General anime thoughts/discussion thread.

One of my favorite anime guilty pleasures is Yamibo, I waited a long time for Media Blasters to release it on bluray last year. Most people either love of hate this series and I love it.
 
A thought came to me when I was digging through some funimation digital codes. I wonder why they don't offer the option to buy just a digital copy by itself at say a lower price than the blu-ray+dvd+digital version. My thinking is say I wished to gift an online friend an anime I'd have to buy a physical copy and mail it to them with all the issues entailed. It would be far easier to just gift the code instead of needing buy the entire thing, which is certainly a dupe of what I already have, just to give them the code.
 
But can you put a digital copy on a shelf to display and put it in a bluray player and watch it any time you want? NO! Hell, when I buy a bluray of a movie and it has a digital copy I throw it away as I'll never use it.
 
Neil.T said:
this gets me thinking about something in the original Ghost in the Shell anime. It's the part where Aramaki's Section 9 team are ready to move in on a man they suspect of being the Puppet Master, and where Batou fills Aramaki in on some recent discoveries via intercom. Batou asks Aramaki "How's the Puppet Master looking at your end?"
Aramaki then pauses to think before answering "Like a puppet himself."

Incredibly, the makers of Manga's dub of the film must have felt that that pause was too long, because they have the off-screen Batou interject after only a moment with "Chief, are you still there?"

That genuinely annoys me because there is nothing amiss with the timing of the original dialogue whatsoever. Culturally, pauses like that are more of a thing in Japanese conversation, simply because the words and ideas are being given more room to breathe, without feeling the need to fill the space from end to end.
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For a more extreme example of American companies fearing the dead air in Oshii's movies, there's Avalon. The film has lengthy milieu scenes that let us soak up the atmosphere of the locations, but the Miramax DVD wrecks them by inserting non-stop blathering narration. Like the theatrical cut of Dark City, the added narration destroys all mystery by bluntly giving away everything that we're supposed to find out organically over the next hour. You can't even escape it in the Japanese audio because they use dubtitles that copy the narration over to scenes that don't have the dialogue! Thankfully the Japanese blu-ray has more faithful English subtitles, and is definitely the recommended way to experience the film.
 
Dai said:
The film has lengthy milieu scenes that let us soak up the atmosphere of the locations, but the Miramax DVD wrecks them by inserting non-stop blathering narration.
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Yikes, that's... 😬

I don't like the tonal changes brought about by dubbing. To me, there are very few anime dubs that succeed in retaining the flavour of the original. In fact, the ones I've seen that do, I could easily count on one hand.

Not that I even entertain very many dubs at all, but then there's a reason for that. It's very catch-22.
 
I watch all of my anime dubbed in english (except if it doesn't get dubbed)-then I have no choice but subbed or not watch it. The fact is most people who watch subbed only and say dubbed anime is crap don't know what they're talking about. If you don't speak japanese you don't know if the actors are doing a good job or a crap job.
 
zrdb said:
I watch all of my anime dubbed in english (except if it doesn't get dubbed)-
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I'm the same! A big part of watching anime for me is actually watching the animation and subs prevent me from that. I cant read quick enough to take everything in and to them try and take them in and the animation is basically beyond me. I cant overstate how much I appreciate the existence of dubs as it allows me to enjoy anime the way it's meant to be enjoyed.

Something that's always amused me is that me and @Neil.T basicslly agree on 90+% of everything about any show but Neil is a sub purist whereas I'm a dub purist. It's a funny quirk that causes so many arguments on the internet but me and Neil basically prove it doesn't really matter. In fact I've always found it really interesting to hear how the 2 differ. Sometimes its minor changes and sometimes its significant. When it's a discussion between friends it's always good to go into.
 
I tend to judge it on a case-by-case basis. If both are available, I'll watch an episode dubbed, then ones subbed, and decide which voice cast I like more. What tends to end up happening is that I'll lean towards subtitles for high school shows, and the English dub for shows with older characters. In most cases, I just don't like the way American VAs portray school-age characters; the personalities feel too different from the original intent. The main exception for me is Haruhi; the dub cast did a great job of nailing the original feel of the characters rather than reinterpreting them.
 
