Defend Anime Art!!

ZOMBIE USER 16849 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 16849** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:06 am

Mercury_Hat wrote:And Soap Committee loosely wrote:

"Hello! You're a cute super otaku, aren't you? WOW!!! SORRY!!! *expression of embarassment and confusion* See ya!! *wink*"

Yay! I figured what I wrote made no sense. Go me.

I've always loved Disney cartoons...I don't like the movie sequels they've been making, but the show spinoffs I still catch occasionally today.

On another note, some American cartoons definitely suck. Rugrats has sucked BIG TIME ever since they put the Asian girl in (and I mean no offense to Asians!). For some reason, "Kimmie" just ruined the show - like she was just put in there so they'd have a politically correct cast. But that happened a while ago, so oh well.

Also, there are a few shows that need to END RIGHT NOW: Pokemon and Power Rangers.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:10 am

Okie wrote:When the United States has an original prime-time Anime television program (comedic-romance, or supernatural-detective) on one of the following stations: ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, WB, HBO I would say it has become mainstream. Remember, the Flintstones was a prime-time sitcom when it first aired.

Can't help but think of a 1933 court decision that allowed printing "Ullyses" in US:
"I realise that Ullyses, thanks to certain scenes, can be too much for some sensitive, although normal persons. But, after long thinking, I came to conclusion that Ullyses, although emetic on some places, is never trying to be an aphrodisiac. Therefore, Ullyses can me published in United States."
Loosely translated from serbian translation I have here.

Soap comitee wrote:Konnichi wa!! Anata kawaii suppaa-otaku wa desu ne? WAI!!! GOMEN NASAI!! ^_^;;; O_o Ja ne!! ~_^

Tamaguchi yashikaawa yatta yo da kai wai mai!!! ^.^

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 8:42 am

f1l3r, hmm... that was a little confusing, wasn't it?

Cowboy Bebop has some of the best voice acting I've heard. When I watched adult swim it started around midnight, thereby making the good anime out of reach for a large percentage of the population (prime time is 7:00 - 9:00 for a reason). This basically said to me that they didn't Cowboy Bebop was good enough for general consumption.

Tenchi was horribly horribly edited for TV but the voice acting was pretty decent.

Princess Mononoke was released in theaters with some horrible rescripting and worse voice acting (Gillian Anderson makes a great Scully but a terrible voice actress.) The same is generally true for most of the Miyazaki films. (I picked those up in English because my neice and nephew needed to see them and my sister-in-law is a big Disney fan who doesn't watch anime.)

Blue Seed had some terrible voice acting. I can't remember which one it was but I've seen anime fairly recently that I couldn't watch in English because the voice acting just sucked.

My point was that there are a lot of bad things that happen to anime when it gets brought to the US. Worse things happen when it goes on TV. It's one of the best reasons for fansubs in my opinion because fansubs aren't edited. The script isn't edited and even though the subtitles are often pretty bad, they are more true to the original than Disney has been. So, in a way, yes. I was lumping Cowboy Bebop with Hercules the Animated Series but not for quality reasons.

Brockway · Post by **Brockway** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:25 am

Cowboy Bebop has some of the best voice acting I've heard.

Yes. Yes it does. It was like the only time ever that the English dubs were better than the original Japanese voices (especially Ed.) FLCL was pretty good too, come to think of it (was it me, or was there only 1 girl voice actress?!).

Princess Mononoke was released in theaters with some horrible rescripting and worse voice acting (Gillian Anderson

She was in there? The only thing with a similar voice that I can remember was the wolf, and she was voiced by Lucy Lawless (I think). And who matched up Billy Bob with a monk? Bleh.

most of the Miyazaki films

The English Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro) script confused the hell out of me. I had to watch it subbed to figure out what was going on... The voice actors probably would have been good had their lines not sucked.

Gage Kronos · Post by **Gage Kronos** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:49 am

faub wrote:My point was that there are a lot of bad things that happen to anime when it gets brought to the US. Worse things happen when it goes on TV. It's one of the best reasons for fansubs in my opinion because fansubs aren't edited. The script isn't edited and even though the subtitles are often pretty bad, they are more true to the original than Disney has been. So, in a way, yes. I was lumping Cowboy Bebop with Hercules the Animated Series but not for quality reasons.

