Forum - View topicThe Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (TV).
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Jedi General
 Posts: 2485 Location: Tucson, AZ |
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I should be getting Karin in the mail very soon, so I'll know for sure shortly. But that comment gives me a little more hope in the dub of Karin. EDIT: Damn it! The Karin dub sucks.  Edit II: Lol, unintentional pun there.
Anyway, my Haruhi LE shipped a couple of days ago, so it won't be long. Can't wait. I just finished watching the series subbed yet again yesterday. Last edited by Jedi General on Tue May 29, 2007 11:17 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Porcupine
 Posts: 1033 |
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Hey, Anime Jungle I remember that place. Last time I was there was many years ago though, probably not long after it first opened. Looking at the website, they seem like a very different store now, the times have changed (BTW, I don't live in California anymore). Long ago they mostly had old import anime LDs which was neat, now they are probably more like a typical anime store, with domestic DVDs, gashapons, and stuff.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention my thoughts on the dub. I actually recommend anyone watching Haruhi for the first time to watch the dub FIRST. The sub is better than the dub, but the dub is watchable. The main reason to watch the dub, is that the subtitles blot out a lot of important stuff in Haruhi. Several really important words/stuff were blocked out, usually this doesn't happen but with Haruhi I think it is a major issue on several occasions. Also at rare times the subtitles seem poorly translated and incomprehensible. The grammar is always perfect but the meaning seems vague sometimes. When I watched the dub, the translations were better and always make sense. I also recommend watching Episodes 1-3 before Episode 00, but that's just my personal opinion. The dub isn't the best and like people probably suspected, Wendee Lee as Haruhi is a bit out-of-place. Michelle Ruff didn't seem so hot as Yuki Nagato either. Jennifer Sekiguchi was okay but I'm not a fan of her to begin with (normally, I like Wendee Lee and Michelle Ruff's voice acting much better). But, the ultra saving grace is Crispin Freeman as Kyon. He is AWESOME as Kyon. His performance as Kyon is possibly the best dub VA performance I've seen in any show ever. I was never a huge fan of Crispin Freeman (though I always acknowledge him as a very good VA) but now I have a whole new level of respect for his ability. Usually he does low-voiced powerful characters in shows that I've seen, this is one of the first times I saw him do the voice of a kinda generic guy. Wow, he did a really good job, I am totally impressed. I can't think of a single time when he said an awkward line, and a lot of Kyon's lines are very dangerous to say (easy to botch and sound bad). And since Kyon speaks 80% of the lines in Haruhi, 1 good dub VA really saved the dub in my opinion. |
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Iwatch2muchanime
 Posts: 1291 |
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Oh wow, I thought you were talking about Karen the hentai, I was like Go BangZoom! |
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Jedi General
Posts: 2485 Location: Tucson, AZ |
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I'm glad to see that you're raving about Crispin Freeman as Kyon. He's one of my favorite VAs and so I was ecstatic when I heard that he got the role. I have complete confidence in him giving a great performance, and upon reading your comments, I highly doubt that I'll be disappointed. Even if I don't like the rest of the dub cast, I'll probably end up watching the dub anyway just so I can hear Crispin. Dubs are much easier to understand anyway, which is why I prefer them most of the time. |
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Mirrinus
 Posts: 230 Location: La Thiene Plateau |
