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00:00Oh, I must have fallen asleep.
00:30Good thing we're not in battle, right?
00:33What's up?
00:38Oh?
00:39Good.
00:40Give Colonel Jervis my regards.
00:43Where's Pen Pen?
00:46Pfft.
00:48Typical.
00:49Well, I'm gonna go find him before I tape my end of season episode.
00:52Maybe get a drink in.
00:54Hey, everybody, it's been great.
00:57I'll see you all, uh...
00:59When's my next shift?
01:00Next week?
01:02See you next week!
01:11Hey!
01:12Hey, has anyone seen Pen Pen?
01:15Any of you seen Pen Pen around?
01:21Damn it.
01:22And just when I wanted to grab a drink.
01:24Maybe he's already at the bar.
01:27See ya!
01:27That's weird.
01:37He isn't here either.
01:39Where could he have gone off to?
01:41Maybe I should just tape my show.
01:45Well, I guess the show goes on.
01:47Roll the camera!
01:48We're nearly there.
01:56We're nearly there.
01:57It's a very good head.
01:57We're nearly there.
01:58Um...
01:59That's weird.
01:59It doesn't matter.
01:59It is!
02:01We're nearly there.
02:02It's a good move.
02:03It's too bad.
02:04To be here.
02:04You know, it's too bad.
02:04It's no good.
02:05It's too bad.
02:05That's weird.
02:06You know, too?
02:07I'll have to take it.
02:07We're not doing so.
02:08You know, too.
02:08I don't want to take it.
02:09I don't know.
02:40Hey there, Penguin Truth here.
02:45With the year winding down, it's time I take stock of the English dubs of the anime I've covered since the mid-season episode.
02:51I knew I was going to be doing two episodes like this this year.
02:55As I've mentioned previously, I tend to watch anime in Japanese with subtitles,
03:00but there are times, such as when I'm watching for this show, that I watch it dubbed.
03:05If you're wondering what my standards are for deeming an anime dub good,
03:08I tend to go by two basic criteria.
03:12One, faithfulness, and two, performances.
03:16Obviously, either is somewhat malleable.
03:19A dub script has to make sense in the language it's written in,
03:23and performances rely just as much on directing and casting as the voice actors themselves.
03:27I just don't like it when an English dub studio tries to be too...
03:32creative with their choices.
03:36The show already exists.
03:39I'm not looking for Funimation's ideas as to how the characters and plot should be,
03:43or what they think is funny.
03:45It can be said, though, that the overall quality of English dubs have reached a steady level of quality,
03:51which, in a way, is a shame,
03:53because while few new dubs are particularly terrible,
03:57neither are many really excellent.
03:59Just ten or so years ago, the quality of English dubs varied wildly.
04:04It was a real melting pot of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
04:08The second half of the year, I managed to cover both a good variety of anime,
04:12as well as a variety of dub studios.
04:15Of course, that can be difficult to tie together when the dubs have little in common,
04:19so let's ease in with a studio I encountered twice.
04:23Mangle Entertainment.
04:24Er, I mean, Manga Entertainment.
04:27A studio that couldn't pronounce its own name for a while.
04:31Tch, Manga my ass.
04:33Which is a perfect indicator of the quality of their products.
04:38Nowadays, Manga Entertainment is little more than a memory.
04:41I think their last release was...
04:43What, Redline?
04:45And before that, it had been years without one.
04:48At least in the States.
04:50But back in the day, Manga was big time.
04:53This year, I reviewed the first two episodes of The Heroic Legend of Arslan OVA,
04:57because a new TV series for it came out.
05:00The new series, by the way, is Worth Your Time,
05:02and there's a second season coming next year.
05:04But in the meantime, there's the English dub of the OVA to discuss,
05:09which was done by authentic Brits poshly playing pale Persians.
05:13And not being able to pronounce the main characters or anybody else's name right, for that matter.
05:18The Arslan OVA dub is an interesting creature.
