animax – bluemist anime blog

Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 10: Fake Revival

August 29, 2007

I actually haven’t scanned my cable TV lately, so I wasn’t checking out how Animax-Asia is doing nowadays. I figure I would be like a broken record saying “they have an excellent anime selection… but the dubs…” again. One day though I decided to stomach the pain and watch some Animax-Asia anime, but I immediately turned off the TV. I just can’t do it.

But then I found this rather interesting program in their lineup… Music Station? I mean… THE Music Station? This program is one of the popular mainstream jpop shows that I saw in Japan, hosted by Mariko Do and Tamori. Girl host aside, Tamo-chan is awesome. He hosts numerous TV programs and never fails to give a laugh to everyone. Back to the show though, I was rather astounded to discover that this show… gasp… is in the original Japanese language with English subtitles.

YES YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT! ENGLISH SUBS! IN ANIMAX-ASIA! OMG! HISASHIBURI!

I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing. On one hand, this is a great service to all visual culture fans in that not all good stuff in Japan are in two-dimensions. It’s a very great introduction to jpop. In fact this is not just introduction, this is modern jpop in itself, because I notice that they get the latest episodes with only a few months gap from the latest music out there. On the other hand, the sub-loving anime fans who ran away from the channel because of its all-dub move feel like this is a disservice to them. If they can do it to Music Station, why not to every anime they show as well?

Of course, Music Station won’t even be possible in dub. The point is that why they acquired the actual show itself, subbing everything (conversations and song lyrics) instead of the old format of Animax Musix (just jpop MTVs without subs). So jpop getting more attention is all good and well, but I was hoping for something more now that I’ve seen this… well… like a subtitle format revival?

May I ask, where in the world do this channel show Japanese with English subtitles anyway? Over there in Singapore? Malaysia? Indonesia? Thailand? Brunei? Vietnam? I’m thinking other countries already have dual-audio cable TV setups by now, maybe Animax-Asia is being broadcast both in dub and in sub already… I’m really not sure, I hope someone out there can shed light on this. As far as poor ol Philippines is concerned, our crappy cable companies don’t even have dual-audio feature. In any case, what I see here are all English dubs, no matter what timeslot. Please say if I’m barking at the wrong tree here… I think Singapore has the dual setup though.

Gimme more subs plz. I know that this channel is really bringing anime to the mainstream, but at the very least they should give their old audience the respect they deserved. Remember the AXN Anime days? Those were glorious. The golden age of Asian anime popularity IMO. Without AXN Anime and its satisfied audience, Animax Asia wouldn’t have even existed nowadays. I really, really sound like a broken record, but someone’s gotta hear my thoughts, after all…

IT’S BEEN THREE FREAKING YEARS ALREADY.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 1: The end of Animax-Asia? Too sudden!?->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 2: Cardcaptured.->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 3: Trying to Adjust->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 4: Towards the 1st Anniversary->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 5: I gave up on Animax-Asia->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 6: One year since->]
[Animax-Asiaâ€¦ Dubbed in English – Episode 7: Dubbed in Filipino?!?->]
[Animax-Asiaâ€¦ Dubbed in English – Episode 7.5: Initial D Filipino Stage->]
[Animax-Asiaâ€¦ Dubbed in English – Episode 8: More Pain->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 9: Now in blue->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 10: Fake Revival->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 11: Something New->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 12: Red with anger->]

Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 9: Now in blue

June 5, 2006

Trying to please me?

As you can see, Animax-Asia has just done a reformat of both their website and the channel’s presentation graphics. The once green/blue logo has now become all-blue, and the website now sports anime mascots unique to Animax-Asia (Battle Girl and Spiky Kid). The channel now has a new, cooler presentation style for their advertisements and stuff. Does this signify anything? Not exactly, because nothing much has changed. Excellent anime lineup, but in English dubbing. Oh, and there is supposed to be a forum available, but it’s still the good old AXN-Asia forum back when AXN still showed tons of anime.

Ah, I can faintly remember those good old days of AXN anime. Japanese dubs, English subtitles, and a whole lot of fun. I can say that AXN anime played a big role in my fandom, plus it was technically the ‘only’ available channel brave enough to cater to a very small audience (sub lovers like us). But hey, it was monumentally successful I guess, with a handful of AXN anime conventions jampacked with people, and rousing support from anime fans from all across Asia and even the web. AXN anime used to be dubbed in English too, but the reformat to Japanese dubs gave them higher ratings not only from the anime side, but also the rest of the channel lineup.