I agree. Bakuretsu Hunters (or Sorcerer Hunters) is one of my favorite series, but when the American companies subtitled it, they changed all of the references to Gattaeu and Marron's relationship (They're both guys) to completely disguise it. If you watch it with the original Japanese dialogue and only subtitles you likely wouldn't be able to understand that that's even happening they butchered it so much. I think the worst possible translation for this, which I hate because of the subtext of it, was changing "He secretly likes boys" (from the dub) to "He's a closet pervert" (the subtitles). It's almost as if they think we can't handle the fact that two men might be in love or something.

But the strange thing is...in the DUB (which has some fairly bad voice acting)...everything regarding their secret little relationship is all there. I don't understand why they would make the subtitles say one thing and the dub something completely different which removes part of the story...the entire series is about LOVE anyway!

The only fansubs I have, unfortunately...are to Hikaru no Go. But I love them to death. Even if the entire series and all the specials do take up 1/3 of my hard drive. ^_^

Mr.Bob · Post by **Mr.Bob** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:17 am

Outside of this forum, my life hardly ever has any contact with anime or manga whatsoever. (It's not deliberate, it's just not that hard)

MixedMyth · Post by **MixedMyth** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:49 am

faub wrote: Princess Mononoke was released in theaters with some horrible rescripting and worse voice acting (Gillian Anderson makes a great Scully but a terrible voice actress.) The same is generally true for most of the Miyazaki films. (I picked those up in English because my neice and nephew needed to see them and my sister-in-law is a big Disney fan who doesn't watch anime.)

Y'know, I object to the adapted translation of Mononoke less than usual mostly because Niel Gaiman was the one who did it. But usually I don't care for the way they muck about with scripts. I can accept substituting metaphores, sayings, etc to make them mean the same thing but culturally relevant...but far too often they just go haywire with rewriting the script.

Oh yes, the other one I don't object to is Shinesman. The subbed and dubbed version are radically different. But it's probably the only time the rewritten dub is MUCH better than the original. But that's because it's absolutely hilarious, like an all out parody. For example, one of the lines in the sub is something like, "I can't die now, I havn't loved yet." whereas the dub is "I can't die now, I have a date with Turkish twins!"

Normally, though, I prefer the script to be a ballance between how accurate it is, how comprehensible it is, and how true to the feel of the show it is. They aren't always the same thing and it's a fine line to walk. But shows like Cowboy Bebop or Trigun have really done well with it.

Somesuch · Post by **Somesuch** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 4:06 pm

Is it just my imagination, or does anybody else think that Japanese animators seem to have a sort of love affair with vampires? I can think of several vampire characters from video games and vampire anime shows offhand.

(. . . I prefer mages to vampires.)

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 4:27 pm

Mr.Bob wrote:Outside of this forum, my life hardly ever has any contact with anime or manga whatsoever. (It's not deliberate, it's just not that hard)

Hehe. Isn't it a bit annoying, every once in a while, a thread deviates into a talk about manga, and most of it doesn't mean much to be cause I haven't had a chance to watch it.
Threads more often go on about manga then about, say, american comics, graphic novels, I can think of one example when we went on to Marvel, and none about european. I think we talk more about anime than about webcomics, actually.

Brockway · Post by **Brockway** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 4:31 pm

somesuch wrote:Is it just my imagination, or does anybody else think that Japanese animators seem to have a sort of love affair with vampires? I can think of several vampire characters from video games and vampire anime shows offhand.

(. . . I prefer mages to vampires.)

Actually, it seems to me like they have an affinity for seifuku's. Or however its spelled. School girl outfits. Waaay more of those than vampires.

Fi13r · Post by **Fi13r** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 8:16 pm

brockway wrote:
Cowboy Bebop has some of the best voice acting I've heard.
Yes. Yes it does. It was like the only time ever that the English dubs were better than the original Japanese voices (especially Ed.) FLCL was pretty good too, come to think of it (was it me, or was there only 1 girl voice actress?!).

