Waiting, Wondering, and Worrying About Dubs

Over the next couple weeks, I am set to receive the first DVD volumes of Tsubasa Chronicle and Haruhi. One reason I preordered their initial releases was because I enjoyed both series when I watched them on fansubs and, to cite the “moral anime fan” line, I wanted to support the artists and studios involved. Another more curious reason was to hear for myself how the characters are voiced in English. Unfortunately, I almost always seem to worry that they won’t sound “right” – not in terms of faithfulness to the sounds of the original seiyuu, but rather if the new voices work with each other and appropriately and accurately convey the characters’ feelings.

I admit that I am more accepting of dubs than many anime fans. For example, last year I watched s-CRY-ed, GitS:SAC 2nd GIG, and Evangelion in English through taping Adult Swim and watching it the next day. I was satisified with how each sounded but then again, I think I was more concerned about the story than about the voices. I still think that both audio versions of Full Metal Alchemist are very good with each cast contributing its own kind of emotion to the series.

So, why do I feel concern over English voice acting when I’m generally comfortable with many of the results? I think it’s akin to how fans of particular manga series hope that the anime adaptation doesn’t screw up the storyline badly and that the characters’ core personalities remain intact. With me and particular anime series, I am very familiar with one version and do not wish that another version mar the overall image of a particular franchise in the average anime fan’s eyes and ears.

I mentioned earlier the first dubbed episodes of Tsubasa and Haruhi. If all goes according to pla, I’ll get Tsubasa v.1 before the weekend of Fanime and Haruhi v.1 the week after. But RightStuf has previously shipped early if they get it in their inventory and RACS currently has the regular edition (what I ordered) in stock so I could possibly get it before Fanime but that’s unlikely. Regardless of when I get my DVDs, I am fairly certain that the dubs will be exhibited during each company’s respective industry panels next weekend, so I’ll hear them one way or another. I do want to ask Bandai about how they will handle the “GOD KNOWS” concert, though…

Although I care about Tsubasa’s and Haruhi’s dubs, I am more concerned about Viz’s handling of Honey & Clover. I was a little peeved with the syllable-by-syllable stiff pronounciation of names in Bleach so I hope the names are said more smoothly and “Morita” doesn’t sound awkward.

After reading all this, I’m sure some of you will just tell me to simply skip the dubs altogether and stick to the original Japanese. Well, most anime DVDs have two language tracks on the same disc so I want to try both in order to fully experience my purchases. I suppose I will always have some worries whenever one of my favorite titles get licensed but I recognize that English dubbing is in most cases (exceptions include Sukisho and Loveless) part of the tradeoff of having easier access to high-quality video of it.

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