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REVIEW: Storia Della Arcana Famiglia Blu-Ray

This is most glaring with “famiglia,” in which the “g” is silent. Honestly, even without background in the language, the fact that “fam-ig-lee-a” sounds kind of silly is enough of a problem when it is perfectly simple to say “fam-ee-lee-a.” As I said, this may be too picky, but it certainly can take away from the enjoyment of an otherwise mostly fine dub.

The other major issue with the dub may not bother everyone: little to no effort has been made to correctly pronounce the Italian.

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This is most glaring with “famiglia,” in which the “g” is silent. Honestly, even without background in the language, the fact that “fam-ig-lee-a” sounds kind of silly is enough of a problem when it is perfectly simple to say “fam-ee-lee-a.” As I said, this may be too picky, but it certainly can take away from the enjoyment of an otherwise mostly fine dub.

This pretty much sums up my problem with Sentai dubs in general. In this case it's Italian, but their actors are never on the same page on how to pronounce non-English words and it's so jarring. I mean, how difficult is it really to figure out the correct pronunciation of foreign words in the Internet age? To me it just seems like sloppy directing.

More like lazy direction. This seems to be more of a case with the industry than sentai dubs. There are countless instances where word pronunciations were simply bastardized with no care for another's language, which is funny because there are those whose primary career is voice acting (as opposed to stage acting, film acting or, slowly moving up the chain, voice direction) and you hear no concern for trying to preserve the original pronunciations.

We (general, overreaching version here) make quips about "Engrish" but that kinda sets a double standard when we then pronounce Amaterasu as "I'mma tear a Sue" with such confidence, I cringe a bit.

Perhaps it's a sensitivity that I developed as someone who grew up multilingual, but it's painful to hear your own language tossed around like a cheap souvenir.

We (general, overreaching version here) make quips about "Engrish" but that kinda sets a double standard when we then pronounce Amaterasu as "I'mma tear a Sue" with such confidence, I cringe a bit.

I do think Sentai has a bigger problem then many of the other companies, probably because they are lower budget. For example, Funimation almost goes overboard pronouncing names just right. (I honestly think it's almost too much, its kinda weird hearing "Haruhi" with correct r/l sound when they're speaking English) but they're consistent. Sentai on the other hand is often all over the place. Like in Clannad, one character would pronounce Sanae correctly while another (including Sanae herself!) would say "Suh-nay". And here they can't manage to pronounce 1st year Italian words correctly. Honest mistakes are one thing but Sentai is just lazy, lazy, lazy about this stuff.

I thought it was particularly amusing that Cynthia Martinez couldn't pronounce "Kun" correctly for nearly her entire screen time in Mysterious Girlfriend X when everyone else was saying it correctly

Yet Sentai was able to handle the Italian with Monica Rial in Campione.