Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Watching Fruits Basket Obsessively

I just finished posting comments on everyone's sites from Monday. Sorry it took so long to get around to some of you. The Saiyuki disc with clean opening and closing animation wouldn't load on my computer--unexpectedly. I had to capture Sanzo pics that weren't the ones I planned on. I may put up another Sanzo BG next week. I made two of them, and I'm not really sure which one I like better yet. Hope you like this one! If you're wondering what you're seeing in the center of the BG, it's Sanzo's extremely sexy pistol (you know, the hot guy's gun--he gets to caress it and wave it around a lot in the series). I'll update my wallpapers section sometime today, but right now, I'm going to fall into bed (it's 2:30 AM!). Today, I expect to get my Fruits Basket manga in the mail. Here's hoping! EDIT: Number 5's comment has inspired me to explain my interest in Saiyuki Reloaded. I don't know about Reloaded because it has been licensed by a different company than the series. It won't have the same voice actors, and I'm not used to the Japanese dub. Now you all get to hear my opinion about dubbing: it's all dubbing on anime, folks. Japanese voice actors have to do the exact same thing as any other voice actor. The original form is manga (which does not express language vocally, obviously)--NOT the Japanese anime. I hate when others feel the need to reduce the work that the voice actors in languages other than the original do. It takes lots of work and deserves lots of credit when it's done half-way decently. And I don't think many of us native English speakers know Japanese well enough to say that the Japanese voice acting is all that. Those who think they can divorce emotional content from the words that are spoken might want to study up on the subject, and consider the last time a misunderstanding occurred because you couldn't determine how the person speaking to you was feeling from his/her tone or body language. Happens all the time. But then, I am a postmodernist and cultural critic, so my views likely differ from some of you who are strong humanist thinkers (Americans are trained to think as humanists in grades 1-12). Sorry to bore y'all! I've had people come to my site before and vomit all over dubs. I like to prevent that kind of response whenever possible because it makes me angry. The truth of the matter is simply that those people are used to the version they heard first--probably an illegal fansub--and fell in love with the anime that way. That's understandable. To say that the Japanese voice acting is "so much better" when you can't understand a lick of Japanese, though? That's just crazy/stupid. For example, I don't like the quality of voice on the English dub for Son Goku, but that guy nails the acting. I can judge that because I understand English. Now to astound and offend--a list of the two top male and female voices that I absolutely could not stand in the Japanese dubs upon hearing the first lines: InuYasha Tohru First time, mind! Other voices have grated and worn on me, but I really hate these two in the Japanese. List of top two male and female voices I absolutely adored in the Japanese from the very beginning: Alucard (that's one sexy/crazy voice) Kagome There are others, but these are my faves. Anyhoo, that's not saying anything about voice acting ability. It's the voice alone I'm commenting on.

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