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Worst dub I've heard in a long time: Crest of the Stars

 
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Fri Oct 18, 2002 11:51 pm    Post subject: Worst dub I've heard in a long time: Crest of the Stars Reply with quote

Hey all, I'm going to use this message board to vent for a moment about the dub track on a DVD I bought a couple weeks ago and just watched today...

Crest of the Stars is among my top-5 favourite shows of all time. The characters are interesting, the dialogue quick and witty, comments are timed nicely, and the story flows smoothly without focusing too heavily on the sci-fi aspects of the series.

All that is lost when it comes to the crap-ass dub. The dialogue is pronounced slowly and carefully-- it loses all of its wit, naivete, cuteness. It sounds like I'm listening to an ESL tape. Lafiel has a slight Japanese accent. Jinto sounds cheezy and dim-witted. Every time I try to listen to a character's voice, it sounds like the VAs are carefully reading off of an un-rehearsed script-- pauses in speech are mis-timed, individual words are pronounced too carefully...

Ugh, Ocean Studios has destroyed yet another anime with a shitty dub. I can confidently say that this is one of the *absolute worst* dubs that I've ever had the displeasure of listening to.

I'm not a dub-hater, in fact, I enjoy a good dub-- I can show well-dubbed shows to my non-anime-addict friends. This is a dub that I can't show to my friends. The story does not flow smoothly!

I'm so annoyed by this destruction of one of my favourite shows that I'm going to try to rip a bit of audio from one of the early episodes and post it to my website-- I'll do that in a short bit and I'll post a link in this thread.
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Sat Oct 19, 2002 12:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This audio sample was taken from the third episode of the series, starting at about 15:00, when Jinto asked Lafiel about the paintings inside the spaceship.

http://www.japanese-animation.net/temp/painting_scene.mp3

Choice quote: "What do you mean by that?" Ugh, I don't know how any self-respecting VA can say a phrase *that* poorly... (note: for a short period a few years back I worked in an ADR studio in Vancouver as a support technician, and we *never* let any actor leave the studio with any audio that poorly-spoken)

Thinking about it, Lafiel's VA doesn't have a Japanese accent, though it still reminds me vaguely of a Japanese person speaking English-- probably it's just the unnatural overpronunciation of the words...

Yuck, this sample sounds like an ESL tape (my dad's an ESL teacher, and sometimes he pre-screens language lessons on cassette at home).[/url]
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xo
Site Admin


Joined: 09 Feb 2002
Posts: 466
Location: Los Angeles [comcast]

PostPosted: Sat Oct 19, 2002 1:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear God, it's even worse than you describe!

Your comparison to an ESL tape is dead on- Jinto's VA especially sounds like a bad Saturday Night Live parody of one.

BTW, what are people's opinions on the best dub they've seen (err... heard). I don't watch many dubs, but of the ones I have, I liked Cowboy Bebop. I really liked Faye and Spike, Jet less so. Ed just sucked, although I don't what they could've done with that character.

As a reference point: I didn't like Mononoke Hime's dub. I thought the translation was well done but I *HATE* *HATE* *HATE* that they used "name" actors. Very distracting and very poorly cast at that (Minnie Driver?!?).

-xo
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Sat Oct 19, 2002 2:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmmm... dubs I've liked... There's an amazingly small number of those...

Looking at my DVD shelf, in no particular order, here are some dubs I've liked:
-Tenchi Muyo OAV, Tenchi Universe: first couple episodes were awkward, then the VAs found their places and I like the dub more than the sub.
-Cowboy Bebop: I more or less agree with Xo-- it was a solid effort, and the dub is enjoyable, though inferior to the original Japanese.
-Princess Mononoke: Overall a decent effort, though as Xo noted, it's obvious that some VAs were brought on for their names rather than their skill.
-Key the Metal Idol: Well, as I remember, it's not a great dub, but it's acceptably listenable. Well, it's probably on the upper end of middle-of-the-pack dubs. One complaint of mine is that male voices should have some low rumble, rather than the kiddie-friendly bass-less rerecording job they did on the *entire* audio track (voices, music, effects...).
-Trigun: I like this dub about as much as I do the Cowboy Bebop dub, perhaps even a little more.
-Nadesico: When ADV first started releasing Nadesico, I watched the first two eps dubbed, and I liked the dub. Then I watched the entire series subbed, and (at least for the first ep or two) I didn't like it as much as the dub. I just bought the entire DVD box-set a couple weeks ago, so I may change my opinion at some point.
-Macross Plus: it's been a long while since I last watched this, and it *is* the first anime title that started to get me hooked, so my opinion may be a little biased, but I remember liking the dub. (admittedly, I've only got the subbed movie edition on VHS of this show)
-Slayers: I prefer the dub to the sub. The dub pokes more fun at itself through the VAs, as I see it, though Gourry's VA did a poor job.

