telophase | (no subject)

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Found through MangaBlog, an interview with Hayao Miyazaki, most notable for him mentioning that Lauren Bacall brought something to Howl's Moving Castle in her voicing of the Witch of the West that they couldn't get from Japanese actresses.* And then points out that you're going to be missing as many nuances in subtitles as you are with dubs, if you're not fluent in the original language.

* No comments on why Japanese voice actresses are like this, of course - wonder if it's due to older actresses not working in voice-overs?

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I think your link got eaten by a cut-and-paste mishap. It's here, right?

http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1569689,00.html

My PR prof in grad school talked about when Hong Kong started voice dubbing Dynasty episodes, and said the voice actress they got for Joan Collins' part made the character even better than the U.S. version.

"Rhymes with witch," he said.

Sometimes it works.

Oops, you're right. Thanks. :D

Heh, cool. I usually watch the subs if I'm able to because for most anime, the US VAs are more ... cartoony, for want of a better word, than I like, and are paying more attention to matching lip flap than acting (decision on the director's part, I know). But sometimes the dubs are better - the second season of Orphen had a bunch of rewriting of the original script, which turned it into something that contained actual humor, which was often attempted in the original but couldn't cross the cultural divide, I think.

But I *really* don't like the English dub of Rurouni Kenshin because in the original version, the VA for Kenshin (a 28-year-old man) is a woman, who pitches her voice low and gives a unique and really nice effect for him - it speaks a lot for his pacifist, calm character. The English VA is just a random guy, and the character loses a lot.

Theoretically, English VAs can bring as much to dubs as Japanese VAs do to the original, the way different actors can interpret the same role on the stage.
In practice, the Japanese VAs seem to be much better, because the industry supports it better. Miyazaki's films have been a shining exception, and a lot of this is due to the kind of talent he or his English-language adaptors have been able to attract: Gillian Anderson, Lauren Bacall, Christian Bale, etc.

Dubbed movies that get theatrical release seem to be better than most straight-to-video-in-the-US anime in general (and I think that dubs for TV tend to be better than the dubs aimed at video), probably due to the amount of money available for experienced actors, more rehearsal, and larger numbers of retakes.

I'm also not under the impression that the Japanese VAs are necessarily better than the English ones since I can't actually understand them, but if I read the subtitles I can at least pretend. (I was at a con listening to a producer who'd worked in Japan who assured people that Japanese VAs were often just as bad. :)

From what I understand, the Japanese VA industry in general does the voiceovers after the animation is done, while in the US the voicing tends to be done before the animation is started, which helps because the actors can act and the lip flap can be timed to match the words. Mind you, from looking at a lot of cheap cartoons, it doesn't help a bit. :)

But I *really* don't like the English dub of Rurouni Kenshin

I have to agree with you on that one.

When I was regularly renting my anime, and thus only had it for a day or so, I would mostly watch English dubs with the subtitles on so I could kind of...catch both sides of the material. (I don't know if that's a good way to phrase it.) But there were certain shows that I learned very quickly that I could NOT listen to dubbed. Kenshin was one and Saiyuki another (oh the paaaain!), I could probably make a list but it would get old really quickly.

If I get a chance, I'll usually try to watch both versions and what I see on repeated viewings will depend on which I prefer. There are some shows, where I watch dub and sub interchangeably, depending on how much attention I want to pay to the screen at any given time (Witch Hunter Robin and Bebop come to mind here).

None of this had any point whatsoever...but I felt like making a nuisance of myself.

I love many dubs (cannot watch "Cowboy Bebop" in Japanese, cannot cannot), but if only have time for one I tend to watch series in Japanese with subtitles because I think Japanese sounds pretty.

you're going to be missing as many nuances in subtitles as you are with dubs, if you're not fluent in the original language

This is interesting and a little intimidating because I'll be analyzing nuances in anime soon for my thesis and my God, how much am I going to be missing? How much in conscience go "This is what's happening in this scene" versus "This is what I think is happening based on its pseudo-European-fairytale context and on my interpretation on the translation and on my extremely limited knowledge of Japanese language and voice inflection"? How much can I do that with any translated material, including books? (I remember writing a paper on a Jorge Luis Borges story and analyzing his word choice blah blah blah and only after did I realize it had been translated from Spanish.) Must try to work it into the paper somehow, make the "lost in translation" thing work with me and not against me. Hmm.

It should definitely be mentioned, or it's going to be picked on by the thesis committee. :)

Is there a way you can try to get hold of the translator and ask them for examples of things they couldn't translate well, or found English/US equivalents for? The anime of Utena's been out for so long the translator's probably forgotten, but the manga was translated at least a bit more recently. If you can't get hold of those particular translators, you can find others -

akoftroy is currently translating Death Note, and has been one of Toriyama's World's translators for years and can give you a good idea of how much of the nuance gets translated on average, and how the translators pick and choose words and phrases.

It'd probably be interesting, although not strictly germane to your thesis, to compare the translations of the attacks in Naruto between the TW scanlators, Viz's translators, and the anime's translators - I have a theory as to why Neji's Byakugen [spelled wrong, I expect] was done as "Evil Eye" instead of "White Eye" or whatever the literal translation is, in Shonen Jump, which is that the translators (or the English writers, who may not be the same as the translators) were told as a corporate policy to pick English phrases that would would be familiar to the target audience, instead of relying on direct translation.

I know someone who did the English writing of one episode of Kodocha for FUNimation, if you want to talk to him about his experience and how much it relates to the original Japanese version.

I totally failed to realize that the two kids in Abenobashi were speaking in sort of a hick accent. I showed an episode or two of a fansub to a friend who is taking Japanese, and he started laughing. "Why are they talking like that?!" Huh, I said, like what? The English dubs try to substitute sort of a country drawl for the Kansai accent.

The Club 9 manga translation puts the main character's dialogue into deep stereotypical Southern dialect, which I'm assuming is a reflection of whatever she's speaking in the original manga.

Wolfwood in trigun is supposed to speak in an Osaka dialect, from what I udnerstand, which is apparently a country-type accent, but I don't think they did anything about that in either the manga or anime.

YEah, that sums it up pretty well. There are some standout VAs in America but there are very few, and I think the fact that they're so used-- Crispin Freeman and Steve Blum I hear over and over-- doesn't help either.

I had to switch from the dubs to the subs on Hellsing because the Japanese VA for Alucard has a lovely deep growly bass and they used Crispin Freeman for the English, which changed him into this tenor with no depth. GAH.

I like Crispin Freeman as a person but he sounds exactly the same every time.

I wish I could keep the American Gojyo and have the Japanese actors for...most of the other parts. XD

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