From: jkim@jingoro.Eng.Sun.COM (Jun Kim)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
Subject: Re: Streamline Dub Jobs.
Date: 13 Aug 1992 02:03:16 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: jingoro

In article <1992Aug12.220538.11630@sura.net> wbarnes@sura.net (Bill Barnes) writes:
>In article <l8ilq4INNhc3@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> jkim@jingoro.Eng.Sun.COM (Jun Kim) writes:
>>Granted, leaving the story/plot intact is a good first step.  Second step is
>>to leave the dialogue so that all the implications/inferences which were
>>there in Japanese to be intact in English.  Now that's very hard to do,
>>but I think it can be done with only moderate sacrifices in meaning as long
>>as people are willing to do at least that much.
>
>The trouble is, would leaving in all the nuances in Japanese work and would
>it be worth it?  After all, the whole point to dubbing something is to
>make it more comprehensible to the target audience (in this case mainstream
>America).  There are things you do in Japanese that you don't do in English
>and vice versa, but if you try to leave them in, you're liable to confuse
>the matter.

Very true... I guess I'll have to leave it as:  as long as they stick with 
the story...

>
>>As for a real example of what I'd like to see dubbing like... 
>>(well, I think there was some disagreement over this some time back...)
>>is Laputa.  I believe Streamline dubbed this for someone (?) and I'd say
>>it's the best job they did.
>
>Actually, Laputa came "pre-dubbed" when Carl got his hands on it, so good
>or bad, the dubbing job was not his doing.

Ahh!  Now it all fits together... :)

>
>>Some phrases were translated so directly
>>from the japanese phrases, it came out funny in english (e.g. "we'll go
>>all the way" while Pazu and Sheeta were floating down the mine shaft) but
>>these only occurred in about 3-4 places.  The voices were very agreeable
>>and I didn't feel a noteable difference in "feel" between the japanese and
>>english versions... that's what I feel Streamline's goal should be: to achieve
>>the same feel in english as in japanese.
>
>Easier said than done, as I've already stated and you've already implied.
>As for the voices in Laputa, I only got to watch about the first ten
>minutes of the dub, but it didn't seem that much better than Streamline's
>efforts to me.  I think it was at least partly due to the fact that
>Pazu's voice actor sounded a lot Spridle (?) from Speed Racer to me 8-).

Never saw more than one eps of Speed Racer so the voice didn't bother me.
The main thing was that they didn't have those annoying pauses in the
middle of the sentence just to make the words in sync with the lips.
It all seemed fairly natural, but it was a long time ago, so I can't really
dwell on specifics.  I can only say that the dubbing did not bother me.
Anyway, that dub impressed all my non-anime friends quite a bit (a lot
more than Akira) and even turned a couple onto anime.  I don't know of any
other work (dubbed or subbed) that did that for my friends.

>
>>My question was and still is:  If they did it so great once, how come the
>>quality is back to robotech levels now?
>
>The answer, obviously, is that they weren't responsible for the great
>dub.

You wouldn't happen to know who did, do you?

--
Jun Kim                                         jkim@jingoro.Eng.Sun.Com
Sun Microsystems
Mountain View, CA                               "Oboete imasu ka..."