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DmonHiro
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 7:50 pm
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Here's my review: episode 01-07 are aweosme. It does downhill fast from there: plot slows down, characters start acting like morons, etc.
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Covnam
Joined: 31 May 2005
Posts: 3817
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 7:55 pm
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Does this release include the OVA? It doesn't seem like it does, but I would like to be sure one way or the other.
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
Joined: 02 Apr 2011
Posts: 3820
Location: Louisville, KY
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:04 pm
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hmmm this is warrant a purchase I suppose. I can care less about some ecchi or over the top stuff, I just need to know if the dub is decent or not due in part that my friend can not watch subs.
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DRWii
Joined: 16 May 2007
Posts: 642
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:16 pm
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Covnam wrote: | Does this release include the OVA? It doesn't seem like it does, but I would like to be sure one way or the other. |
I'm pretty sure Sentai said they didn't have the rights to the OVA episode.
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Jaymie
Joined: 18 Jun 2009
Posts: 915
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:21 pm
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What a hilarious review. But I agree with it 100%.
Quote: | Just wait until they crack a Sarah Palin joke (sorry, “Sarah f*ckin’ Palin”). Yep, that happens. |
Ugh. This isn't doing much to end the stereotype of all dubs being awful...
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asimpson2006
Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 3151
Location: USA
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:23 pm
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Jaymie wrote: |
Ugh. This isn't doing much to end the stereotype of all dubs being awful... |
Just because they put some profanity in there doesn't mean it is going to be awful. Good or bad I am looking forward to this BD. I can't wait until I get it next month.
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Echo_City
Joined: 03 Apr 2011
Posts: 1236
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:50 pm
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The Review wrote: | The English dub – provided on this otherwise extras-free package from Sentai Filmworks (save clean opening and ending animations) is a point of contention. |
No extras?! I suppose there really wasn't anything to merit extras in this "classy" show, but that hasn't stopped ADV before. I was really, REALLY, hoping for a return to form for the "King of Extras" after Clannad had a commentary track. I even bought Clannad, a show that I hold animus towards, simply to support their prognosticated (perhaps falsely) return to form. I feel an affinity for the dub of HSOTD--I could stand to drop a few F-bombs right about now.
The Review wrote: | It's the work of Steven Foster (who seems to be responsible for around 90 percent of Sentai's dubs these days) and it's heavily rewritten, to the point of changing the lead character's attitude and personality. |
Luckily for us dub fans, Steven Foster is a genius. He might just be able to impart enough tongue-in-cheek humor into this otherwise creepy fetish-driven softcore porno in order to make it watchable. With Ghost Stories he already has a track record of doing this.
On changing the main character, that gives me further hope for the dub's potential. After Foster's knuckles were rapped for his first attempt at the Angel Beats! dub, I was fearful that all his subsequent works would be tamed. On that, it's too bad that Angel Beats! wasn't allowed to be "Fosterized" as the J-version of the show just doesn't make it to the awesomeness that it could have had. Watching an English version of a show which will follow the same failed path as its Japanese predecessor will be most frustrating.
In the end, this show doesn't really appeal to me, for as even Shelf Life remarked, what is the point of crappy softcore pr0n? However, I'd rather have bought this than Clannad...but this lacks extras. It's almost starting to feel like ADV has ousted me as a customer
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AkiraKaneda
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 61
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:59 pm
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I don't often comment on other reviewers' work, but nice job, Zac. Hysterical yet you got right to the heart...or whatever...of what this show is about. Thumbs up.
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prime_pm
Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 2367
Location: Your Mother's Bedroom
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:35 pm
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Ah, fun. Sentai sure makes some interesting decisions lately. I still love hearing ol' Chiyo-chan cursing up a storm.
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Animerican14
Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 963
Location: Saint Louis, MO
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:39 pm
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I'm pretty surprised that you were the one that reviewed this blu-ray set, Zac-- didn't you make a pretty critical remark about HOTD in a relatively recent ANN podcast? Did you decide to do this review before anyone else on the ANN staff had the opportunity to even volunteer to write one, or what?
I admit, I agree with much of this review and the letter grades used at the end of it, based on all 12 episodes i saw via Crunchyroll. However, I actually found the dub a bit fun to watch as well, from the few episodes of it that I caught. And despite (or maybe because of) its trashiness, though, the series was too much of a guilty pleasure to *not* stop watching, hah. Had already been reading some of the trashy-fun manga, and the slick enough animation made it worthier for me to stick around for. It also helped that I was only recently hooked on zombie fiction at the time I watched it, so some of the scenarios felt relatively fresh for me.
