Today, I take a look at two recent dubs out of Houston directed by the very versatile and talented Chris Ayres.
About the Shows:
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia:
Directed by Chris Ayres. With the voices of Clint Bickham (Teiichi Niiya), Emily Neves (Yuuko Kanoe), Brittney Karbowski (Momoe Okonogi), and Jessica Boone (Kirie Kanoe).
Mysterious Girlfriend X:
Directed by Chris Ayres. With the voices of Genevieve Simmons (Mikoto Urabe), Josh Grelle (Akira Tsubaki), Brittney Karbowski (Ayuko Oka), Greg Ayres (Kohei Ueno), and Carli Mosier (Yoko Tsubaki).
Both produced by Seraphim Digital for Sentai Filmworks.
Blu-ray Reviews can be found here: Mysterious Girlfriend X | Dusk Maiden Of Amnesia
The Review: (Please be aware of plot spoilers in this review)
Yes, it’s been a long break, but hey, I felt like writing a couple of short dub reviews. This time out we have two recent dubs directed by Chris Ayres. I’ve long held a favorable impression of his directing and adapting abilities since he successfully supervised the adaptation of what many considered the unadaptable: taking the anime musical Nerima Daikon Brothers and making it an entirely viable musical in its English dub version. Recently, he has been getting a lot more directing work from Seraphim Digital, the dubbing and adaptation studio for Section23, Sentai Filmworks…whatever. While I haven’t seen or heard all of his recent work, I was greatly impressed by ef: a tale of memories and its sequel ef: a tale of melodies, which, taken together, is one of the best dubs I have heard in the past few years.
The particular strength of Ayres’s dubs in the past has been the power of the performances that he gets out of his actors. Whether veterans or relative newcomers to anime dubbing (in general, he has mentioned in the past that he draws in new talent from his work as a live theater director in the area, so names that are new to anime are not necessarily new to acting), the actors in an Ayres dub usually bring a lot of heart and emotion into their takes on the characters. In these two recent dubs, that’s still generally true, even when I have minor quibbles here and there.
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
Both of these shows were originally broadcast in Japan and simulcast streamed in America last spring. Dusk Maiden of Amnesia follows the story of Teiichi Niiya, a first-year high school student who has heard tales of a ghost haunting his small town school. One day, he meets Yuuko Kanoe, the legendary ghost of the school, and turns out to be one of the very few who can see and touch her. It turns out that Yuuko has no memory of how she died and why she is still haunting the school. Wanting to find out more, the two form the Paranormal Investigation Club in order to research all of the school tales related to Yuuko, in the hopes of learning of the past which Yuuko has forgotten. They are joined by Momoe Okonogi, a cheerful but clueless paranormal-obsessed girl and Kirie Kanoe, a relative of Yuuko, who has seen the ghost before, but only as an evil spirit, not the beautiful and sweet-tempered Yuuko that Teiichi has met.
Clint Bickham, usually not cast in leading roles, but an actor who has voiced a good number of parts over the years, tackles the difficult role of Teiichi. Difficult because Teiichi needs to be both strong and vulnerable at the same time. While he is somewhat dependable and not a wimp, he’s also young, being only a freshman who does not have the strength and confidence that come with either age, experience or exceptional talent. Bickham plays Teiichi with the right amount of maturity and naivete, a hard course to steer, but one necessary to get Teiichi right. His voice is also about the right sound for the role, being neither too young sounding nor too old. Where his performance excels is in expressing the emotions of the character with his voice, especially the sadness that Teiichi often feels.
Emily Neves, who has become one of the major Houston voices in the post-ADV period, has the title role of the “Dusk Maiden,” the ghost Yuuko Kanoe. It is also a difficult role as Yuuko has many different facets and even a bit of a split personality. In the comedic parts of the show, Neves is light and lively; in the dramatic parts she delivers much more depth and a far more somber tone. The greatest challenge, however, is in dealing with Yuuko’s other side, the Shadow Yuuko who is the combined mass of all of her negative emotions and memories that Yuuko has physically and mentally separated from herself. In the original track, the Japanese actress goes from the usual high-pitched chirpy bird voice that almost all high school girls have to a very low and sexy tone that positively smolders. Neves doesn’t aim for sexiness, but instead gives us a deep voice that simmers with anger, a half step back from snarling in rage. It’s different, but it does work for the role.