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I must agree, I just got the DVD today, and Crispin Freeman's Kyon was easily the best VA out of the bunch. His deadpan voice was fantastic IMHO, I absolutely loved his sarcastic "yay" at the end of Melancholy I. His good job with the narration made Episode 00 totally enjoyable all over again for me. My only complaint was that there's pretty much no distinction between his narrator voice and his dialogue voice, but that's not such a big deal, since the original novels were ambiguous regarding the distinction of Kyon's lines anyway. Wendee Lee does take some getting used to. I didn't like her performance as introverted Haruhi in Melancholy I, but she picked up in the later episodes as crazy Haruhi (which I prefer over introverted Haruhi anyway). Some people may say she's trying too hard, but I still appreciate the energy she puts into some of those lines. She's no Hirano Aya, but then again, who is? Stephanie Sheh as Mikuru was very close to the original voice, as many have already said. In fact, I could have sworn her voice was even higher than the original version. It just sounds weirder in English than in Japanese, though, I guess. I didn't like most of Yuki's lines by Michelle Ruff. She sounds too robotic to me. I might be inclined to write this off as an insurmountable difference between the Japanese and English languages. Japanese is easy to divide into equal syllables, which allowed Minori Chihara to create a very distinct rhythm that can't be imitated easily in English. Still, Yuki's somewhat slow dialogue didn't sound that great at all. At least she doesn't have much dialogue to begin with. But I did like her work with her spiel at the beginning of Melancholy III. Michelle Ruff seems to sound better when she's speaking faster, I guess. Haven't heard enough of Johnny Yong Bosch as Itsuki. I don't remember anything too noteworthy. Bridget Hoffman and Kari Wahlgren as Ryoko Asakura and Tsuruya were both solid. Ryoko sounds especially sweet and innocent, which I guess is a plus. Tsuruya's laugh was nice. Kunikida sounded almost exactly like .hack//SIGN's Tsukasa (same VA, I think). I kinda liked Sam Riegal as Taniguchi, can't wait for his "wa, wa, wa" in Melancholy IV. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18212 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Others have pretty much said anything I'd say about the dub, so I won't add anything further on that. I agree that it takes a bit of getting used to, though.
What I particularly appreciated was how good the series looks with the better video quality of a DVD as opposed to a fansub. I also thought the series made a lot more sense airing in chronological order, although it does lose a bit of the novelty of the messed-up broadcast order. The only disappointment was the Next Episode previews, which are incredibly lame done this way. It's also interesting to see how many details I picked up that I didn't watching it the first couple of times on fansubs - like Mikuru's mole or how completely Episode 00 foreshadows plot elements in the series, for instance. More comment will have to wait for the review. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6871 Location: Kazune City |
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Well, the super special awesome LE showed up on my doorstep today (along with the Vol + Artbox editions of Karin and Kurau Phantom Memory), so time to return to this thread. First off, the packaging was as good as anticipated...just an explosion of art on every inch of that box, including Yuki in a bunnygirl outfit
 Extras were okay, though I was eager enough to get to the show itself that I stopped midway through one of the "Making of" featurettes.
As for the dub, Wendee Lee's Haruhi had always been the weak point in all the previews I'd seen...I thought of it as a "have to get used to it" experience, and watching the four episodes proved me right. I got used to it, and it was okay. If I had to put my finger on it, I'd say that Lee didn't have as much distinction between the "softer, gentler" Haruhi moments and her usual insane/hyperactive self, compared with Aya's Hirano's take on the role. But oh well, it was survivable, and I didn't really have any complaints about any of the other major roles. Stephanie Sheh's Mikuru, in particular, was one of those "you can barely tell the audio track is switched" roles, as she had the character down just that well. Name pronunciations are always a nitpicking point for me, but I didn't see any major issues in that department. (Unlike the anime "Karen," I mean "Karin.") The subtitles from Bang Zoom, on the other hand...
