Oh yeah, it's around early to mid August now then. Unlike the anime and manga, the novel actually doesn't regularly mention dates or tomobiki-senshi-and the likes, it's unexpected. (as I thought it'd be something taken straight from the novel)
I suppose there'll be a lot of Natsuno afterwards (Toshio as well) yay I've missed Natsuno :> Thread Reply to this Thread Hide 1 comment Show 1 comment no subject sinnesspiel 2013-11-11 04:52 am (UTC)(link) Girls tend to have iron deficiency anemia if anything due to social diet habits and menses. The dates are the same at least; it's the 15th, which is when Megumis said to be dead across all mediums. FujiRyuu added the daily fortune part, which I thought was a nice touch that also perhaps made people early on consider it from a mystery angle. Ultimately turned out to be irrelevant, but what's a little red herring? Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent no subject airlynx 2013-11-10 10:38 pm (UTC)(link) Wow, that scene at the beginning with Takae and Kyoko is really jarring compared to what's going on. A girl's dying and they're arguing over how much leg is appropriate? Although in their defense, they probably don't really know...
Aaaand this is where Toshio's confidence in his medical abilities is projected to take a nosedive. With all the previous deaths was like, it happens *shrug* but now he thinks that it could be prevented and...I would not like to be in his shoes!
So after Megumi's death, it'll be Tohru soon (or not? It's about a month after her death if I'm not mistaken) So that means we'll be getting to see Tohru soon and have him be characterized and given sympathy right before his untimely end :(
I was also wondering about the timeline; I remembered that at the beginning of October is when Seishin and Toshio are clued into what's going on, and then in November it really starts getting real. (Oh my gosh I can't believe it's November already?! My bday's just around the corner!) Thread Reply to this Thread Hide 23 comments Show 23 comments no subject sinnesspiel 2013-11-11 04:57 am (UTC)(link) Yup, from here it'll mostly be old stuff we know about from the anime/manga for a while. No new stuff, but maybe the new small details will keep it interesting enough. What I really liked about this chapter is that Ozaki doesn't push the autopsy even while thinking he could probably get Shimizu to agree to one, because he doesn't want something to be found that proves he overlooked something. It's a very understandable but darker side to him that I think got overshadowed in favor of making him a little more shounen-heroic in the animanga. He may have a heavy sense of responsibility hanging over him, but he also has a healthy case of CoverMyAss.
Ah, and I just saw the picture today! I can't view tinypic at my day job, so I just now got to it; the background really does feel like something out of the manga, and black and white suits him well! I like his "I'm not scared..." fretting expression and pose. It's all very Seishin! The black jagged shading brings out the broom texture well, too. I've never been able to make black and white manga style shading work very well; I'm a little jealous. Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 22 comments Show 22 comments no subject airlynx 2013-11-13 03:33 am (UTC)(link) Shiki will always be interesting to me! I like every Ozaki chapter to be honest, because each expands more on my favorite character, I'd like to get to know him, so to say, better than the shounen version in the animanga. The CoverMyAss sort of takes him down a step from his good doctor pedestal, but then it also makes him more like a regular person. Who wants to blame themselves for letting a young girl die? Not only is he afraid of being blamed by Shimizu, but I think he's clearing himself in his mind a little bit, too; he wouldn't want to live knowing he could have saved Megumi, so he can brush it off as an "Shimizu didn't want an autopsy anyway, I did all I can." My heart bleeds for the guy.
I'm glad you like it! I hadn't really drawn in a long time, so it was fun taking some time to do that again. I think I spent more time just looking up pictures of Seishin rather than actually drawing... I used the Paint.NET program to digitally color it; I considered outlining it to give it that streamlined anime look, but I really liked the manga motif that looks like it's drawn with really light pencil and is faded in some places, so I kept my lineart and just filled it in with color. I'm especially happy that you noticed the broom, because I took special care with it! A good monk deserves a good broom, after all. The shading wasn't a terribly complicated deal, what I just do is I select some random areas and then color them inside with black and then erase the parts I don't want shaded; the process is kind of hard to explain. But yeah, I really enjoyed getting a chance to draw! Any suggestions for the next illustration?
