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Answerman - How Much Control Do Japanese Producers Have Over Dubs and Subtitles?


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NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Posts: 3082
Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:32 pm Reply with quote
Cardcaptor Takato wrote:
I believe Naoko Takeuchi also oversaw the casting of the Viz dub of Sailor Moon and that Ikuhara had picked Rachael Lillis as Utena. I also know that Go Nagai had hand picked Jessica Calvello for Honey in the New Cutie Honey OVAs.


He oversaw the English dub of the movie but had nothing to do with the show's casting.
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Commander Cluck



Joined: 02 May 2019
Posts: 123
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:39 pm Reply with quote
Inverti Herikawa wrote:
In a nutshell: When you recast VAs that have been voicing their characters for more than 2 decades, it almost *never* works out well. There had been good redubs, such as Sailor Moon and Escaflowne, but not this.


People were protesting those dubs just as much as they're doing right now for Evangelion. Jury's out on those being 'good results'. Everyone has their own opinion. But overall people can't be trusted to know what a good change is because they only see it as a change to what they're familiar with, and in return take it as a personal attack to their childhood when it's changed. You are right that recasting long established VAs generally causes backlash, but that's mostly rooted in nostalgia. I've seen people defend some truly putrid voice acting and translations for no other reason than it's what they've grown up with.

It also certainly doesn't help when the discussion has been hijacked by bottom-feeding journalists jumping on this and trying to get those last few outrage farming article out before pride month ends,
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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Your Mother's Bedroom
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:51 pm Reply with quote
The TV series dub is a mixed bag at best. At times it's jarring, at times it's fitting. Basically it retained the authenticity but it lost the dynamic. Of course controversy isn't exactly a new thing when it comes to evangelion.

I will defend the new dub for End of Evangelion however. The new voices give the movie a better sense of horror and dread that was portrayed in the original Japanese. The characters all sound appropriate in their roles, and the soldiers don't play off as jarheads but rather remorseless killers. And most importantly: it doesn't have all those weird sound effects that director Amanda Winn Lee inserted into the previous dub. You have to admit those were jarring. The new dub just felt so right. The TV series not so much.
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5058
PostPosted: Wed Jun 26, 2019 11:52 pm Reply with quote
The differences between Evangelion and Sailor Moon and Escaflowne's redubs is Sailor Moon was needed because the original dub was so heavily censored and localized, and Escaflowne had the issue of additional footage from the HD remaster. Also in Escaflowne's case the original dub was include so it won't be lost to time. And being stuck on Netflix, Eva is not likely to ever get a BD release for when the streaming rights expire in another five years, which I feel like is the bigger issue than the quality of the dub or even Fly Me To The Moon not being included, and I feel like it's that lack of a home video that's really driving a lot of the hostility towards the new dub. Personally I think Akira is the gold standard for how to do anime redubs.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 2:00 am Reply with quote
Unless it has already happened, it would be a game-changer if the Japanese director of an anime directed the Eng. dub of that show. Yes, I know there is the time, money, and travel commitments.
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One-Eye



Joined: 08 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 3:36 am Reply with quote
Cardcaptor Takato wrote:
...And being stuck on Netflix, Eva is not likely to ever get a BD release for when the streaming rights expire in another five years, which I feel like is the bigger issue than the quality of the dub or even Fly Me To The Moon not being included, and I feel like it's that lack of a home video that's really driving a lot of the hostility towards the new dub.
Ever? That would be Khara and Anno walking away from a nice chunk of change. Really? They are going to leave money on the table and not release it outside of Japan? That doesn't seem practical or likely.
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Peter Hunt



Joined: 20 Feb 2011
Posts: 87
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 5:20 am Reply with quote
Kadmos1 wrote:
Unless it has already happened, it would be a game-changer if the Japanese director of an anime directed the Eng. dub of that show. Yes, I know there is the time, money, and travel commitments.


And they had an expert command of the English language.

Either/or, it's just going to be the same big argument going on the last three pages but in reverse.
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CR85747



Joined: 13 Oct 2014
Posts: 116
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 6:21 am Reply with quote
AmpersandsUnited wrote:
angelmcazares wrote:
There have been constant complains about the quality of subtitles in the anime that Netflix has. I don't necessarily believe that the circumstances behind Evangelion's localization are unique.


