Last Anime Watched/Manga Read?

[Phoenix Taichou]

NAh, I understand where you're coming from. My brother-in-law isn't that much into anime and tends to watch the dub rather than the original.

[SailorJimmy]

But in some cases I do prefer the Jap, I think I like the Jap Advent children more because the characters are more how they are, if you get that?

But then that could be because I saw it in Jap first. =/

[Zirak]

I do think the language that you watch an anime in first hugely impacts your opinion on any others that you watch afterwards.

I've always been an advocate of the original Japanese dubs, though, because I feel that the Japanese VA's put way more effort into their voices than the Americans do. Then again, the target audiences for the American and Japanese shows vary widely as well, with anime in Japan being watched by anyone aged 10 to over 30 (or something) while the American shows target almost exclusively 10 to 15 year olds or thereabouts. As a consequence the younger generation doesn't seem to care much about the voices. I know I didn't when I was younger.

Regardless, it is a matter of personal taste in the end. I watch what makes me happy and other people watch what makes them happy. ^^ I do think American VA's have come a long way recently, though, and they've started cutting the shows a lot less (uncut DVDs are awesome), so maybe there's more potential for them to grow, in my eyes.

There are some animes where I prefer the English voices. Tenchi Muyo, for a start, and DBZ (what the hell is with Goku's Japanese voice? O.o). Also, the Lost Odyssey game has better American voices, imo. I mean, the Japanese gave a female character a male VA! O_o

But, yeah, my two cents. XD

[Little Wooden Boy]

DVD's are awesome for that.  If you want the original Japanese, just change the setting.  Want to have blood pour out you ears from American women screaming, just press play

Zi makes a good point about which version you hear first.  A friend only lent me Trigun on the condition I watched it in the dub first   The one that does really bug me is in the dub, when they cant pronounce names correctly.  They have access to the Japanese audio, listen to it for chirst sakes!  Plus, people speaking in English and using honorifics (san, chan, etc) confuses me.  Though that aint hard!

[Phoenix Taichou]

in regards to VA, all points considered, I agree with Zi, in that it depends first, but I also make the point that - some anime seem to have more effort put into the VA. for example, Cowboy Bebop and Trigun have pretty good VA. I'd say Evangelion has pretty good VA too, but that one might be a case of me being used to it. When you heard Shinji scream in American, it's paltry. When you hear Shinji scream in Japanese, it sends shivers down your spine. It seems when it comes to things like 4Kids or whatever they're called that bastardise things like Shaman King, Naruto and One Piece (wtf was with that opening?!) they tend to wank the VA right up. I mean in Shaman King, they gave a CHINESE character (with a blatant chinese name!) an ENGLISH accent (or rather, a very fake poncy English accent), and an ENGLISH character an AMERICAN accent. Plus they bastardised it more by changing one othe characters puppets moves (shooting bullets) into shooting... RATTLES. wtf.

Sorry, went off the rails a bit there

[Little Wooden Boy]

From a buisness view, altering anime to reach a larger possible audience and therefore a larger income makes sense.  However, from a fan point of view its just plain crap.  Though they did try uncut Yugioh and possibly Shaman King dvds.  They flopped  

[Pyra]

From a buisness view, altering anime to reach a larger possible audience and therefore a larger income makes sense.  However, from a fan point of view its just plain crap.  Though they did try uncut Yugioh and possibly Shaman King dvds.  They flopped  

From a buisness point of view anime; at least it's localisation; is utter crap and their own buisness model is what is causing them most trouble. Lets go speculative for a moment. Lets take something like death note, an animes based on an already popular manga, so something that is going to be popular. Can you imagine how much money they would have made from having subbed eps available through download (in some piracy protected form like itunes purchases) for say £3 an episode on the day they air. Fansubbers would be negligable because it's already lisceneced and hey they can't get theirs out any faster than that and I bet a whole lot of people would pick them up just because of how convient it would be. And maths shows that 3x4 is £12 so without the shipping, shelving and over supply you need for physical DvDs the profit would be around the same, and then when it's all aired you'll be able to get some more profit when you drop the £50 box set with subs, dubs, commentries, uncut, what ever other extras you want and people will buy it for the extras.

Rant over

[Phoenix Taichou]

From a buisness view, altering anime to reach a larger possible audience and therefore a larger income makes sense.  However, from a fan point of view its just plain crap.  Though they did try uncut Yugioh and possibly Shaman King dvds.  They flopped  

From a buisness point of view anime; at least it's localisation; is utter crap and their own buisness model is what is causing them most trouble. Lets go speculative for a moment. Lets take something like death note, an animes based on an already popular manga, so something that is going to be popular. Can you imagine how much money they would have made from having subbed eps available through download (in some piracy protected form like itunes purchases) for say £3 an episode on the day they air. Fansubbers would be negligable because it's already lisceneced and hey they can't get theirs out any faster than that and I bet a whole lot of people would pick them up just because of how convient it would be. And maths shows that 3x4 is £12 so without the shipping, shelving and over supply you need for physical DvDs the profit would be around the same, and then when it's all aired you'll be able to get some more profit when you drop the £50 box set with subs, dubs, commentries, uncut, what ever other extras you want and people will buy it for the extras.

Rant over

Pyra is like the genius ninja. Hides in the shadows then at the right moment pops out with genius idea or an awesome witty comment!

[Pyra]

Pyra is like the genius ninja. Hides in the shadows then at the right moment pops out with genius idea or an awesome witty comment!

Thank you for listening. So dragons I am asking for £500,000 for 15% equity do I have any takers?

[Little Wooden Boy]

A nice idea though very few animes are actually made with an English language release sorted before they air.  The only one I know of was Stand Alone Complex.  Would be cool if it happened though.

Bandai are sort of close to attempting it.  They are releasing two nieche otaku series (Shigofumi and True Tears) just 2 months after thier Japanese dvd release.  While this is a nice idea, they are pretty much costing themselves out as each disc contains only 2 eps and retail at $39.99 plus tax.  So thats roughly £20 a disc equalling £10 per episode!  Who the hell is gonna pick that up on a whim in a dvd shop!

[SailorJimmy]

*tries to think of something smart to add*
Uhm... I just read... Orphen volume 2? heheh?

[Little Wooden Boy]

Well I wrote too soon   Just read that Bandai have delayed the release of previously mentioned titles in light of "current market conditions and expectations."  So basically they probably realised it was a dumb idea.

[Zirak]

Bleach Episode 165.

Two weeks until the next episode! What a bitch!

[DSW]

Chrono Crusade atm. I swear some auditions for VAs are based solely on how well they do exasperated/angry ranting lol. CC for example, Rosettes VA sounds a bit crap when shes just speaking but when shes ranting/scared shes hilarious XD

Ill prolly be swapping to sub soon >,>

[Mistresskimba]

Sub all the way...I love listening to Japanese voices on anime...my Ouran vol 10 finally arrived today!!!