Tuesday, November 14, 2006

.hack//Roots English Dub; First Impressions

Some of you must have seen this coming. Roots was bound to be dubbed eventually, and I was bound to post about it sooner or later. Now, the time has come. I promise you this, I will hold myself back. If I am allowed to speak too freely, then the post shall never end. Now, let it begin. I'm going to try and keep this clean, and not get too messy in my little review. This is my impression of the voice-overs for the first episode of Roots. 1) Things I Liked Ovan and Haseo's voices were pretty good. They were as close to the game's VAs without having to actually use the game's VAs. Except Haseo's last line in the ep. sounded off. Also, Ender was pretty good, but I hope they don't use the exact same voice for Pai later on. 2) Undecided In the middle are the VAs for Naobi, Tabby, Phyllo and Shino (whom I'll get to later on). Phyllo's voice sounded almost too creepy-grandpa like, so it may be awhile before I can get used to it. Tabby's is also pretty annoying; hopefully, it'll not be too Valley Girl later on for the more important parts. Naobi was okay; no real criticisms or praises. 3) Horrible Beyond Recognition Sakisaka and Tawaraya were the worst. Sakisaka sounded like a surfer dude, and Tawaraya's was just annoying. I could get used to it eventually, but I really hate Sakisaka's voice. 4) Shino Before I get into it, people must note that I really love this character (for some unexplainable reasons), so I'm especially critical of her voice-over. Right off, I'm telling you that Sango of IY (Kelly Sheridan) is voicing Shino. That seems so wrong to me. I will never hear Sheridan's voice without thinking of Sango now. So, when someone puts her voice into one of my favorite character's bodies, there's a problem. All in all, Shino sounded too old, but it wasn't necessarily bad. Remember, I ranked her in the middle in Part 2 of the review, so it's not that Sheridan is doing a horrible job, I just love Shino too much. I even had my sister listen to the dubbing of her, and she didn't think anything was wrong with it. Still, I must say, I will never grow accustomed to that voice for that character. Ever. 5) The Cheapskates That Are Bandai The biggest problem with the dubbing was that they didn't even use the same VAs from the games. Yuri Lowenthal voiced Haseo in .hack//G.U. and did a great job, but they felt the need to just hire someone else to do the anime. Same thing with Ovan. I don't know what kind of reasons they have for it, but I think it would've been much better to just use the same VAs from the games. That's another reason why Shino's voice was such a disappointment. Kari Wahlgren voiced Shino in her minor appearances in the game, and she sounded great. So why not just use her for the anime? I don't understand. A lot of .hack fans will be angry about this whole issue, I can tell you that. I don't feel the need to review the general episode, since you all know I love the anime to death. I can only hope the dubbing improves over time. Oh, I'll watch the dubbing! All 26 episodes, but most likely only with the recorded ones on my computer. Once I buy the DVDs, it's back to Japanese. In other .hack-related news, I beat .hack//G.U. today. I've gotten everything; all the items, monsters, sidequests. Everything. It's going to be a long 3 or so months until Vol. 2... gashsplurnit. At least now I might be able to login more often. Now that I've beaten the game, I must have the soundtrack. I have the ending credits theme stuck in my head. Darn you .hack! Also, haven't changed the song on the site yet. Next time I find a .hack//G.U. or Roots mp3 though, it'll be on here, I promise you that. I need to go now. It's 1:27 AM where I live. Time for bed, methinks. Ta! God Bless

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