Matt Greenfield was in on DNAngel? I thought that was a David Williams project.
I don’t see how a well-written dub script couldn’t seamlessly avoid needing honorifics in a scene. If the scriptwriters “wrote around” the issue with skill, how would we know?
Even if I did know, say because I had already seen the Japanese version, I’d consider the English rewrite to be less jarring than hearing actors like David Matranga using stilted Japanese words. Though that’s just me. If the majority of fans need to hear the honorifics in moe harem shows then I suppose I can grin and bear it (though still complaining), but I don’t want to hear it spilling into all the other genres, as other dub studios have done. To talk about non-sentai shows, if Baccano had been dubbed with honorifics I don’t think I could have made it past EP 1.
Maybe it was David Williams in the commentary, but I had thought it was Matt Greenfield. I could be wrong though. But that doesn’t mean Matt didn’t have any involvement with the project at all or may not have been involved with reviewing the script, which is where the problem was caught. Though I could be mixing it up with the commentary where Monica Rial mentions Matt Greenfield buying her the only stuffed With at Anime Expo the year DN Angel was dubbed.
I also don’t think most fans need honorifics. Some like them, some don’t. Very few complain when they are included, and even less complain when they aren’t. But many fans would complain if a script had to be completely rewritten to avoid them and as such changed a significant plot point. True in ef’s case, it would have been easier to work around than DN Angel, but it still would have elicited some complaints.
Plus, we don’t know if Sentai had any choice in using them. Sometimes the Japanese producers are heavily involved in the dub production, sometimes to the detriment of the project. It wouldn’t surprise me if Sentai had less flexibility in this project than usual, as there have been rumors that the producers of ef are very protective of the franchise. It was even said for a long time that it was impossible to license due to that. That’s one of the reasons that it was such a shock when Sentai not only announced the license, but later announced a dub for it. It could also explain why Chris Ayres was chosen, as he tends to be more accurate in his scripts and direction than some other R1 directors.
In the commentary I heard, and according to the DVD cases I have, David Williams was the ADR Director. Speaking of commentary tracks for DNAngel, sadly I don’t have them all. While I have seen the whole show dubbed, I haven’t managed to get all the dvds. I’m still missing DVD 1 and the artbox. I must admit that the only disc’s extras I’ve watched have been Disc 3’s. Searching out and buying all the old DVDs was worth it as the extras were classic, like the seiyu for Daisuke and the composer at the resort with the rabbit, or the incredibly rare Kelly Manison/Andy McAvin commentary track. The dvds also don’t list which actors are in the included commentary tracks If only the hilarious video of Vic singing the theme song while cosplaying Dark Mousey had been on the discs, but that came out later.
On DNAngel, is it just me or does Clint Bickham in Ghost Hound sound like Kevin Corn in DNAngel?
Sounds to me then that complaints would be minimized by ditching the honorifics. Was the plot point that seems to mandate Japanese honorifics in ef really that significant?
Ugh, I try to forget how egregious the Japanese meddling in US dubbing is. Both Bandai (Bob Napton) and Bang/Zoom (Richard Epcar, Eric P. Sherman, Tony Oliver) have even said that the Japanese even restrict when and what bloopers/outtakes can be shown. I’m not sure how true that is, but I can only take their word for it. I wish more Japanese involvement would be like how Matt Greenfield described Nabeshin’s “hands-off” approach to Excel Saga: trust the native US English speakers to adapt the series to Americans and not try and micromanage something they don’t really understand.
While I don’t doubt that the Japanese have a large role in how the dub was done, I still think that the fans play a large part in it. Sadly “fans” have been railing against ADV for as long as I can remember, and fan outcry caused Orphen to be changed (though that gave us a hilarious DVD extra), and in more modern times it caused the dubs of Angel Beats, High School of the Dead, and The World only God Knows (ANN raged at the Oprah line, sadly) to be heavily restrained and IMO boring. There was so much potential there, but it was lost. Thank God that those fans haven’t discovered the Golgo 13 dub yet B)
That would also explain why Chris Ayres had what could only be described as a “nerdgasm” when we presented ef for him to sign :laugh:
Sorry to but in, but this is becoming a great debate ^_^.
Well, if I did not see the Ef english dub yet and payed more attention to the honorific topics either they would be used or not. Then I would not have liked the dub, but after seeing A Tale of Memories/Melodies I still loved the english dub. IMO, there were not a lot of honorifics used. Probably because I was crying like a baby and did not care XD. But if I was a newbie to watching anime and only watching english dubs, then I would have been confused with the honorifics in Ef. So the dub would probably be a hit for hardcore fans, but a miss for some people that just want to hear a dub without honorifics.
