06-14-2004, 02:23 AM | #11 |
Sent to the cornfield
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 4,566
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you already left? that sucks, oh well, here goes my 2 cents worth...
I love Rumiko Takahashis work, despite its seemingly formulaic plots, the characters are always so easy to get to know, Ryoga kind of reminds me of myself actually, at least his sense of direction. About cartoon network, I applaud its efforts at bringing anime to a wider audience, as many faults as a may find in there presentation, I can't help but feel its the right way to do it. People are lazy, they don't want to read subtitles, plus the target audience (children) might be left behind. And they take great examples of popular genres and place them on the air. Its getting the Japanese foot in the door, so to speak. At the least it makes people aware of the existence of Japanese culture, and at the best it incites interest to the point of watching more anime, learning more about the culture, and gaining a deeper understanding of societies other than our own. The first anime I ever saw was Sailor Moon, and while its not my favorite genre, it was so radically different from anything I ever saw that I had to watch it. Sailor Moon is garbage compared to Cowboy Bebop or Rurouni Kenshin, yet its still good in its own way. Eventually this initial exposure to anime led to a fascination, which led to me moving to Japan. So showing anime to kids in an easy to understand format is definitely a good thing, its just no longer enjoyable for those of us who have seen real, unedited and subtitled anime. Perhaps there is a hint of bitterness in me, but all in all I think Cartoon Network is doing a great job. |
06-14-2004, 02:31 AM | #12 |
Lakitu
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 2,152
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Cartoon Network is a good beginner channel I'll gve it that. But when most people think of Anime on American TV they need to realize cartoon network isn't the only option. If you can stand to stay up late check out Tech TV, and If you can stand reading subtitles (When your lucky) try the International channel. But what we really need is the return of the Saturday SC-FI channel Anime Movie. It's where I saw my first anime, Fist of Fury, and a bunch of other great movies that were alot racier than Cartoon Network's romp. Man when I was young that was the Ideal Saturday,
Saturday Morning Fox Cartoons (They were better back then): 7-11 SC-FI Anime Movie: 11-2 Whatever else I could find-Rest of day |
06-14-2004, 04:55 PM | #13 | |
SilentStalka of the night
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Animidnight: Friday at Midnight, normaly 1 movie, OVA, or 3 epi's for a series. Currently showing Street Fighter 2, which i beleive is made by same people who made Fist of north star. G4TechTv: Every day, midnight. 1 episoad 30 min 2 shows. Cureently showing Duel! Terrible PArralel Trouble!, and Serial Experiments : Lain i think it is..
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I have just kidnapped myself, give me 1 million doller's or else you'll never see me again. Language Arts is not one of my strong points.... Avatar's I like: synkr0nized, RaiRai, Xellos and NO i don't sleep on a reguler schedule. |
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06-14-2004, 05:43 PM | #14 |
Friendly Neighborhood Quantum Hobo
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Outside the M-brane look'n in
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Being the insanely poor bastard I am the only Anime I get is CN. I started out with DBZ which got me hooked. Then I branched to Yu Yu Hakusho before I foun adult swim. Now I watch DBGT, YYH, Case Closed, Cowboy Bebop, Wolf Rain, Inuyasha, Witch Hunter Robin, and Trigun on a regular basis. Right now I'm torn between Wolf Rain and Trigun as my favorites. If I had any sort of money I'd be out buying what I could but with college and no job I'm actually in debt really deep right now. I would download but I only have crappy dialup so that is out too.
