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• SomeGuy

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• 1983-08-05
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• Vancouver, BC
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• 2003-08-02
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• Writer; Part-Time Hero
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• James

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• Visiting eight different myO friends in person thus far
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• Winter 2001
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• Neon Genesis Evangelion, .hack//SIGN, Naruto, Bleach, Beck, Peacemaker Kurogane, Ranma 1/2 (the guilty pleasure)
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• Visit the myO friends I've missed thus far; complete a cosplay from 300
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• Can recognise most quotes from almost any movie/show on first listen; Can recite the entire 12 days of Christmas by memory




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Saturday, September 9, 2006

   No questions? Okay . . . let's talk about Bleach dubs!
During those three weeks of me trying to write up my AE posts, plenty of stuff probably happened. My cousin went back home for the long weekend, her brother came down at the same time to vacation here (it was like a trade!) . . . I worked a lot . . . . . bought a lot of DVDs that I still need to watch . . . yeah, good times.


So, I only saw bits of the new YTV line-up last night. Really, I only really wanted to see "Bleach". After all this time, I really wanted to see how the end result turned out for the English dub. Annnnnd . . . . . it's a really good dub. Honest. It had all the potential in the world to be pretty good, and they just nailed it really well.

Opening credits . . . heh, I forgot how much I missed the old "Asterisk" opening. So yeah, opening credits are still the same - they added extra animations and stuff to tie in with the English credits they overlaid over the original ones (I'm guessing), but it doesn't detract from the overall stuff too much. Good song, good start to things.

Intro to the episode starts with Rukia's little voice-over. She has a . . . clear, female voice. It's definitely different from the Japanese voice - y'know, how it was feminine but still with that hint of what I'm calling "noble gruffness". Yeah, that gruffness is absent in Michelle (NOT Hillary) Ruff's Rukia. But that's okay, because Michelle Ruff is not Fumiko Orikasa. More on her later, though.

So then you have the part where Ichigo beats up those punks with the cute pet names for each other. I liked how they handled the pet names with "l'il something-rather" rather than "-chan". It worked. More importantly, it introduced Johnny Yong Bosch's Ichigo Kurosaki voice. Right off the bat, it just happens that Bosch's voice range is actually really similar to Masakazu Morita's; already there's no funny jarring from there. And hey, he speaks the lines like a pro - so far so good.

Then he introduced himself to us. "Ichigo Kurosaki." Damned if I didn't throw my fist into the air as I heard the distinct roll of the Japanese "l/r" sound as he said Kurosaki. Again, we're set for something special here . . . heh, then he got roundhouse kicked in the face by his dad. That's funny no matter what language it is. The next bit of dialogue seemed more or less the same as the original Japanese, so there weren't any odd translation/localization bits there . . . . . and then they said "Karin" and it wasn't "Karen" . . . again, I was quite happy.

I was switching between that and the last bits of an episode of "House" on DVD I was watching, so I missed the eyecatch if they kept the eyecatches. Ah well . . . next week . . . . . let's move on . . .

Rukia's introduction was good. The dropkick to her back was also good (again, funny in any language). Then we got to hear her speak some more. Yeah, her voice fits; sounds not so much like mature as it is trying really hard to sound mature. And then she loses it when she starts drawing moustaches and stuff . . . bwahaha. Seriously though, I can't wait to hear how Ruff does her "Schoolgirl Rukia" voice. That's gonna be funny as hell, I imagine.

More importantly, she said "soul reaper", which is apparently the official translation for "shinigami". Alright, I'll buy that . . . then she mentioned "kidou" (good choice to leave that one alone), "THE Soul Society" (English grammar/articles are nice sometimes), "hollows" (changing that would have meant death), and all that other fun stuff, like minor language like "damnit!" and "bastard!" and "why do your drawings suck so bad?"

Then we finally got to hear it right before the power transfer:
"Rukia Kuchiki."
What can I say? I liked how she said "Kuchiki". Then pwaf, Ichigo's a soul reaper now, he's all tough, he's got that one song playing . . . . and then Rukia mentioned his giant zanpakuto.

She said "zanpakuto". It was the English dub and she called it a "zanpakuto". Again, the fist went into the air, and I went "yeah!"

After it was all over, Rie Fu's "Life is Like a Boat" played, sounded wonderful like always . . . . . and then they had the crazy cracked out Bleach-style preview for the next episode! VERY happy they didn't change that.


So yeah, this dub is looking to be very badass. The work is of a quality a lot of us aren't really used to, and that's a good thing. I think a lot of people are gonna be happy with this dub. Like, maybe even "Cowboy Bebop" happy.
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