05:28The English actors bring a superficial sense of class
05:31that seems appropriate for the setting of castles and knights and such.
05:34As an American, and Antarctican, I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.
05:39Maybe because, as Bill Maher surmised,
05:42And our reliance on the British accent to convey gravitas
05:46is kind of our way of admitting that we know we're not really a serious people.
05:51It's kind of a novelty for another reason, too,
05:54which is that the English English voice actors are actually able to speak
05:58without putting on fake American accents,
06:01which they often do in manga entertainment dubs.
06:04Marvel, as Sean Barrett no longer has to try to sound like
06:08he's Clint Eastwood crossed with Sylvester Stallone.
06:11So this puny little runt is the son of Andragoras?
06:17That's right! The Crown Prince Arslan!
06:20Now give your name!
06:22Or else!
06:23Oh no!
06:24How dare you draw your sword of the legitimate heir to the kingdom of Palsan!
06:28You're nothing but the son of a traitor!
06:31What?
06:32Not that I don't enjoy Barrett's Clint Eastwood alone,
06:35but it's pretty obviously a put-on he uses to play formidable yet silly middle-aged men.
06:41Such as, let's say, Inspector Zenigata and Loop on the 3rd Bye Bye Lady Liberty.
06:46There have been few franchises with more English dubs than Loop on the 3rd,
06:51and for some reason, none of them are particularly high in quality.
06:55You'd think that after all these years they'd finally get it right,
06:59but they always botch something,
07:00whether it's the script, the casting, the direction, etc.
07:05I have a fondness for the foos cast,
07:07but the scripts were always a mixed bag
07:09and obsessed with dropping in modern pop culture references.
07:13Manga Entertainment's dub of Bye Bye Lady Liberty has a different problem.
07:17The performances are just plain lackluster.
07:21The cast is nothing special, for one.
07:23William DeVries' Lupin is a few shades too nebbish.
07:27I have the same problem with Sonny Straight's Lupin from the Funimation dub,
07:30that he sounds like a put-on, gargly, squealy, nerd voice.
07:36Lupin has a silly, childish side,
07:38but there should also be a sense of dangerous, edgy snarkiness,
07:42coming from a place of extreme self-confidence.
07:45DeVries doesn't give that off.
07:47I don't know if he can.
07:49He sounds like Lupin the Nerd.
07:51I calculated it taking me 50 years to steal and destroy them all,
07:55and the prediction agrees.
07:56Did the computer predict you'd swap an exciting life of crime for the kitchen sink?
08:00My tastes have matured.
08:02It's time to go straight.
08:03Listen, Wolf, just this one last job,
08:06and then we'll talk about slippers and pipe as you sit by the fireside.
08:09Sounds great.
08:10The other performances are nothing to write home about, either.
08:14Barrett Senegata is fine for the sort of lighthearted romp this feature is,
08:18but it sounds like Eric Myers, Garrick Hagen, and Tony Barry
08:22are all just phoning in their performances.
08:26And the VA for Michael is really bad at covering up her accent.
08:30I first began research to gather all the information on her I could find,
08:36and using my computer, I discovered that she'd created the manipulative virus.
08:42Then when I came along, you wanted me to locate her.
08:45And you'd fall into each other's arms, huh?
08:48Finally, you'd live happily together with her, and I...
08:50No, I wouldn't!
08:51I hate her!
08:53I want to tell her how much I hate her!
08:55Unfortunately, it's another in a long line of failures
08:58to adapt a Lupin feature into English.
09:01And while it's probably not one of the worst Lupin dubs,
09:04it's still disappointing.
09:06Maybe whoever gets the new Lupin TV show
09:09will actually have a dub that fires on all cylinders,
09:12but I'm not holding my breath.
09:14As for Manga Entertainment,
09:16they licensed a lot of great anime,
09:18but their dubs don't hold up at all,
09:20and it's a wonder they were ever acceptable.
09:22And speaking of unimpressive English dubs,
09:25ADV!
