Questioned By Fandom For The Week Of February 28th, 2015
Another week and a lot of questions! This week is a bit lighter overall as I’m in recovery from my week in the hospital and I was more focused on getting caught up on as many news items and reviews as I could. And there’s still a huge stack of ’em in front of me! There continues to be some good stuff that gets asked and pieces that get me to think about things I sometimes haven’t thought about for a long time. Having been doing this particular field since 1998, there’s a lot of stuff that you learn that kind of goes into the background after awhile and simply “is” how things are and works, which is familiar in most industries. So bringing out the questions and applying it fresh is always fun.
Check out some of the things we were asked about this week, and hit us up with new questions here!
Garzey’s Wing or M.D Geist?
Garzey’s Wing, if only because I’ve seen it less. I’ve seen MD Geist and its sequel far more than I ever want to. I am still rather shocked that the show hasn’t been license rescued in some form.
Which anime would u most like to c get super comprehensive on disk extras?
At this point, mostly just the original Macross movie. It’s gotten some lavish Japanese editions and I’d love to see that done here.
Do you think Anime Boston has gotten better over recent years? Anything you think they should improve on?
I’ve enjoyed it year after year, but my con experience is not typical because I’m usually going just to meet certain friends and various company contacts that I only get to see once a year. I enjoy the experience overall though and it’s pretty much the only convention I go to anymore.
Why In the world does Sentai love to give dubs to heavily panned anime?
With Sentai Filmworks licensing only ONE winter 2015 anime title and seeing less and less dubbed releases and more questionable dubbing decisions, do you think Sentai Filmworks is facing their own downfall like ADV Films?
Most people don’t follow it too closely, but Sentai began changing some of the acquisition ~announcement~ methods last year. While initially they would announce the acquisitions pretty much as they happened, they began spreading them out more and more – some come later in actual signings of course – but they’ve dialed down how quickly they actually announce them.
Which, to me, is a good thing.
One of the things I hated years ago in the con scene was that you would go to, for example, an ADV Films panel. And during their panel, they would suddenly just start listing a dozen or so new license acquisitions.
Who does that serve?
Nobody.
None of the titles get the time that they actually deserve to be given the spotlight, singled out and talked about so that fans of the show can get all the details easily enough and those who aren’t aware of the show can actually get exposed to it and see what it’s all about.
The diehard fans are not included in this. But realistically look at a sudden list of a dozen series. Your mind will process a couple it knows and then check out maybe one or two of those it doesn’t. You likely don’t even look further at the ones you do know, so any details may be lost.
The mass announcement and constant announcement angle, especially in a very busy announcement season where there’s tons of news flying about where shows are streaming, starting and so forth, causes announcements to get lost in a big way. So it harms the property you want to promote.
Spread ’em out. Let ’em sing.
Do you think it’s safe to say that judging by Sentai Filmworks dubbing decisions, if Haikyuu and Captain Earth aren’t getting dubs, it’s safe to say that Black Bullet and Akame Ga Kill aren’t getting one?
We already learned that Akame ga KILL! is getting a dub, so that puts that to rest.
I’d also expect Black Bullet to get one; short series, action, attractive character designs, very easy sell.
You cannot compare one series to another to make determines of what gets dubbed. The costs of one show do not equal the costs of another.
Have You Ever Ridden In An Ambulance?
Twice, for the first time in my life, last week.
I had been transferred from my local hospital ER to a larger ER facility due to my gallbladder issues with significant stones on the loose. That was a literal midnight right in a snowstorm down the highway while in serious pain. Not a great experience while laying backwards and bound up tight.
The second experience was the day after my first surgery as I had to be transported to another hospital in the same city part of the same organization, but just a different campus for a more specialized procedure to deal with some stones blocking a duct.
With Sentai Filmworks releasing well-liked and popular titles like Haikyuu and Captain Earth sub-only and give a highly panned Magical Warfare a dub, do you think they should be given a platinum medal for “the most questionable and fucked up dubbing decisions” in R1 anime industry history?
Well liked by who, is the question?