Tinypic works just fine! I'm just limited on what sites I can view at my M-F job, and every image hosting site seems to be blocked so, whichever works for you I can likely access at home/my weekend job just fine. Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 20 comments Show 20 comments no subject airlynx 2013-11-16 09:26 pm (UTC)(link) Who doesn't want to CoverTheirAss? But then again, maybe that's kind of what you have to do, being a doctor. If you dwell on every failure and let yourself be overcome by the guilt of all the people you couldn't save, then your confidence will start to falter and you'll spiral down into further failure. Buttt you can also take a lesson from it and be like "okay! Next time I won't do this!" which is probably what Ozaki does actually. He becomes more meticulous and cautious (not that it helps) like when more people are getting sick, he just kind of sees the red flags and takes action by...assigning vitamins and minerals. Better than nothing, maybe? If you look at it that way, Toshio is definitely a worse character or just person in general, than Seishin. Yet I don't like Seishin...my favorite characters are always the morally gray ones.
Now I'm nervous about drawing Ozaki, since he's not very girly! I'll have to think about what scene, but then again I have plenty of time to draw them all. I was thinking of Ozaki sitting by Megumi's bedside, but that's not novel-only...right now, I'm leaning toward the scene where Ozaki and Seishin are strolling and they see Tatsumi. I'm also a Tatsumi fan, so a scene with Ozaki and him would be gold! I'm thinking of using a different style rather than monochrome for this drawing, maybe using more heavy soft shading this time just for variety. But it would also be cool to do monochrome but not black and white. Like what if I just colored the whole thing with different shades of green? That'd be cool!
Tinypic it is! I can sort of see why they'd block image hosting sites...but Dreamwidth is not blocked? Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 19 comments Show 19 comments no subject sinnesspiel 2013-11-17 07:38 am (UTC)(link) I remember one of the things that first got me into the manga (the anime didn't exist yet) was how much I absolutely hated Megumi; and I got the feeling the story wanted me to hate her, because I felt compelled to go ahead and keep reading no matter how weird it looked, because the writer was nice enough to kill her for me. The other thing I noticed was how well Natsuno and Tohru's friendship was portrayed even early on. To be honest, I didn't notice Ozaki the first stretch through; I only got as far as Sunako and Seishin's first talk before, finally, the weird designs and lack of clarity in what kind of story it would be or where it was going made it no longer worth the difficulty reading (this was, in my defense, several years ago; I've gotten considerably better at reading a bigger variety with an expanded vocab).
Do you read a lot of Japanese to keep up your knowledge of the language? If I knew Japanese well (or at least well enough to read), I'd get the hardest books I could and comb through them slowly with a dictionary. Or at least, that's how I imagine myself doing it. I'm all about 'Go all the way, or don't go at all'.
Aww, It won't let me see all of the art because I'm not registered, but it's really good! I'd probably understand it better if I'd finally get to watching FMA~ I feel like my Seishin drawing should just sit down compared to that, though! Also, I was expecting like, hardcore hentai but it's not even that bad, from what I saw (maybe that's because I couldn't see it all, though). It would be cool to see you draw Seishin, too! Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 17 comments Show 17 comments no subject sinnesspiel 2013-11-26 06:17 am (UTC)(link) I think a lot of people sympathized with Megumi; I hated her from start to finish. She was a great character, though; I was happy if she came on screen because I loved to hate her so much, even though I was also very happy they killed her. On the other hand, I found anime Masao fairly sympathetic, when everyone I know has a complete hate-on for him. In the manga he's a little worse (it's amazing how much making a character a pervert, and not in a lovable impish way, makes them seem so much filthier). In the novels, he's at what I'd call his personal worst, so I'm kind of getting the view swap on him you're getting on Megumi.
I get my manga in full monthly scans; so when Gangan comes out, I get the whole magazine, same with whatever versions of Jump, etc. that I follow at the time. Shiki was in Jump SQ, and every time you say it's time to quit Jump it never works out, so give up and accept that a man will always be a boy at heart whose first love was Jump and save yourself the trouble and just pick it up when you're at the store along with strawberry milk. ...Eh? Have I segued into Gintama talk, now?
