Anime?

[Taffeta]

I've never watched Ghibli in English. I think I have heard maybe 2 lines of Mononokehime in English by accident before hurriedly switching over. I imagine probably the dubs ought to be better quality than regular anime series but I guess it depends on the actors and how much they have to fit the script to mouth movements.

I also have no idea how Spirited Away/Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi even makes sense in English.

[Ponyfan]

I watch the dubs because reading subtitles for an extended time takes me out of being fully immersed in the movie since I don't understand Japanese. I haven't seen Spirited Away but have heard other people mention it was confusing.



Ponyfan

[Carrehz]

The only Ghibli dub I've been able to stomach is The Cat Returns; that one works fine in both languages and they actually managed to find a good cast... for some reason all the other Ghibli dubs (at least the Disney dubs) have at least one irritating voice =_= Although they did swap Natoru's gender in the dub, not sure why they did that...

(I wonder how the heck Whisper of the Heart works in English - one of the major plot points is the main character translating "Country Roads" into Japanese. Not sure how that'd make sense in the dub.)

I watched Howl's Moving Castle for the first time a few months ago! I liked it, it's not my favourite Ghibli film though.

There seems to be a lot of hate againist filler episodes in the anime community. I don't mind them as long as they aren't recaps or flashbacks of previous episodes. Naruto has so many of those. 

I don't mind filler, either - if done well it can really expand on the characters. I've noticed this particularly with magical girl series (at least older ones). Take Sailor Moon, for example (original series, not Crystal) - the manga has the team all set up after several chapters whereas the anime takes longer to introduce all the girls, thus giving you more time to get to know their personalities before moving onto the next intro. More room to breathe, you know?

[Ponyfan]

It's been a long time since I've watched Whisper of the Heart but I think in the English dub Shizuku is either still trying to translate the song in to Japanese or she is rewriting the song with lyrics to fit at graduation.


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

I watch the dubs because reading subtitles for an extended time takes me out of being fully immersed in the movie since I don't understand Japanese. I haven't seen Spirited Away but have heard other people mention it was confusing.



Ponyfan

It's not confusing in Japanese, but then kami-kakushi is an innately Japanese thing (literally, hidden by the gods)...which is not quite the same as "Spirited Away" but I guess as close as they could get it. It is an odd film but some things don't make sense in translation.

I have seen in the past that where a Japanese character tries to speak English, in dubs they make an English speaker speak say, French instead which is an interesting way of getting round such problems.

Another interesting thing about dubs is that often the gender of the character and that of the voice artist are the same. It's not 100% but it's much more common for women to voice young male characters in Japan, or sometimes others if they want to make gender ambiguous. It never made it into the anime (in the end it's a good thing as the manga arc was horrible) but there was a character in Bleach that had extensive gender debate because in Japanese gender pronouns are not necessary and can sometimes be interchanged anyway. So for weeks and weeks people argued over whether this character was male or female or neither. And the translations of the manga into English struggled with it as well, so got inconsistent he/she/they/etc. It was eventually revealed the character was male, but I was thinking how that might work in anime, and that in Japanese it would probably maintain the ambiguity longer than in English.

Though there's another series, isn't there, with a character whose gender was never officially revealed? I forget which right now.

Characters like Yuki in Fruits Basket, and Kenshin in Rurouni Kenshin were voiced by women in the Japanese anime. Yuki will now be voiced by a guy, I think, in the new series, which is interesting. But there feels like a lot more fluidity around character, gender etc with Japanese versions because of this practice and how common it is.

Going back to fillers, I like what the Bleach fillers did for Kira. The filler writers clearly liked Kira more than the mangaka did.

It can be used in other ways though. In Fushigi Yuugi manga there's a whole section where they end up stranded in this place where they all have to dress as women else they're going to get killed and...for some reason they decided that wasn't appropriate to animate so they changed it and bits of that appeared in omake at the end of the ova episodes (so they could put Mitsukake in a dress, I guess?). So sometimes censorship plays a role in those decisions too?

And then in Saiunkoku, which is adapted from novels, there's a sequence of the storyline where the Emperor's consort is kidnapped and then there's a whole flurry to rescue her. In the novel version, during the rescue attempt, the Emperor discovers the true identity of the consort's bodyguard via a letter left behind. In the anime they skip this up a few episodes and make it happen after a court tournament that isn't in the novels - so the letter doesn't come as a surprise to the Emperor, only to his advisor. It changes the dynamic slightly although I admit I like the way the anime handles it.

