Apologies + a quick discussion of dubs

[Last Exile]

Just quickly, to anyone I offended in the topic I created yesterday, I apologise. I did not mean to sound elitist or anything. I just really hated that Azumanga Daioh dub. It made me feel physically ill becuase the voices did not suit the characters one bit, plus the dub destroyed the whole essence of Azumanga Daioh. It didn't feel like Azumanga Daioh at all. I hold Azumanga Daioh with very high esteem, as does my local anime club. They're pretty incensed as well, and if you induced them to post here, considering there ar eplenty of nihilists and pure cynics over here, I would seem completely softcore, I can assure you.

Still, my actions were wrong. I sincerely apologise. I do not hate all dubs. I simply hate dubs that:

1. Provide voices that don't suit the character
2. Completely alter/destroy what the aniem was supposed to be about

I think there are some good dubs out there. Last Exile, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Haibane Renmei. They do exist, and they're good because the actors suited the characters. And in stuff like Shrek and Monsters INc. they picked the perfect actors to voice the characters. But they're not doing that with Japanese animation. My problem is that in the world of animation, the US and Japan have 2 confolicting ideas. I spoke to a US animator recently and he gave me the lowdown in a short yet honest statement:

In America, animation is all about making money
In Japan, animation is more about the artform itself

Hence my frustration of dubs when they use the same few voice actors over and over to speed up releases despite the fact their voice doesn't suit the character. Or that they think the cultural aspects or certain scenes are not worth being shown on a dub or TV. It's censorship by people who think they know best for everyone. The truth is, they don't know best for everyone. That is a violation of human rights.

That is my stance on dubs. I am not anti-American, not at all. I'm just anti-excessive censorship/anti-hacking to pieces. I was also mad that Azumanga Daioh DVD was rated MA15+. This simply cannot be justified when Love Hina (great series, though. I love it) is rated PG, Please Teacher is mainly rated PG except for 1 M-rated DVD, etc. There is no nudity/sex/violence in the Japanese version of Azumanga Daioh, and the swearing bit only happened in the first 2 minutes! There is no consistency with this rating.

That was what got me so incensed. Again, apologies for offending anyone unintentionally, but I just don't have the time to remain silent anymore and grin and bear it.

[Azura Stardust]

Actually, there are many many shows in Japan that are also made for money only. Besides typically shounen-like shows and things like KonoMini which, people theorize was a complete Mahoromatic ripoff created just as a cashcow for Gainax to work on other projects, you also should see the kinds of prices they give their DVDs. Limited edition ones can cost up to 85US$, and normal ones maybe 50US$ish... for 2 episodes...

Budget and lifestyle is just as important there, I believe. How many times has budget been completely skimped on or thrown to cheaper but generally lower-quality Chinese/Korean studios? While I would accept that some anime has an artistic quality and there are certainly shows where a lot of thought, effort, good ideas and a sincere want to make it look good are put in, .... Not all anime are like that. A lot of the time it's for the most basic purpose of anime: entertainment.

Many more anime than you think actually have to base their sales on a rather small viewerbase - typically people who stay up late to watch anime (A LOT of it is broadcasted at crazy times like 1:00 am, on small channels), are maniacs in collecting all sorts of things about that anime, and have certain traits which, I think I would be safe in assuming, imply that these people are otaku.

If this is your only viewerbase, you're quite at the mercy of their demands sometimes if you want to please them and therefore ensure sales are met. This might explain why you have very popular type of genre done again and again (Case in point: two recent anime, Kenran Butou Sai and Soukyuu no Fafner, are really.... quite unoriginal. Very much so. But they have many fans...), and things like fanservice... moe~ characters, et.c

So... if you consider the target population in Japan in mind, isn't it kind of difficult marketing it in America? In Japan I get the impression, and thus imply that they are so bound to what has always been that they don't try to market to the general population unless it's got a popular aspect to it.

In America though,... I don't blame the companies for wanting to make money. Blame them of greediness, but don't forget that there are living humans working behind a seemingly faceless mask of "evil licensing thingy that puts out terrible overpriced dvds". They ALSO have a life and they need money.
I suppose the only way for these companies to make money is to market it to a larger population than just "otaku". The only way to attact a larger population is thus to "localize" it and so on... I somehow don't think many companies are willing to market it as it is; I don't think many ordinary people are comfortable with anime as it is either. It can't be helped and it takes a lot of long term committed effort to change that mindset...