There’s no cut and dried formula for what gets a dub and there’s a lot that goes into making that choice in the end. I’m not privy to the business aspects, nor are 99.99% of anime fans. We can make educated guesses though.
While Captain Earth may have been popular in pockets with fans, and has some great folks behind it, I don’t personally recall seeing it getting a lot of active dialogue. The streaming numbers are what’s likely being looked at in addition to the cost of the license itself, making a dub unworkable – for now. They could always return later and dub it if their forecasts prove it to be more popular than they expected.
Haikyuu!! is in kind of the same boat but also held down – hard – by the fact that it’s a sports show. Sports shows simply do not sell in good numbers. Every time one gets licensed, I’m shocked. And I’m even more shocked when it actually gets released. Even more so if it gets a subtitled only BD release. Because the economics of dubbing it means they’d be losing money hand over fist on it.
Which is bad business.
As for Magical Warfare, I suspect that it being half the length of others makes it more appealing to dub, and for a show with likely lower costs (I’d guess, based on awful Japanese home video sales), that there is a lower break even point on this. I’d also hazard a guess that it’s going to be sublicensed to other overseas territories through them, which will ameliorate costs to a good degree, causing it to likely turn a profit instead.
Why are so many anime fans so obsessed with proving how dumb opposing tastes are?
I’d just change the question from anime fans to people in general. It is, for better or worse, simply human nature. The need to be on “the right team” is part of it for most. A sense of superiority for others. A difficulty in expressing themselves without being taken the wrong. Things read the wrong way through text online.
Any number of things. It’s just human nature.
Don’t you find it really weird NISA has yet to release WAGNARIA!! S1 on blu-ray yet, even though S2 has been released in BD/DVD combo?
I’m guessing it’s just a matter of the rights not being available to them to do it. With a new Japanese priced-down box set on the way for the first season, I’m hoping that they’ll be available to finally do one themselves after that comes out.
Kirito (Sword Art Online) vs. Shiroe (Log Horizon). Who will win and why?
Hulk. He’d just smash them both to the ground like he did the puny god Loki.
Which studio you think Ponycan USA is using to dub Yuki Yuna?
There’s a few out in California that they’re likely working with, so it really comes down to what their personal preference is (and, of course, financial preference). I’m not a huge follower of dubs but there’s some good talent over there all around so I think we’ll be good with any one that they choose. I haven’t seen the series so I can’t really say who I’d like to see them use or cast in it either.
What’s your opinion on Lerche (the folks behind Assassination Classroom and recently moe slice of life/zombie apocalypse adaptation of Gakkou Gurashi) as an animation studio?
I’ve only seen a couple of series from them myself; Humanity has Declined and Unbreakable Machine Doll, but I certainly liked the way they put their shows together overall. They’re distinctive enough but not so much so that they’re completely out of left field. I’ve sampled a bit of Assassination Classroom while prepping reviews and I’m liking what I see there, but it’s so haphazard that I don’t want to say too much about it since I’m just screenshot hunting for the reviews.
Did you ever like any ANIMEGO dubs?
There aren’t too many that I recall, to be honest. They weren’t things I actively listened to or bought back in the VHS days, may have sampled on some of the LDs. But that was a lifetime ago.
Yup. It’s probably my favorite Tarantino film so far. Reservoir Dogs was my first and I really, really like it, but there narrative and diversity and fun of Pulp Fiction is what has me enjoying it more. I’ve liked a few other films, including Django Unchained, but Pulp Fiction is the sweet spot for me where you have someone that’s not fully in the system or jaded by the experience doing what he loves in his own way with the people that he admires the most. It shows and that’s infectious.
Ever seen Tsukikage Ran?
Yup, back when Bandai Entertainment first released it. It was a cute show, pretty fun, with some creative team aspects that definitely appealed to me.
Best looking 89 & 90’s OVAs from a fluid animation and art stand point?
Really straining my memory here to go back that far. I’ll probably go with Macross Plus as that OVA upon its release was freaking gorgeous and I think it still holds up incredibly well today.
