Forum - View topicSteven Foster and Le Chevalier D'Eon
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Deltakiral
 Posts: 3338 Location: Glendora, CA (Avatar Hei from Darker than BLACK) |
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I'm sure that there's lots of fans of Orphen who will disagree, that series had lots of changes to it. But I did like his work thus far on Chevalier and Gilgamesh. And I really enjoyed the ADR diary that was included on the final volume of Gilgamesh since it really had this nice timeline of what occurs when you start the dubbing process. All in all a good interview and very informing about one of the more 'controversial' ADR directors. |
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smoochy
 Posts: 367 Location: Texas |
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I love how they use "controversial," instead of ,"crappy." Thats the adjective I'd use, but hey. |
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Seif
 Posts: 458 |
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Orphen was a joke, but I thought the show was crap anyway. Those Who Hunt Elves was great fun, but it was a complete rewrite, as was Generator GawI hated, hated what he did with Voices. "I used to bitch about Kendo Practice" used to make me pull my hair out. His reputation was severely damaged in my mind after that.
But then I saw Place Promised in Our Early Days, and he did an amazing job with it. It was one of the greatest dubs I've seen, and the actor's all gave paramount performances. I have a sneaking suspicions that the higher-ups kept a close eye on him because of the negative press. I assume that's what kept him in line for Place Promised, because it's probably the only one he didn't go change-happy on. |
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whoisfriend
Posts: 369 |
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I like it when directors have more variation in script during comedy or more lighthearted shows. During more serious shows, I'd prefer a translation closer to the original.
I liked the Kurumi and Ghost Stories dubs. They were both really good. Colorful too. |
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 390 Location: Florida |
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Wow. This interview really illustrates the degree of disconnect between "what Steven Foster thinks is the case" and "reality." From reading this, you can see that he really, truly, sincerely thinks that the degree of script alterations present within his dubs--Le Chevalier being a notable exception, as I mentioned in my review of it (SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT)--is at the level which reasonable anime fans find acceptable, which is to say "massage the dialogue a bit to match the lip flaps, but keep the intent and information conveyed the same." That simply is not the case. This is not a matter of "that's just like, your opinion man," this is something you can objectively demonstrate.
The classic example of "Fosterization" (which he has the audacity to flat-out deny the existence of!) is Orphen. Ignoring my personal opinion on that show being terrible anyway, here's a comparison between the dub and the sub of that. Go there, read that, and then tell me that the changes made there are anywhere near the league of the “you look really cool in that blue shirt” versus “wow, that blue shirt looks awesome on you" type changes that he thinks are what people are nailing him to the wall over. It's flat-out astounding how he can say in earnest that "we made some changes to make the jokes more accessible" with regards to something like Colorful. If you've never seen the show, Colorful is a cartoon about guys trying to see women's underwear. That's it. That's the premise of the show. Clearly this level of humor is far too inaccessible for us to comprehend, and so many of the jokes in the Colorful dub are changed so that the punchline is someone calling someone else "fag." This seems to be a recurring phenomenon among Steven Foster dubs, but I guess it's the result of group decisions that only seem to ever get made on shows he's working on. Granted, Orphen was from several years ago, and even though I think the dub of Le Chevalier is pretty good, I'm still extremely concerned about how Sergeant Frog is going to turn out since Le Chevalier didn't exactly have jokes in it for Steven Foster to "adapt." So much of Sgt Frog's humor is based upon references to other anime or otaku pursuits, and if it's decided that changes need to be made "to make the jokes more accessible," then that dub's dead in the water as far as retaining the spirit of the original show. At least we'll still have the Japanese with English subtitles option. Man. Hearing Steven Foster give interviews and record commentary tracks is kind of like hearing Uwe Boll do commentaries and interviews. Neither of them seems to have any inkling of comprehension as to why people hate them as much as they do and rationalize it as "crazy people with no lives on the Internet are just out to get me for no reason" or "people are getting up in arms over every little change I make, because they don't understand that such changes are necessary as part of the process of adaptation." That really is what they believe. They also are both totally convinced that the work they're doing is top-notch stuff, perhaps because nobody who'd fancy getting additional work from them would dare to claim otherwise. At least they both have some fans who genuinely enjoy their efforts (yes, some people really do like Boll's output the way people likes Troma movies), but I think that the "jokes" Steven Foster puts into dubs tend to have a definite shelf life on them. I wonder if, five years from now, all the people who currently dig the "giggity giggity" type lines in Ghost Stories will think they sound just as bad as the "go dragon, it's your birthday" type lines in Orphen do now? Steven Foster needs to just stay as far away from the comedy as possible and stick solely to the more serious stuff. It takes an amazing lack of competence to make Cromartie High School boring, but somehow he managed to do it. |
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fxg97873
 Posts: 211 Location: Houston, TX |
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At the time that I bought Steel Angel Kurumi many years ago, I only knew one ADV director (Matt Greenfield).