Some samples of ear-splitting dubs that I've got on my DVD-shelf:
-Lain
-Fushigi Yuugi
-Bubblegum Crisis 2040
-Crest of the Stars
-Evangelion: Death and Rebirth

I should comment that with most of my DVDs I've either never watched the dub, or I've only watched one or two episodes of dub, or I can't remember what the dub sounds like.
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LaughnCynic



Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts: 105

PostPosted: Sat Oct 19, 2002 8:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

OMG! That is truely aweful. Too bad there isn't a lemon law for anime dvd's. Wink Or at least lucky there's always the sub still there.

As far as other dubs go I'll go so far as to say Bebop's is the best I can think of right off the top of my head. Wendee Lee IS Faye as far as I'm concerned. No offence to Megumi what's her name.

I kinda liked the Tenchi Muyo OVA dub except for Aeka who I've heard described as an old woman. Wink Ryoko is spot on IMO.

Ah! My Goddess was a pretty bad dub too IMO.

Lain I can't comment on since I haven't heard the sub yet. Sad Sucks to live in a small town where the 2 major vid chain stores have maybe 10 anime titles between them to rent. (I'm not flush enough $ wise to buy a lot of dvd's.) If it wasn't for usenet etc. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to see even %1 of what I have.

If I ever hit the lotto... (Damn, I have to remember to play it if I ever want to win. Though I guess my odds wouldn't be much higher than if I don't play.) I know where several thousand $ in dvd purchases would be going. Wink

Another dub that burns my ass (for a slightly different reason perhaps) is the GitS movie. The change of the little cyborg inside joke in the opening scene from the sub just ticks me off to no end. Censorship sucks Period. Sad
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Sat Oct 19, 2002 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cripes that sample was painful. It sounds like a cross between a language instruction tape and a low-budget soap opera. Fandubs sound better!

As for what dubs I like, well, I try to avoid dubs. But of the few I've heard, Slayers is the best. It took me a few episodes to get used to the voices, but now they seem as natural for the characters as the Japanese voices.
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(inc)



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 356
Location: San Diego

PostPosted: Sun Oct 20, 2002 7:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Never could get used to the Slayers or the Cowboy Bebop dubs, but these are two of my favorite shows, so I may have had a build-in prejudice.

One’s I’ve liked? Ranma immediately comes to mind – loved Nabiki’s voice. Also, (something I actually posted a long time ago), the Shinesman dub tends to be much funnier then the strict translation of the original soundtrack (“I can’t die; I have a date with Turkish twins.”).

(inc)
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porcupyne



Joined: 03 Jan 2003
Posts: 1

PostPosted: Fri Jan 03, 2003 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

can't comment on crest of the stars since i haven't seen it but, one of the worst dubs i've ever seen was Pilot Candidate...

to me, dubs into other languages are inherently bad because the animation wasn't designed for another language in the first place. to compensate, the dub translators have to chose words that fit the animation. afterwards, actors then have to work with these sentences and make them seem like natural speech. so i give them a little slack when it comes to doing a little awkward acting during lip-synced scenes...

on the other hand, there should be no excuse for bad acting during scenes in which there is no lip movement (i.e. when the character's thinking, has their head turned away, etc). these are times when the actors when they should be able to show off their true acting ability...which brings me to Pilot Candidate. there were numerous occasions, as in most animes, in which they could've shown off any talent for acting. unfortunately, all those opportunites were squandered away.
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superjaded



Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 24

PostPosted: Mon Jan 27, 2003 9:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

God... and the effects of watching CotS on TechTV were just beginning to wear off. Thanks.

I guess I wasn't paying that much attention at work when it was airing on TechTV -- I didn't realize how truly bad it was. Confused


As far as good dubs -- I think Cowboy Bebop is pretty much, arguably or not, the best dub ever, still. I don't know of any other dubs where you can argue that it's better than the original Japanese track and not be laughed at like an idiot. Wink

Trigun - although Spike Spencer(I think that was his name) does a GREAT job on Vash.. the supporting cast (especially extras) really drags the dub down and isn't quite as consistantly good as Bebop.

I found the Slayers dub to be one of the more intolerable dubs around..

The first Akira dub had great voice acting and a crap script. The second had a great script (from a purist point of view) and crap voice acting. Oh well.
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