09:26As a licensor, ADV was ravenous,
09:29grabbing up anything you could get its hands on,
09:31like Manga Entertainment was at one point.
09:33Because it had a variety of properties,
09:36some of them hot titles like Evangelion,
09:38they were popular in the 90s and early aughts.
09:41But they spread themselves too thin
09:43and got in over their heads.
09:45As for the quality of their English dubs,
09:48they had Funimation beat for a while,
09:50but that's just because Funimation was horrid at first.
09:53In retrospect, most ADV dubs weren't that good either.
09:58The translations were mostly decent,
10:00but the casting and directing were another story.
10:04I covered two English dubs done by recording studios
10:07who specifically did ADV titles,
10:09Battle Angel and Blue Seed,
10:12during Action Channel Month.
10:14And they both have the same basic problem most ADV dubs have,
10:17which is stiff, stilted, or over-the-top voice acting,
10:21as the probable result of bad direction or casting.
10:25Not that I've heard many of these VAs do well
10:27under different companies,
10:29but some of them, like Amanda Windley,
10:31have proven themselves a bit more competent in other hands.
10:34Could it have been her inexperience at the time?
10:37It's possible, but just listen to these clips
10:40and tell me what the problem is.
10:41That's impressive that you can make a living all by yourself.
10:45You think so?
10:49That's impressive.
10:51What is?
10:53Oh, come on.
10:54I'm talking about Zalem, of course.
10:57Oh, I see.
11:00What about a love letter?
11:02But we don't know where he lives.
11:04Well, I think I have the solution.
11:07Really?
11:07I don't like trashy romance novels.
11:34It's better to have love than to read about it.
11:36Well, I guess that's true.
11:39Real love is much more complicated.
11:42It's not like those stupid books make it out to be at all.
11:45What do you mean?
11:50What would you choose?
11:52Would you take real love with all its complications
11:55or the picturesque romance in a story?
12:00Better, isn't it?
12:01But then again,
12:02Gaiogen also did the really awkward dub of End of Evangelion,
12:06which, like read or die, was directed by Win Lee.
12:09Maybe casting is the difference.
12:12Or maybe Evangelion is undubbable.
12:15Well, probably as long as Spike Spencer and Tiffany Grant are in it.
12:20Those crazy Canucks up north in the Ocean group
12:23dubbed a lot of anime at one time,
12:25from Dragon Ball Z to Gundam and even Western cartoons.
12:29Nowadays, Ocean dubs are a dying breed,
12:31and some might say for the better.
12:33Ocean has very few standout dubs,
12:36but one among them is what I'd consider cream of the crop.
12:40Death Note.
12:41Talk about a dub that lives to its potential.
12:44Probably surpassing it, actually.
12:46Brad Swale, Alessandro Giuliani, Brian Drummond,
12:50Shannon Chan-Kent, Kirby Morrow, Kathy Westlick.
12:54The list goes on.
12:55This cast knows what it's doing
12:57and plays their roles brilliantly,
12:59whether they're veterans or relative newcomers.
13:02It also helps that they're directed by Carl Willems,
13:05a veteran in ADR,
13:06and the script stayed very faithful,
13:08but without seeming inflexible.
13:10The only flaw is some of the name pronunciations.
13:13What do you think, Nir?
13:15Perfect.
13:16Giovanni has done an excellent job.
13:19The handwriting matches that of the records
13:21Mikami keeps his prosecutor.
13:23There's absolutely no doubt.
13:24This is his handwriting.
13:26I agree.
13:27With this, we can do it.
13:32I've found that most of my favorite English dubs for anime
13:35come out of California,
13:37though you don't get a lot of those anymore, either.
13:39Back in the day,
13:40the big California-based studios
13:42were Animes and Bang Zoom,
13:44responsible for a ton of great dubs.
13:47Not every dub was top-notch,
13:50but most of them were at least decent.
13:52Once again, in Bang Zoom's case,
13:54I point to Haruhi,
13:56via the movie I just covered the last episode.
