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dancing_moonThis post is basically about my reactions for three anime things lately.
The first refers to the fact that Shojo Kakumei Utena is going to come out, remastered, on a US DVD box. I sincerely hope that this means an eventual UK release, because then I shall break my rule of not buying useless physical storage media that demands specific hardware to be viewed* and splurge on it.
Everyone should give Utena a chance. Anime fans, feminists, fandom fans, people who love storylines, people who have prejudices towards anime, those interested in film (for realz, the anime is a brilliant example of limited animation techniques used really well), fans of psychidelica and swordfightin and roses and Freudianism and awesome music. Basically, everyone should see Utena. Then they may go out and hate it (how???) but damn, give it a chance. It's a classic. It's p-r-e-t-t-y. It's slashable (male and fem both) like whoa, and that not counting the canon couples.
Alternate names for Utena are Revolutionary Utena or La Filetté Revolutionnaire, so hey, francophiles are another target audience.
The "oh hope" refers to the fact that Toei has started optioning out the rights for the Sailor Moon anime again. And, I mean, hot damn if Sailor Moon doesn't hit all my nostalgia buttons. The manga is gorgeous and good - I have a review in Swedish here. Also so damn out of print, I'm happy that I own it in both English and German.
Anyway, the anime is less gorgeous, lots of examples of not-so-well used limited animation and general budget restraints, but it's also got good music & girl superheroes who fight for love, justice and friendship.
I would totally shell out some serious money for a DVD box. Unfortunately, I'm not quite as serious as the japanese (un-subbed) reprint boxes demand: Between 7000 to 10 000 yen = 580 to 830 SEK (remove a zero to get euro prices) for each box set, plus freight and most likely 25% swedish VAT. Especially there's two box sets pro season and five seasons.... Naaaah.
But hey, it's apparantly on TV in Italy and Albania already, so hopefully it will show up in a slightly cheaper DVD set soon. With, uhm, subtitles in a language I understand kthnx
The fail & blahrgness refers to the Hetalia dub, which is 1) changed and more localized, and apparantly manages to be more offensive than the original and 2) just a bloody dub, so why care?
Of course a US company screwed up the dub. They tend to do that, to a greater or lesser degree and the more they change things, the higher the probability for complete fail.
(to be fair, Swedish dubs are also crap. And don't get me started on the anime subtitles, oh lulz the fail)
The moment I heard that they'd dub Hetalia with accents I knew it would get bad, not just "meh".
It's not like the nations actually all speak English or Japanese (there's even a joke about that in the manga) soooo why would they have accents?
What we do get in the original manga is an accent on China, which is pretty fail in its own way. In the manga there's a whole bunch of regional dialects which are all part of the characterization. These aren't accents - these are, for the most part, tropes in anime and japanese television. Various English accents would have worked much better to convey the same feeling
Then there is of course the parts of the US fandom acting as if the English dub is as important and canon as the original. Um, 'kay, this might work if it's an exact translation and if they do some kind of effort to find similar voices to the original (which they rarely do).
Otherwise? Who gives a damn. There's a japanese Harry Potter dub out there somewhere, it doesn't affect the original movies in any way. Neither does a potential, oh I dunno, Swedish or France or Russian dub of Hetalia. It's a translation, sometimes a localized adaption. And in my not at all humble opinion, localization generally sucks - it sucks if it's done in books, it sucks if it's done in movies and it definitely doesn't suck less just because it's done in anime.
So, please, watch the sub unless that sucks too. Then just stick to the fansubs
* as opposed to, um, books. Which only demand that I keep my eyes
The first refers to the fact that Shojo Kakumei Utena is going to come out, remastered, on a US DVD box. I sincerely hope that this means an eventual UK release, because then I shall break my rule of not buying useless physical storage media that demands specific hardware to be viewed* and splurge on it.
Everyone should give Utena a chance. Anime fans, feminists, fandom fans, people who love storylines, people who have prejudices towards anime, those interested in film (for realz, the anime is a brilliant example of limited animation techniques used really well), fans of psychidelica and swordfightin and roses and Freudianism and awesome music. Basically, everyone should see Utena. Then they may go out and hate it (how???) but damn, give it a chance. It's a classic. It's p-r-e-t-t-y. It's slashable (male and fem both) like whoa, and that not counting the canon couples.
Alternate names for Utena are Revolutionary Utena or La Filetté Revolutionnaire, so hey, francophiles are another target audience.
The "oh hope" refers to the fact that Toei has started optioning out the rights for the Sailor Moon anime again. And, I mean, hot damn if Sailor Moon doesn't hit all my nostalgia buttons. The manga is gorgeous and good - I have a review in Swedish here. Also so damn out of print, I'm happy that I own it in both English and German.