Unfortunately, that golden age of cable TV anime was over, and with Animax-Asia’s English dubbing, there’s nowhere else to go but down. Even they (the channel) themselves seem to be admitting their defeat, through the advertisements of Fullmetal Alchemist. In the FMA advertisements, they were highlighting the fact that they’ll be showing the original English dub from the U.S. of A. It is as if they’re promoting that this time, they’ll have decent dubs ‘just because’ they have a US dub. This is a showing of desparation. I don’t know if ratings are going up or down, but in terms of mindshare, they’re getting burned. Such a shame, Fullmetal Alchemist is such an influential anime after all. While it seems that it really has good English dubbing (don’t coin me on that, I only saw a few episodes), but heck, where has the support for the sub-lovers gone?

On the local front, support for our very own Hero TV is only getting better… weirdly enough. Maybe it’s a bias thing of course, since Hero TV has anime dubbed in Filipino, our national language. It has a decent lineup too, and has its own share of bad and good dubbing. Still no Japanese dubs though.

Oh, and by the way, the Animax-Asia website seems to have some kind of Anime News section, where some news irrelevant to even Animax-Asia is being published. Some examples include something about Keroro Gunsou, the just-announced Death Note anime, etc. Trying to cater to the audience you abandoned? Sorry.

Your blue theme won’t convince me either.

Animax-Asiaâ€¦ Dubbed in English – Episode 8: More Pain

April 3, 2006

It’s probably final. Animax-Asia is now completely out of my system.

Practically, Animax-Asia is still here, on Channel 46 of my cable TV… but I don’t tune in anymore. This, despite a rather excellent lineup yet again. Also it seems like they tweaked a bit of their programming schedules. What was knows as Kids Hour is now named Girl Power (shoujo anime lineup), followed by Shonen Walker (shounen anime), Animania (probably mainstream), Megazone (semi-hardcore), and finally Super Maniac (hardcore). Oh, some animes in Super Maniac still is in English dub, so I wouldn’t call that as hardcore too much.

Some current anime highlights include the ever-popular Detective Conan, shounen classics Yu Yu Hakusho and Flame of Recca, shoujo classic Fushigi Yuugi, and a whole bunch of very recent anime, some of which other anime bloggers have been featuring for the past years:
– Emma
– Gakuen Alice
– Kino no Tabi
– Mahou Shoujo Tai
– Onegai Teacher
– Otogizoshi
– Twin Spica
– Windy Tales
– Zettai Shounen

Amazing lineup yet again… disappointing English dubbing yet again. This month we also have the CLAMP-crossover anime Tsubasa Chronicle, aptly translated by the channel as Chronicle of the Wings. Classy name, but I guess it’s a clear indication of English dubbing. You can’t escape English dubs. Oh, and next month we have the current king of shounen anime, Fullmetal Alchemist on queue. Still not sure if the English dub will be from inhouse Animax-Asia dubbers, or from Funimation in the US.

Take note, some English dubs come from official US dub releases from TV or DVD, but the vast majority of them come from Animax-Asia’s own in-house dubbing. Because of this, you hear the same voices in almost all anime! The whole channel sounds so freaking redundant. No, this is not the same as hearing [Yui Horie->horie-yui] in so many anime, this is a negative thing. You hear the same voice intonation, no modifications at all. Picture this: Sakura of CCS and Sakura of Ultra Maniac. They share the same English dub voice actress in Animax-Asia. While you can argue that they are both energetic mahou shoujo characters, you also believe that they shouldn’t sound the same (age, accent, etc.) Alas, they do in the Animax-Asia dubs. Multiply that with so many other characters sharing that same voice actress (that girl must be rich by now, starring in so many anime dubs), and you have a generic sounding anime channel.

Come to think of it, I’ve been complaining about it since day one! You must be tired of hearing me bash Animax-Asia for the entire duration of this series, so I’ll be giving more of its good points. First up, they added GameMax, a video game feature show. Very nice considering there ain’t much shows of that type out here. Animax Musix (jpop music video features) now has its own 30-minute slot, aside from the random ones in other slots. They finish the music video sometimes, and now even has a ‘fact bar’ at the bottom citing news, history, and other stuff about the artist featured. Great for discovering nice info about jpop, which I sorely lack nowadays.