And it makes me mad as hell that we’re stuck in the situation we’re in with the Macross properties overall.
Do you dream often?
Quite a lot, actually. Always snippets remembered in the morning. I had some crazy anesthesia dreams while waking up from my surgeries this past week. Beyond that, there have been some strong recurring dreams over the years which fascinates me and plenty of small mental processing dreams along the way. nothing terribly significant or shocking, but always interesting in general to me
Do you collect any anime figures?
I used to try and pick a few up here and there years ago, even had a bunch of garage kits in the 90’s for Kimagure Orange Road and Urusei Yatsura and I think Ah! My Goddess.
But over the years, the only ones I actively look out for are some of the Marvel/DC bishoujo statues.
Madoka Kaname vs. Yuki Yuna in a Death Battle, who will win?
Those were different days to be sure. Part of me really and truly misses it because I could watch a 3-4 episode disc in just over an hour or so and write a review rather easily since it focused on the immediate aspect of the episodes.
Now, a standard 13 episode season is about a 5 or 6 hour viewing session and then writing about it is pulling together a larger look at the themes and characters, as opposed to having the opportunity to really dig into it.
Which is why I do work on a couple of simulcasts each week just to be able to do that. But there’s only so much time in the day.
Do you prefer the days of when two cour was much more common, or now where it’s usually one cour, and two cour is pretty rare?
I’m mixed on it. Part of me likes the two cour as it has more room to either work the material from the manga and really cover more of it, or it’s a situation where a second season is just more of the same since so many titles really are incredibly formulaic. It’s with original series that I get more intrigued by two cour possibilities since they’re not operating under the same design/structure problems inherent in manga adaptations and some light novel adaptations.
Are there any anime you think that is so dark and depressing that caused you not care about what is going on in the anime (or in TV Tropes terms, Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy)?
Not really. As dark and depressing as anime can get at times, the majority of the ones that play in that realm are still pretty superficial overall. Having spent some down time a few weeks ago from a lot of anime, I ended up watching a variety of foreign films I had in my Netflix queue and I didn’t realize that those were pretty dark and depressing. The differences are ominous. So anime never really gets me into that feeling.
What do you think of Madlax?
I liked Madlax in a basic kind of sense, once where it had nice animation and designs and I can appreciate the girls with guns genre when done with style, but the story was one that didn’t engage me and the characters were simple. Of the three from that Bee Train “trilogy”, I still enjoy Noir the most.
Any giveaways coming up this year?
Definitely have a lot of things on hand to give away, but the time to set up the contest side is what continually slows me down. Hopefully after I get some of the backlogged stuff cleared away I can get to that again. Especially as I want to keep clearing out my collection.
Can you think of an anime title you personally think would be too difficult to dub and why?
Urusei Yatsura.
I’m glad AnimEigo tried and proved that it is largely impossible to dub. The show is so layered in its jokes that trying to adapt it causes it to simply lose what made it special. and going for a more bland and simple comedic approach only reduces its impact even more.
And that’s without even talking about the episode count or the size of the cast over the course of it.
Favorite english dubs in 2014?
I rather enjoyed Space Dandy, but partially because comedy tends to work better in dubs for me in general. Beyond that, I enjoyed toradora for what it brought to the table and I liked what I’ve heard of Kill la Kill so far. The Devil is a Part-Timer also proved to be quite a lot of fun.
I tend to sample a lot of dubs, but since it’s not my preferred thing, I don’t dive deep into them.
Watch anime alone, or with anime fans?
Alone for the most part. I can’t watch anime with a crowd, such as a convention, because it’s not my kind of experience. Every time I’ve done it, it’s just a lot of forced laughed from people, call outs and other things that make up what the con anime viewing experience is like. It just rubs me the wrong way.
I do watch anime with others sometimes, when I’m introducing family for the most part to different shows or more often than not an anime feature film.
Chris has been writing about anime, manga, movies and comics for well on twenty years now. He began AnimeOnDVD.com back in 1998 and has covered nearly every anime release that’s come out in the US ever since.