After watching that show, though, I definitely knew Foster's name...plus some 4 letter expletives attached to it. I'm glad that he is at least partially aware of the crap he tends to turn out most of the time. He's done a decent job with The Place Promised in our Early Days...but frankly why ADV would give him any of Shinkai's masterpieces is beyond me. And as he stated himself, the main offense with Voices of a Distant Star was the lack of text message translation when watching it in English...otherwise it would have been perfect. In any case, I remember complaining to Matt and David back at O-Chibicon 2004 about Foster and they seemed somewhat aware of the problem... mk2000 |
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cl4y
Posts: 56 |
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So this is Daryl, then? Or do the other guys post on that name as well? Funnily enough, the first time I heard of "Fosterization" was on your podcast the other day, and now I see this interview. Good times 
Edit: Ah, nvm. Found an old post:
Last edited by cl4y on Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Drowning_Wolf
Posts: 193 |
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Aside for the really great Le Chevalier D'Eon, I am not really familiar with what Steven Foster worked on, but I have too say I usually prefer when the script for comedy (or bad original script, but that goes without mentioning) show is not that accurate. Interesting interview, anyway.
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Seif
Posts: 458 |
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QFT Even though I've always thought that his films should come with more fanfare then they do, I've thought that the production values were solid, and they defiantly were aware of the quality of the license. Why they hand them over to that man is a mystery. |
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silentjay
Posts: 304 |
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More like: “you look really cool in that blue shirt” versus "hey, look, monkeys" |
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selenta
 Subscriber Posts: 1774 Location: Seattle, WA |
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I hate to rag on a producer based largely on one interview... but this guy is allowed to direct anime?
Although what he said would certainly sound more normal if one were to hear the interview (as opposed to reading it), he did not come across to me like the kind of person I would put in charge of a McDonald's, much less the director of one of the larger products in a niche economy that is driven by an extremely picky audience. I respect him for saying that the work is only "in his care" and that he shouldn't take too many liberties with it, but to be honest, I'd highly suggest that he go and study more Japanese before he takes on his next project. When someone who has studied Japanese for barely a year and a half can point out several very obvious changes to the script (for the 'worse' obviously, as I probably wouldn't notice it if it was 'better' or more descriptive)... something is obviously going wrong. Last edited by selenta on Mon Feb 19, 2007 7:30 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Renaisance Otaku
 Posts: 469 Location: Modesto, CA |
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That's the onl one I own that he's touched. I don't really see how the change he made to Kurumi's peonality, the episode titles, etcetera, makethe show more "accessible". It just changed one's peception of the characters. Ialso love the constant defense that "Ghost Stories was an insignificant kids show, so that makes it okay". Suuuuure it does. Yeah we hae the subs, but would'e been too hard to put a faithful dub on it as well when you know it'll be controversal, no matter how minor the show. |
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bci110
 Posts: 391 |
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I'm surprised that Chris didn't ask Foster why he had most of the actors use pseudonyms for This Ugly Yet Beautiful World where most dub fans already knew who was playing who in that series. I still haven't figured out why he did that.
Oh, well, at least he did a great job with the Gilgamesh English dub. I keep mentioning on the AoD forum that it's one of the most underappreciated and underrated dubs in the market, and I think a lot of it attones to the series itself. And I do agree with the poster that mentioned that Foster should stick with the comtemporary series like Gilgamesh and stay away form comedy, although he is doing a decent job with the Paniponi Dash dub in my view. It seems that Foster's skills are more adapt to drama than to comedy, and it's evident from how most of the dub fans perceive his projects. |
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MorwenLaicoriel
 Posts: 1617 Location: Colorado |
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...Really? You think so? I actually saw the dub of Cro-High on Anime Network On Demand, and I loved it so much I bought the series recently. Finished watching it a few days ago, and I thought it was hilarious. Then again, I haven't watched the sub, so I don't know how it stacks up. I usually watch the sub second, so it's quite possible I'll switch to the sub and enjoy it even more. But I wouldn't say that it's "boring", at least, not to me. I do agree that it sounds like he's been taking waaaay too many liberties, though. x.x;; |
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Sam Murai
 Posts: 1051 |
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After comparing the Steel Angel Kuromi dub to this interview, I think it's easy to apply here that "art imitates life." Good, frank interview, though, and despite my reservations on the Chevalier dub and the Ghost Stories dub (lame), he is capable of supplying some good work. Sgt. Frog is practially tailor-made for his style, so it would be nice to see how he would do with that one.
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