Author Topic: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime  (Read 30620 times)

ClodBuster

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #480 on: July 31, 2015, 12:04:41 PM »
Oh well, thanks. Good thing Gunbuster was released uncut with the original soundtrack on DVD where I live. There might be hope Discotek may re-release the uncut version in with English subtitles as well? Also I would like to see an official English subbed release of the 1984 Macross movie. The official DVD we got here was alright, but in one or two scenes the subtitles aren't timed right, and the picture and sound quality is typical for very early DVD releases. Funny thing though is that the even earlier released VHS tape had the subtitles set 100% correct and was the base for a TV broadcast. However, our Macross II DVD release was pretty much f*cked up sound wise, good thing there was still a working English dub as a secondary sound option, since the Japanese track had some technical problems that made it unwatchable.


EDIT:
Ah, those were the days when VOX (not to be confused with FOX) broadcasted Anime nights every weekend in the late 90s/early 00s. They had shown a lot of the stuff from the golden OVA era, like Record of Lodoss War, Bubblegum Crisis, and Riding Bean. They even threw in the occasional TV series like Neon Genesis Evangelion as well as some T&A in the form of Agent Aika and (cut to fit TV softcore mature ratings) borderline Ecchi/ soft Hentai movies like  Dragon Knight 4 Ever and Midnight Panther.*
Guess what, I still got the VHS tapes with recordings from back then, since a few of the shown shows never saw a DVD release at all.


*The funny thing is: The DVDs from these two series we got here were offically released "cut" as well, but you could punch in a secret 4-digit code on your DVD player's remote to unlock the uncut versions including all nudity and stuff. Codes like "6969" or variations of that were the key.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2015, 12:20:40 PM by ClodBuster »

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SignOfZeta

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #481 on: July 31, 2015, 12:10:03 PM »

SignOfZeta

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #482 on: July 31, 2015, 12:12:11 PM »
Oh well, thanks. Good thing Gunbuster was released uncut with the original soundtrack on DVD where I live. There might be hope Discotek may re-release the uncut version in with English subtitles as well? Also I would like to see an official English subbed release of the 1984 Macross movie. The official DVD we got here was alright, but in one or two scenes the subtitles aren't timed right, and the picture and sound quality is typical for very early DVD releases.

The Macross movie was released in BR a couple of years ago. Quality is very good, but it is censored slightly, only a few frames, but it is censored. It comes with a PS3 game, Flashback 2012, and a ton of printed material. It's like $150-200, IIRC.

I'm sure someone has fansubbed it by now.

viper0hr

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #483 on: July 31, 2015, 01:27:36 PM »
Galaxy Express 999
If you can find the original series it's well worth a watch.

I watched the entire series on Crunchy Roll some time back. It's free to watch there.
Ok cool, I remember it being available there for a bit a while back, but they did not have all the episodes.

Finding that series 8 years ago was near f*cking impossible because it never saw a US release, it took me over a month to torrent the whole series because almost no one had it back then :/ .

The movie was one of the first things anime related I ever watched back on Sci Fi channel when i was super young haha, it really is a great series, and was extremely influential in sci fi/future space anime that followed.

viper0hr

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #484 on: July 31, 2015, 01:32:49 PM »
I have heard mixed reviews for Grave of the Fireflies—so, is it worth watching? DISCUSS....
It's...ok?
I'd watch it in Japanese, I only watch anime with Subs due to awful voice acting, except GitS and CB, and a few others :p

With GotF its hit or miss person to person.
I myself really enjoy war time movies and war history as well as anime, and overall "liked" the movie, though some parts were boring/overdone IMO.
I would recommend watching it though, and it's good to remember that the movie is based off of the writer/directors life growing up during WWII in japan.

esteban

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The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #485 on: July 31, 2015, 01:45:53 PM »
I have heard mixed reviews for Grave of the Fireflies—so, is it worth watching? DISCUSS....
It's...ok?
I'd watch it in Japanese, I only watch anime with Subs due to awful voice acting, except GitS and CB, and a few others :p

With GotF its hit or miss person to person.
I myself really enjoy war time movies and war history as well as anime, and overall "liked" the movie, though some parts were boring/overdone IMO.
I would recommend watching it though, and it's good to remember that the movie is based off of the writer/directors life growing up during WWII in japan.


Interesting. I prefer subtitles, too, unless the local voice actors are excellent (rare, but it happens).

I am intrigued by this film. 

Thanks.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2015, 01:47:48 PM by esteban »
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SignOfZeta

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #486 on: July 31, 2015, 02:22:19 PM »
Not the experiences of the director,

"Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓 Hotaru no Haka?) is a 1967 semi-autobiographical short story by Japanese author Akiyuki Nosaka. It is based on his experiences before, during, and after the firebombing of Kobe in 1945. One of his sisters died as the result of a sickness, his adoptive father died during the firebombing proper, and his younger adoptive sister Keiko died of malnutrition in Fukui. It was written as a personal apology to Keiko, regarding her death."

The idea that a guy would be so wracked with guilt that he wrote a book decades later to apologize for not being able to protect his 4 year old sister from an undefeatable onslaught of poverty, disease, theft, and the 2nd most aggressive firebombing campaign in history when he himself was only 12-15 years old is something that hits me pretty hard.