Also... I don't think many American companies have enough money to hire good voice talent for the shows. Remember they need to pay all these people, and if they need to get better talent, they either need to pay more (and thus increase dvd prices which I think, might step into an unaffordable range if increased much higher) or they have to have enough clout and be able to attract the right people.
Dubs can be done properly when you have people who are skilled and good in localizing the thing, and the money (Seen Princess Mononoke? Many have hailed its dub as excellent, and guess who voices them, known actors like Gillian Anderson, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Minnie Driver...), - and the passion.

I do get the impression that some people who do the DVDs have little passion to do it as best as possible, and many people do notice that good fansubs, done by people who are dedicated, willing and very passionate about the anime, can be miles better than commercial DVDs.
Perhaps this can be changed soon, if more of these passionate people join the ranks of the anime DVD industry. Perhaps we can see higher quality DVDs...

(By the way, if you want to speak about evil companies, I maintain 4Kids holds that title... or maybe DiC... but hey, they make the money. That, unfortunately, is what really matters in the world. Can't really change that.)

(I have no idea what or why I've been asying the 2nd half of this post... but I'm pretty sure about the Japanese target viewership part.)

[Roarkiller]

I do get the impression that some people who do the DVDs have little passion to do it as best as possible, and many people do notice that good fansubs, done by people who are dedicated, willing and very passionate about the anime, can be miles better than commercial DVDs.
Perhaps this can be changed soon, if more of these passionate people join the ranks of the anime DVD industry. Perhaps we can see higher quality DVDs...

Kinda straying, arent u? Since subs and dubs r 2 completely different things. tho it IS kinda true, some fansubbers r way ahead in terms of quality, even if they removed all the notes.

Makes u wonder why these companies dont hire them fansubbers to sub their DVDs. Easy to find, no? I hear good part-time jobs r hard to find too :)

[Razola]

The truth is, they don't know best for everyone. That is a violation of human rights.
You just crossed the line into scary. A bad dub isn't breaking some lofty UN pact.

I think the DVD has a lot of potential for Anime in the US. Giving us the full uncut version with dub and sub on DVD along with the Adult Swim version will generate a lot of revenue. And as Anime gains popularity in the US, more and more accomplished voice actors will start taking on dubs.

Right now a lot of VAs for dubs are too generic. There's no one with a really good range like you see in American shows (The Simpsons, Futurama, Family, even South Park normally have one or more people doing as many as 10+ characters).

[The Muffin Man]

First of all, this thread makes me chortle.

"I didn't mean to sound Elitist. I just hated the Azumanga dub and thought it was horrible because the voices didn't fit. Don't get me wrong, I understand that American dubbers are greedy greedy bastards whereas the Japanese are selfless animators who love everything about animation."

Look, you wanna know the problem? It's not the Dubbers fault. It's the fault of companies not being willing to fork over money to GET the good VAs. The Simpsons has 2 guys(Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria) who do, together, probably a good 15 or so characters on the show. REGULAR characters. Did you know that Moe and Apu are voiced by the SAME guy?(Hank Azaria) Did you ever know that just by the voice? Or Comic Book guy and Apu. I doubt you did. Wanna know why? Because they're masters of their craft.

Anime licensers and the studios who made the anime(because I doubt they lose all say in the VAs) need to stop tiptoeing around it and recycling VAs. Matt Groening did both Futurama and the Simpsons. And I don't think there's ONE actor that does voices for characters on both.

It's not the actors fault, it's the studio and licensers fault for not reaching out there and TRYING to get good voice actors who WILL try.

[Razola]

You're wrong, TMM.

Hank Azaria ALONE does 15+ voices for Simpsons. Dan does about 11 recurring characters (not to mention his cameo on Futurama as the Robot Devil), whereas Shearer does nearly 20 voices for the show.

That's almost 50 unique voices done by three people. And there are other people who are nearly talented. Billy West does several voices for Futurama (Fry, Zoidberg, Zapp, etc.) and Seth MacFarlane does five voices for Family Guy (Brian, Peter, Stewie, Quagmire, Tom Tucker).

There is no shortage of talent for American VAs.

EDIT: He's dead, but I should also mention the late great Mel Blanc. He's not called the "Man of a Thousand Voices" for nothing.

[The Muffin Man]

You're wrong, TMM.

Hank Azaria ALONE does 15+ voices for Simpsons. Dan does about 11 recurring characters (not to mention his cameo on Futurama as the Robot Devil), whereas Shearer does nearly 20 voices for the show.

That's almost 50 unique voices done by three people. And there are other people who are nearly talented. Billy West does several voices for Futurama (Fry, Zoidberg, Zapp, etc.) and Seth MacFarlane does five voices for Family Guy (Brian, Peter, Stewie, Quagmire, Tom Tucker).