Maybe BZ needs to reduce the font size a bit, but some of the subs seemed affected by space concerns, like putting "future man" rather than "time traveler." "Future man" I suppose is an accurate translation for "miraijin," but the dub has "time traveler" and one can't really call spoiler[Mikuru a "future man,"], right? Or the "Data Integration Thought Entity" in the dub is just "thought entity" in the subtitles. Or there was the part where they left something completely untranslated, when talking about the talismans Haruhi had put up at her middle school in episode 2. (Episode 2 on the DVD, AKA Melancholy~ Part I.) To be fair, I didn't note any dumb typoes, assuming "atypic" from episode 3 is really a word, or severe mistranslations. And loathe as I am to admit it, a number of things were more accurate than those precious fansubs were. Still, as was mentioned in Porcupine's thread about the Fate/Stay Night release, BZ's subtitles just seem clunky and over-literal in a lot of places, as if the raw translations didn't go through much editing to create the subtitle script, a problem I also saw with Kannazuki no Miko. The songs are especially guilty of this, as it seems like the lines were done piece-by-piece and placed together, without regard for flowing from one line to the next as if they weren't being done as lyrics to a song in the first place. I understand that fansubbers take "unprofessional" kinds of liberties, but lines like "Such a thing is easy to do" just suck the life and energy out of a song that had so much life and energy. Then again, I guess the more clunky and awkward the subtitles are, the more likely people will be to switch to the English dub and clamor for more, so not re-editing subtitle scripts is not only a way to cut costs, it's good for business. *And not just comparing them in my mind from seeing them months ago, I had them playing with audio muted on the computer while watching the DVD in English with subtitles on. Talk about information overload 
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DKL
 Posts: 1956 Location: California, USA |
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Enter the world of Haruhi, first-time Haruhi experience-er… person.
Probable spoilers for the first disc... practice caution if you wanna read on Okay, so I was waiting around all morning for the friggin’ postman to drop off the mail; you can’t begin to imagine how awesome it was to see that TRSI box laying out there on the ground; I then proceeded to bring the box into the house. After brushing my teeth (which was also put on hold due to anticipation), I took the shrink-wrap off of the box. Wow… this is a pretty box; upon opening it, however… I came to the realization that the box was a friggin’ labyrinth; I wasn’t quite sure where the hell everything was… But, after mapping it all out, I managed to uncover the location of all the LE items and thus proceeded to unearth them from the box: -1 soundtrack CD -1 DVD -1 cosplay head ribbon thingy that Haruhi wears. -1 Iron on thingy that I’ll probably iron on to a shirt… I just need to figure out how and what it’ll look like after I’m done… and whether or not I can actually wash the shirt afterwards without screwing it up Okay… so… the CD was pretty cool; 2 tracks and 2 karaoke tracks… if I had an I-pod or something, the first two tracks would likely be on my tracklist. Cosplay ribbon thingy… not wearing, but cool to own nonetheless. And here we are, the show: Wow… this is a great show; blind-buys are awesome. Okay… so let’s move onto the show… Episode 00 was essentially the only episode of the show I’ve seen up until I saw this on DVD; it was pretty much the reason WHY I dove in without having seen more… sure, there was Bandai’s competent marketing, but all things considering, I would’ve still bought this (and the LE) had I seen just that episode, ceteris paribus. I think much of the humor was derived from the weirdness (and surprising accuracy) of everything and the fact that, they seem to be letting on to more than what’s going on here (especially when the cat starts accidentally speaking). Okay, so let’s see… The actual show begins with this Kyon guy and how he’s in… High School (and doesn’t actually like being called Kyon). He doesn’t believe in supernatural things and whatever (and didn’t until he met a certain someone), but he honestly thinks that it would be sorta interesting if they did exist anyway; he’s a down-to-earth guy. Then enters this Haruhi chick; she’s this weird eccentric who, outside of her athletic ability and good looks, is pretty infamous amongst people who went to junior high school with her… this is incredibly evident during her initial introductions in which she announces that interesting “beings” are welcomed to approach her… all else (meaning everyone else) shouldn’t even bother given that it’s a waste of her time. Anyway, on some random day (after they come back from Golden Week)... this Kyon guy starts to hit it off with Haruhi, somehow (something to do with her hair and colors and numbers)… I’m probably gonna have to see this again, but for whatever reason, it just made sense in regards to how Kyon ended up where he did (meaning, in Haruhi’s back pocket). Given Kyon’s down-to-earth philosophy and their discussion about how it’s weird that Haruhi never sticks to one club, Haruhi just gets this idea one day that it’d be a better idea to CREATE her own club, as opposed to joining sucky boring clubs that other people came up with. So, a bunch of random stuff happens, and Haruhi is able to procure a clubroom, all the while setting Kyon off to get the paperwork done; surprisingly enough, everything else just falls into place after that, despite the fact that Haruhi has yet to relay what the damn club was to be about (but, when you