A lot of anime fans probably don’t grasp this, but they really don’t ‘hear’ Japanese. I was watching subbed anime for a good while before I started to realize that what I had been hearing was actually a voice in my head reading off the dialog. It takes having read a significant amount of subtitles to stop doing this.
That is a a fucking horrible accent, please stop insulting my intelligence
UPDATED: 9/12/09 3:21 PM EST as marked by EDIT
I’m not stating anything in this post as fact. This is just my opinion – but there are NO good dubs. I repeat: THERE ARE NO GOOD DUBS. And by ‘dubs’, I of course mean the term anime fans use to describe the English voice-over of a show originally voiced in Japanese. I will admit, there are ‘acceptable’ dubs out there. There are ‘decent’ dubs. But there are no good dubs, and there is definitely no excuse to only watch a show dubbed.
Yasuhiro Imagawa is the fucking MAN. He’s a brilliant director, renowned for his care for the stories he writes and the perfectionism that he puts forth in all of his projects. Here are the top 5 reasons he’s worth driving all the way to Georgia to talk with for an hour or two at Anime Weekend Atlanta.
right: Mechazawa left: Mechazawa Beta
Cromartie High School is a lot like a SHAFT production in that all of the money went to hiring a cast of immense talent leaving none for the animation, which is handled nicely by unique budget-cutting techniques. There are a number of vocal roles probably worth note, but none stands out like The Great Norio Wakamoto’s role as Mechazawa Shinichi.
Just finished with the 26 12-minute ep Cromartie High School which is one of those great comedies that in spite of being licensed has been largely overlooked. It’s one of the most manly and badass shows around, being as it is about a school full of punks, gangsters, and badasses. Also there’s a robot, a gorilla, and Freddie Mercury, only Freddie is like super manly. The most similar shows I can compare it to without using names no one would know of (Pugyuru, Gag Manga Biyori, etc.) I’d say it’s most like a SHAFT comedy and possibly could be considered similar to Azumanga Daioh (to use a show I know you’ve heard of.)
Oyakata-sama does not ‘ride’ a horse. He ‘rides’ a pair of horses that share a saddle. He ‘rides’ them standing up while holding a massive axe. He mounts his double-horse by slamming his axe into the ground, propelling him 50 feet in the air and he lands on the double-horse while it is moving. He then rides this horse straight up a several-hundred-foot vertical wall. At the top, he is attacked by a ninja who he guards against within a centimetar of being stabbed in the eye. The ninja proceeds to decapitate his horses and enter into mortal combat with him. After he’s punched the ninja through a building, he proceeds to kill the ninja’s master by vaporizing him with sheer manly energy. My friends. This is the greatest anime ever made. And what’s more, it appeals to everyone.
The first episode of Sengoku Basara is probably the most manly and fucking awesome first episode of anime ever. I don’t even know where to begin – my fucking beard grew longer while watching it. My fucking balls grew. I felt like I should have had a beer and a porn mag or something while watching it. Basically, Production IG decided to pretend to be GAINAX and produced some insanely over-the-top, totally fun-loving samurai action. It’s purposefully cheesy, throws back to all kinds of chanbara film techniques and fights so insane it’s hard to believe the characters aren’t in mechs. Fucking Date Masamune rides his horse with ARMS CROSSED and WIELDS THREE SWORDS AT ONCE — PER HAND
But lets not forget the main reason to watching this, NORIO WAKAMOTO AS FUCKING ODA NOBUNAGA. I loved the game, I love the show, will watch all eps at least twice. There is nothing negative I can say about this ep – it was astonish-mazing. Will do a more through post when Shinsen drops the first sub.
Almost forgot, op is a pretty good Abingdon Boys School song.
This is a carry-over discussion from my comments section on the Unrepresentative Studio Screw-ups post.
The word ‘good’ gets thrown around a lot in anime discussion, and in conjoint with various aspects of what most consider to matter in an anime. ‘Good animation’ or ‘good characters’ or ‘good directing’. Good is always taken to have an objective meaning (I won’t get too deep into that, though, since I’m sure I have too many times on this blog.) However, some of these things are totally up to opinion, while others aren’t. I’d like to explore what things should and shouldn’t be personal considerations.
My Sword Is Unbelievably Dull 