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REVIEW: Black Lagoon DVD 2

I hopes you like it.

Man, Vol 2 continues the all out rollercoaster ride that vol 1 set up, fun, sexy & violent to the core, fully recommended.

**And the Porn editing scene was pure gold**

Japanese dub falls short of capturing the full spirit of the production.

The English dub lacks feeling when it's compared to the US Dub. Most of the characters lost alot of character in between the translations.

Revy in the Japanese Dub sounds like a boorish, swear-word packing boozehound. Revy in the US Dub sounds like a mild-mannered gangbanger. I mean, the VA doesn't give the wild emotion that is Revy. She reserves enough back to seem like she's trying not to be offensive. Which is annoying to say the least. She should be making enough racial slurs that would make the KKK blush with envy.

Dutch sounds like a grizzled veteran of wars, and seems to ooze an air of maturity about him in the Japanese dub. As for the US dub, it doesn't sound....old enough. If the hints in the anime and manga are correct, Dutch should be a Vietnam Vet. The US dub sounds too young, like around 30-40. Dutch should be pushing at least 50 or so.

Rock has something wrong that I can't quite place in the US dub.....I want to say he doesn't seem "submissive" enough to the Lagoon Crew at first. He doesn't sound like a really depressed salaryman. He just sounds like some retail worker at the local S-Mart.

Benny....Benny......I think a few more appearances before I can gauge him.

Balalaika doesn't sound like a Eastern European in the US dub. It's too refined, it's too Western European. I mean, she went thru the Afghan War, and she holds herself up like a proper woman? She should at least show some grit behind that facade of being a businesswoman. As is, it looks like she was a disgruntled European Heiress that got into the arms business.

Overall, I think the dub needs a major direction change to at least correct some personality faults. They can do better; problem is, much like how they package the DVD special features and the cases, it's sorely lacking.

I'll agree that Megumi Toyoguchi has a deeper tone in her voice to really come off as down and dirty. And to be honest, when I first heard Ocean was dubbing this, I thought she'd be the hardest to cast, given their current pool of VAs, which frankly, doesn't have a lot of women that can talk that low.

However, given these circumstances, I feel Maryke Hendryske is as good as I can expect. Granted, it's not quite the same, but her efforts in delivery and the limitations of what dialogue you can actually make for English transition mouthflaps are still commendable. Imagine if they hadn't added all the cussing and vulgarity that's already in the script? At least Ocean went out of the way to make it as gritty as possible.

Uh.. how many black VAs around the age of 50 in Ocean do you know? Wait, that's right, Tsutomu Isobe isn't black either . You're forgetting that English VAs in just about all companies, while around two decades old, don't have a lot of stability in their pool of actors, even to this day.

Anime in itself is still very niche in terms of voice work and getting a concrete, long-lasting job is difficult, in my opinion, so it's not like they'll have VAs lined up with 30+ years of experience, let alone maybe even 10-15+ years of strictly anime voice acting, as opposed to the Japanese who've been doing it a lot longer.

Sure, Dean Redman doesn't sound as scruff as Isobe, but would you rather have an old white guy play Dutch or take a chance at a guy who at least fits the racial correspondence, let alone he's a total newbie at voice acting (this is his debut role, as far as I know). We know he's black, so at least it sounds natural. Though personally, I think Beau Billingslea would've been perfect for this.

Regardless, though, at least they didn't stereotype him and make him some ghetto street punk or something totally unnecessary. Dutch is merely a very experienced mercenary with the subtle etiquette of a business man. Redman captures it well and sounds like a veteran (both in character and through his profession).

Not submissive enough? This is freakin' Brad Swaile, the guy is infamous for playing sissy characters (Quatre from Wing, Sai from Hikaru, and Mousse from Ranma). I couldn't think of a better pansy voice in all of dubbing for this role.

By your previous comments, I'm guessing you've already seen the entire anime series (both seasons) and read some of the manga.

Again, like I mentioned about Dutch, you find me an exact match within Ocean that fits an Afghan-war torn, scarred up, tough 'n gritty, Russian woman, then you can talk.

In fact, I think it's because she survived those rough times that she deserves to act as high-class as she wants. Not only does she have the knowledge and man power to exercise her muscle, she knows full well that if anyone f*cks with her, they're either dead or will face some kind of painful torture, and then die.

I just felt that Hendryske didn't go far enough. Like I said, it seems she's holding back from being a full blown bitch. She has the guns, she needs the voice to back them up. But as is, the guns aren't 9mm, their pellet guns.

Never said they had to get it spot on by hiring some black VA to fill the role; I feel the voice doesn't really capture Dutch to a T.

You have a guy that has gone thru hell and back, and is now a well respected merc. His voice needs to sound like he's gone thru hell and back. To me, the current voice sounds like someone before boot camp.

...And Bart Simpson has a VA thats in her 30's/40's?? Your point?

Still needs to show the scars of battle, which Redman does not emote thru the voice work.

I don't quite follow. So your saying someone that does sissy voices = submissive character?

And find me where exactly I said it had to be exact. I mentioned they don't match the characters, which the Japanese dub did wonderfully. You can actually put the voices to the characters. The swill the US dubs have? Again, see my first post.

And her men respect her. But I don't see it in the US dub voice. More akin to a lifestyle dominatrix than a woman that went thru the afghan war. Ergo, failure.

Quote:

Japanese dub falls short of capturing the full spirit of the production.

Excuse me? It should be the other way around.

The English dub lacks feeling when it's compared to the US Dub. Most of the characters lost alot of character in between the translations.

Overall, I think the dub needs a major direction change to at least correct some personality faults. They can do better; problem is, much like how they package the DVD special features and the cases, it's sorely lacking.

Wow, did you watch the same DVDs, and listen to the same dub that I did? I have watched all of the DVD-available episodes through both ways (in some cases twice) and find myself utterly at a loss for how you can find the English dub in this one so inferior to the original. You do provide enough specific examples and articulation to convince me that you're not just making blanket statements, but given how much you're nitpicking here, I have to wonder if you'd be satisfied with any English dub. Hell, even Tony K liked this one, and he's normally one of the pickiest critics around when it comes to dubs.

For me the anger and attitude came through much clearer in English than in Japanese, where she actually sounded nice in some scenes, and during episode 6 I got a much better sense of her being troubled by her submarine conversation with Rock in the English version rather than the Japanese version. Toyoguchi may be far more experienced, but after listening to the Japanese dub I had to wonder if she was cast right for the role, as to my ear Hendriske's performance clearly one-upped her.

how can Japanese voice work for indisputably black characters sound that much better than an actual trained black actor doing the role?

Perhaps a lot of this perception comes from the fact that I watched the dub first, so I automatically register that as the default. I am assuming you did the reverse.

Naturally you're free to disagree, but that doesn't mean I buy your counter-arguments at all.

Holding back how? Tone of voice or acting-wise? If it's tone of voice, I think that's all you'll get, because from listening to her in the interview on the extras disc, her natural voice isn't very low at all (it's pretty normal), and she's already gotten this far through 2/3 of the first season, so I doubt they'd make her change it at this point.

Acting-wise, I don't know what else you're wanting out of her script. I think the level of profanity is good enough already with plenty of f-bombs, s-bombs, and blurts of "c*cksucker" all over the place.

See what? You're supposed to hear voices, not see them.