If you don't have an account, you're spared the worst pictures. You're also not able to look at them up close, right? That's the only reason you can mistake mine for decent; you're looking at thumbnails. Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 15 comments Show 15 comments no subject airlynx 2013-12-04 04:22 am (UTC)(link) I was creeped out by Masao in both the anime and manga, so I never really liked him. It seems that everyone's at their worst in the novels. I can't even put my finger on why I hate him, apart from being annoying and ugly (neither of which are valid reasons because people can't help being ugly). I think maybe my contempt for him stems from his being so childish; like Natsuno (I don't really like him either, but I'd take him over the Gonk any day) said "you're an adult, so act like it." Like when he was at Tohru's wake, he was bawling like a baby...which is okay, but it puts strain on everyone else and is highly inappropriate (they did a good job showing that). But he gets so upset over deaths, not just his friends', so he's not a total loss because you can tell he's compassionate.
What is Jump? I'm guessing that it's one of those magazines that serialize manga--is it very popular? Maybe not, huh, because Shiki didn't really catch on. What did you think of it when you read the first installment?
Oh, well that's very PG of them! So one could like, direct their grandma to that website and she wouldn't catch on to the real nature of their art (unless she also makes an account.) Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 14 comments Show 14 comments no subject sinnesspiel 2013-12-04 12:24 pm (UTC)(link) Masao is pretty unlikable, and I definitely think him being ugly is a big part of why he didn't get sympathy. In fact, I don't think they WANTED us to sympathize with him, in making him ugly. Natsuno is clearly the "correct" one across all media, right down to being Seishin's own "live true to your ideals against society even unto your death" ubermensch (Cain looks startlingly similar to Natsuno in the visual mediums, for a character who is a symbol for a part of Seishin) even if he's never met him. The only reason I sympathize with him at all is because his flaws are easy to understand. He makes a pathetic scene at the funeral and is indeed thinks of himself only, not the people who may need even more comfort; but look how many adults likewise think of a funeral with "Uhg, it's going to be awkward for me to think of anything to say." They think of the funeral in terms of themselves. Hell, Ozaki's a little happy Giichi's kicking the bucket because he's getting out of Megumi's. If it was someone he was truly sad over losing, which I think he was rather than just seeking attention for its own sake this time, it's easy to see how one can just fail to think of anyone else's grief right away. Natsuno is certainly better, very cool and admirable in how he expresses his grief without making it about him, but the fact that it's so stellar means the painfully plebeian Masao's reaction is only less than stellar rather than so much less than normal, something we can all feel a knee-jerk bit of ourselves in. Masao even tries imitating Natsuno, spitting out "cool" probabilities when it's about Hiromi being ill, but something's off about it, he's not consistent, it's not his true self; likewise, we may want to imitate Natsuno but if it's not an expression of our true selves, if it's not something we're willing to actually take the rap over, then all we're doing is being Masao. His thoughts of "my friends should take my side even when they know I'm wrong" is something most people have thought with a sense of betrayal when it doesn't happen, even if I think everyone would agree, at least when thinking with cool rationate, "I want my friends to be honest with me and tell me when I'm wrong. I want a friend I can count on to do that." Natsuno even calls the Mutous out on not arguing with him if they disagree. As it was said in the last chapter, he is indeed consistent.
Masao's easy to hate because he's an honest amalgamation of our worst traits. Yet the story is well written enough that he's not a straw man. He's frumpy that Hiromi gets so much care and attention when sick and that he's told to just sleep it off, and indeed when he does get ill, he IS ignored to death (not that anyone could really help him). He might be being pettily jealous over a kid and may treat the kid horribly, but he's not factually wrong in his assessment that the kid is getting preferential treatment, whether it's morally right or wrong.