There is no shortage of talent for American VAs.

EDIT: He's dead, but I should also mention the late great Mel Blanc. He's not called the "Man of a Thousand Voices" for nothing.

Okok Fine. I kinda meant constantly recurring characters...

[Razola]

Well, we still proved the point nonetheless.

[Mewtwo-D2]

I think one of the major problems with a lot of dubs was the same as it was when I was first getting into anime, back before DVD's were really big. Dubs are more expensive to make, so they'd scrimp on their budget when hiring VA's in most cases. They knew the hard-core fans wouldn't buy the dubs no matter how good they were, which is why subs used to cost more. They knew the hard=core fans would pay it. With the dubs, they only had to make them tolerable for the casual veiwer, who would very possibly end up a hard-core sub's-only fan. TV dubs didn't need to be good at all- the only people who would buy the VHS would want to get subbed, since TV anime is shown about 400 times before they take it off the air. Every once in awhile you got a good dub, on the rather sound marketing premise that with a good dub, you could inspire more people to get really into anime and they would start buying the subbed tapes. That way they could not only break even, but turn a good profit.

Now, though, bad dubs are less acceptable. Anime is more accessible to the casual veiwer, and you can buy a DVD of almost any series for only a few dollars more than you used to pay for the subbed tape. But why then do they continue making bad dubs? Your guess is as good as mine, but it seems that in a lot of cases it's just laziness. There are many extremely talented American VA's, but they can't be in everything. So rather than go searching for another great VA, they apparently grab the first person they see off the street and put them in a sound booth. In some cases, you can tell that they didn't really care enough to do a good dub, in others, they cared and that's why it's a fantastic dub.

And Mike, hating a bad dub is not elitist anymore than hating a bad cover of your favorite song. If you acknowledge that all dubs aren't automatically the work of Satan (I have a friend who fervently believes this) and that *gasp* some dubs are actually good, then there's no harm done. I have no idea what your favorite song is, but imagine it being sung by someone with a nails-on-a-chalkboard voice who only had the faintest idea of the words and completely ignored the beat. You'd hate it too, but you'd acknowledge that someone else could have done a good cover of the song, though most likely not better than the original artist.

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

In America, animation is all about making money
In Japan, animation is more about the artform itself


You say this on a POKéMON BOARD?!?! Speaking of animation for money-making...

[The Muffin Man]

And Mike, hating a bad dub is not elitist anymore than hating a bad cover of your favorite song. If you acknowledge that all dubs aren't automatically the work of Satan (I have a friend who fervently believes this) and that *gasp* some dubs are actually good, then there's no harm done. I have no idea what your favorite song is, but imagine it being sung by someone with a nails-on-a-chalkboard voice who only had the faintest idea of the words and completely ignored the beat. You'd hate it too, but you'd acknowledge that someone else could have done a good cover of the song, though most likely not better than the original artist.

I can see your point, but imagine if this band does amazing work on their own, and is talented, but they were given this song to murder and I decided "Ok I hate all covers because this band didn't get my favorite band right. Now I'm gonna post on a Music message board about how horrible it is, despite my OWN RULE about no hate topics" and just tore into this band. Now imagine I then posted a topic apologizing and snuck in little insults to get the point across. Let's say it's a cover of Pink Floyds "The Wall" by an american band. I say "Well it's ok because I understand that Americans are greedy and love only money while the British are SO into the music buisness for music not money despite the high quality work." After a while, you'd get annoyed. Especially with covers of songs out there that sound REALLY good.

See where I'm coming from?


EDIT - Funny thing is, I DO like Pink Floyds "The wall" and a band I like IS doing a cover of it(Korn has it on their newest CD coming out)

[Razola]

I sae a documentary on anime once. They use money-saving shortcuts on animation all the time.

Just look at a lot of them and you'll see repeat animation and the luck. The episodes of Naruto I saw were HORRIBLE when it came to flashbacks. At some times an entire episode could be as much as 50% flashback to the previous episode.

[Last Exile]

Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist are long runnign series, so they need to pump episodes out one per few days. The quality clearly shows, but too many people got conned into liking it. They're the #1 and #2 downloads of anime in the US and Japan at the moment, and I wonder why.

[The Muffin Man]

Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist are long runnign series, so they need to pump episodes out one per few days. The quality clearly shows, but too many people got conned into liking it. They're the #1 and #2 downloads of anime in the US and Japan at the moment, and I wonder why.