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06-16-2004, 12:53 AM | #15 | |||
87% Pokemon Master
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Basically, the concept of them bringing Anime to America was great and in the beginning, it needed to be dubbed yes. The only problem is, we have gone over 30 years now with Anime being dubbed on American TV and we haven't had a major try to show anything in the original language. That aside, I'm gonna hit on two points. Quote:
The best allusion I could give is, say someone in Japan took Star Trek (The Original Series) and in every episode where there's a reference not understandable to a Japanese person, replaced it with a Japanese counterpart. Now, in such episodes involving say....a famous one where they go back in time to what is suppose to be a type of '1920's Chicago', what drastic measures would have to be made to alter the entire episode that is basically just filled with nothing but references to 1920's Chicago and try to portray the thing as say....1970's Osaka (a good Yakuza ganstar time period equivilant)? Either they would have to HEAIVILY edit the episode or just cut it all together. Let's try a simpler example as well, using an actual Anime this time. In the show CardCaptor Sakura, when it was brought to America, the Dub took the show and decided to cut off Sakura as the star and make both Sakurs and Li-kun as the star. In doing so, the name was changed to 'Cardcaptors' and many other changes were made (such as taking out the psuedo-gay references between Touya and Yukito and Li's attraction to Yukito in the first season). Then since they've made all these edits, all these other problems arise. Since Sakura is suppose to be the star of the original show, 75% of the episodes just center on her. Well if you're going to focus on Li as being a co-star to Sakura, you're going to have to cut out a ton of episodes to compensate for her extreme air time and focus on the plot. And that's exactly what they did, cutting half the first season and the entire second season from TV release. Then since you can't have those semi-homosexual references since this is a "kids show" (which the original was hardly targetting only kids), you have to make major edits to the script and cut out multiple scenes from MANY episodes, especially the third season. And cutting those scenes means you have to change theformat of the show and because the format of the show is changed, the script has to be changed even MORE..... As you can see, THIS is what happens when you have to dub something. "Cardcaptors" (CardCaptor Sakura) is an extreme example, much like Sailor Moon or DragonballZ, but not a single Dub I have ever heard of or seen (which I do look into these things everytime a new one comes out on Cartoon Network or whatnot) has not changed a script, edited any scenes or altered the meaning of an episode (or entire series). So while many may think the bringing of Anime to America by dubbing it on TV and allowing a mass market is just 'fine', I think has been a continual step backwards into what could have been one of the best things to ever be brought to America. And not only hasn't it changed, but it grows more predominant and more and more people accept it, for reasons I will go into next... Quote:
I am willing to wager that if you were one who would watch Cowboy Bebop and Kenshin in its original version, fully, and then watch all of Sailor Moon to its fullest (26 Episodes, 90 Episodes and 200 Episodes respectively), I would be willing to bet you would most actually enjoy Sailor Moon just like the other two. I'm not saying you would like it more or that you would even like it enough to admit you liked it, but you would probably most definitly have liked it more than the American version and I can tell you, the version you saw should not be considered even with the other dubbed works. Now, duh. I'm biased against Dubs and prefer Subs. I'm going to hit on 2 thing here so try to see both points. But while Dubs always change things (I hope that's not an issue to see), Sailor Moon its put into the category like CardCaptor Sakura and some others that took the original story and for all their own reasons, completely changed it to what they wanted. If you can think of anything from the show, it was changed. In this way, what you saw of Sailor Moon was not only Incomplete but totally changed in practically every aspect (The first three seasons which were shown are missing about 40 episodes total {out of 125} and many episodes were edited along with that). Now, to go along with this, I have not just blindly given this statement to you. Over my years, as I have said here, I have met MANY people who watched those shows on Cartoon Network, from Sailor Moon to Kenshin, Pokemon to DBZ. And out of all of the ones who I gave them the 'original' show, all but one returned to me not only praising the original stating it is not only monumentaly different from the version they saw, but much better. For any show I did this with and especially Sailor Moon and Kenshin. So not only are edits, bad voices and missing material against Sailor Moon (and almost all other shows on American TV), but the fact that there's a version, the original version, that can simply be seen for ANY Anime that can keep a person from experiencing this. Which comes down to my last point and something I think we are going to see someday, but not for a very long time. Why can't an American Television station try to air a show in the original form with subs? Ture, Americans don't like to read while they watch something. But look what the result of one simple flaw of effort brings about as a result? Edits, cuts, bad voices, shows never even being aired on American TV, script changes, loss of a MAJOR section (perhaps even the majority) of core Anime fans, conflicting edits in all these areas and the core problem that sums it all up, just the fact that it isn't the original version at all. One little problem with a lack of effort that I definitly see being able to be fixed has produced all of this, and many more problems I can't even think off at the moment. If I can get 12 year olds and 52 year olds to not only watch but prefer the original form of an Anime dispite the 'hastle' of Subtitles, I believe with the power and downright force these American TV and Anime Distributors have put into pushing and keeping dubs on TV can be fixed. Won't be easy, but neither was creating the problem we see today...much less keeping it going and feeding it to the public.
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"You fight pretty tough for someone without Health Insurance." -Homer Simpson Star Trek > Star Wars. But both are irreversibly off-track. Just realize we can always trust in the sanctity of Indiana Jones and the Simpsons! Oh wait... |
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06-16-2004, 01:04 AM | #16 |
Friendly Neighborhood Quantum Hobo
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Dubs wouldn't be bad if they just did one thing. That is take the sub text and use that as the new script leaving everything else alone. Perhasp getting an artist to make the mouths match the words and leave it at that. It solves both the editing and reading problems and seems like less work than cutting and editing all that stuff out.
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06-16-2004, 01:11 AM | #17 | |
87% Pokemon Master
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When you really look at it, all the ways you slice a dub, its still just doing so much to change one little lack of effort Americans have to read something on the screen. Your idea is a much better idea I think would be good for Dubbing, but still doesn't fix all the problems and most importantly, wouldn't get done because it would require artists whose job it was to simply edit out a previous artists work. In effect, replacing a script changer with a pack of mouth-movement artists. See....just showthe original think with one guy getting paid 2000 dollars to subtitle the whole show and the company saves time, money and brings all the fans together....that is once the others get use to reading subtitles. Its true, you really just get use to reading the subs. I can read an entire line of Subtitles in less than a second.