My only other experience with Netflix subs is Aggretsuko. The songs especially are not translated very well, if at all and instead they choose completely new lyrics. But Evangelion's is a case where people are mad because this time around it's more accurate to the Japanese script rather than defecting from it.


The translations for the songs are dubtitles. I have no clue why, but might be some licensing thing.
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#HayamiLover



Joined: 22 Jul 2018
Posts: 800
Location: Eastern Europe
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 7:08 am Reply with quote
@Kougeru It is not as easy as you think. I'm not even talking about metaphors and symbolism, which are often taken by the audience out of context and understood too literally. For example, how would you translate a pun that only makes sense in Japanese?
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TrailOfDead



Joined: 09 Aug 2012
Posts: 198
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 8:03 am Reply with quote
Kadmos1 wrote:
Unless it has already happened, it would be a game-changer if the Japanese director of an anime directed the Eng. dub of that show. Yes, I know there is the time, money, and travel commitments.


having someone direct performances entirely in a language they don't speak for an audience that speaks it natively would turn out shockingly bad

imagine a whole dub that sounds like the English dialogue from Beck
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Ajc228



Joined: 29 Dec 2015
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 8:42 am Reply with quote
Kadmos1 wrote:
Unless it has already happened, it would be a game-changer if the Japanese director of an anime directed the Eng. dub of that show. Yes, I know there is the time, money, and travel commitments.

Beyond the monetary and logistical problems, I think you’re leaving out the most obvious problem-the language barrier. The quality of a English dub directed by Hideaki Anno could be just as bad if not worse than any previous adaptations for various reasons.
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luisedgarf



Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 664
Location: Guadalajara, Mexico
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 9:57 am Reply with quote
TrailOfDead wrote:
Kadmos1 wrote:
Unless it has already happened, it would be a game-changer if the Japanese director of an anime directed the Eng. dub of that show. Yes, I know there is the time, money, and travel commitments.


having someone direct performances entirely in a language they don't speak for an audience that speaks it natively would turn out shockingly bad

imagine a whole dub that sounds like the English dialogue from Beck


Well, it's not the first time a foreigner directed a dub: The English dub of Zenki was directed by a Mexican voice actor (Ruben Arvizu) who, while fluent on English, he has no idea how to direct American voice actors, as directing Mexican ones is a VERY diferent thing.
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BringBackUzume



Joined: 01 Jun 2013
Posts: 161
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 11:14 am Reply with quote
Merxamers wrote:
Quote:
Some demand approval over casting decisions for dubs.


Really? That's shocking to me. I'd always kinda assumed that the Japanese studios couldn't really care less about the english dub of their shows.


You must not have heard about the One Piece Funimation casting. Japan had complete control. Even making actors audition 2 or 3 times. This stuff happens, whether you choose to believe it or not.
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NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
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Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 11:26 am Reply with quote
One-Eye wrote:
Ever? That would be Khara and Anno walking away from a nice chunk of change. Really? They are going to leave money on the table and not release it outside of Japan? That doesn't seem practical or likely.


Maybe not ever is pushing it but it wouldn't be the first time it took a LONG time for a show to get rescued for video because of a creator's stubbornness.

The dub and subs are already done so maybe it won't take as long unless the lucky distributor tries convincing them to include the ADV & Mangle dubs with the new one (which won't be easy if you look at stuff like 5 Centimeters per Second and it's lost ADV dub).
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Silver Kirin



Joined: 09 Aug 2018
Posts: 1199
PostPosted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 12:19 pm Reply with quote
I have only seen the first episode of Evangelion in spanish and I saw some small changes in the dialogue, which is weird considering that this is the third time that the series gets dubbed, though I can totally understand, specially with the information stated in this article that they couldn't just recycle the old translations from the previous versions, it's obvious that Khara wanted to start from scratch. At least they managed to keep some of the same actors from the previous versions as opossed to the english dub.
But there's something weird I noticed about Netflix's dubs of anime in non-english languages, the scripts that the translators use are already in english, I guess most dubs are translated from the english version but I also heard that the scripts are already translated in english in Japan. There was a translator in Chile who was in charge of translating some episodes of Detective Conan, he said that TMS already sent him the scripts in english, but he was fluent in both english and japanese so he watched the show alongisde reading the script to correct some errors. I guess some japanese translators could made some mistakes when translating a show into english themselves.
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