Lastly, I had to tell my most important recommendation for this channel, and I hope that Animax-Asia hears this somehow (I’m a mere blogger though and my opinions are close to nil in terms of influence.) If they really want to follow their motto of “Anime for everyone”, and if they want to avoid rabid bashing from anime fans (include me in that partially), it’s very simple… show “both” a subbed and dubbed version of an anime. Okay, so you have a dubbed Cardcaptor Sakura at 4:00PM, why not show a ‘subbed’ Cardcaptor Sakura, at even an obscure time like 2AM or something like that? I’m sure all those kids who only want their anime in English/Taglish are already asleep by that time. Remember, Japanese otakus stay up in that time of night to watch their hardcore anime. If done that way, it may give a bit of positive rapport for the channel without hurting their… er… profit. You have a 24-hour anime channel. Know your audience, and use your programming effectively. You can profit more.

Animax-Asiaâ€¦ Dubbed in English – Episode 7.5: Initial D Filipino Stage

December 1, 2005

Since this is a specific topic I’ll create it under an episode 7.5

So it did show up, a Filipino dub of the first 14 episodes of Initial D: Fourth Stage. They called it Part 1 because the series is not over yet. And I tell you this, I really wish I could let everyone hear the dubbing… because it’s SO BAD, IT’S GOOD!

You know those kinds of stuff which are so corny or so bad, you turn up having fun and laughing at it instead of being disgusted. That’s how the Filipino dub is. Actually, it is a very unhealthy kind of Taglish, a mix of Tagalog (Filipino) and English in conversations. It’s similar to how you hear English phrases in jpop songs, except that this one doesn’t mix pretty well. Usually in real life you can hear the rich spoiled-brat class of people speaking in Taglish (I call them coÃ±otics). Sounds oh too fitting a style since in general the street racing scene in our country would compose only of people who can afford expensive cars and modifications. While we “normal people” resort to NFS:Underground and Most Wanted for the pimp-my-ride fix, spoiled brats do it for REAL and show off their fast and cool rides, despite their inability to drive fast because of metrowide heavy traffic.

Wait a minute, why did I relate our street racing scene to Initial D? Well, mostly because the Filipino dub converted the cool Initial D characters into spoiled brats! Most of them sound like spoiled brats now, really. The Takumi voiced by Matteo Guidicelli doesn’t sound innocent anymore, he sounds like a pro. On the other hand, the Kyoko voiced by Angel Locsin sounds oh too soft for my tastes, and she sometimes even whispers the dialogue. It’s a no-no in dubbing.

This is in my opinion a bad decision for Animax-Asia. Why fourth stage already? Why not show the previous stages first? A typical local anime fan here who only watches on TV would have never heard of Initial D, because it hasn’t aired in any local channel at all. Some may have heard of it over at the video game arcades, but that’s just it. Their Initial D Fourth Stage campaign is merely banking on the star power of those two famous people. Oh, and did I tell you already about how they advertised this?

Yes folks! Fast cars, hot babes. This is definitely not the point of Initial D. Sure, it has hot babes, but they don’t model in front of cars. And of all the magazines, FHM. Are they talking to the right audience? FHM junkies want hot babes and fast cars, not some anime about street racing (“Anime? What’s that?”). I think it isn’t even remotely about the anime anymore, it’s about drag racing and the hot Angel Locsin.

Amazing. With a totally unrelated marketing campaign, one-of-a-kind dubbing, and weird choice of programming, I’m very, very impressed with Animax-Asia’s Initial D: Fourth Stage (sarcasm). Because it’s SO BAD, IT’S GOOD!

Yes, Angel Locsin is hot. rawr.

Animax-Asiaâ€¦ Dubbed in English – Episode 7: Dubbed in Filipino?!?

September 1, 2005

The unthinkable may happen.

Come October 2005, Animax-Asia is introducing Filipino dubs! Yep, you heard it right.

Filipino is the national language of our country. Anime on local television is normally shown with Filipino dubs, obviously, removing the original Japanese voices and replacing them such that the program can be accessible to the masses. You can say that our reaction to this kind of activity is very similar to how U.S. handles anime. Some anime get good dubs, others get poor dubs. Generally, Filipino dubs are rather well accepted.