FLCL's dub essentially shares a voice cast with Cowboy Bebop, and probably many of the same translators/rescripters as well.

There were a few newbies on the crew, though (I haven't looked it up on IMDB in awhile, but I think Haruko was her English-speaking VA's first role).

Bebop also shares a voice cast with Trigun, ANOTHER generally high-quality dub.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:07 pm

brockway wrote:
Princess Mononoke was released in theaters with some horrible rescripting and worse voice acting (Gillian Anderson
She was in there? The only thing with a similar voice that I can remember was the wolf, and she was voiced by Lucy Lawless (I think).

Moro the wolf god was voiced by Gillian Anderson. Lucy Lawless was not in the film.

I actually enjoyed the dubs of Mononoke and Spirited Away. Admittedly, I've not seen the subs yet (I saw both in theaters, and there's no chance of seeing subbed anime at a theater), but I thought they were competent enough, despite some odd choices (the aforementioned Billy Bob monk). If you compare these to Akira or Ghost in the Shell, they sound like Shakespeare (if that's the appropriate similie.) I actually prefer the Cowboy Bebop sub, but the dub isn't bad either. It may be that I heard the sub first though.

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:11 pm

Hmm, when it comes to anime I couldn't care either way, subbed or dubbed. But if I'm watching something slightly serious that has a deep plot, I prefer dubbed because my reading comprehension completely sucks. I can watch things like Azumanga Daioh subbed and not have a problem, but if I were to tackle Lain or something similar, I'd prefer dubbed. Unless the translation completely and totally sucks **coughcoughCardcaptorSakuracoughcough** I don't think it matters.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 10:24 pm

Watch the Disney-fied version of Princess Mononoke with the subtitles and the Japanese voices. There are several periods of dramatic silence where the text JUST KEEPS GOING! The text doesn't linger, it changes! And none of the characters are talking. I suppose it's meant to explain things to the viewer but there wasn't anything in the movie that was so difficult to understand I would need the characters to explain it to me.

I don't really care who wrote the script. Disney paid a lot of people a lot of money and screwed the fans as far as I'm concerned.

One of the best rescripted series I've seen is Ranma 1/2. The English dialogue, especially for Kuno, was completely redone. It made sense to an audience unfamiliar with Eastern literature in a way that just doesn't come across when you read the subtitles.

Zhan_Dvega · Post by **Zhan_Dvega** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:18 pm

I'm surprised no ones even brought up the anime nerds who don't consider anime to even be cartoons.

At this one board I go to someone started a topic "Your favorite cartoon theme songs", and in my reply I listed many theme songs from anime series's, and I pretty much get e-attacked by a bunch of nerds who defended the fact that anime are not cartoon like a pack of wolves around a fresh kill. Or something.

It's also amusing how little reason hardcore otaku's listen to. By the time the post had gotten to 40 replies or so it had basically degraded to the voice of reason vs. childish insults. Sad really.

Superlance · Post by **Superlance** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:31 pm

brockway wrote:Yep, Schrodinger, the cat-boy. Colored it myself. You wouldn't believe how dissalusioned I got when I found out it was a guy...

*shudders*

Rip better be a girl or I will be so pissed...

Well, I guess you don't have to be pissed, then.

And have you been checking out some of the Hellsing fanart on DeviantART?
Pu-Sama's work is unbelivable; and she draws a whole lot of Hellsing stuff.

OK, back to the subject.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 1:23 am

faub wrote:Watch the Disney-fied version of Princess Mononoke with the subtitles and the Japanese voices. There are several periods of dramatic silence where the text JUST KEEPS GOING! The text doesn't linger, it changes! And none of the characters are talking. I suppose it's meant to explain things to the viewer but there wasn't anything in the movie that was so difficult to understand I would need the characters to explain it to me.

I don't really care who wrote the script. Disney paid a lot of people a lot of money and screwed the fans as far as I'm concerned.

One of the best rescripted series I've seen is Ranma 1/2. The English dialogue, especially for Kuno, was completely redone. It made sense to an audience unfamiliar with Eastern literature in a way that just doesn't come across when you read the subtitles.