Like Neil.T I am a strict subber when I am watching anime alone or with either of my daughters - they were always subbers-only too, long before they even got me into anime. But, when watching with friends or neighbors, I do have to use dubs for them. So, when I collect Japanese or other releases that are sub-only, I will always double-dip for the US domestic release if it includes a dub, so I am able to show the series to friends.
 
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I'm strictly sub-only too (well, sub and raw - my collection includes way too much stuff that has no sub release, sadly). Though I do understand Japanese and thus reject the argument that I can't tell whether the acting is good ;)

Part of why is the weird way some of the actors handle certain types of characters (like the aforementioned younger/cuter ones), which usually sounds very unnatural in English; we don't really have the same cultural touchstones for cuteness so it's either mimicking the Japanese style (which sounds very affected) or choosing an out-of-place speech pattern from the real world (which sounds very affected). I think it's probably down to the direction more than actors, who largely seem like perfectly nice people with genuine skill. While I can easily avoid dubbed anime I often stumble into dub-only game releases (the oft-delayed voice packs for the Musou/Warriors games are a bugbear) and it's weird how variable the quality can be. A miscast role really drags things down for me and it stands out more when everyone else in the cast sounds perfectly fine.

Another thing I find confusing is when jokes are adapted for the English script and I don't understand them any more because the word play or cultural reference is changed to something that makes more sense for the average American viewer - yet not for me. It's essential to make the script coherent so I don't begrudge the changes, but with the original language track in place I can hear the original even if the subtitles attempt to adapt the joke too.

I don't really like Japanese dubs of western shows even when I like the cast involved, either, or any kind of dubbed live action irrespective of what the original language was. There's a strange dissonance between the performance and what I'm seeing on-screen sometimes that is hard to explain.

However, everyone should absolutely watch whichever version they prefer! Not everyone reads at the same speed so it's reasonable that subs can impede enjoyment for a lot of people, and expecting every single person with dyslexia or vision problems to learn a new language each time they want to watch something is unreasonable. Long live both dubs and subs.

R
 
Ever since free eternal summer and that murdering of a script I’ve became sub only I don’t admonish people for dubs but now I view it as basically like watching Foreign films it’s basically most of its appeal for me is watching it in Japanese and without enjoying subs I doubt would have ever watched Monogatari.
 
WMD said:
Something that's always amused me is that me and @Neil.T basicslly agree on 90+% of everything about any show but Neil is a sub purist whereas I'm a dub purist. It's a funny quirk that causes so many arguments on the internet but me and Neil basically prove it doesn't really matter.
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Exactly this. 👍

The whole point of dubbing and subtitling is so that anime can expand its market and have broader appeal. I once read that, in the early days of anime fandom, there were elitists who insisted that the true was to watch it was raw. What b*llocks.

As Rui already suggested, watch it how you want. That's why the options are there.

But yes, I very much enjoy as well the insight I get into the dubbed version of the things we've simulwatched, WMD. And no pointless arguments with it. 😁👍

I'll say as well that, on the few occasions I have watched something dubbed, it's quite a different viewing experience because it does (obviously) free up mental capacity to be able to take in more of the actual animation, and that's lead to me noticing little details that had previously passed me by.

The same applies to watching an anime raw. I'll occasionally turn the subs off to watch something I practically know off by heart already — things I've seen a ton of times like Eva Rebuild or Redline.

zrdb said:
If you don't speak japanese you don't know if the actors are doing a good job or a crap job.
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This is definitely another factor in all of this, yes. As someone who understands Japanese to a certain degree, I'm able to grasp enough of the dialogue that I do know how the performance sounds. It's difficult to explain, but I can tell the quality of the performance just as easily as I can one in English, despite still needing subtitles to make up for the shortfall in my comprehension. And the Japanese usually wins out in a direct comparison for me.