This thing is pure tragedy. If you often consider suicide or have a history of depression, think twice before seeing it. I'm not joking even a little when I say this.

ShadowKitty777

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #487 on: July 31, 2015, 05:27:57 PM »


The Macross movie was released in BR a couple of years ago. Quality is very good, but it is censored slightly, only a few frames, but it is censored. It comes with a PS3 game, Flashback 2012, and a ton of printed material. It's like $150-200, IIRC.

I'm sure someone has fansubbed it by now.
That Japanese BR is really nice, and game is decent too. It sucks that it's censored, but at least its minimal.

ClodBuster

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #488 on: July 31, 2015, 08:38:56 PM »
I don't give a shit about the Japanese Blu-Ray (that I already know of since) since it has no translation on disc, and it's overpriced, and I'm not sure if I really would want that game, since Macross PS2 would rule it anyway. 2nd thing is I don't watch fansubs.

By the way, dubs can be awesome if the right voice actors are involved, which is usually the case where I live when a movie gets a cinematic release here. For direct-to-video releases it's a hit-and-miss, but all our current anime DVD and Blu-ray releases features  both dub as well as Japanese with subtitles anyway. While in the early days we had mostly just Japanese with subtitles since good voice acting is expensive.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2015, 08:44:53 PM by ClodBuster »

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SignOfZeta

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #489 on: August 01, 2015, 12:37:29 AM »
You make it sound like subs are some old timey thing fans had to endure in lieu of dubs.

Regardless of how "awesome" a dub is, it's not the original work and it never will be. Replacing the entire soundtrack of a movie in order to introduce it to foreign audiences is something you see very rarely in the U.S. outside of anime. French Canadians do it with everything because they are xenophobic a$$holes yet totally hooked on foreign culture. In parts of the world where illiteracy rates are very high you see it as well. In English speaking cultures, dubbing movies is akin to colorizing them.

Therefore I can think of three reasons why anime gets dubbed constantly and enthusiastically without apology or regret:

Since the mouths are rarely synced well by western standards in anime it's easy to equal if not better the timing while dubbing. In live action it's usually very awkward looking.

Anime fans are idiots.

It isn't valued. It's OK to dub trash. Anime is basically just porn anyway. 

Btw, my elitist shit talking doesn't necessarily apply to everything. Things that have no "original" track, such as HK action movies where all dialog is ADR, to accommodate a dub they know they'll need just to cover China and also because live sound is a pain in the ass. Another example might be something like later Ghibli movies or Ghost in the Shell where the dub is in progress very early on in production. This still ends up being a replacement track done by less involved people, but it's still better than listening to "Valspeak" coming out of cartoon characters that predate such affectations completely, making them both geographically and chronologically very far removed from the visuals.

The most frustrating thing about dubsters is that they demand more from translations but invariably pay less. This was fine during the boom years in the 2000s since punter dollars were expanding the industry, but now I see them as mostly just parasites. I wish all those "awesome" dubs never got made. Then maybe some of these companies would still be in business.

This reminds me of something else...

At some point, the early 80s I would guess, someone came up with the brilliant idea of colorizing Betty Boop cartoons, either for broadcast or home video, I don't know. What's amazing is that instead of the computerized methods used by Turner's shitty colorizations they actually paid animators in Korea to TRACE THE ENTIRE SHORTS! Yeah, American animation from the 30s traced by Koreans in the 80s. Talk about f*cking with something. Then, years later, when it was obvious that anyone who is going to want to watch Betty friggn Boop was going to want it to be b/w, some home video collections used the f*cked up Korean tracings and just dropped out the chroma leaving you with something neither original nor color.

esteban

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The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #490 on: August 01, 2015, 06:53:13 AM »
Wait , I never knew about the Betty Boop stuff...I have crappy transfers of the originals, but I am curious about the Korean versions...

What an oddity!
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DragonmasterDan

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #491 on: August 01, 2015, 09:42:43 AM »
Wait , I never knew about the Betty Boop stuff...I have crappy transfers of the originals, but I am curious about the Korean versions...

What an oddity!

I'm a pretty big Fleisher cartoon fan and was unaware of this as well.
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SignOfZeta

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #492 on: August 01, 2015, 09:44:33 AM »
It really is weird. The differences are obvious enough that there is at least one misspelled sign.

Which I would say is similar to watching something dubbed from Streamline where the main charactor's name is pronounced differently by every voice actor in the show because their direction sucks so bad they can't even homogenize pronunciation. 
« Last Edit: August 01, 2015, 09:46:59 AM by SignOfZeta »

ClodBuster

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #493 on: August 01, 2015, 09:51:01 AM »
Zeta:
Too long, didn't read what you said.

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SephirothTNH

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Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime
« Reply #494 on: August 01, 2015, 10:08:34 AM »
Which I would say is similar to watching something dubbed from Streamline where the main charactor's name is pronounced differently by every voice actor in the show because their direction sucks so bad they can't even homogenize pronunciation.
I will agree that this is somewhat annoying to an extent.  But it is a phenomenon that happens in real life.  I've had friends whose names started with an "A" and even among their friends there was always a mix of pronouncing it like the word "all" or the name "Al."