The two leads get ample support from the secondary and incidental characters, who are all appropriately cast and ably acted. The most important of the supporting cast are Brittney Karbowski, who plays Momoe as an adorable airhead, and Jessica Boone, who gives Kirie Kanoe a tough-girl exterior which hides the soft and delicate girl underneath. Both long-time veterans do an admirable job of bringing life to their characters.
Of course, there are some problems. The pronunciation of names can be a bit tricky. Mostly, they are okay, but unfortunately the pronunciation of Teiichi is inconsistent in the dub, sometimes being pronounced properly (tay-ee-chee) and sometimes coming out wrong (tie-ee-chee). Sometimes in scenes where the actors are expected to go big, they go slightly too big, but this is not a major fault as these scenes tend to be melodramatic in nature and the ham content understandably rises.
Overall, Dusk Maiden is a quite enjoyable dub with good performances that matches the material well.
Mysterious Girlfriend X
Keeping in the realm of high school, though moving to a show that is firmly in the romantic comedy range unlike Dusk Maiden’s combination of comedy, horror, romance, and drama, we turn to Mysterious Girlfriend X. Here, the story centers around the relationship between the good natured but unexceptional (why are almost all high school male leads unexceptional?) Akira Tsubaki and the…what else can one say but incredibly weird Mikoto Urabe, the mysterious girlfriend of the title. Yes, the show with the drool.
Urabe is played by an actress fairly new to anime dubbing, Genevieve Simmons. In the original audio track, Urabe was unusually not a chirpy songbird but voiced in a much more neutral register. Simmons matches that by giving her Urabe not a overly sweet or too highly pitched voice, but also a medium range voice that fits the character well. More importantly, Simmons does a very good job of keeping her Urabe mostly monotoned without being boring. Urabe is often flat and bored sounding not because she is alienated but because her mind doesn’t quite experience the world as everyone else does. The first giveaway is the drool, of course, the most famous element to this show. But the way she acts and reacts to any and all human contact shows that Urabe certainly walks to the beat of her own drummer, one who’s putting out a very different tune. And Simmons does well to get across that oddity without relying on overdone quirks or strange inflections, instead playing Urabe very straight. That helps to show that the character, in her own mind, thinks of herself as perfectly normal, even if the rest of the world (and likely almost all of us in the audience) probably considers her a first-class weirdo. It’s not that Urabe lacks all emotion in her delivery, and there is a noticeable change as the show progresses. Urabe clearly begins to experience normal human emotions the longer she interacts with Tsubaki and Simmons shows that development with her voice which has more and more emotion in it in the later episodes. It is a very impressive performance.
Josh Grelle plays Akira Tsubaki as your standard high school boy who doesn’t stick out (other than being a main character). An average voice with an average tone, but it’s not an average performance. An actor with very considerable range and talent, Grelle handles Tsubaki easily, but doesn’t sound like he’s taking it easy. He imbues Akira with a good depth of feeling and general humanity, something that an Everyman character like Tsubaki needs to work.
Strong support for the leads is offered by Greg Ayres, who plays Tsubaki’s best friend Kohei Ueno, Brittney Karbowski as classmate (and Ueno’s girlfriend) Ayuko Oka, and Carli Mosier as Akira’s older sister Yoko. While the roles are typical for these actors (how many best friends of the lead male has Greg Ayres done in his long career?), all of them do justice to the characters and manage to sound good without in any way sounding tired or overused. A notable minor role, Aika Hayakawa, who was once Tsubaki’s crush in middle school and briefly tries to win him away from Urabe, is voiced in a spirited fashion by Cynthia Martinez.
Again, this is a good dub overall without much in the way of noticeable faults.
In Summary:
While dubs may be fewer than they once were, we are starting to get a larger amount of them and ones with some individuality to them. Helping the trend is the increase in work that Chris Ayres has been getting in Houston, a director whose productions have rarely disappointed. Both of the dubs reviewed here, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia and Mysterious Girlfriend X, provide a good listening experience for those who prefer watching anime in English and I recommend them.