Again, as Rui already covered, trying to bend Japanese characterisation to get it to fit the shape of English unavoidably results in distortion. It can definitely be worked around and minimised, though: to echo another of Rui's points, it begins with good casting, then runs through the direction, into the voice performance. I've said it here umpteen times before, but I consider the dub of The Wind Rises to be an absolute masterpiece. The casting is superb; it's the closest I've ever heard to taking the original and basically just changing the language. That said, it does have some tweaks made to lean the odd conversational point perhaps closer to a Western sensibility. It's just all very well judged.

The dub of Appleseed Ex Machina is another surprise standout for me. Even though the English dialogue clearly doesn't match the semi-realistic mouth movement of the CG animation, the characterisation is sheer brilliance. The crew have used every trick at their disposal to work magic, certainly aided by the fact that the motion-capture performance of the characters clearly displays more of a Western body language, resulting in the banter feeling very natural.

Were it not for the fact that the Japanese audio track is absent from the DVD version that I first bought (before subsequently upgrading to BD), I would more than likely have never heard the dub. And that's a terrible thought, because I could rave on about it all day. And in fact I very nearly just did. 😛
 
on the subject of dubs, i wonder with the backlog of dubbing that funimation has at the minute if they'll resort to a good chunk of complete edition re-releases to fill in the gaps in their release calendars
probably won't affect manga with the amount delays they already have
 
One thing that I can say about subbed only anime is that I can watch it late at night without disturbing anybody (I live in a condo) with the volume turned way down and not miss anything. I'm a fast reader but I'd rather spend my attention watching rather than reading subtitles. And on the subtitles I always edit them for font style, color and size. Yellow subs for the main conversation and blue and green for other side discussions, I hate white subs.
 
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Poaching these quotes from the Land of the Lustrous discussion in the MVM thread because it was interesting:

D1tchd1gger said:
I mean what's the point in asking unanswerable questions?
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But... how do you know whether a question is answerable or not at the time you ask it?

Do you only ask questions that you already know to be answerable? If so, then it was never a question in the first place. Surely questions arise from a state of not knowing something, from the depths of human curiosity?

fathomlessblue said:
Nothing Phos experiences prove to be a net gain, if anything they’re likely more miserable than they were at the beginning. Their various trials & traumas aren’t even necessarily meant to be taken as literal, but rather serve as analogues for the kind of various events that cause the loss of innocence and changing of personality or principals as one enters into adulthood & beyond
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I must say that you write really well about the show, fathomlessblue. You have me even more intrigued now, and I feel like I'll have a very clear lead into the series when I come to watch it. I'm looking forward to that.
 
Neil.T said:
But... how do you know whether a question is answerable or not at the time you ask it?
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I was talking about philosophical stuff.
Of course there are plenty of unanswered questions in science that need asking, but those aren't the sort of questions normally asked in media, apart from maybe the ethics of scientific methodology in Sci-fi.
 
Neil.T said:
Poaching these quotes from the Land of the Lustrous discussion in the MVM thread because it was interesting:


But... how do you know whether a question is answerable or not at the time you ask it?

Do you only ask questions that you already know to be answerable? If so, then it was never a question in the first place. Surely questions arise from a state of not knowing something, from the depths of human curiosity?


I must say that you write really well about the show, fathomlessblue. You have me even more intrigued now, and I feel like I'll have a very clear lead into the series when I come to watch it. I'm looking forward to that.
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Hey, thanks for saying so. :)

I will clarify that, despite how obtuse I made the show sound, it's often incredibly light and whimsical, particularly in the early going, with plenty of silly antics and strange plot-twists involving what are essentially children living a static, almost Eden-like existence. The heavy existential dread is there, but often hovers around in the background. I think you're meant to notice certain ideas and themes cropping up and question your own responses to the gems various issues, rather than the show actively and directly trying to tell you its views. As someone who's generally turned off by lore dumps or characters expositing their opinions, I appreciate the slightly ethereal & non-judgmental treatment of the cast, & the almost mythic and uncertain approach to world building. The story does get progressively heavy as it moves along, but most of the real gut-punches are kept until further in the manga.
 
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