Anime is getting more and more popular in this side of the world, to the point that Animax-Asia was launched in 2004 as the first 24-hour cable anime channel in Asia. Well, we all know the story afterwards. Subtitled anime become dubs, some non-anime programs surface, and a lot more programming quirks left the fans complaining all the time. And now, their new trick up their sleeve to garner bigger audience (or rather, prevent losing audience because of Hero TV, more on that later) is introducing Filipino dubs to their ever growing multi-language anime lineup!

Again, Animax-Asia has a separate Philippine feed exclusively for Philippine viewers, and that’s how Animax just loves us. I tend to think that we are their biggest audience (read: source of income) in Southeast Asia because of the immense popularity of anime in our country. This move by Animax seems to cater to the masses, getting more audience classes (as per their ‘anime for everyone’ slogan) and cultural divides. At the same time, this seems to be an pre-emptive move to compete with Hero TV, the all-Filipino cable animation channel that will be fully launched this October. This upcoming channel is reportedly gaining ground, maybe because Naruto is in the lineup. More importantly though, anime fans will have even more choices. We already have Cartoon Network and Animax-Asia, now with Hero, anime has just become so widespread, you can’t deny it anymore.

You’ve been waiting for the catch, so here it is. I’ve been complaining for almost seven episodes about Animax-Asia’s English dubbing, right? Animax-Asia’s Filipino dubbing now opens a new debate and divide. Purists who want their subs have another reason to complain, because Filipino dubs will eat airtime further, having fears of having less subtitled anime yet again. Evidence of this seems to surface even nowadays because the 6:00PM Saiyuki Reload timeslot is now in English dub (it used to be subbed before). Here’s a bigger news. The first anime premiere that will feature the Filipino dubbing is… be surprised, Initial D Fourth Stage! Nope, they did not show any Initial D prior to this. That alone is an outrage, isn’t it?

Recently news about some of the local voice cast of Initial D Fourth Stage have been introduced. Takumi Fujiwara will be voiced by Matteo Guidicelli, a young and popular kart driver over here. Kyoko Iwase will be voiced by Angel Locsin, a beautiful and very popular actress, widely known for the Darna live action series (Darna is our equivalent of Wonder Woman). She says that she likes the PS2 Gran Turismo games, and so she’s kinda hyped up to voice Kyoko I guess… Let me tell you that it’s kinda rare that news like this surface over TV and newspapers, let alone anime news. I guess Animax-Asia is heavily hyping their one-of-a-kind move.

As I said, this becomes a new dynamic in this ever-ongoing anime debate. Even now, fans may be just oh so furious that Animax-Asia has just become trilingual (Japanese, English, Filipino). As debates go on, I’m just here monitoring in the sidelines. I don’t watch Animax-Asia anymore, for various reasons, but once in a while I tune in for a random anime episode treat or two. Whether a dubbed or subbed episode, I don’t care anymore, as long as it doesn’t annoy me too much. Come October, which will premiere Initial D Fourth Stage, I’ll definitely watch and find out how good is their first Filipino dub offering.

I’ll be waiting for Angel Locsin’s voice too. She’s beautiful isn’t it? I’m not too sure about her voice though, and I don’t even watch Darna…

Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 6: One year since

Animax-Asia

August 1, 2005

It’s been one year since the historic reformat of Animax-Asia, alienating so many Japanese dub lovers all over the Philippines and the rest of Asia. Believe it or not, ever since I have started this ~~crappy~~ rant, nothing very significant from Animax-Asia has ever changed. The same stellar new anime premiers and lineups every month, same excellent programming scheme, but still the same good and crappy dubs with the same lineup of voice actors.

One of the biggest changes was the separation of a unique Philippines-only cable feed from Animax-Asia. Animax-Asia headquarters are situated in Singapore, and being broadcast over some countries in Asia by cable companies. At one point, the network split a feed exclusively for Philippines viewers only. Apparently, a big voice of complaint from the Filipino fans of the Saiyuki series, having seen English dubs of the Saiyuki Reload and Gunlock series which they didn’t like, forced the network to do so. Wow, I guess you can see that in this country people power is one way to get some change. The fans complain, the network answered. The Saiyuki sequels were rebroadcast in their original Japanese language with English subtitles. In addition, the 6-7PM timeslot which used to be an English dub slot was changed to a subtitled slot to accomodate Saiyuki Reload and Gunlock, as well as other new subtitled anime like Witch Hunter Robin and Samurai 7.