Recommend Saiunkoku *nods*.

[Ponyfan]

I don't mind filler, either - if done well it can really expand on the characters. I've noticed this particularly with magical girl series (at least older ones). Take Sailor Moon, for example (original series, not Crystal) - the manga has the team all set up after several chapters whereas the anime takes longer to introduce all the girls, thus giving you more time to get to know their personalities before moving onto the next intro. More room to breathe, you know?

That's one aspect that I think the original Sailor Moon anime did better than Crystal. I've seen both series (haven't seen Stars in the original series) and I think you get a better sense of how great of friends they are in the original anime but since Crystal follows the manga more closely than the original anime a lot of the bonding time with the characters is lost.



Taffeta,

Thats very interesting about the voice actors.  I wonder why they decided to go with a guy voicing Yuki in the new anime since it seems they were trying to keep most of the original voices/get close to the original voices? In the original Pokémon English dub Ash was voiced by a woman.


I watched Flavors of Youth. It's promoted as being made by the same studio as Your Name but to me Your Name is a much better film. Flavors of  Youth is 3 short stories that don't really have anything to do with each other. One thing that is interesting is all of the stories/action takes place in China. The first and last story were good but the 2nd one was so boring that I almost stopped watching and I feel the 1st story is rather misleading in what to expect from the rest of them film.


Ponyfan

[Ponyfan]

Viz has just announced that Sailor Moon Stars will be released on Blu Ray/DVD in June.


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

@Ponyfan - with Yuki, I was talking about the Japanese dub. I don't know what is happening with the English voices but the Japanese are all being changed so it's not so odd. I'm still trying to get in my head how Yuki is going to sound now...

Currently a little worried the Japanese version won't be available since Funimation is so obsessed with dubbing. If that's the case I won't be watching it until somewhere picks it up in the original.

Meantime been watching Bungo Stray Dogs. There are some Japanese writers from the 19th and 20th century probably turning in their graves after having their names and works taken and used in vain xD.

[banditpony]

Viz has just announced that Sailor Moon Stars will be released on Blu Ray/DVD in June.


Ponyfan

yessss.
Probably part 1 though, right?

I'll be SO HAPPY when everything is released and I don't have to remember to buy them anymore.

[Ponyfan]

I head somewhere that most of the English cast is returning for the new Fruits Basket anime( Momiji and Kagura have different VAs) so I guess I just assumed that they would keep most of the original cast for the Japanese version also. 

I'm hoping that the new Fruits Basket anime will get picked up by Hulu in the US as I'm really looking forward to seeing the new version and more of the story.

Viz has just announced that Sailor Moon Stars will be released on Blu Ray/DVD in June.


Ponyfan

yessss.
Probably part 1 though, right?

I'll be SO HAPPY when everything is released and I don't have to remember to buy them anymore.

Yes, part 1.   I wonder if we'll see part 2 released by December. I just need the Sailor Moon R movie and the 3rd Season of Crystal to all of the Viz Sailor Moon releases.



Ponyfan

[Ponyfan]

I picked up A  Silent Voice today.



Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

The first ep of the new Fruits Basket anime is now up.

As expected Funimation only has it in English but fortunately CR has it in Japanese.

Spoiler

I was worried about the new Japanese voices but so far so good. I did worry that Yuki might be Haruka 2.0 but he isn't, and Nakamura Yuuichi does a good job as Shigure. I thought they did a nice job of it so far. Looking forward to seeing more

The one thing I hate about watching anime as it airs is waiting for the next episode...

[Ponyfan]

The first ep of the new Fruits Basket anime is now up.

As expected Funimation only has it in English but fortunately CR has it in Japanese.

Spoiler

I was worried about the new Japanese voices but so far so good. I did worry that Yuki might be Haruka 2.0 but he isn't, and Nakamura Yuuichi does a good job as Shigure. I thought they did a nice job of it so far. Looking forward to seeing more

The one thing I hate about watching anime as it airs is waiting for the next episode...

It looks like Hulu will be getting the new Fruits Basket anime later this month so I will be able to watch the new episodes too.


I know what you mean about the new episodes though. I feel the same way about waiting for new Miraculous Ladybug episodes.



Ponyfan

[Einhornbaby]

Cant remember if I told it here : I watched Erased (anime series) and it was amazing !!!!!! It was super emotional!

[Taffeta]

I love Erased

Drama version is good too...