Jump is a major publisher of manga with many publications both monthly and weekly and even special editions. Shounen Jump, which specializes in shounen manga is by far their biggest sub-magazine. They're behind such mega franchises as One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Rurouni Kenshin, Death Note, Prince of Tennis, Kochikame, D. Greyman, Shaman King, To Love, and Dragon Ball, all of which were/are huge cash cow home run titles. Shiki was in their monthly publication, Jump SQ. I think it was actually pretty successful; it got a drama CD ran as an extra to subscribers, and later a high budget anime made off of it after all. It's just unlike every other series above, it had an ending already set so it couldn't be serialized indefinitely as long as it was popular. Harder to stay fired up over something with no new material. Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 13 comments Show 13 comments no subject airlynx 2013-12-10 03:11 am (UTC)(link) It's no coincidence that most unlikable characters are ugly, and the characters that you're supposed to root for, or that are at least important, are conventionally attractive. How can someone root for Masao with a face like that? Actually, maybe if he was a little more bishounen and not with such a reedy voice, I think he'd have fans in an affectionate "aww, he's such a jerk, I love him" way. Maybe that's actually kind of how it is with Natusno; the guy's personality is pretty unlikable (at first, at least), but he's the obvious hero. I don't really like Natsuno myself, but his consistency as you said, as well as being honest with stuff that other people try to hide (awkwardness and selfishness at the funerals) so he's a step up from the rest.
I noticed that he's supposed to look a lot like Cain too...I couldn't really get a feel for why, though. I couldn't find any parallels between him and Cain's story. Some possible interpretations I thought included Tohru as Abel, the Shiki who follows him; also, if we're going by hair color, Abel could be Tatsumi; as Jinrou, they're 'brothers' and so Natsuno kills his 'brother' (and himself) to set himself free from the village. But then I have a problem because he doesn't even become a jinrou in the novel >:P
So yeah though, I agree that Masao's observations are accurate--I guess it's the way he presents it that are sympathetic. I almost feel bad for him when he's ignored by his family in favor of the little grandkids, in the anime at least! In the manga if I remember right, doesn't he beat up that one kid sometimes and smash his Lego buildings? Like their parents were saying he gets "mysterious bruises" and it's obviously Masao. If there's a sure way to get the audience to hate a character's guts, it's to make him hurt children.
I watched FLCL once, I think what's so good about it is that you can't really understand it and it's so random it just /works/; that's why a lot of people like it. You're right that it's probably an acquired taste, though. It didn't make a huge impression on me, but a few weeks down the line I was still like "dang, that anime doe." Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 10 comments Show 10 comments no subject sinnesspiel 2013-12-14 03:49 am (UTC)(link) The radio show had more crack, but they weren't really being in character there, it was just the voice actors yukking it up... though, many of the segments were very funny. A few of the DVDs came with CD extras where Sunako's seiyuu remained completely in character for an entire segment while giving quizzes and such to the other voice actors (not in character). That might be more along the lines of what you were expecting. Maybe I'll sub some of the better bits from those when I get finished with or just stuck on the novel.
I've never seen the dub and consider it better for my blood pressure to avoid dubs when possible; I'll will spend more money to import a series than I will to buy it domestically (where I would still have the Japanese track *and* subtitles to watch with others who can't just go with it raw), because I don't want to support dubs. That said, I do wonder how they'd handle so many of the aggressively Japanese aspects of this show, such as, say, Sunako hating to be called -chan, or the fortune telling aspect of the days. I've read on some sites it's "Miss" which makes so little sense it really is good that the dub isn't so pervasive in the fandom as to be unavoidable. Miss Sunako would only offend her if she found it overly polite (just the opposite of the reason she'd dislike the diminutive -chan, thus more than just a bad translation, would be an outright subversive one) or if she was some kind of pre-op FTM whose body tragically keeps reverting to its genetically female default after every attempted gender reassignment surgery, forcing her to continue to live in a form identified as female when deep down inside, she's more than man enough for our stock-homo monk's in-explicit proclivities.
