Oh dear god they dubbed it and aired it....

[ifonlyiwereclvr.livejournal.com]

Ok since I posted a gripe against the dub I thought it only fitting that I post a follow up. My initial reaction which I'm sure i shared with many was "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!" In defense of the dubbers they made a few decisions that i agree with. They did change the aggravating trailer "This Britannia will be obliterated" (though i still think obliterated is a poor choice of words), they cast the English Straight Cougar (s-cry-ed) and Alucard (Hellsing) {I think his orange will be phenomenal}, they kept the other "Yes my lord!" so can someone please tell me why in the name of all that is both holy and unholy did they insist on having loser soldier boy say "happily your highness" I'm sure they've at least seen their lines in the original Japanese, you'd think as an actor you'd want to stay as close to the source material as possible, and the emperor didn't even mention the Ragnares race though he did say something about the Ragnarok. It's only the first episode so i hope that they can pull it together because honestly I'd love to see a good dub come out of this, the show is so spectacular that any deviation from what we know should be is disheartening (to put it mildly) Still C.C.'s intro was surprisingly good, and they have 24 more episodes to go, fingers crossed. 

For those who have yet to see it...

Comments

[animegoil.livejournal.com]

I thought it was alright. Some of the voices I thought were great (Villeta, Jeremiah), others I'm hoping will grow more comfortable in their roles. That's usually the problem I have with dubs-- they sound forced and unnatural.

Translation-wise... yes, sometimes there's those facepalm moments where you just wonder why the heck they couldn't just keep it with the original. But other times it's (as has been mentioned) either because it won't fit with the mouth, or because it just doesn't sound quite right in English. Though I like keeping translations as close to the original as possible, even to the extent of keeping some vocabulary in Japanese (oh, bad example but let's say 'chi' or 'ki' instead of 'spiritual energy'), sometimes just getting the right nuance and connotation is better than a direct translation

Take Tokyopop's handling of a line in Wild Adapter where one character asks the other if he's Nobita-kun because he keeps falling asleep immediately and deeply. To the average American, that MEANS NOTHING. Response is -who the hell is Nobita-kun? And without either independence research or an editorial note, they're not gonna know what that means. And once they do find out, it's still not gonna carry that same nuance of familiarity that it would for the Japanese. It might not even be humorous. It's just not a joke for the culture. So, what does Tokyopop do? They ask if he's a narcoleptic instead. The cultural reference would have been wasted on the non-Japanese, so let's go back to what was meant with the statement: OMG, I can't believe you fell asleep that quickly! slightGRRR. "Are you narcoleptic or something?" carries the same connotation of 'disdain' and is understandable by any english speaker (possibly with a dictionary). I thought it was a brilliant replacement.

Basic point, if you're still here, is that some changes are natural. Lost in translation or changed in translation is what will happen every single time. You can't change that, so there's no point bitching about it constantly. Only the fatal errors need to be bitched at.