A few days ago, I watched the free episode of Honey and Clover that’s on iTunes to how the dub sounded and ended up buying the second to get a better sense of it before writing my opinion of it.
Overall, I thought it was pretty good. I started unconsciously comparing the English actors to their Japanese counterparts before acknowledging the English cast would probably not stack up so I resolved to just judge the dub on its own efforts. It was a little unnerving to hear Takamoto, Mayama, and Morita called by their first names (Yuta, Takumi, and Shinobu, respectively) but I guess it makes sense to use those since given names come before family names in English-speaking countries.
Takamoto (Yuri Lowenthal) sounded a little flat and grating at first but that got better as it went along for the most part, contributing to the inexperience of his character. I first thought Mayama (unknown) sounded like a 30-something cop but then he just sounded like Takemoto’s senpai when giving him some advice. Sam Regal voicing Morita was a little grating initially while nailing his playfulness and bestowed a good serious voice. Shuuji (Chris Kent) was okay and sounded good giving adversarial lines to Mayama. Yamada (Julie Ann Taylor) and Hagu (Heather Halley) barely got any lines in the first episode so that’s why I decided to plunk down the $1.99 for the second.
There was more moments of Yamada and Hagu speaking in the second episode but no Rika (unknown). I looked at the sample for episode 4 and she has a weak voice with small variations, which fits her condition but still seems a little lacking to me. It’s been a while since I’ve watched any of the series, though. Hagu had a soft, feathery voice and groans that sounded appropriate. Yamada sounds like a student in her early 20s should; I’ll have to check episode 3 when I get the DVDs for her angry voice. Takemoto had some moments of worry that were expressed well and Hanamoto sounded more like a experienced advisor when he wasn’t being an over-adoring uncle.
The side characters such as Kazuhiko from the dormhouse, the sculpture club girls, Yamada’s ceramic teacher, the Asahiro book guy, and the upscale shop girls had voices that sounded good. “Koropokkuru” was kept in and so was the insert music. (I re-admired the sequence near the end of episode 1 where Morita is running around as if I were watching it for the first time.)
On the technical side, the 1st episode had a bitrate of 1.40mbits/sec and the 2nd had one of 1.25 mbits/sec. Both had the standard 23.98 fps and 640×360 resolution of a widescreen iTunes file.
The Lagann Dub and the Decade Ahead
July 29, 2008 in Commentary, Dubside by Tom Langston (calaggie) | No comments
Last night, I tuned into Sci-Fi Channel to watch the TV premiere of the Bang Zoom-produced Gurren Lagann dub. I actually thought it was pretty good and something I’d watch weekly but then again, I am more forgiving of dubs than other, more purist fans may be. Kamina didn’t seem to possess all the machismo that he should’ve and Leeron’s voice may have played up a certain angle a bit too much but Simon (aka Simoun), strong Yoko, and the extras sounded good. Now we have to wait for next week to see how Viral, Kittan and his sisters stack up. (Other bloggers’ reactions: DTZ loved it, CJ called it “bearable”, xephfyre played it safe, Author-san: “quite palatable”, and Mr. Miao rightfully hates on the commercials.)
While I’m on the subject, I’d like to talk about the short Gainax interview that ANN posted yesterday. At the end of it, TTGL product manager and Gainax co-founder Hiroyuki Yamaga said, “We hope to be working on Gurren Lagann for the next decade. This work we know as Gurren Lagann will continue.” They have already released most of their Parallel Works project (which has been halted until just before the Sept. 6 premiere of series recap film #1 of 2), a DS game last fall (review from a Destructoid C-blog), a cancelled MMORPG involving first-person digging of tunnels, and a manga adaptation drawn by Kotaro Mori. It’s obvious that the studio will focus on its other projects including Shikabane Hime over the next few years but this franchise is too popular not to expand upon sometime in 2010 or 2011, although I hope it won’t get overly revised like Eva did.
Tags: dubs, future, gurren lagann