think about it… it should’ve been obvious what she wanted… I mean, she announces the hell out of it at the beginning… uhh… she wants to meet this interesting beings that she speaks about and forms a club with that specific purpose in mind). Okay, so… eventually, for whatever reason, a bunch of people (most unfortunately, Mikuru) gets dragged into Haruhi’s little thing; between playing touch-grab and dress up with Mikuru and blackmailing people into forking over computers, it’s a little weird, but… there’s actually an actual story. Apparently, the reason why all these “special beings” have centered around Haruhi is that… she’s apparently the catalyst in some kind of strange event that changes the course of… Reality… Or something. Actually, Koizumi summed it up rather nicely and just went on to say that Haruhi was some kind of omnipotent god-like figure, and that Kyon was the key to… figuring out how to deal with it. Okay… so… random comments… aside from the somewhat weird parallel between episode 00 and what’s going on, there’s more stuff to talk about (in the context of not having seen everything yet): There was something interesting I noticed at the last episode on disc (episode 3… 4th episode on disc) in that… I’m now under the impression that Haruhi is rather interested in Kyon… I mean, even if it’s not romantic-like, she may just be looking for an average, normal friend given that it seems like she may have not have had one for a sizable chunk of her life (like, she’s always been alone). Notice the scene where they assemble back for lunch, and there’s this dissatisfied look on Haruhi’s face when she draws the toothpick (which determines the pairing… which, unusually, is contrived in a way where there would be ONE pair and a group with 3 people); she was even pretty pissed off when Kyon just disappeared at the library the whole day. So… it could be that this club thing is just a really really really eccentric and roundabout way of making better friends with Kyon (who is, by all means… a likeable guy… nice too, given that he puts up with all of Haruhi’s crap), but all the while genuinely catering to her interests. All things considering, I might be reading too much into it… but there’s no way I’m watching this in broadcast order now, since I wanna follow the story and development in a linear fashion. (no spoilers, please) But yes… they described her as enigmatic, and I really do think that she is; everything down to her stage-presence pretty much attests to that. But man… she sort of comes off as an Ultra Bitch though at times… I mean, yeah… Mikuru didn’t do anything to deserve her treatment and I kinda feel bad about the stuff that Haruhi does to her; it doesn’t seem right… but I feel guilty because… I actually kinda like it. So, let’s see… Man, I really like this show; not quite sure whether I like it over Black Lagoon yet, but I dunno… this has moe (even Haruhi points it out)… this is pretty awesome… so this essentially boils down to an incredibly hard choice, in my mind. This is REALLY fun and interesting… but on the other hand, Black Lagoon’s terrific action and mindset, I find very attractive (“taking control of your life”). So yes… See you guys later since… I’m going to go see the DVD over again. |
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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I know what you mean about wanting a distinction, especially in those rare scenes where it gets confusing. But I didn't notice any distinction in the Japanese voice for Kyon either. Is there one? I got WAY more confused watching the sub in certain scenes than when I watched the dub. Maybe I am just not as good in picking up a change in inflection/voice with a Japanese voice since I can't speak the language. I totally agree with what you said about Wendee Lee. She works reasonably well after Haruhi gets more energetic. But she's bad when Haruhi is introverted at the beginning. I still think, of the people Bang Zoom uses regularly, Kate Higgins would have been better (but she'd not be good either...really a new person is just needed for Haruhi but they don't have any good new people I guess). Hmm, maybe Julie Ann Taylor would have been good. I dunno, I don't know every VA's voice that well but I think she did a good Akiha (pissed off person) in Tsukihime and she also does silly people sometimes too (Fujimura Taiga in Fate/Stay Night). I also liked Kari Wahlgren. Only recently (from watching Eureka Seven) did I start to notice that she is a really good VA in my opinion. Usually she has only minor roles though and I never noticed her before. Oh yeah, regarding the occasionally incomprehensible translations, there was one part I didn't get either in the dub or the sub. When Kyon talks to Haruhi about her hair and Haruhi cuts it the next day (is this a spoiler? too minor I think, I doubt anyone cares). I didn't get the conversation on the first day. What exactly did he say that made her want to cut her hair? As far as I could tell the only thing he said was that his logic for how many hair bands she should have was different, she should have an extra hair band. What does that have to do with her cutting her hair? Maybe this is just me being dense, rather than a bad translation. |
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Mirrinus
Posts: 230 Location: La Thiene Plateau |
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DKL: Yeah, I thought Haruhi came off as more of a selfish jerk in the English version than the Japanese. But that's fine, that's how her character is suppose to start anyway. Watching it in chronological order does have the benefit of letting you see how her character evolves, from just a total jerk in the first episodes to someone who possesses many more facets, like in "Live A Live".