(Whenever I type 'shiki' the spell checker wants to change it to 'dashiki'. "Sotoba is being overrun by da Shiki")
If I knew Japanese well enough not to rely on subtitles, I would probably shun dubs too. But some people need them, like if reading subtitles gets you a headache after a while, you might just want to switch to dubs...provided there's a good one. I don't think anime should be dubbed unless the voice actors are actually willing to, you know, make an effort. But Shiki had a comparatively good dub in my opinion. The voices sounded awkward sometimes, but they kept within a good range of vocal expressiveness for the most part and didn't sound too apathetic or too animated. That Sunako scene you mentioned caught my attention too, that was probably the biggest flop: she hissed out "Do NOT call me miss. I HATE that word." Well after someone says something weird like that, who wouldn't be kind of wary of her? Maybe they meant to have Seishin say it condescendingly like sometimes when adults refer to kids like 'aww, it's little Miss Sunako' or 'hey Missy' but it didn't work out that way. But then again, if you were to make a dub, how else would you say it? For the fortune telling days, they just wrote captions under it like "Tomobiki" spelled out with no explanation.
That pretty much summarizes my experience with FLCL too. I usually don't like cracky shows that don't make sense; some people enjoy watching shows that have no point, but it's hard for me because I always try to /make/ them have a point and then I end up not enjoying the show at all. But then, the characters were cool; the animation was cool; the soundtrack was cool. What's not to like about it? Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 8 comments Show 8 comments no subject sinnesspiel 2013-12-16 07:09 am (UTC)(link) Sorry to say, Sunako retains her dignity throughout. The seiyuu are appropriately reverent and fearful of her.
The problem with supposing the scene could be saved by Seishin's delivery or with "Little Miss" (which is condescending in English) Seishin does not in fact say it condescendingly, he's not condescending; as shown in the novel, he's at a loss for how to refer to her because using no honorific is rude, and using -san on a little kid actually would cross into condescending even if he didn't mean it that way. Any way to make it work requires warping someone's delivery and characterization. If I were scripting it, I'd stick with -chan and the audience would just have to suck it up and accept that a Japanese work's going to involve Japanese cultural nuances. Don't like it, then don't watch foreign media; there's no lack of media made for and by an English language audience, with just as many nuances and cultural elements that are intuitive to the target audience.
That also sums up how I feel about dubs. Reading subtitles gives you a headache? Pick a medium you can understand naturally; a dubbed version of a series is not the series, it's a fan interpretation of it, like a fanfic or doujinshi.. You know, besides the fact that most of those have to develop independent stories, visuals, pacing, etc. and dubbing is just piggy backing. Either it's a "fan" re-interpretation and not canon, or it's, at the very best, a close but imperfect approximation. Indeed, many textual translations are going to be just that, close but imperfect, but subtitles remove the language barrier with the least possible alteration--it doesn't replace the entire original vocal track, which was cast, directed, and line by line approved by the director. Portions left to the voice actor's discretion and interpretation are as much a part of the creative team as anyone else--indeed, many times voice actors lead to changed lines and inflections by discussing issues and differences with writers and directors. Ozaki's seiyuu happens to be pretty well versed in military dialogue and suggest rewrites for many of his lines (and others) as Colonel Roy Mustang in FMA. Sometimes the script even just says "ad lib" trusting the cast as the one expressing the spirit of the character to best fill in certain comedic or space filling dialogue. If the voice is important enough that "good" dub acting or casting is important at all and a computerized dry reading of every line would not suffice, then it's important enough not to change the existing material for sheer convenience. Yes, non-native Japanese viewers will not have the same experience if they must read it but even the most hypothetically accurate dub will also only be an approximation, and a de-facto more invasive one when compared to the most hypothetically accurate sub script. For those who find themselves distracted from the visuals, it may even be necessary, after watching with subs, to watch it again raw knowing the story from the first time through. It wouldn't be the only type of work that has to be experienced multiple times to fully appreciate.
Of course some people will just prefer the dub, differences and all, just as many, many, many, many people prefer fanon takes on characters to canon. The difference, and my chief problem with dubs, is that it's considered a canonically equal alternative. It isn't, and being licensed does not make it so any more than a fandub; title holders and writers approve of all levels of doujinshi and fanworks as expression and promotion, but you certainly would not consider any of them canon. You can analyze a character's actions and as much of the story as is left intact by the dub, but anything that can be read vocally from the characters or even tonally from a scene is invalid in analysis of a dub. It's, at best, an analysis of the dub staff's take on things.
