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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.

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 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.

Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 1: The end of Animax-Asia? Too sudden!?

August 2, 2004

Hear ye all! Starting the 2nd of August, Animax-Asia will bring your favorite anime…

DUBBED IN ENGLISH!!!

Yes, hear Saber Marionette J dubbed! Clamp School dubbed! Getbackers dubbed! Rejoice! I’M SARCASTIC! REJOICE!

CARDCAPTOR SAKURA DUBBED?? *^*&%*&$*$^$*$*^*^$&$&(^*&*%*%&*%&*

Yup, for the anime fans, this is the end of Animax-Asia. For me, it’s the end of my dream to watch Cardcaptor Sakura (my all-time favorite anime EVER) subbed in high-quality TV instead of crappy PC video files. I am now 85% sure that Cardcaptor Sakura will be dubbed. Come August 5, I will pile a load of rant-talk in this blog about this ultimate ‘bad news’ in my entire history of watching anime. But before that…

The Animax-Asia that was…

It started out as a darn good channel. No other channel would have the nerve to show Chobits and GTO uncut, two very prolific and controversial anime titles in their own way. No other channel has exclusive rights to all things Studio Pierrot, ranging from the classic Urusei Yatsura to the extremely rare Clamp School. Its anime release timeframe is mindblowing. Ultra Maniac and Texhnolyze just ended in late 2003 but it was already on Animax on January 2004. Astroboy 2003 was not even remotely over in Japan back in January, but they showed it anyway. Its anime release rate is also mindblowing. Every month, about 3-5 all new anime titles were introduced. That’s every month.

I really thought it was already great the way it was. Two hours of dubbed anime for kids, two hours of youth anime for general viewing, two hours of semi-otaku level anime, and 1 hour of hardcore otaku anime. I really thought they are doing great the way they are. They were starting to have advertisers locally here in the Philippines, numerous events are popping up, and more anime are coming in.

But…

But time passed, the dubbed anime timeslot increased to three hours. Many anime got censored. Some anime (Cyborg 009, Astroboy) got ported over from subbed to dubbed. I thought it was just to widen up the audience base. Until…

The Animax-Asia that is…

I don’t have too much details because this is the first day anyway. After 7 months of bringing anime to Asia like never before, they decided to reformat the WHOLE channel and convert even more anime into the English dubbed format! On the first day alone, these are the anime that made the jump from subbed to dubbed:
Saber Marionette J
DT Eightron
Clamp School
Ghosts at School
Getbackers

If I am not mistaken, dubbed anime now takes up 19 hours out of a 24-hour day. Over the course of the week, I will know how much Animax-Asia has changed.

You know, I don’t discriminate between dubs and subs too much (except when we are talking about my favorite anime ever, which is again Cardcaptor Sakura). I think they are both great medium of showing anime. Purists however, will take Animax’s course of action to the depths of anime hell. Many anime fans hate dubs.

I will not lie (too much). Sometimes, I act like a purist. Especially when the dub quality itself sucks. Right at this very minute while I’m writing, I am watching Clamp School. I will want to react about the dubbing. Right about now…

CLAMP SCHOOL IS MUTILATED!!!! %&$&&$&%&#&&%@#@ Heh, just an immediate reaction. But really, just watch it. You’ll see…

So there you have it. The monumental change of the only 24-hour all-anime cable channel that I had hoped to be the end-all-be-all of anime watching and fandom. Remember this is just Episode 1 of my rants. More episodes to come.