I guess this is the problem you run into when you consume something outside of your culture. In truth, both are inevitably flawed, as there are time constraints for getting all the information out that was just said while making it sound like a human being said it. The only real solution is to learn Japanese, but that's just absurd. Well, learning a new language is usually a good idea, but probably not just so you can enjoy the country's cartoons.

I usually prefer subtitles myself. Objections about "reading the movie" are absurd and made by people with very little experience with subs. The accuracy and verisimilitude of the dialogue will vary between sub and dub for any work you watch, but what I like about subs is that you get to hear the dialogue as it was meant to be heard. Understanding it is a whole other matter, but just the rhythm and the inflection of the voice, the music, if you will, comes through in the subs where, obviously it can't in dub.

And now I will cease being a pretentious bastard for the night.

Brockway · Post by **Brockway** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:11 am

fi13r wrote:
brockway wrote:
Cowboy Bebop has some of the best voice acting I've heard.
Yes. Yes it does. It was like the only time ever that the English dubs were better than the original Japanese voices (especially Ed.) FLCL was pretty good too, come to think of it (was it me, or was there only 1 girl voice actress?!).
FLCL's dub essentially shares a voice cast with Cowboy Bebop, and probably many of the same translators/rescripters as well.

There were a few newbies on the crew, though (I haven't looked it up on IMDB in awhile, but I think Haruko was her English-speaking VA's first role).

Bebop also shares a voice cast with Trigun, ANOTHER generally high-quality dub.

Crap, I just realized Minamori was Ed! Haruko and Mamimi sound almost identical though, especially in the first episode. Suprisingly, Trigun didn't come to mind when I was thinking of dubs. Its probably cause I saw the fansubs first though, and the english voices caught me a bit off guard at the start.

"It probably wouldn't work out. I don't wanna go to jail..."

Why'd they stop showing it? On that note, anybody ever see the Excel Saga dubbed? It was a bit weird.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:58 am

I'm a subtitles nazi. Voice of the acter is part of performance, as well as his facial or body expression. Now, if some italian hacks dub Dustin Hoffman, they actually think that their no-name acter will be able to give good enough voice performance as Hoffman did?!?
Besides, original voices are what director intended and dubbing them is changing his vision. Result might as well be totally different from what it intended to be.
Geting used to read titles takes no more time than getting used to read comics for the first time.

Zhan_Dvega wrote:I'm surprised no ones even brought up the anime nerds who don't consider anime to even be cartoons.

At this one board I go to someone started a topic "Your favorite cartoon theme songs", and in my reply I listed many theme songs from anime series's, and I pretty much get e-attacked by a bunch of nerds who defended the fact that anime are not cartoon like a pack of wolves around a fresh kill. Or something.

It's also amusing how little reason hardcore otaku's listen to. By the time the post had gotten to 40 replies or so it had basically degraded to the voice of reason vs. childish insults. Sad really.

But then... manga is not comics?
Hehe. I heard that one before. I suppose if you get them to talk to a phd in linguistics, they won't believe him either.

Keffria · Post by **Keffria** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 1:32 pm

I think a lot of those people get offended when they hear anime being described as cartoons because (and I think it's been mentioned before, but I really don't feel like wading through the thread) when most people think "cartoons", they think of crappy children's programming. And many people assume that if you *still* watch those cartoons at *your age*, you must be a loser.

I mean, when I say that I watch anime, some people will react by saying "what, those stupid Sailor Moon *cartoons*?", with a very snarky tone on the word "cartoons". (Not that I particularly mind - I know I'm profoundly uncool.)

At any rate, sometimes I prefer dubs, especially when the animation is very pretty - that way, I can pay more attention to it. I hate it when you have to pause the video/DVD/media player (;>.>) just to read all the subtitles because you have one person saying something, something else being said in the background, and then an explanatory paragraph at the top. Especially when it's in bright purple lettering or something. I remember seeing a fansub of FLCL way back when - it was like that. (But then, it was a pretty crappy fansub...)

Soap Committee: Yes, Pokemon and Power Rangers need to end. In fact, anything ending in "mon" or containing the word "monster" probably should.