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The dub of Beck




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DriftRoot



Joined: 20 Jun 2003
Posts: 222
Location: NH
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 7:59 am Reply with quote
The question of how the whole "Engrish" situation in Beck will fare when the dub is made has been bothering me a lot lately. I've run through a lot of possible scenarios to resolve the issue, but none seem quite right.

Problem: English speaking characters, and English itself, play important roles in Beck. When the series is produced for English-speaking audiences (and Americans in particular) how will these roles be maintained?

Solution:
1. Have the series set in America, and the English/American references switched to Japanese/Japan ones.
- Makes no sense, plotwise, and is really a stupid solution.

2. Have the English dialogue switched to another language likely to be spoken in America - Spanish, for instance.
- Makes only slightly less no sense than Solution 1, but probably is the most analoguous situation.

3. Leave everything in English and somehow emphasize to the audience when a character is speaking in a "foreign" language (i.e. add subtitles in italics during dialogue).
- A strange solution, but the least cumbersome, as long the method is understood by the audience.

Anyone with any ideas (concrete or otherwise) on how Beck will be/should be dubbed, please speak up. As I said, this has really been bothering me lately!
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darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5507
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:15 am Reply with quote
I say who ever dubs Beck should do what New Generation Pictures did to Read or Die TV episode 4; have the "foreign" people attempt to speak Japanese (so basically it's similar to Solution #2).
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Advent_Nebula



Joined: 04 Jul 2004
Posts: 932
Location: Colorado
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:16 am Reply with quote
I am starting to doubit that beck will even ever come over.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4522
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:27 am Reply with quote
Same with John Oppliger. An excerpt:

John Oppliger wrote:
Unfortunately, the fact that Beck is different in style, theme and execution from most anime is exactly what will likely prevent it from being officially released in America, at least in the foreseeable future. Numerous representatives of the American anime industry have all confirmed the same fact recently: because of the saturation of the American anime market created by the abundance of anime released in America coupled with inadequate support from the American consumer market, domestic licensors will be forced to be more selective in their future acquisitions. That means that shows like Beck, which may be very good but which don't fall into profitable, popular genres, are less likely to be licensed for domestic release. If an American licensor can only afford to license a given number of titles, it makes good financial sense to skip shows like Beck that have a small audience, and instead license anime that's more likely to sell to a wider audience.
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 3904
Location: CO
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:57 am Reply with quote
DriftRoot wrote:

2. Have the English dialogue switched to another language likely to be spoken in America - Spanish, for instance.
- Makes only slightly less no sense than Solution 1, but probably is the most analoguous situation.


=/ I hope that won't happen. It always kind of irritates me when that happens. Like in the DearS manga, they had the English teacher teaching Spanish... only later in the volume, the main character implores his friend to repeat something to him in clear "Japanese." In the manga case, I think it's silly because readers already know that the characters are speaking in Japanese to begin with, so it's silly to change it.

However, in a case of something with audio... Well, do you think it would really change the effect of Beck if they just left everything in English? The comedy would be lost, yes, but I dont' think it'd make that big of a difference.

As for oversaturation of the market, there's still some companies that *don't* release a zillion products a year that would be more inclined to release something like Beck. For instance, even though FUNimation has quite a few big hitters and long series, I think they'd do well with a title like Beck, especially seeing as how they're expanding into the more mature demographic.
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Steventheeunuch





PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:44 pm Reply with quote
Tenchi wrote:
Same with John Oppliger. An excerpt:

John Oppliger wrote:
Unfortunately, the fact that Beck is different in style, theme and execution from most anime is exactly what will likely prevent it from being officially released in America, at least in the foreseeable future. Numerous representatives of the American anime industry have all confirmed the same fact recently: because of the saturation of the American anime market created by the abundance of anime released in America coupled with inadequate support from the American consumer market, domestic licensors will be forced to be more selective in their future acquisitions. That means that shows like Beck, which may be very good but which don't fall into profitable, popular genres, are less likely to be licensed for domestic release. If an American licensor can only afford to license a given number of titles, it makes good financial sense to skip shows like Beck that have a small audience, and instead license anime that's more likely to sell to a wider audience.


Sorry, but John Oppliger-.. well, yeah... Anyway, it's not as if English isn't diverse and has it's own different dialects. Simply put, have the Japanese characters speaking American-English (via use of whatever studios they have), and have the Americans speaking British/Lancaster/Irish English. If you watch the English film "Snatch", you'd also get a decent idea on language barriers in English, and how that could work (pikeys). Of course, that'd depend on the circumstance and I haven't watched nearly enough Beck to comment on every single aspect of every single character that makes an appearance.

Regardless, there'll be a way they can do it, and considering the pull the name has along with the animation studio attached to it, along with the general pull of things, it's quite silly to say that it isn't going to be obtained anywhere in the near future.

And in regards to John's column about "anime that's more likely to sell to a wider audience".. wait, does this mean every company is going to put every single series on TV? Look, it draws enough interest from fansubbing areas, and it can be marketted towards a larger audience if it's done right. This DOESN'T mean that whoever picks it up will do "OMG BUTCHER RAEP" on it, what it means is that Beck probably has enough potential to be worth taking the risk for. Hell, most titles are like that these days.

It's not like we're talking about "Chibi Mariko-chan" or Doraemon or whatever. Jesus Christ.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4522
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:48 pm Reply with quote
I wasn't personally giving an opinion, as I have never seen nor read much about Beck and have no opinion on its feasability in the current market, I was just linking to John's opinion as he wrote it within the past couple of days and it was still fresh in my mind.
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Steventheeunuch





PostPosted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 7:09 am Reply with quote
Tenchi wrote:
I wasn't personally giving an opinion, as I have never seen nor read much about Beck and have no opinion on its feasability in the current market, I was just linking to John's opinion as he wrote it within the past couple of days and it was still fresh in my mind.


I never said it was your opinion, I just have a negative opinion on John and the subject in general or something.
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Tony K.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
Posts: 11433
Location: Frisco, TX
PostPosted: Sat Apr 09, 2005 9:33 pm Reply with quote
Well I recently started watching Beck (Very Good series, by the way) and am baffled to how this might be dubbed (when or if ever).

As for a solution that might meet the demands of most fans for this series, I can't think of one. But depending on who gets the rights, it'll probably either be left in English completely with emphasis wherever it's needed, or going by one example I know, they might just change the dialogue completely like Tokyopop did with GTO.

I remember the scene from the Japanese version where Kanzaki was reading English dialogue from her book to the teacher, but in the dub they changed it to her talking about the solar system, of all things.

She was suppose to be prove how intellectually superior she was when even compared to a teacher, but the dub just made her sound silly and more like a prick than a child prodigy Confused (even though she is a prick for a while, but she didn't sound smart while doing it Razz).

Oh well, maybe whoever dubs it will make it so crappy that we won't have a choice but to watch it in Japanese with subtitles Anime smallmouth + sweatdrop. Good luck dubbing trying to make a good one, though...

And by the way, I'm very surprised at how well some of them speak English. It's much better than bad Engrish and sounds more like English with a Japanese accent to me. But still, it's intersting to hear sometimes (though I'm sure all the cursing they do in English is a stereotype of Americans Anime smile).
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