13:58The whole Haruhi dubcast works well,
14:01from Wendy Lee's Haruhi
14:02to Stephanie Shea's Mikuru.
14:04And in the movie,
14:05we get to see a lot more personality from Yuki,
14:07which was good for Michelle Ruff
14:09because she got to stretch her acting muscles
14:11a bit more for the role.
14:12Not that Yuki talked all that much more,
14:14mind you,
14:15but she had a wider emotional range when she did.
14:19And of course, all the while,
14:20Crispin Freeman's sarcastic, cynical Keon
14:23keeps the viewer's attention
14:24even during the slower parts of the story.
14:27Wait, maybe there's another SOS Brigade
14:30right here at Koyuan Academy.
14:32And maybe she's found a whole new group of people
14:35to be in it.
14:37Damn it.
14:38Just the thought of that makes me sick.
14:40Is it possible that me, Miss Asahina,
14:43Nagato, and Koizumi
14:44have outlived our usefulness?
14:46If that's the case,
14:47I'm out of the picture.
14:48I'm not even a supporting character
14:49in this crazy setup.
14:51I couldn't live with that.
14:53Anything but that.
14:54Animes dubbed the Kakaider anime
14:56for Bandai Entertainment,
14:57with the criminally underrated Dave Wittenberg
15:00as our star player,
15:01Michael Gregory as the devious Professor Gill,
15:04and Stephen Bloom as the delightfully wicked Hakaider.
15:07The OVA even boasted such talents
15:09as Crispin Freeman and Wendy Lee.
15:12As you can tell,
15:13Animes and Bang Zoom shared performers.
15:15The overall quality of the dub
15:17doesn't push it into the greats,
15:19but it's solid enough.
15:21Then you've left me no other choice
15:23but to kill Komyoji's daughter
15:24in order to motivate you.
15:26No!
15:35It's time for you to make a choice.
15:37Not every anime's dub was a winner, however.
15:57The dub for the original
15:58Mobusu Gundam movie trilogy
16:00is pretty stiff and stilted.
16:02This was an early effort, though,
16:04before some of these voice actors
16:05were shaped into the remarkable talents
16:07they'd become.
16:08The ones who sucked the hardest
16:09didn't go on to do anything, fortunately.
16:12There is something to be said
16:13of the novelty of Stephen Bloom as Char,
16:15but I'll go more in-depth
16:17after I finish covering the whole trilogy.
16:19One of the lesser-known California studios
16:23was Elastic Media Corporation.
16:25They did the redubs of the first two
16:27Patlabor movies, and, well,
16:29I have to admit,
16:31I'm a bit torn about the newer
16:33Patlabor movie dub.
16:35On the one hand,
16:36it plays closer to the original
16:37Japanese script than the
16:39manga entertainment dub of old.
16:41It even retains an, on average,
16:43better cast than the
16:44manga entertainment dub.
16:45But, I don't know,
16:47it all seemed a little tepid,
16:49especially compared to the
16:50manga dub,
16:51which failed on a few levels,
16:53but when it succeeded,
16:54it did quite well.
16:55It's possible that
16:56neither dub is quite good,
16:58but neither is bad, either.
17:00He didn't think the police
17:01were worthy opponents
17:02from the start.
17:03He had total and absolute
17:05confidence in his own program.
17:07Or else,
17:08he wouldn't have killed himself
17:09without confirming its outcome.
17:11My guess is,
17:12on the day that he
17:13took his dive,
17:14he was gleefully sneering at us,
17:16at all of us,
17:17residents of this entire city.
17:21Say, do you realize,
17:23whenever you start
17:24talking about Hoba,
17:25you look oh so pleased
17:26with yourself.
17:27What?
17:28That can't be good.
17:29Hmm, how much longer
17:31can I put off
17:32talking about
17:32streamlined pictures?
17:34Ooh, what about
17:35that Outlanders dub?
17:37I think that one's
17:37out of Jersey.
17:38Hard to judge that one.
17:40It's such a weird feature.