That’s kinda good news right? Well, there may be more subtitled timeslots but there is a drought of subtitled anime. So many reruns aired into the few subtitled timeslots. Furthermore, some good anime such as Cowboy Bebop and Gankutsuou (yes Gankutsuou!), which I expected to be broadcast in subtitles, were broadcast in English dub instead.

They need to get their act together now. Anime is getting more and more popular over here. Many popular titles have graced the local scene lately, and I have even spotted anime merchandise in mainstream shops, something that I have not seen before. Most important of all, Animax-Asia will have competition! A Philippine broadcasting company has just released Hero, the very first locally based, predominantly anime cable channel in the country! This is a milestone here, because, well, how many countries have an exclusively anime channel?

While Hero will just have Filipino language dubs (yup, no subs too), it is still competition for Animax-Asia here. Our country is one of their biggest markets of course, judging from the way they even accommodated a separate feed for us, and having another channel eat a bit of their audience pie will be bad news for them (Hero has certainly caught my attention too). Couple that with their already battered reputation because of their English dubs… it’s a shame really. They really have a lineup to die for (some of them are listed at ANN Encyclopedia). If only they could clearly define what animes in their lineup deserved to be shown in subtitles or in English dubs… they would have a better score for me.

By the way, I like their Animax Musix slots. That program shows jpop videos! Their lineup for jpop always seems to be lagging only mere months, and the really mainstream popular stuff are there. The only caveat is that they never finish each video to the end, but nevertheless it’s a nice exposure to jpop.

As usual, their animes are great but some are not projected rightfully because of the English dubs. Cardcaptor Sakura was finally continued in its second and third seasons, but it is still the same dub as I mentioned before. It’s kinda weird that the original Mobile Suit Gundam was shown in dub while the sequels Z and ZZ were shown subbed. The once subbed Texhnolyze was reverted into dubs now. Also, two Digimon animes were shown, and guess what… they used our local English dub! They used the English dub that our own local dubbers made, resulting it into a kinda Engrish-accented dub (while we have high English literacy, some do not speak English fluently [include me in that]). I heard that they will show [Tsukihime->type-moon] in subs, and that’s something for me to eagerly await.

UPDATE: Oof, Tsukihime has some cuts. I’m not impressed (yet again).

Anyway, that’s the story so far. Animax-Asia is still hanging on. Hopefully, some radical change should make me watch the channel regularly again, but I don’t think it will happen very soon.

Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 5: I gave up on Animax-Asia

January 1, 2005

Happy New Year by the way!

As for Animax-Asia though… absolutely… no hope.

This is the wrap-up. Despite showing/eventually showing so many anime I haven’t seen before:

Avenger
Captain Tsubasa
Ex’D (OAV and Movie)
Future Boy Conan
Mobile Suit Gundam Z
Saber Marionette J Again (OAV)
Twin Spica

… it’s never, ever good enough to see them dubbed in English.

Now, I know the reasons why they did this, I just can’t accept it. The more I couldn’t accept it because their dubbing was just so bad. I would forgive half of all it if the dubbing were good, but hell, they did not improve. It’s been 5 months since Animax-Asia’s move to almost complete English dubbing. And ever since that move, I never watched the channel regularly anymore. And as each month passes, the less I watch, until December, where virtually I just include Animax-Asia when channel-hopping or surfing.

Yes, I never watched a complete episode of an anime in Animax-Asia this December.

Call me elitist or what-not, but if you have the channel, you would feel the same as me, even if you like dubs. Hey, I love our own local Philippine dubbing, because (well sometimes) they do a great job in translating and dubbing the anime (well the only caveat is rabid scene cutting). I like English dubs too, just like those in AXN-Asia a while back, Samurai-X on Studio 23, Samurai-X the movie and recently the Cowboy Bebop movie on HBO, and Gundam SEED on Cartoon Network. All of them have great, good, and some forgivable English dubs. But Animax-Asia’s dubbing never rose to that level. What’s more, you hear the same dubbers in every anime you watch, wouldn’t it be so redundant?

I heard they would show Midori no Hibi, and so I ask how the heck can they handle the censorship. Well, almost one year ago, I applauded Animax-Asia for being so vulgar in showing uncensored anime. Now, even the Super Maniax animes (the only survivors, they are Japanese dubbed with English subtitles) late at night get cuts. I never got to watch Angel Sanctuary though (also subbed) because it has too late a time slot, almost mimicking the way many anime is show all over Japan (ever heard of a 26:00 timeslot?)

