sound both ways on DVD

Rating: 10/10 (20 October 2009)

Watching this classic hit Princess Mononoke now (2009) means DVD. The Region 1 DVD has lots of choices for sound, so you can either watch the "American" version or the "Japanese" version (or watch both or even switch), perhaps depending on whether or not you're an anime geek. The DVD has both the original sound track and the "dubbed" English sound track (and a dubbed French sound track too). It has two separate sets of subtitles, one also called "captions" that matches the dubbed English translation, and the other also called "subtitles" that are apparently the original transliteration from Japanese to English. (Be careful though that although both original and dubbed soundtracks are on this particular DVD, this is not necessarily true of other DVDs. For example I've heard, although I haven't yet seen for myself, that the only way to get both original and dubbed soundtracks on the same media for Ponyo is to get the Blu-Ray version.)
The dubbing is very high quality. Although there are lots of opinions about exactly how it should have been done (or even whether it should have been done at all), it's clear it wasn't done "in a hurry" or "on the cheap". Although various people take issue for different reasons with different voices used for dubbing, the appropriateness and quality of the voices seem good to me.
The original English subtitles are severely abbreviated, almost schematic. Comparing them to other translations available on the web (I don't speak Japanese) shows they're invariably much shorter. They minimally sketch in the story line while letting the viewer focus on the visual.
One even suspects the original English subtitles weren't given careful attention, as frequently they are a bit awkward or stilted, and it seems they don't even try to carry nuances. For example, the Emishi village is led by an old woman; she helps think for the village, and when necessary she predicts the future too. The dubbed translation calls her the "wise woman", whereas the original subtitles call her the "oracle". Surely a better word naming a leader than "oracle" was available.
A definite plus of the original subtitles is they're very good at conveying the (assumed intentional) ambiguities in the audio. Sometimes words can be understood two different ways, and every once in a while it's not clear which of two characters in a scene spoke some of the words. For example "forget it" can mean either "you aren't understanding me" or "don't remember what you think you just saw" (or both). The original subtitles are very good at conveying this sort of thing.
You can switch between the various subtitles with the usual DVD button. But for some reason you can't use the usual Audio/Language DVD button to switch between dubbing and original; you have to go to the Menu, change the Spoken Languages setting, then select the Return to Film option from the menu.
The music is almost exactly the same (except for translated lyrics) in both original and dubbed sound tracks. My guess (I don't really know) as to how they did this is the creators of the dubbed sound track had the complete original score, and had the whole thing performed again. The sound effects are largely the same too, although in the dubbing the intensity and timing of the sound effects are frequently modified.
The English dubbed soundtrack is not just a literal translation, but is slightly different in quite a few ways. (The very simplified mouth movements of anime characters make it easy to change words, or languages, or even to make a silent character speak.) Types of differences in the dubbed soundtrack I noticed include: perhaps most importantly, the plot and symbolism of the story is made plainer; some of the dialog is a little more colorful; simple cultural differences are bridged painlessly (by contrast, more complex cultural differences are wisely ignored); ambiguous language is made clearer; a sexual innuendo (the only one I noticed) is softened so much that it disappears; and sometimes elements of the story thought distracting are simplified.
And a very few times it appears the translators just plain blew it (or tried to change something I don't think they should have). When in the Emishi village the girl Kaya calls the departing Ashitaka "older brother" and gives him her jeweled dagger, the dubbing just translates the words literally, which means treating the girl as nothing more than a little sister. As a result, much later when San is given the jeweled dagger, she can't say anything more than "pretty". The original term though is one of those words that has both an archaic and a modern meaning. The archaic meaning is something closer to "respected elder", making it clear the girl is not his blood sister but rather his village sweetheart. And her jeweled dagger is a symbol of "eternal love", like a gold locket to Americans. Thus Ashitaka later giving the jeweled dagger to San plainly states his choice of his one true love. Unfortunately the dubbed sound track misses all this.