiebunny



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 1:53 am Reply with quote
I've never liked the "back it the days, it was a good dub" excuse. Tenchi Muyo was dubbed and aired on my local PBS station in 1995 and is still, IMO, a fantastic dub. No one had wonky accents in the dub, and yet that was made around the same time the DiC Sailor Moon dub was produced. I'd buy his excuse if there weren't other dubs that weren't made around the same time that weren't so much more superior than the DiC SM dub.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that Sailor Moon began airing in my market in 1994. It played an important part in during my school years and exposed thousands of people, including myself, to anime. It was the anime that pushed me into buying cels and other animation artwork. However, nostalgia aside, it was not a quality dub. Not that I expect anyone to apologize for that, but a simple admission that, even at the time, it was not a great dub, would have been nice.
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Zalis116
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 3:28 am Reply with quote
CCTheImmortal wrote:
It's easy to market a series off to kids, you could throw in DBZ that was included in that very ad, that uncut had basically a script of "fudge", "Shit" and more blood than a Freddy Krueger movie, and market it to kids. That's much easier to do in the US when you tone things down, but even that holds a TV-14 rating over here.
Was that the actual DBZ script, or just the 90s VHS fansubs by Arctic Animation or whoever that threw in tons of extra profanity to seem more edgy and badass?
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penguintruth



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 3:49 am Reply with quote
Obviously since Japanese has few, if any, "curse words" (mostly it's all in the WAY you say something), and DBZ is for kids, the naughtiest the script got in the Japanese version was "kuso", which does mean excrement, but it can just as easily be translated into a "damn", because it's mostly said in response to disappointment, failure, or pain.

It's not like they said "m*nko" (~dechu!).

Funimation usually used "darn". But if you get a hole blasted in you or slammed against a mountain side, you're not going to say "darn". You're at least going to say "damn". But yeah, American television, where unless you're Bart Simpson, you can't say "damn", even if somebody's beating you to death.
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Lain'sHairline



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 4:37 am Reply with quote
Wasn't into Sailor Moon when I was old enough to be in it's target demographic but I did like the series as a contrast for other anime in general cause of it's genre, plot and color scheme. Hard to explain.
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PurpleWarrior13



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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 7:48 am Reply with quote
penguintruth wrote:
Passion isn't that valuable if the results are poor. I'm not looking for "passion" that results in a terrible product. I'm looking for whatever produces a good one.


YOU think the results are poor (and others do as well, including myself to some extent), and there's nothing wrong with that, but there's also nothing wrong with someone having pride in the work they do if they themselves (and others) find it to be good, especially something that happened two decades ago. Besides, most of the positive things he had to say were about the EXPERIENCE more than anything, and less of the final product (though I'm sure he is proud of that too). I mean... what did you expect him to say? Did you expect him to discuss how BAD he thought he and his cast did?
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