In any case, I still want to support the channel. For one, this is indeed the first ever cable all-anime channel in Asia (well not quite all-anime anymore, a non-anime movie got shown), and it is very brave of them to have such. There is indeed a demographic reason why they pushed through all this dubbing stuff, and I respect that. It’s just that I can’t accept it.

One more thing I can’t accept is that some countries (like Singapore), have Animax-Asia in dual-sound! That means they can choose to have the dubs in English or in raw Japanese. They have Mandarin subs over there and that makes an equivalent of having Japanese dubs with Mandarin subtitles. That’s not a bad deal, in fact, I’m quite envious.

All in all, I don’t think if I can make myself watch Animax-Asia anymore. But this series will continue somehow. We’re at Episode 5, wow.

Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 4: Towards the 1st Anniversary

November 1, 2004

– As expected, no new anime in November. I think I’ll forgive them for now since the ones which premiered in October (UFO Baby and Digimon) are long series. Also, I think they will continue the Galaxy Angel series with new seasons.

– So, Fun Fun Time 4-6PM, Mega Zone 8-11PM, Super Maniax (spelled Super ‘Manaix’ on the TV ad if you haven’t noticed) 11-12PM. So what do you call the 6-8PM timeslot? Nah, what’s the use of naming timeslots anyway?

– Special screenings are Big Gundam Sunday which means 7 hours of Mobile Suit Gundam, and Baby x Baby which means 7 hours of Baby Ba-chan and UFO Baby. Mind you though, I don’t consider Baby Ba-chan and UFO Baby as anime series for kids. They sometimes have themes which kids won’t understand. Well, anyway…

– Scanning the advanced schedule for December, new anime premiers:
Ex’D (OAV and Movie)
Saber Marionette J Again (OAV)
Avenger
Galaxy Angel Z

– BUT, this is where it starts to get weird. All those anime get premiered at the same day (Dec. 27, Monday).

Covering Megazone and Super Maniax + Overtime until 1AM. Seeing that setup, I wonder if Avenger is dubbed or subbed, Galaxy Angel Z too. It would be weird to have Galaxy Angel Z subbed because the first series was dubbed, and yet it owned the Super Maniax timeslot. What do they mean by that? Extended subbed timeslots? Or ALL English dubbing again?

And even more weird, in the Fun Fun time slot there is Area 88. Having fun fun time with exploding planes eh kids? Another timeslot reformat on December?

– Finally, come January, it will mark the 1st anniversary of Animax-Asia. Halfway through the year, I lessened watching the channel because of the English dubbing. I’m not against dubs but for me it became boring to watch Animax-Asia. Anyway, happy first birthday on January. I hope the channel would do better next year.

Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 3: Trying to Adjust

August 28, 2004

It’s been quite a while since the drastic change of Animax-Asia, and somehow I’m recollecting my angst bit by bit. I’ve never been so much of a fan of this channel anyway, so I would not care much. But because they showed Cardcaptor Sakura at the most ‘wrong’ time, that is why I was compelled to rant about it.

As always, the biggest problem with Animax-Asia’s move to English is not so much the dubbing quality, but rather the voices they pick in the dubbing. It looks as if they really have a small local dubbing staff, which does the dubs for almost all of the anime that is showing in Animax-Asia. Yea, I watched episodes of Ultra Maniac and Cardcaptor Sakura in succession, and I’m really annoyed by the same voice who does both Nina Sakura and Sakura Kinomoto. Not to mention NUMEROUS other anime characters with that same dubber. As I said back then, they dub good. But when they are the only ones dubbing, Animax-Asia sounds monotonous.

Apparently, Animax-Asia has acquired the American remastered version for the anime Mobile Suit Gundam. Also, the original Japanese version of Astroboy was suddenly replaced into the American version, complete with English dubbing and an entirely new set of source video and even background music. Animax-Asia is going American.

Also, a LOT of programming errors. I frequently see some episodes that are NOT DUBBED IN ENGLISH! They seem to have problems switching the dubs. For example, I watched episodes 1-2 of Captain Herlock in Japanese and no subtitles. I watched half of an .hack//SIGN episode in Japanese as well, and then suddenly after a commercial break they snuck in the English dubbing. The most complicated error I have seen so far though is an episode of Ultra Maniac, where they randomly switched from English to Japanese and vice versa, multiple times, while the episode is playing itself! Very very wrong, but the hell I care now.

