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I must say, I agree on just about everything that was said in this review, except the dub. Ruby Marlowe and Wendee Lee sound NOTHING alike. They are in so many dubs you'd have to be a total novice to even think they sound the same. Afrom the little translation error in the OAVs omake, Fushigi Yugi's dub was pretty good....until Eikoden that was. Then when David Hayter was replaced it was rendered unwatchable.

I disagree about the dub being good. When I listened to it, I often found myself just trying to tolerate how badly some of their voices matched up, and on top of that the acting wasn't very consistent.

To me, a character's voice is 50% of their overall likeability, the other half being personality (which is actually influenced by voice, but I'm talking more of the way they're written and the kinds of things they do).

I know none of these characters have any kind of voice to begin with before making the transition from manga to anime, but I'm sure it was all in the best interests of the anime producers to make them sound a certain way because they thought it'd bring out the characters as best as possible.

It's really just opinion on whether or not they sound bad when these characters are dubbed into English, but one thing I tend to do is be more critical on titles I like.

In this case, I like the show a lot, so I'll agree with Mr. Santos that the dub isn't very good. The English VA's just sound too bland at times and again, aren't consistent enough throughout the series.

I don't get the same feeling of sentiment after hearing Kae Araki and Hikaru Midorikawa's Miaka and Tamahome. I liked Ruby Marlowe's Meflina in Outlaw Star, but that's pretty much it, and David Hayter should just stick to being Solid Snake and writing scripts for the X-Men movies Anime smallmouth

.

But like I said, it's just opinion, and you're entitled to say that the dub is good as well. I just wanted to disagree with you, that's all Anime smile

.

I'm not a fan of the Fushigi Yuugi dub either. And as for Wendee and Ruby sounding alike, I think they did as well. Not so much pitch-for-pitch like Professor Genius seem to thought the reviewer meant, but they both use the same mannerisms and stock reactions, though Miaka and Yui are different enough intentionally that their voices should be like night and day.

Last edited by kusanagi-sama on Mon Jan 24, 2005 7:39 pm; edited 1 time in total

I never listened to the dub of this, and I've only seen the first season. As much as I like it, the version I got was a HK(?) DVD Rip of Pioneer's release. It has as much as 9 episodes a DVD (3 hours, 45 minutes), and this might be the reason why I haven't bothered to watch the 2nd season or the OVA's. However, the video quality is still very good, and one episode suffers from a glitch that causes it to freeze at a particular place, but if I back up a couple seconds and skim past that a few seconds, it plays fine - I heard the original DVD release also had this problem.

I do have the intention on buying these Geneon re-releases and doing something with the current version (it has the Fx logo on it). I thought about microwaving or burning them when I start buying the Geneon re-release.

kusanagi-sama, I use to have the exact same box. I know what you mean by that glitch. It was:

spoiler[ The episode where Noriko dies, right?]

In any case, I sold it to my friend for half the price I bought it for, and even though he knew it was a bootleg he bought it anyway. So maybe you have a friend like that who'd go low enough to do that too, neh? Wink

That box set glitched on me a lot. The video quality wasn't great either as it turned pretty grainy from time to time, but that may have been because I was using my PS2 as the DVD player Confused

.

That was the only glitch I've had so far (box 1), and what episode number was that, I haven't watched it since I bought that early last year

I bought the 2 seasons, and the 2 OVA's on eBay for $59.99. At the time I thought it was official, and the other person at the place I work bought it also (he has different box artwork) and he said that they weren't bootlegs, so that's why I bought it. (he buys quite a few import live action movies - I know they are bootlegs, he thinks they aren't. Example: Hero - he bought the import version with english subs, and he said that there was only one word changed from the import to the official retail version)

Watching the video on my computer, I see now, that it is a bit blurry compared to other anime that I have on DVD from that time (in fact blurier than some fansubs from anime of the same time)

Oh, and another thing, even though Miaka and Yui sound the same, they are voiced by two different people. Yui is voiced by Wendee Lee of all people and Miaka is voiced by Ruby Marlowe

Personally, I believe that Fushigi Yugi's dub was actually good during the time it was made. Most English dubs during the mid-90's aren't as good as many series later translated and dub in 2000. I do believe out of all the characters in the dub, the females characters were the weak ones, especially for Soi. I enjoyed the male characters in the dub, frankly and personally don't mind the change from "no da" to "ya know". Besides, it's not like Chichiri's dialogue have him saying it continuously.

What bothered me was the dubbing for Miaka's English instructor to Spanish. Couldn't they have him speak Japanese? Or maybe German or French? I don't think Spanish is even taught in Japan. O_o

kusanagi-sama wrote:

(he buys quite a few import live action movies - I know they are bootlegs, he thinks they aren't. Example: Hero - he bought the import version with english subs, and he said that there was only one word changed from the import to the official retail version)

Yeah, I have a bootleg of Hero as well (at least I think it is, but I'm not sure). If you look here, the one I have is the one in the 3rd column.