Naruto was only ONE example. There are way more anime out there that aren't long-running series that do that.

You can stop trying to act as if the Japanese animators are saints any time now.

[EngiMatikul]

Kinda straying, arent u? Since subs and dubs r 2 completely different things. tho it IS kinda true, some fansubbers r way ahead in terms of quality, even if they removed all the notes.

Makes u wonder why these companies dont hire them fansubbers to sub their DVDs. Easy to find, no? I hear good part-time jobs r hard to find too :)
eer... I dunno but you're saying an avi file has higher quality than a well-released non-bootleg DVD? If you're talking about the subbing font, I don't think that's as fancily necessary as, say, the crispness of the DVD format. As long as the subbing is decently accurate on the DVD, I would say it would be worth the money.

Weee straying more and more off topic is fun! Here's a random thought:

How about thinking about those great American movies being dubbed in Japanese? Are they money making machines or pieces of art to the Japanese dubbers? :o

EDIT: There is no such thing as DVD video.

[Azura Stardust]

EngiMatikul: I personally find the translation of some fansubbers to be better. For one thing good fansubbers are better at making the subtitles sound more smooth in english rather than a direct sort of translation. They also edit it carefully to stop screen bleeds, and also even though odd spelling errors in dvds are acceptable, if they're there it means they haven't done their QC properly. GOod fansubbers take the time to QC which usually just means watching once through and concentrating. Surely something that you pay for, done by professionals, could also have the same amount of attention treated to it.

I think you have a very good point there, most of the time when you dub you aren't creating an art piece at all, you're just translating someone else's art piece. It would be nice if effort was put in to make it fit and express the quality of the work through the translation, but yeah...

[EngiMatikul]

There is a counterargument to that. Most of the time when companies are subbing and dubbing episodes, the subs and dubs are not the same. Furthermore, most anime DVDs, being from large companies, have fairly accurate spelling in their subbings. The direct-translation and spelling-error DVDs you seem to speak about sound a lot like bootlegs, which are, in essence, no better than fansubbers, in fact perhaps many times worse than the work that fansubbers do. Anime companies like ADV make sure their DVDs come out with quality worth your money for, along with a few neat-o extras like VA interviews (both English AND Japanese interviews, mind you). If at all you are talking about any anime DVD product in particular, I think it was probably done way early in the days, because nowadays I am very satisfied with the anime DVDs most companies come out with.

I think Noir would have been a better dub if everyone in the dubbing had a british accent, don't you guys all agree with me? :P </random>

EDIT: speaking of work dedication, have any of you ever seen those extras in some of the anime, of the interviews and stuff? these people seem pretty serious in their work, both the Japanese and the American people working on the anime. Though I will admit sometimes it seems as if the American dubbers have not much of a clue what their dubbing hence their tendency to misinterpret thoughts and feelings... eerm well... o well.

[Roarkiller]

eer... I dunno but you're saying an avi file has higher quality than a well-released non-bootleg DVD? If you're talking about the subbing font, I don't think that's as fancily necessary as, say, the crispness of the DVD format. As long as the subbing is decently accurate on the DVD, I would say it would be worth the money.

I dont care for video quality (unless its like the stuff AJ dishes out) so long as the translations r spot on. And like mp3s, u hardly see the difference between the quality of an AVI file and a DVD on TV. After all, the raws u get from fansubbers r usually the exact same thing as what u get on a DVD (ey, its juz another form of recording anyway).

And altho its not my place to say, not all official subs r that good. Im not that fluent in japanese, but ive watched a few anime DVDs, and unless ive been watching only exceptions, fansubbers do as good a job, if not slightly better, than subbing companies. If u know japanese and keep an eye on the translations, u'll get what i mean.

Of course, it could be that ive only been downloading from the best, so meh.

[EngiMatikul]

I find it rather strange that a person into anime wouldn't care too much entirely on the quality of the anime being shown, but again this is probably because most people look into different areas when figuring out which anime to watch. But a few more comments then about translations: personally, unless you completely comprehend japanese, I think it's good enough to appreciate that the licensing companies buying the license for a nice hefty amount of sum (yes, they buy their licenses, they don't just take it), trying on their part to get a decent translator and translate the scripts, as well as finding good VAs for it. You think all this is easy? Well, its not as easy as the fansubbers have it. Fansubbers have the whole world in their hands with mIRC, but ADV has... Houston, Texas. Yea, if you checked out any of their VA interviews and such, most of the people ADV hires are limited to Texas, and that's speaking with a large company. In fact, their suggestion for (if you think you can be of great service to them) getting a job with the company is #1: move to Houston, Texas, USA. Of course, this is just in my opinion, but I think going around claiming that the subbing isn't as good as the fansubbers are doing it is a rather finicky statement because while fansubbers have the whole world along with not usually just 1 but a couple translators going at a time, ADV can't really expand much farther than their little hideout in Texas, because as large as they seem they're not entirely such bigshots as to advertise to the whole world to help them translate anime.

well, that's just my small bit, and mind you, ADV is one of the largest if not THE largest anime licensing company in America right now. As far as I can see, the translations are decently accurate so that we DO know what's going on in the plotline; they don't necessarily need to be down to every last detail with a subnote every other frame.

