The Mike Toole Show

A Tale of Two Dubs

It's 9:00 AM Saturday morning, the clouds are belching a frosty mixture of rain and snow, and I've just ed a huddled line of about 30 people outside of the Arrietty.

I won't go into great detail about my thoughts on the movie - whomever of ANN's Review Crew has been assigned the movie will do that job later this week. Actually, if you're that curious about the movie, go ahead and read our own dub, though. Because hey, sometimes? There are other dubs! Interesting, huh? I think so!

In some ways, I am a purist - I tend to frown on editing or alteration of any material - but when it comes to animation, I'm rarely that particular about language. When I settle in to watch an episode of one of Ellipse/Thierry Wermuth's original French performance, a more macho reading of the title character. I loved watching the German dub of Spongebob Squarepants, retitled Spongebob Schwammkopf, when I went to the 2006 World Cup. And I devoured a few episode of the Japanese dub of Avatar: The Last Airbender with gusto; interestingly, despite being animation, the show's voice cast features stage and TV actors who are good at dubbing foreign material, rather than established seiyuu stars. And so naturally, I often find myself really enjoying English dubs of anime - so much so that I've amassed a collection of a few hundred "lost" productions, old dubs that got only ing exposure on TV, home video, or at the movies.

When I find a dubbed John Wayne drawl. In a 1990 interview by Gregory Solman, Corman was asked about a claim frequently ascribed to him - that he's never lost money on a film. "Well," Corman commented, "I have lost money several times, but I'd say over 90% of [my] films have made money." There's no hard financial data on Galaxy Express out there, but I'm tempted to guess that it'd go in that rare former category.

Of course, the story doesn't end there. Fifteen years later, Trish Ledoux, the former Viz folks who got that dub made. Oh well, you can't have everything.

After Corman's dubious experiment with releasing anime, it'd be a few years before the medium found its way back into a US theatre. When it did, it would inevitably be courtesy of New World Pictures. But this was in the summer of 1985 - by this time, Corman had sold the company so he could concentrate more closely on incubating future cinema classics like Chopping Mall and Barbarian Queen. But hey, everything was alright, because New World got the rights to Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind! With their finely-tuned PR machine and mountain of cash they made from the previous year's C.H.U.D. and Children of the Corn, they were sure to

wait a minute, what the hell is that

Yes, the poster is amazing. I won't even talk about it, because so many sites have commented on its bizarre inaccuracies so extensively. Our own Patrick Stewart. Warriors of the Wind remains an interesting curiosity, but I'm not exactly sad that Disney used the history eraser on the original dub.

When anime came back to the big screen the next year, it was in the form of one of the most infamous lost dubs in history - Noboru Ishiguro's slick-looking OVA, and test audiences in Dallas reacted with complete confusion. The movie was shelved, only to be released on video in the UK.

The thing is, Carl Macek himself really liked Megazone 23 Part 1. He saw the potential in the title, and when he and Matt Greenfield, relished the opportunity to have a crack at one of the great OVAs of the 80s.

In the following year of 1987, we'd go one step beyond infamy and into downright obscurity. 1987 was the year that Toren Smith regularly burst out in barely-repressed, silent laughter. I won't attempt to describe the end product - actually, you know what? Here's a video with some clips from what I'm talking about, here. A video has to be worth at least four thousand words, right?

As everyone who listened to the Bandai Visual USA (also known as, of course, Honneamise) issued the movie, complete with the Manga dub, on an attractive and somewhat overpriced 2-disc DVD/bluray set. (It also came out on DVD/HD-DVD. Did anyone buy that version? Anyone?) That one is still pretty easy to find, and if you love anime's ambition and potential, I urge you to check it out. Star Quest, however, remains MIA.

It's good that I brought up Bandai Visual USA, actually, because they also "rescued" a couple of other old Manga Entertainment releases - namely, the first two Peter Marinker absolutely killing it as Captain Gotoh, are better than good. The new ones aren't. I guess that's a risk you take when you decide to redub something from scratch.