The only thing that keeps me from buying the Miramax version is the fact that they changed the three most important words in the movie.

The scene where Broken Sword writes THREE words into the ground and not TWO as was translated by Miramax. Those three words were "All Under Heaven" as opposed to just the lame and less than inspirational "our land" Rolling Eyes

.

Oh, and not to mention the cover art totally sucks. The cover art on the 4th column is what it's supposed to look like, but they put it on the back of the R1. And if you look at the R1 cover, you'll notice it looks like Jet Li is holding Zhang Ziyi, even though they're actually enemies in the movie Rolling Eyes

. There is NO relation between them whatsover aside from the fact that Jet Li kicks her butt in one scene.

And to top it all off, he's not even holding his own sword! Mad

Yeesh. I thought the R1 release of Iron Monkey was OK (though I haven't seen the R3 version), and I don't even care about their job on Shaolin Soccer since I already have the 2-disc Special Edition WITH Cantonese instead of just English dubbing and French subtitles or whatever, but after seeing a freakin' bootleg, I'd at least expect a decent job of one of my favorite movies.

I'm contemplating the purchase of the R3 version, but it's basically the same as the one I have now, only it's 2-disc with extras, has that great cover art, and translates the captions at the beginning of the movie.

Anyway, you need to watch the rest of the series (Fushigi Yuugi), even if it is by bootleg. I'm sure you'll like the rest of it enough to want to buy the R1 version even more. Wink

Ok, after looking at that, he also has the one in the third column. I suppose it isn't a bootleg, and is somewhat better than the Mirimax version - espicially since they changed a line making it two in Mirimax compared to the correct 3 word line - maybe Mirimax was afraid they'd offend someone by using the word Heaven, so they used to dumbed down "Our land".

However, further viewing of that site exposes that Guang Dong doesn't even subtitle a very important part of the movie, the ending and opening comments. So, in this case, Miramax, despite that brightening of the video and line change is superior to the R0 release.

Pish posh. I already know what the beginning and ending captions are supposed to say, but the Miramax version still fails to emphasize the most important aspect of why Jet Li is a hero during the actual movie. Granted, "our land" isn't a big deal, but "all under heaven" is like, super cool sounding to me Anime catgrin

. Oh well, now I'm just being biased Razz

.

I'd say this is a fair review of Fushigi Yugi, though as Carlos said, it's best viewed as an entire series.. a few episodes doesn't do it justice. But.. I'll defend it no matter what because I'm a die hard FY nerd/fanatic. It was really the first anime that really pulled me into a story hard... it was pretty much my life in middle school. Ah, the nostalgic days of VHS fansub tapes!! Where I'd have to wait months right before the episode where spoiler[Nuriko dies!]

I think the dub is even worse than what the review said. Granted, I was very accustom to the Japanese voices, but Miaka's voice sounded really forced.. like the actress was "making a voice," much like the Sailor Moon in the cheesy TV dub. As if Miaka wasn't an annoying enough character...

Other characters seemed hit or miss. Tamahome sounded REALLY different in tone and attitude from the Japanese, but seemed like you could get used to it easy. Chichiri's "ya know" put the icing on the cringingly unwatchable cake for me. Just my 2 cents.

i haven't seen this thing in ages, but iirc, chichiri said no da a lot....like a whole lot. like the reviewer said, every sentence. it got to the point that everyone else in the cast started speaking with no da. it was pretty funny actually. ofcourse no da is a lot easier to cope with then adding in a forced colloquial, ya know?

the vocals for the show are great though. so i disagree with the reviewer on that. plus, the music didn't seem all that bad. not the d rating that it got. if anything it should have been a c or a b considering it didn't actually detract from the show. it didn't add anything, but that doesn't mean it sucked arse. Oh...and I also love old skool Anime themes so that remark about the op/ed being dated kinda hit me on a sour note.

It's funny, it seems the reasons the reviewer gives for girls liking FY can pretty much be tweaked to explain what guys like about a lot of other animes (harem animes...). Maybe guys and girls aren't that different afterall.

I agree, I didn't think the music was that bad. If anything, it is unnoticeable and just moderately lame. I think the opening and ending theme, especially the ending theme, are good classic anime songs. I loves me the ending song. Either way, I think you're right that the music didn't really detract from the show.

Yes... there are many hot bishounen in this title, but I hope that doesn't scare anybody (guys tired of rolling their eyes at typical fangirl drivel) away. I was initially sucked in by the amazing depth, emotions, and the general likeable quality of the characters.

It was only later on, I became obsessed with the guys.. -_-;

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