Okay, let’s face it, people. The whole reason for the recent financial downfall of anime DVD sales is because we’re all watching free fansubs online or downloading them off torrents. But, the question is, why do we do this?
Well, I was thinking about it in the shower (where I always tend to do my thinking because nobody can disturb me there… ) and I remembered that I was watching some gameplay videos of the new Tales of Symphonia game that came out in North America. If I remember correctly, Johnny Young Bocsh voices as the protagonist, Emile, right? Well, the first thing I was thinking was: “Hello, mister director? Have you even CONSIDERED trying to bring the best out of this guy?” I mean, if you listen closely, he’s a pretty good voice actor! (If the director actually does character work with him first! >.<) Don’t believe me? Watch the video below and tell me what you think.
Let’s face it: if you can’t figure out what the text means, how the hell are you going to make others understand it when you act it out? I mean, his performance as Lelouch in “Code Geass” wasn’t exactly the best. His voice for Emile when the character is in battle-mode is actually very good. He knows how to do it. He just couldn’t pull off the wussy voice, though… x.x
There are others, too. The voice actors for Death Note aren’t very impressive, if you ask me. Same with various Tales games like the voice of Estelle in Vesperia. (If you ask me, directors are trying too hard to make the English voices match the Japanese voices, which is a real pain in the ass if you’re the watcher. Seriously, what are these guys thinking?) And, well, Colette could’ve been better. (More playful when she messes up on her spell-casting or when she starts acting like a klutz.. x.x) Lloyd was probably one of the okay ones, considering that the voice actor had experiance as Robin on Teen Titans. (Yes, we all get it, now enough with the image macro jokes! >.<) Kratos and Zelos were very impressive. Chances are, they already had experiance, even if it isn’t publicly announced. (Although, Tales of Symphonia is well-known for having an all-star cast.) Genis wasn’t bad, either, and neither was Dirk.
But, this is my theory: I think we watch fansubs because it’s authentic, and they tend to have better voice actors. The Western dubbers just try to hard to immitate a style that is not familiar with us. (And let’s face it, only hard-core Asians are able to pull off the cute and innocent voices…) Maybe if we actually stuck to our own styles and made the dub our own, then we’d probably enjoy it more. When that happens, DVD sales will go up, and the chance of having pirated episodes would lower.
So, let’s enjoy these subs while we can, people!
This is @vALoN, signing out~! ^.~
Hah! Found your blog. LOL
The only reason why foreign fans think the Japanese voice actors are better simply because they’re speaking Japanese. Most foreign fans don’t know the language itself, which in turn don’t know the diction and tone of the language in terms of displaying emotions and reactions. Now I would understand that the original seiyuu-tachi (I’m not even gonna say “seiyuus” because that’s wrong grammar… >.>…<.<…) would be a lot better if the characters they’re portraying are Japanese and it takes place in Japan, but what if they’re portraying characters that aren’t Japanese? Then that would just sound very weird to me IMO. But face it, that’s the only reason why all these so-called self-declared “anime purists” think the original seiyuu-tachi are better because of the fact that anime in general is made in Japan, the story is made in Japan, therefore the ones who would portray the characters based have to be Japanese. Go figure.
I’ve seen gazillion tons of J-doramas and I can see many flaws coming from certain actors in terms of diction and movement (you’re in to drama and acting so I think you’d understand what I’m trying to say here ^^) and the only ones I noticed who would say they’re good are the hardcore fans.
But I’ll just make it short. In conclusion, (foreign) anime fans just don’t care about diction and the true depth of the characters portrayed, I mean all they read are the subtitles anyway (and some of these fansubs I’ve seen have pretty bad translations too so how can people be sure that these are the actual translations? I’ve seen ones where fansubbers purposely write a random line against a Japanese vocal that aren’t even the same with each other, so they can be unreliable IMO).
As far as the English dubs go I think the best anime I’ve seen dubbed in English are the Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli anime (not because many of those voice actors are Hollywood actors and what not, but because the directors actually translated the character itself into a character that English speakers can really relate to, not just a direct translation of dialogue and then portrayed more as an imitation than owning that character). I also like the dubs of Taihou Shichau Zo! (You’re Under Arrest), Ranma 1/2, and…. well that’s all I can think of for now. XD