I can only imagine that Dorothy Elias-Fahn! If you don't believe me, watch the entire goddamn thing on Crackle! I don't know the particulars on the deal that landed Rurouni Kenshin in Media Blasters' lap - it's entirely possible they were offered the Samurai X dub and turned it down. I don't blame them - the dub isn't totally awful, but it's got some script and performance problems. The funny thing is, though, that if you look for information on the series online, you'll find posting after posting from fans in the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia who are frustrated that they keep finding clips from the newer dub. Warts and all, the Samurai X dub is "their" Rurouni Kenshin, so that's the one they want!

In 1997, Manga Entertainment got the home video rights to ADV Films UK presence. So they set to work dubbing the series - at home base, in Houston. Not only were there two separate Street Fighter II V dubs, they were being produced within months of each other. This wrinkle -different companies with different rights for different regions - is the most common reason anime gets dubbed and redubbed. I'll talk about the phenomenon a bit more a few paragraphs on.

Of all of the dubs and re-dubs I touch on in this column, I think Tristan MacAvery, but the thing is, there was nothing really wrong with that original dub. I've got a copy, it's fine. Tora's speech patterns are kind of weird (MacAvery rewrote the script to make his dialogue alliterative, because Tora does have odd speech patterns and that's how the director chose to render them in English) but there's not a lot there to complain about. Thus, the original dub of those first two episodes has been obscured, for no particular reason. It's a funny old business.

Ever seen Crispin Freeman (as Togusa) and company redid the whole thing, only with a larger budget and more actors. Bandai Entertainment, in their wisdom, included the UK dub on their R1 releases anyway, very slighty (and very strangely) slowed down. It's... interesting, to say the least.

Wasn't it neat when Bandai Entertainment started rolling out the cast of K-On!? The casting seemed note-perfect, with a bevy of musically talented actresses - the team of Zipang are two that come to mind) that are generally awful, but K-ON! never really reaches those lows. If you're really jonesing for the show in English and are out in the cold now that Bandai have ceased new production, maybe seeking out Red Angel's dub will tide you over? Nah, probably not.

I first started noticing a lot of these Asia-produced English dubs a few years ago, and I was initially shocked - not only that they existed, but that there were so many of them. There are dubs of fare that never saw releases here like Captain Tsubasa) and Captain Harlock in Spanish to read heated comments about whether the Spain version or the Mexico version is superior!

But let's bring this little study home: What about Arrietty? What about the movie I saw at the theatre, which I also saw on UK DVD, only with a totally different cast? Well, it turns out it wasn't just a different cast - it was a different approach. Optimum's UK dub is very clinical and careful - it's good, solid actors with good voices playing it safe and sticking to the script. The American dub is a pretty fascinating contrast, because everything about it is loose. Lip-flap is looser than usual. Dialogue is very naturalistic - the characters' patter sounds genuinely unplanned and spontaneous, filled with uhs and ums. Will Arnett, who completely disappears into the role - not an easy task for a guy in a $6,300 suit. The biggest difference? The Disney dub takes the adaptation further than Optimum, changing some of the names (Sho becomes Shawn, Haru becomes Hara). To some purists out there, this is gonna be like nails on a chalkboard; it doesn't bother me much. I like both dubs and am happy with each of them, but I think the Optimum one is a bit more respectful of the source material, and the Disney one is a bit more fun. If you're in the UK, I hope you've enjoyed Optimum's release; if you're in the US, make sure you see Arrietty next weekend! And finally, when the opportunity comes, see if you can check out the other region's version, and enjoy the other dub.

Man, if you want to talk about this subject, there's a lot of material! Akira is the most obvious choice - when Dragon Ball - do you pine for the old Ocean dubs, or do you like the new Funi hotness? Let's talk about it in the comments!