I'll read fanwork and look at fan art. I could even approve of and consider watching fandubs as a fan's exploration of the characters and an expression of their take on the series. But is a paid studio cast acting out of expression, analysis and love of the work, and is the paycheck entirely secondary? If they could afford to do it unpaid, would they, aside from perhaps as a career move (like workers working unpaid overtime for the reputation points it earns with a boss)? That'd make me more likely to watch, certainly, as a fellow fan, but it doesn't make it canon. And unless it varies significantly enough to stand on its own merits without being utterly dependent on the existing script, music, etc., such as as a parody whose value would be entirely in its (likely humorous) changes, I am probably not interested in it as a commercial work any more than I would be in looking at fanart that's just a trace or copy of official art. I'd pay money for a hilarious parody dub, or subs for that matter. I'll spend money to avoid supporting productions of standard dubs or even subs, if a series were released subbed only with poor subs.
This isn't some "Hail Glorious Nippon" otaku sentiment, either (not that I deny otaku or more commonly these days 'weeaboo' status); indeed, many Japanese directors oversee English voice acting in works. Biohazard (Resident Evil) is a Japanese game released with full English only acting, as far as I know. I'm not into survival platformer games, but were I, I'd have 0 problem playing it in English. The game No More Heroes, specifically seeking to name the hero something that sounded American and cool to the Japanese audience, and just stupid as hell to an actual American audience, we have Travis Touchdown leading us along a very tongue-in-cheek parody of common violent video game tropes. I as an English speaker am *intended* to have a different impression of the work. The acting is absolutely *terrible*. I am talking acting so bad I had difficulty understanding some scenes because of the tone and delivery of the lines being downright unnatural; I'd have understood it fine if it were just text because at least then I'd have a common sense native English guideline for the tone in my head. I can't tell if this is intentional as another level of parody, if it's the fact that the director is Japanese and thus not very competent at nuance and expression in the English language, or if it was left to a set of actors who, if my prior exposure to them is any indication, are kind of poor actors in general. I really don't know all the details; all I know is that the final product, good or bad, no matter whether it was intentional or just creative folly, is canon. And even if it's a parody, I can't get into it with the acting being that bad. So it's just not for me. Maybe to the Japanese good "foreign" voice acting is less important and this intolerable difference is at least the intended takeaway from me as an English speaking audience member. Just as not reading a sentence that flashes before me is impossible, setting it aside and experiencing the intended effect for the Japanese audience is sadly impossible for me.
The game was later remade with Japanese voice acting, some of the casted voices have very different tones, and the acting is solid. Not knowing if this is a dub or the actual intent of the director or what, until I hear the complete circumstances of this well acted track and its casting, I can't justify playing it. I don't even know if it's the intended take for the JP audience, now in Japanese, or just a marketing thing as most dubs are. I *want* the JP track to be validated so that I can get into the series, but there are plenty of other fun and funny games whose final and intended format I can enjoy. If decent acting is such a deal breaker for me, NMH is not for me. If a work being Japanese voiced is such a deal breaker for others, maybe Japanese media aren't for them.
Naturally, many find this elitist and will watch dubs anyways because it's in demand enough to be provided, integrity of the work be damned, perhaps even pointing out that not everything is high art enough to justifiably care for its integrity. Sex Taxi is not exactly high art. While I would like dubs to disappear, the most I can do is argue my case hoping to convert, and vote with my dollar to make them no longer sustainable. Thread Reply to this Thread from start Parent Thread Hide 7 comments Show 7 comments no subject airlynx 2013-12-26 10:23 pm (UTC)(link) Yeeeah, if you put it that way (dubs are like fanon) it's hard to argue for the value of dubs because I dislike fanon and try to avoid it whenever possible. Like after watching or reading something that I really like, I'll try to avoid looking at anything related to that online because I don't want to read something like a ridiculous headcanon or shipping a pairing I'm not a fan of and then be unable to look at it the same way ever again. I can ignore it and try to forget it and stick to my own interpretation of the work, but it'll likely just be ruined for me forever.