17:42I guess they did okay.
17:43Well, actually,
17:46when I think about
17:46how the fate of the earth
17:47rests on my shoulders...
17:49Hmm.
17:52Hmm.
17:52No, no!
17:54That doesn't mean
17:54I'm not like
17:55totally interested in you!
17:57It's just that...
17:59Huh?
18:00Huh?
18:00Huh?
18:01Huh?
18:01Huh?
18:02Huh?
18:02Huh?
18:03Huh?
18:03Huh?
18:03Huh?
18:05Ally to good!
18:06Nightmare to you!
18:11Well,
18:12now I guess
18:12I have no choice.
18:14GoGo13 the Professional
18:15was a dub done
18:16by the...
18:18historical
18:19Streamline.
18:20Directed by
18:21the famous
18:21Carl Masic
18:22and the voice actor
18:23for Duke Togo
18:24Gregory Snagoff.
18:26And it's...
18:28pretty excellent,
18:29actually.
18:30Oh, there are
18:31a few things
18:31I could say
18:32about Masic
18:33and his much
18:34ballyhooed place
18:35in anime history,
18:36not many of them
18:37kind.
18:38You have to admit,
18:39Streamline did bring
18:40anime to a lot of people
18:42who'd otherwise
18:43not have seen it.
18:44And even apart
18:45from that,
18:46the Professional
18:46has a well-written,
18:48well-performed
18:49English dub
18:49that I can't
18:50throw shade on.
18:52Just like I thought.
18:53I was almost
18:54somebody's clay pigeon
18:55last night
18:55at the airport.
18:56Dawson's granddaughter
18:57and butler,
18:58both of whom
18:59were at the boat party.
19:00Are you sure
19:01it was them?
19:01Mm-hmm.
19:02They almost nailed me.
19:04Sick bastard.
19:05That's really cold.
19:07The guy must be nuts
19:08to drag his granddaughter
19:09into this.
19:10That's one desperate trap.
19:11Trap?
19:12Bet your ass a trap.
19:14He's trying to suck you
19:14into that maze
19:15he calls Dawson Castle
19:16by letting you know
19:17who he is.
19:18And that covers
19:19the English dubs
19:20from the second half
19:21of the season.
19:22A few good ones,
19:23one amazing one,
19:24a few bad ones,
19:26and a couple
19:26of them ambivalent towards.
19:28So a pretty good range
19:29in both studios
19:30and quality.
19:31It's been a pleasure
19:32to share my thoughts
19:33on them.
19:34And it's been a pleasure,
19:36albeit a difficult one,
19:37to do another season
19:38of this review series.
19:40Otaku Evolution
19:41still doesn't have
19:41many viewers,
19:42and I'd like to see
19:43that change in the new year.
19:45You can expect reviews
19:46of titles such as
19:47Last Exile,
19:48Crusher Joe,
19:49Cyber City Uedo,
19:51more Gundam,
19:52and others.
19:53We'll laugh,
19:53we'll cry,
19:54we'll watch
19:55Goku Midnight Eye.
19:57So join me,
19:57won't you?
19:58Next season of
19:59Otaku Evolution
20:00is certain to please.
20:02All five of you
20:03who watch it.
20:05Now,
20:05if you'll excuse me,
20:06I'm taking some time off.
20:07See-
20:08What is this now?
21:12All right, what's this about?
21:28Somebody spilled their soda on a panel again?
21:33Bring it on screen.
21:35How did that just appear?
21:39It's like it decloaked.
21:41Hail it.
21:42It's hailing us.
21:44On screen.
21:45Oh no.
21:47You again?
21:49Give me a break.
21:51Greetings, Payman Opless.
21:53I am Cassus of Zwell.
21:56And I have a request.
21:59Ah.
22:29I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:30I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:31I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:32I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:34I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:35I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:36I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:37I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:38I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:39I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:40I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:41I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:42I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:43I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:44I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:45I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:46I am Cassus of Zwell.
22:47I am Cassus of Zwell.
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