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[Captain Valentine]

I think it's just because it's Samuel L Jackson.

[TheBeau]

Well I just finished watching the TV series of it.

Samuel L Jackson is great, but I cannot bear to hear the woman talking, ruins everything. I always worry about whether the English voice acting might have better translations than the subs, but my God I don't know what it is but English VA just sounds awful.

Ok ok ok, so Afro Samurai. Very violent and lots of action which is great (maybe the violence not so). I'd recommend it if you liked Kill Bill or maybe even Bebop, starts off kinda naff, but gets a lot better towards the end.

[discordance]

beau having watched a fair few films and series in japanese and english its really not worth watching in japanese unless you are fluent. im starting to learn but its not like you miss anything watching the dub, the only exceptions are where the dub translation is awful. Its not worth watching it in japanese though just because the voice acting bad. It annoys me when people get snobbish about it and say you have to watch the japanese, some dubs add a lot because you are getting the subtlety that you'd miss reading subs. Live action though i'd say pretty much has to be subs because it just looks too wrong when the mouth clearly doesnt match up to the sounds.

[Finaldeath]

Afro Samurai was very much made to work well with English voice acting though - it was never recorded in Japanese and was shown in Japan with Japanese subtitles!

English VA also wasn't bad I thought, some really outstanding actors and casting, although a bit dry most of the time.

Funny though how you thought it might be better in Japanese despite the fact such a thing doesn't exist!

The Dub's I usually do veer away from since 1. it might be too new to have an English dub anyway, 2. the English dub might be well terrible (I've noticed a tendency for certain types to be worse then others), 3. I have a mind to learn more Japanese anyway I think the subtly can still be present. I still tend to give the English a shot for an episode to see the comparison - Baccano! for instance, I couldn't stand the accents of the comedy duo, so it made up my mind that it was just wrong even if they did so many other voices right.

[discordance]

haha finals right i'd forgotten about that. And in fairness the dubs im talking about are studio ghibli films and they do get talent like patrick fing stewart. Also trigun and cowboy bebop, ghost in the shell film and series. Stuff like that with big producers and marketed well over here get good dubs. I am aware some stuff is painfully awfully dubbed. My previous post kindof glossed over that a bit. If theres a good dub though I say hands down watch that first, and final I picked up very little from watching in japanese before I started my lessons, its helped a lot more going back now I know basic phrases and grammar.

[TheBeau]

Hmm, I'll keep that in mind disco and final, thanks for the advice.

I think that hearing a foreign language helps to take you away from Western tendencies and social convention. Some things that are translated are very 'Japanese' ie. they don't make much sense outside the language. Similar to a phrase like 'fair enough' which we use for pretty much everything, can't imagine it makes any sense to other speakers though.

About Afro Samurai, it was just the woman he meets and some of the Brothers of the... err I've forgotten their name already, who just completed took me out of the show and kinda ruined any suspenseful or 'cool' moments. I thought there'd be a Japanese dub simply because there usually always is (though they are usually always japanese too!).

[Zarf]

beau having watched a fair few films and series in japanese and english its really not worth watching in japanese unless you are fluent. im starting to learn but its not like you miss anything watching the dub, the only exceptions are where the dub translation is awful. Its not worth watching it in japanese though just because the voice acting bad. It annoys me when people get snobbish about it and say you have to watch the japanese, some dubs add a lot because you are getting the subtlety that you'd miss reading subs. Live action though i'd say pretty much has to be subs because it just looks too wrong when the mouth clearly doesnt match up to the sounds.

Have to disagree here, The quality of Japanese voice actors is usually far higher that the people they get in to do the dubs, the industry is taken a lot more seriously over there. There's a statistic somewhere about communication being 60% body language, 30% tone and only 10% the actual words ... so getting an actor who does the Tone right is important.
Sure there are exceptions, I seem to recall that the English voice actors for Ghost In The Shell were very good, but most dubs are done on the cheap.

Even worse are the Fandubs. The Tenchi Muyo ones are enough to give you nightmares.

[Lazzars]

beau having watched a fair few films and series in japanese and english its really not worth watching in japanese unless you are fluent. im starting to learn but its not like you miss anything watching the dub, the only exceptions are where the dub translation is awful. Its not worth watching it in japanese though just because the voice acting bad. It annoys me when people get snobbish about it and say you have to watch the japanese, some dubs add a lot because you are getting the subtlety that you'd miss reading subs. Live action though i'd say pretty much has to be subs because it just looks too wrong when the mouth clearly doesnt match up to the sounds.

Have to disagree here, The quality of Japanese voice actors is usually far higher that the people they get in to do the dubs, the industry is taken a lot more seriously over there. There's a statistic somewhere about communication being 60% body language, 30% tone and only 10% the actual words ... so getting an actor who does the Tone right is important.

its a big deal over there, instead of a sub genre of acting like it is here. See: seiyū

[discordance]

all the dubs i just talked about are good and I think far more worthwhile than the Japanese version, but zarf I know you've watched a ton more stuff than I have and the stuff I mentioned has western presence a lot of stuff without that would get bad dubs.

But for me the integration of narrative without me having to concentrate on reading so I can actually get some visual input and see that body language is more important than the tone. You just said communication is 60% body language and I find having to read subs to keep up with the narrative makes me miss a lot of that body language as well as some of the eye candy in the animation (well painted backgrounds not women with absurd figures).

[Zarf]

Just something you get used to really. Back when I started watching Anime the situation was even worse, There was a very limited selection of Anime's imported and so it was just a choice of downloading a Fansub or a Fandub. Fandubs are almost universally terrible, You get the entire cast voiced by a couple of American student nerds.

Nowadays I barely even notice that I'm reading the subs, It happens subconsciously.

[Finaldeath]

I rechecked the women's voice and those you mention and yeah, they're not great TheBeau Oh well! Jackson was good, as was some of the other voices.

[TheBeau]

I dunno why, but so far every English dub I've heard, it's always been standout bad for the women.

Just finished the Bebop movie, it was alright, had to watch it in English dub and the VA for Spike was kinda lame. Sort of ruins the Bebop franchise if Spike isn't Spike!

Oh oh oh, nearly forgot. Special mention for the hand to hand fights in the movie, really really really good. It might not be my favourite but Bebop is still great!

[Magathery]

What about the lass that does the voice of the Major in Ghost in the shell, the girly ninja with the poisoned body in Ninja scroll and Kiva from MEGAS XLR? She's probably done loads others. Hang, to Google!

OK, a shed load of stuff if Wikki is to be belived...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendee_Lee


EDIT: Ok, didn't realise she did voices in Bleach as well. Live & learn

EDIT EDIT: Ok, she's the one that dubbed Faye Valentine.

[Torgue]

What about the lass that does the voice of the Major in Ghost in the shell, the girly ninja with the poisoned body in Ninja scroll and Kiva from MEGAS XLR? She's probably done loads others. Hang, to Google!

OK, a shed load of stuff if Wikki is to be belived...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendee_Lee


EDIT: Ok, didn't realise she did voices in Bleach as well. Live & learn

EDIT EDIT: Ok, she's the one that dubbed Faye Valentine.

She also voiced someone in Heroes Of Might & Magic III?!

[Dodgy]

While she was in Ghost in the Shell, she didn't do the voice of the Major. That was Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (in the series anyway, it was Mimi Woods in the original movie).