Is it true that the producers of Ef were working closely for the english dub? I thought those practices were back in the past due to the industry declining significantly outside japan today. I was always someone who liked english dubs to be close to the japanese scripts/subtitles even if not spot on. Does Chris Ayres rarely get to be ADR director?
Yep, according to the box and ANN (and himself) Chris Ayres is the adr director. The only other recent title I remember him directing was Night Raid 1931, though when he saw that in the autograph pile his reaction was “meh” while he was ecstatic about ef. His reaction to ef was funny enough that I overlooked that he forgot the name of his character in Broken Blade (TBH so did I) and that from our huge autograph pile he signed everything but my 2nd copy of Speed Grapher. :laugh: Sadly I don’t think we recorded that.
The honorifics in ef weren’t as jarring to me as the ones in shows like planetes or drrr, which I attribute to sentai’s greater dubbing skill, but I still would prefer them to not be there. Especially in a Sentai dub as, and I’m not just saying this because this is their forum, they’re the only dub studio I have confidence in being able to rewrite the script to avoid them.
Though maybe they weren’t as jarring to me in ef because things like Hilary Haag’s character looking stoned whilst wearing a ridiculously oversized party had were just so funny.
Well, i’m okay with that. Well, Lucky Star was a series that I was pretty annoyed about when it came to honorifics for the english dub. Probably because it was a comedy, or because they tried to make a lot of emphasis on them. But in the end, I still like Lucky Stars english dub because of the comedy stuff of Lucky Channel XD.
The only honorifics I’m mostly okay with people saying in an english dub are, “kun”, “san” “chan”, and “senpai”. Honorifics for big sister, brother, or the elderly are pretty annoying so far. Especially in manga (EX: When They Cry T_T).
I wish I seen his expression. Never been to a single convention due to distance and time T_T. But I’m still confused with the whole convention system when I hear about it. Night Raid was great as well IMO.
Well to something Ef relating. I LOVED the music, I automatically bought the legal CD’s. I was confused on the whole Australia/Japan setting.
Living near the nation’s capital puts me in a pretty good position for cons, though the best cons (in terms of getting voice actors) are in Texas (not surprisingly), which is pretty far from me. But cons seem to be everywhere; legendary voice actor Carrie Savage has her “signature” (she’s gone to every one) con tucked away in the obscure corner of Minnesota. I’m confused by your mention of Australia, all I know about “Oz” is that Matt Greenfield was there twice last year, Kyle Hebert was likewise invited down there and posted some videos, and I think Spike Spencer went down there as well. I still haven’t managed to track down Spike. I hear he does a pretty interesting panel at cons.
Getting back to ef, I have to say that I was surprised by the more salacious nature of the show. I thought it’d be another “pure” moe-harem show like Clannad but instead Chris Patton’s character hilariously gets laid in the first episode and Ilich Guardiola plays a suave playboy who is having an affair with Clint Bickham’s married mom (Tiffany Grant). Tiffany Grant’s character was also placed in a hilarious, if incestuous, suggestive position in relation to Clint in ep 6. Hilarious, and not what I was expecting. It’s the raunchier Clannad, like the design team decided to splice together something like Desert Punk (Eric Vale’s greatest role lol) and Clannad to be original.
In the “showdown” between Britney Karbowski and Luci Christian at the train crossing in episode 6 though the flood of honorifics used to describe Greg Ayres’ character really made the conversation awkward. Honorifics took up half the conversation there, to exaggerate slightly
Yeah, it definitely seemed to be a more “grown up” or “adult” version of Clannad or other moe shows. I was actually a bit surprised when both couples had sex. It didn’t show any really intimate moments but it was definitely implied that was what had happened. Teenage sex isn’t a subject that is approached very often in anime. In fact, I think the only other series I can think that approached it seriously was Rumblig Hearts.
If I were an anime newbie and heard all these honorifics I might think that all the characters were closely related, as from an English standpoint all of their last names would be “kun”, “san”, “chan”, and occasionally someone from the “tan” family might come on the scene. :laugh: [/quote]
Eastern name order and honorifics were made clear to me as a teenager some 30+ years ago.
The US State department / US Army took over a defunct nursing college’s campus across the street from my parent’s house in 1975 and housed over a thousand Vietnamese refugees in it. You get a quick schooling in eastern style names when you have that many neighbors that use it.
My father spoke very basic Japanese, again courtesy of the ever-reliable US Army, which gave me a rudimentary understanding of some Japanese language conventions. Honorifics and social status conventions, my dad always said some Japanese POW Officers were hard to deal with because they were not accustomed to having foreigners address them as equals.