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"You fight pretty tough for someone without Health Insurance." -Homer Simpson Star Trek > Star Wars. But both are irreversibly off-track. Just realize we can always trust in the sanctity of Indiana Jones and the Simpsons! Oh wait... |
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06-16-2004, 01:21 AM | #18 |
Friendly Neighborhood Quantum Hobo
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Reading the subs isn't the problem with me so much because I love to read. I don't like subs because they make me read and watch TV at the same time and when I sit to watch TV I do it because I don't want to read.
They really don't have to even change the mouth movement. I threw that in just because some people like to make fun of movie dubs. As for voices, I don't really think you lose anything by not hearing the orginal voice you couldn't understand anyway. However, for gods sake get an actual voice actor and stick with him/her. Even the best imitators are never spot on. (Oops spliped into Brit mode.) |
06-16-2004, 01:40 AM | #19 |
87% Pokemon Master
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Hopefully us discussing this being seen as civilized and quite cool so I'll just go on with it.
I can see where when you want to stop reading you go to watch stuff. Sometimes I feel that way too, but as I have watched so much Anime over the years, the subtitles have become second nature to me so that it doesn't feel as though I'm 'reading' something but that they're there as a guide and I can picture them as what the character is actually saying. Its hard to explain, but this is kinda what I do: I read the subtitle, usually sub-conciously, under or taking about a second. It then is stored in my brain and my eye flows to the screen to what is going on. Then with the information in my head, I place the sentance to the tones of the Japanese seiyuu. If he said 'Hey you.' in the subtitle and the voice was peppy and loud, then it natually passes off as that. I don't have to gather that from the subtitle because the voice expresses the characters.....expression. One of the biggest things Anime is noted for is that it is a medium where emotions and intonation is highly predominant and if I am to be so bold, I see many dubs lacking in this respect, either with the English voice not expressing the emotion or with them doing it incorrectly. Not only is the Japanese language different in the way it looks and is spelled, but English is a very monotone language that can get away with talking in basically 3 different 'tones'. However in Japanese....1 word can mean 10 different things, just each different meaning is expressed by the tone of the voice and not a different spelling of the word or how it is used in a sentance. So when you watch an Anime, if you watched something in English the voice could sound quite dull and go through the line not even changing his tone, and get away with it. But in Japanese, they must change the tone of their voice and express words in certain ways to have them be not only understood emotinally, but gramatically. And so an English dub can be hurt from this constant shifting of trying to decide where an English actor should change his intonation and how often he should sound monotone to sound more 'natural' English. Anyway, with the emotion portraying what the sentance of the screen said, you begin over time (a very short period of time at that) to develop a sub-conceious ability to anticipate how a character will react and what emotions are portrayed by the subtitle itself, further increasing the speed of your reading of it and the impact of what the character is expressing. Its going to sound silly to you, but this is why so many of us 'Sub Lovers' think our 'Seiyuu' (Japanese Voice Actors) are so great. These type of common traits which they create pass from show to show and you identify with them. And they become part of the 'Anime Style'. And of course this is where I say that truly, to us, those who watch all dubs are missing out on one of those 'core' things that make Anime both unique and even more entertaining to us. Anime is not just the stories nor the cool fighting nor the unique properties of the characters. All of these things are amazing.....no doubt. But there's more.....to us the original voices and that 'style' if I can call it that is another piece to the Anime puzzle. And as you can see, if we remove one piece of the puzzle such as these voices and try to put in a different one (Changing the voices), the puzzle will look different. Then if we alter the other pieces (story, characters and animation), the puzzle will change even further and become something else.
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"You fight pretty tough for someone without Health Insurance." -Homer Simpson Star Trek > Star Wars. But both are irreversibly off-track. Just realize we can always trust in the sanctity of Indiana Jones and the Simpsons! Oh wait... Last edited by Kenryoku_Maxis; 06-16-2004 at 01:45 AM. |
06-16-2004, 01:50 AM | #20 |
Friendly Neighborhood Quantum Hobo
Join Date: Mar 2004
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You got some good points there, and subs probably work well for you. I have a very mild case of dyslexia which I have had so much success in controling I didn't even know I had it. That is until I started reading things I wrote carefully and when I noticed while reading for fun I often misread entire words. This led to the nasty habit of reading everything two, three and sometimes five or more times to make sure. I still managed to out read most people I know, even with the constant rereading, but I still misread things. So for me reading subs is a big problem even if I can get through it in about a second. I'll then spend about 3 or 4 more seconds making sure I read it right.
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