I'm bored so I'm going to ramble some more. Maybe some are wondering why the quality of the translations (not the DVD, or extras) is so bad, perhaps it's also because they want to try and get it out to the public at a decent speed as well. So now you're thinking, "oh so they rush things, that's bad!", but if you think about it more, the longer something stays licensed but nothing comes out, the more the fans would get frustrated to the point of downloading the anime instead of waiting to buy it (which you guys do anyway and probably don't really see the point of this, but o well). This means they'll lose some profit. Plus, there's always a tinge of specialty in recently released anime: doesn't an anime that says "just released in Japan!" seem to spark you more interest than one that says, "released in Japan in 1960!"? But again, this is probably just my preferance.

Eer, one last comment and I'm done: Roarkiller, have you tried full screen mode on your anime? the quality dramatically decreases if you do it that way, you'll probably see. It becomes more pixelized and such. Now, it may be just me, but I somehow like watching Anime on a 40" widescreen in its crisp and clearness... Hmm... probably just me...

[Roarkiller]

I usually watch on full screen. But mine's a 17" screen, CTR.

[Last Exile]

You can stop trying to act as if the Japanese animators are saints any time now.

Saints?! Are you kidding me?! I love them for daring to be risque and devilish!

I like anime because it's not sugar and spice and eveyrthing nice. I like it for its sexiness, honesty and in-you-face style.

Who wants to be a saint?!

[Razola]

Saints?! Are you kidding me?! I love them for daring to be risque and devilish!

I like anime because it's not sugar and spice and eveyrthing nice. I like it for its sexiness, honesty and in-you-face style.

Who wants to be a saint?!
You totally missed the point of his post. He meant Saints as in "as close to perfection without being God".

In other words: fanboy = you.

[The Muffin Man]

You totally missed the point of his post. He meant Saints as in "as close to perfection without being God".

In other words: fanboy = you.

And Animelee called you an idiot...pssh...

[Last Exile]

n, I simply like the 0.1% of total anime that is good vs the 0.01% of total cartoons that are good.

In my book, there's no hero, saint or god.

Geez, now who's being elitist?!

[Roarkiller]

No one. Ur all generalizing and jumping into hasty conclusions.

And no, NO otaku sees animators as saints (gawd, what a word to use). Id say the majority of them readily admits to the million and one faults in them, and yes that includes monetory greed (is there such a phrase?)

Tho u can tell that most of the time, we readily forgive them if the anime is up to our standards, lol. The irony.

[Sabakyuu]

I didn't know how many people hated the Azumanga Daioh dub. I for one love what they did with it, the voice for kaorin and miss yukari in my opinon were excellent, however Osaka has a wierd accent. ADV made her sound like a cowgirl just because she comes from Osaka. Although this just be me because I can't stand reading through so many subtitles after a long day of school. I learn to adapt to dubs eventually...I think companies like ADV films should be more recognized, because they do bring us the dvds. Its all a matter of opinion, I think RahXephon and Evangelion have great dubs, while others may hate Shinji's voice...I think people that hate dubs should just stick with the subs. :what:

[The Muffin Man]

n, I simply like the 0.1% of total anime that is good vs the 0.01% of total cartoons that are good.

In my book, there's no hero, saint or god.

Geez, now who's being elitist?!

News flash, There are way more good cartoons out there. Not just Futurama and Family Guy and South Park and Simpsons. But also Looney Tunes, for example, is great.

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Let's not forget Batman: The Animated Series--probably the best cartoon ever.

[The Muffin Man]

Let's not forget Batman: The Animated Series--probably the best cartoon ever.

And Justice League, Batman Beyond, Superman, Spider-man(not that god-awful Unlimited crap...), X-Men

Superhero cartoons in general.

[Razola]

News flash, There are way more good cartoons out there. Not just Futurama and Family Guy and South Park and Simpsons. But also Looney Tunes, for example, is legendary.
Oh yeah!!!