Same with any adaptations, really; I firmly believe that any adaptation should follow the original medium as closely as possible. No embellishments, no cuts. Which is a bummer living in America where that's all that movies do... Like last weekend I saw the Desolation of Smaug and I was extremely disappointed and put off because I'm a big Tolkien fan and have dutifully read and reread The Hobbit prior to attending the movie, only to see that almost everything in there is padding and the parts that I *would* have liked to see, they cut out. I just don't think the Hobbit should be a trilogy, I mean the book is absolutely tiny; it just doesn't need three freakin' 2 hour movies. The first movie also had a lot of changes but I didn't mind them as much because rather than adding unnecessary material (which they did, but not to that great of an extent) they added characterization and made the characters into distinct individuals that made it more enjoyable to watch their interactions. The second movie also kind of had that, but it was so way off of the charts that it was annoying more than enjoyable. I mean, characterizing canon characters is okay, but characterizing all-new characters that don't even exist in the original story is beyond lame. One thing I can say for the movies is that they don't omit as many details as The Lord of the Rings movies--but I still view the latter as a better adaptation because despite having a few flops, it was pretty faithful to the books. I, um, didn't mean to turn this into a review of The Hobbit, but I do mean that I get the analogy of dubs being like adaptations, and being not canon in general.
But then subs aren't really canon either because some things just don't translate well and some pun or double meaning may be lost on the audience if they're only reading the translation. So the only way to really get the full experience of the anime would be to actually be fluent in Japanese and watch it raw, which isn't an option for a lot of fans.
How you watch your anime can also kinda depend on how much you like it, or how important it is to you. Like if I'm a big fan of something like Shiki, I would probably watch it in subs because I want to get the full experience, I want to know as much as I can about the plot and dissect it and re-dissect it in my head. I would watch it over and over again to try to catch details that I might have missed the time before. But if I'm watching something that I don't really care about, or just watching to catch a study break, and don't particularly care about deeper meanings or details then I might be inclined to try out the dub just because it's easier to listen to and I don't care as much about accuracy.
The best dubs would result from having a group of people who actually want to do well and put their all into it...but it's like, how often would you get that?
It's hard for me to to tell how good the Jungle Book Japanese voice acting is because I don't know Japanese well at all (and I haven't seen the movie in years, but now I think I might go watch it tonight!). But I think subtle voice differences are always a given, just because it's hard to find two people with the same vocal range--and if you can, it's really unlikely that the other will be a voice actor--so considering, Balloo's dub doesn't bother me at all. But with children's movies like these, I almost always think that it's better for kids to watch programs and hear them in their own language, too, rather than having them watch the English version with subs.
As for 'realistic speech', yeah that's also a good point because if books and movies were made so that the characters speak like they would in real life, it wouldn't be as enjoyable watching or reading them. You have not experienced struggle until you have had to make a conscious effort to eliminate all the 'uhhs' and 'umms' and 'like's from your speech. I am taking a mandatory class for speech, and I can safely say that doing that is the hardest part. Well...that and the fact that when nervous, I start speaking faster than the speed of sound.
So how did you learn Japanese so well? I always assumed you took college classes or something, but you say that you have less than a full year of coursework! How long did it take you to get to be able to, well, start translating stuff?
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no subject sinnesspiel
2013-12-31 02:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Back in the 80s and 90s, fansubs always had cultural notes; they either came on a splash page before/after the episode, or, more commonly, during the closing theme. A lot of times puns would be explained on-screen too, if it wasn't one that took too long to read or explain. I learned -kun, -chan, -san, etc. from a fansub splashpage. This was back when distribution was fans copying each other's VHS tapes and shipping them all over; in the new digital media age where length isn't much of an issue and distributing a text file with your video file or torrent isn't unheard of, sparing some time for some translation notes is easier than ever. Yet, it's less popular than ever. People feel like one has failed as a translator if it needs explaining, lately. Funimation is the main subber right now, and they're anti-translation notes, even with series like Gintama; I've seen their subs for that, and to my disappointment, they just write in a new jo