You're pretty perceptive, though, I'll give you that. 
Porcupine: I think the hair cutting scene was just Kyon commenting on how hastily Haruhi got rid of her hair habit after someone else noticed. I don't think he ever suggested that it be cut. Some fans speculate that Haruhi only did the hair thing to catch Kyon's attention in the first place. |
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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The second day where Haruhi had cut her hair and Kyon commented, is not unusual to me. It was the previous day's conversation that to me is cryptic, and I still wonder why she cut her hair. To get Kyon's attention, yeah that's a good explanation I think. I read a few Haruhi spoilers yesterday.
I dunno if Haruhi is/was a selfish jerk or not, and I've only seen the first DVD so far, but I don't think Haruhi is any different in Episode 1 as she is in Episode 3. I doubt she will ever change, too. I think she's always the same inside, it just manifests itself differently. Whether you think she's a selfish jerk inside or not, I dunno, I have no comment. |
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DKL
Posts: 1956 Location: California, USA |
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I dunno... I can't really view a lot of the extreme stuff that Haruhi did in this volume as NOT selfish (and people will probably spend a lot of time trying to convince me otherwise, in the context of this volume)... I mean, I really like the character, but I'm not just gonna turn my head away from the stuff that she did. |
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Mirrinus
Posts: 230 Location: La Thiene Plateau |
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True, true. I like Haruhi's character, but that doesn't mean I have to condone everything she does, because extortion isn't something I can nonchalantly approve of. However, I have a tendency to admire certain qualities that other people possess, even if I disagree with them in practice. With Haruhi, I love her assertiveness and optimism. In pretty much all shows, I'd prefer a recklessly assertive character over a doormat (which is why Mikuru is one of my least favorite characters). Besides, I thought her character began with potential for exploration, as she's already shown that there are many sides to her character.
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Nobuyuki
Posts: 536 |
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That detail wasn't in the initial TV version, they had to add it for the DVD release. 
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PantsGoblin
 SubscriberEncyclopedia Editor  Posts: 2969 Location: L.A. |
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Well, had fun today. More people than I expected on a Tuesday night. There must have been a least 100... Although I think there was more. AnimeTV was there as well which I wasn't expecting. Was in the background when they were filming some of the time so I may see myself on the next episode...
I'm not anywhere near some sort of professional photographer, so don't be expecting the best quality on this. AnimeTV was filming some of the time if you were wondering what was going on... There was also a lot of other people taking pictures, so we should expect higher quality ones later... And ya, I couldn't take pictures in the store (of course, there was still people who did so), but I like to respect store policies so I didn't take any. http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/PantsgoblinX/Picture105.jpg http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/PantsgoblinX/Picture107.jpg http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/PantsgoblinX/Picture110.jpg http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/PantsgoblinX/Picture111.jpg http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/PantsgoblinX/Picture120.jpg And my Asos Brigade signed Poster looks very nice up on my wall. http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c233/PantsgoblinX/Picture122.jpg I expect more to be covered in the next AnimeTV episode. |
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