As for the ending of the series? Well, it probably ended on as best a note as it could have, especially if they plan to do a sequel season in the future that plans to stick closely to the rest of the manga. Such a sequel season is something that I probably wouldn't mind, either. It's crazy, though, with just how much hiatus the manga series has been undergoing within the past year or two---there was a several month hiatus in-between some chapters, and last time I checked, new 30-40 page chapters are only being released every 2 or 3 months. The writer must've had (or is still having) writer's block after the Mall arc or something....
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter
Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 24131
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:47 pm
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I liked the show a lot and I've ordered from TRSI, but I have to say Zac's review is pretty fair. I went in expecting trashy, mindless, good fun and that's what I got. Not to thrilled about the "F...'n A!" stuff - not because I have anything against profanity, it's just that I've always found "F...'n A!" to be a particularly dorky expression. Not to mention dated as hell. The lack of a conclusion didn't bother me because I am totally confident there will be a second series, but even if there isn't, I'm cool with it. To me, it felt that one stage had finished and another was starting, but I won't be devastated if I never see it played out.
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_V_
Joined: 13 Apr 2009
Posts: 619
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:49 pm
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Well Zac, there's a certain type of show that's sort of...*intentionally* of the "we're not laughing with it, we're laughing at it" genre.
By which I put the emphasis on "we"; the kind of show that you don't enjoy that much just watching on your own....
....the kind of show, rather, that you bring to your local anime club/group of friends to watch in mixed male/female company and laugh at the absurdity of the fanservice and violence. A real "group-laugh" experience. I.e. my anime club ran "Grenadier" (mixed boys/girls audience) so as a group they were all laughing *at* its absurdity. That was the point. I mean, fundamentally a lot of live-action American zombie B-movies are like High School of the Dead.
I'm curious what's going on internally at Section 23 these days; yes it does seem that Stephen Foster works on most of the dubs. I wonder what Greenfield and the others are up to (I know they did Tears to Tiara).
Well, so long as it sells well. At least they've got a core "infamous" title now, even if it isn't exactly high art.
I must also say that this is one of the best and most entertaining reviews you have yet produced Zac; probably funnier than some of the lines in the show, and now I've got this mental image of the creators standing with a whip over the in-betweener animators working in a production pit as he shouts "more boobs!"...which sadly isn't far from the truth these days.
Last edited by _V_ on Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:53 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Surrender Artist
Joined: 01 May 2011
Posts: 3264
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:51 pm
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This review is well-written and entertaining, but it almost seems superfluous since, as the review itself more or less concludes, just a large picture of the cover and the grades would probably have sufficed. Ah well, that's the show's fault.
I was secretly hoping that there might be some hidden depths to this, not that I could figure out what they could be, but it seems that there are not.
I'm ambivalent about the looseness of the English version and Stephen Foster generally. He seems like a fine director, but his scripts lack a certain, so to speak, sense of restraint. In this case it might well be moot since what he seems to have done is make a trashy horror anime sound like a trashy American horror film. Would a more faithful script really have been much better than a lateral movement?
Bet it'll sell like hotcakes.
Last edited by Surrender Artist on Tue Jun 14, 2011 10:39 pm; edited 1 time in total
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_V_
Joined: 13 Apr 2009
Posts: 619
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:54 pm
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DmonHiro wrote: | Here's my review: episode 01-07 are aweosme. It does downhill fast from there: plot slows down, characters start acting like morons, etc. |
That's sort of like what happened with the original Hellsing series:
long story short.....*be afraid* when they're adapting a manga that *isn't finished yet*, because they always fall apart in the final third and have to start making stuff up. Hopefully, if/when they get a second season, it will have renewed focus.
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Kit-Tsukasa
Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Posts: 930
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 10:11 pm
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_V_ wrote: |
DmonHiro wrote: | Here's my review: episode 01-07 are aweosme. It does downhill fast from there: plot slows down, characters start acting like morons, etc. |
That's sort of like what happened with the original Hellsing series:
long story short.....*be afraid* when they're adapting a manga that *isn't finished yet*, because they always fall apart in the final third and have to start making stuff up. Hopefully, if/when they get a second season, it will have renewed focus. |
More like this is exactly what happened to Hellsing and it happens here again to Highschool of the Dead...just not by Gonzo. *sigh* the idiocy of animating unfinished manga/light novel titles.
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