To the subject at hand. I’m definitely going to have to move all of EF up on my to-do list, which keeps getting longer and longer. Now where to find the $ in the budjet, so much Anime - so little time.
When you said you couldn’t think of an anime where the teens were having sex, I instantly thought of School Days. Of course that “realistic” part may not exactly apply, depending on your point of view :silly: .
This show took me a few minutes in the first episode to warm up to it, but I started to really enjoy it. The second episode was even better, it went by too fast. This is a show I’m going to have to buy on blu-ray. I really like the unconventional animation sequences. You know the scenes in the middle of a conversation where all of a sudden a character will just be outlined, or things will be going crazy, or a character will be colored in the color of the sky. It looks really beautiful. Reminds me of Kare Kano. Sad the animation for the rest of it isn’t amazing. I mean it’s good and all, but not mind-blowing or anything. So far what i think about the show is it’s like one of those “oh this is a bunch of unrelated people and stories” drama. Guess it remains to be seen if the stories connect in way, if the people meet up, or what. This could get good.
Oh I’m really liking the dub so far btw. I’m watching this at the same time as The World God Only Knows, and it’s great hearing Luci Christian in both of these. She seems very fresh, especially in this. I can’t remember the last time I loved her in a role like this. Also it was brilliant casting Clint Bickham as Renji. The only other shows I know his from are Magikano (which is what i think of when I hear his voice) and Project Blue Earth SOS. If i must nitpick this Monica Rial isn’t at the top of her game. I mean she’s good, but not as good as the others here. But it’s still early (I’m only on episode 2).
I was thinking the same thing. And I kept praying that Ef’s ending would not be like School Days ending XD.
Well, I think School Days reminded me of hell of a ton American teen dramas that involve relationships then later exposing them which in result involved the male characters wanting another relationship. The ending was so creepy, yet awesome ^_^.
I was surprised about the english dub, when I look back at the casts previous works I thought none of them compared to Ef. Greg Ayres was very good IMO, probably because I never thought he could play a normal main character so well. Well, as far as relating to characters. Something clicked in my head in the first episode when I saw the 3 main male characters and heard about there background.
The animation was very good with the unconventional sequences, plus the music in the series made it even better.
I’m also enjoying the English dub. When I tried watching this subbed it just felt like a non-interactive visual novel, a movie of someone playing one if you will, but the dub allows me to actually see the characters as more than pure (haha) embodiments of stereotypes which has allowed me to get into the show (despite my chafing at the honorifics).
Clint does a pretty remarkable job in Ghost Hound, a Sentai show that I just finished. Until Project Blue (which I watched just a few months ago) I hadn’t heard of him, and thought that he was an alias for Vic.
Once again, Ilich is a villain of sorts. It seems that if Andy McAvin isn’t the villain, Ilich is. After someone suggested it on Ann I keep wondering what Death Note would have been if he had been Kira.
I certainly hope that this won’t end up like School Days. Isn’t that the show with the lolis and the head in the box, as seen in AMV Hell Mini 8 (season 1)?
Well, school days is the true definition of a stereotypical visual novel/american drama. The main character goes in one relationship, but decides to cheat for a new girl after thinking his previous relationship was tiring. But after rumors spread, other girls want to ask him if its true, but due to him wanting to not believe that he is cheating results in another cheat. In the end, due to peer pressure he breaks up with both her first love and 2nd relationship partner. And decides to have sex with any girl at his school, and some of the girls decide to have sex or sleep with him out of sheer curiosity. In the final 2 episodes, his 2nd relationship partner finds out she is pregnant. In result, all of his other relationship partners stay away from him except his first love which he wants to stay with instead of her 2nd relationship partner.
The ending is too messed up to say, but the male character had it coming. Though I hated yet laughed at how the male character decided to cheat, and I got so depressed when his first love gets bullied. It had such an impact on me and way of thinking of personal relationship/cheating drama shows that IMO american drama shows have never touched upon. But the japanese dub was pretty dull, because of what you say about stereotyped voices. Which made me get annoyed of the Clannad japanese dub.
And Ef~A Tale of Memories/Melodies took a step to show what you should do when caught in relationship issues, or solve your problems with future goals/desires.
What a tear jerker! It’s just so sad that when things were finally getting good between Yuko and Yu, that accident had to happen. This is a great story, but many tears will be shed over it!!
*
And I think that little girl grows up to be the Mizuki that falls in love with Kuze. Funny that he gave her the hair style she wears.
If only the hilarious video of Vic singing the theme song while cosplaying Dark Mousey had been on the discs, but that came out later.
:laugh: [/quote]