Anyway, the anime is less gorgeous, lots of examples of not-so-well used limited animation and general budget restraints, but it's also got good music & girl superheroes who fight for love, justice and friendship.
I would totally shell out some serious money for a DVD box. Unfortunately, I'm not quite as serious as the japanese (un-subbed) reprint boxes demand: Between 7000 to 10 000 yen = 580 to 830 SEK (remove a zero to get euro prices) for each box set, plus freight and most likely 25% swedish VAT. Especially there's two box sets pro season and five seasons.... Naaaah.
But hey, it's apparantly on TV in Italy and Albania already, so hopefully it will show up in a slightly cheaper DVD set soon. With, uhm, subtitles in a language I understand kthnx
The fail & blahrgness refers to the Hetalia dub, which is 1) changed and more localized, and apparantly manages to be more offensive than the original and 2) just a bloody dub, so why care?
Of course a US company screwed up the dub. They tend to do that, to a greater or lesser degree and the more they change things, the higher the probability for complete fail.
(to be fair, Swedish dubs are also crap. And don't get me started on the anime subtitles, oh lulz the fail)
The moment I heard that they'd dub Hetalia with accents I knew it would get bad, not just "meh".
It's not like the nations actually all speak English or Japanese (there's even a joke about that in the manga) soooo why would they have accents?
What we do get in the original manga is an accent on China, which is pretty fail in its own way. In the manga there's a whole bunch of regional dialects which are all part of the characterization. These aren't accents - these are, for the most part, tropes in anime and japanese television. Various English accents would have worked much better to convey the same feeling
Then there is of course the parts of the US fandom acting as if the English dub is as important and canon as the original. Um, 'kay, this might work if it's an exact translation and if they do some kind of effort to find similar voices to the original (which they rarely do).
Otherwise? Who gives a damn. There's a japanese Harry Potter dub out there somewhere, it doesn't affect the original movies in any way. Neither does a potential, oh I dunno, Swedish or France or Russian dub of Hetalia. It's a translation, sometimes a localized adaption. And in my not at all humble opinion, localization generally sucks - it sucks if it's done in books, it sucks if it's done in movies and it definitely doesn't suck less just because it's done in anime.
So, please, watch the sub unless that sucks too. Then just stick to the fansubs
* as opposed to, um, books. Which only demand that I keep my eyes
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 01:03 (UTC)I am hoping beyond hope that Sailormoon gets picked up by an English distributor and redone right. I want remastered picture and sound for the early seasons (the Japanese-only 1st & 2nd seasons have horrible sound quality and slightly grainy picture quality). And I want Stars on DVD, subtitled. Wouldn't mind a proper re-dub either, or a re-translation of the manga, because it's kind of difficult to read in English in parts. Sailormoon was my first anime, right before college - the horrible English dub that I love despite its horribleness - and has been a favorite for ages. If it weren't for Sailormoon I'd never have found Utena.
As for Hetalia.... The anime club I sponsor is all gaga over it. Well, the girls are. They keep telling me how I need to see it, and how funny and amazing it is. But the more they describe it, the more I'm put off by it. I've got friends who say it isn't bad, it's just the fangirls who are annoying about it who are bad, but.... I'm kind of on the fence about it. Maybe if it's playing at a con I'll check it out.
It really does annoy me when people take the dub of any anime as canon over the original Japanese version. Sometimes the differences in the two are large enough that you can separate "English-language canon" from "Japanese-language canon" (like Sailormoon). But, for the most part, no. I had that problem at a convention once - someone was doing Ichigo from Tokyo Mew Mew for masquerade, and the girl next to me in the audience got all huffy and complained that the cosplayer got the character's name wrong - it was Zoey. She'd only seen the dub. Someone on the other side of her corrected her and she got very offended by it.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 12:43 (UTC)I am hoping beyond hope that Sailormoon gets picked up by an English distributor and redone right.
So am I - there's no point holding out for a Swedish edition and I fail at keeping na eye on the German anime market. Though I watched it first in German dub, so it wouldn't be too awkward with such subtitles I think
I really like Hetalia, but it's mostly because it appeals to my fannish instincts (good ficmaterial, my kind of characters) and because I have a crush on some countries in RL. Oh, and the music is v. catchy
Each ep is also only 5 minutes long, and I do prefer the slightly raunchier humor of the webcomic (which is easily accessible as fan scanlation). But it isn't "the best" series lately, far from it, and there are some very problematic aspects within the story. That they choose to play up that, to make the series more edgy and offensive when the author has obviously tried to keep away from it... Well, it's a bit like if I'd been watching 'Allo 'Allo and it suddenly went all srz business.
And I find it offensive that the countries suddenly are to have foreign accents. I found it offensive enough when China did, and now everyone is to have it..? Nooo thank you
Two canons I can live with, as long as people mark it properly so I can stay away from their dub-canon.