I currently only watch a few anime in Animax-Asia. Princess Comet is just soooo nice an anime. I wanna find fansubs of that so I can see it in Japanese form. I regularly watch Cardcaptor Sakura. It’s still my favorite anime ever and so I can take it in whatever form (yup I ‘barely’ survived Nelvana’s Cardcaptors). Getbackers sparks my interest once in a while, and I occasionally Ultra Maniac for the fun of it.

This coming September though, I’ll be having a go at Gokusen. I’m just so lame because I don’t want to scan through my cd archives and watch my Gokusen fansubs. Or maybe a female GTO doesn’t spark my attention yet. Maybe I’ll try Dr. Dokkiri as well. Their advertisement for it is simply hilarious.

And it will be inveitable that I will watch Princess Tutu. Lauded as one of the most complex mahou shoujo series of recent time, I would have to watch its dubbing if it remains competitive. In any case, I really had a good time watching it a while back. It’s not your ordinary magical girl show. It’s surprisingly dark in theme, despite the extremely fairy-tale backdrop. The background music is simply astounding (of course because they are actual classical music pieces), and the animation is consistent.

So the next month could be quite exciting, even though Animax-Asia is still dubbed in English.

Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 2: Cardcaptured.

August 9, 2004

Cardcaptor Sakura. My most favorite anime EVER.

In English.

There goes my dream of watching it in Japanese with English subtitles. I know I already have fansubs of this anime but nothing beats high-quality TV right? RIGHT?

Animax-Asia’s Cardcaptor Sakura. High-quality, yes. Japanese dub, heck no.

My reaction to the English dub:
– Sakura – Dubbed by the same dubber girl who seems to star in 90% of Animax-Asia’s lineup. She dubs into English the voices of Remi (Nobody’s Girl), Sarah (Princess Sarah), Sae (Mahou Tsukai Tai), Comet (Princess Comet), Nina (Ultra Maniac), and now Sakura, among still many others I may not know. Singly because of
her, all of Animax-Asia sounds… monotonous. She’s a good dubber I admit, but really, it’s so annoying to hear the ‘same’ voice all the time in so many anime right?
– Tomoyo – Has a weird voice. The dubber does not modulate properly. Sometimes she sounds old, sometimes too young. It’s really weird. She doesn’t do Japanese Tomoyo justice.
– Kero – Okay, it seems like an ironclad rule that any anime character who has an Osakan accent converts into a westerner when it comes to the English dub. Howdy there.
– The rest are quite okay, albeit any of their voices do not stand out at all.

The conversion to English dubbing will mean little and subtle details will be lost:
– No more honorifics like -san and -chan. The honorifics actually signify at a certain scale what kind of relationship one character is to another. And as expected, everyone will call each other by their first names. It’s not bad, but they’ll have trouble when Li Shaoran starts calling Sakura as ‘Sakura’, and when Sakura starts calling Li-kun as ‘Shaoran-kun’. Our own Filipino dub also encountered that little error back in the days.
– It’s quite weird that Sakura calls Touya as ‘Touya’ instead of onii-chan. ‘Brother’ should have been a better translation, but heck no. Because of this Sakura seemed to have lost respect to an elder brother.
– They got something wrong… Sakura’s chants. They’ll be in trouble trying to relate this old chant to Sakura’s new chant in the final season of the anime.

Yes, I’m nitpicking. I have the right to nitpick (sort of/maybe) because this is one of my most favorite shows in existence. Honestly, I liked our own local (Filipino) dub a bit better. Why? Cardcaptor Sakura is widely recognized as one of the pinnacles in anime dubbing in Filipino. Partly because of the simple context and dialogues of the anime itself, and also partly because the voice actors of that particular channel are good (with the ‘other’ channel’s voice actors being generally bad). I feel though that this Animax-Asia English dub is kinda rushed. Can’t be helped, they had to translate and dub almost ALL of their anime that we see now in the dreaded cable channel. Not to mention they have the same voice actors doing all those anime, making the whole of Animax-Asia sounding monotonous. Oh, they’re going down big time.

But because it is my favorite show on Earth, I will still watch Cardcaptor Sakura in Animax-Asia. At the very least, it is better than the crap that is Cardcaptors.

At the very least, it’s still my most favorite anime ever.