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Disney Aquires Sen to Chihiro, Lasseter to Dub
peter_gzowski writes "Disney
has finally announced that it will be bringing Miyazaki's anime masterpiece Sen
to Chihiro (Spirited Away) over to North American theaters. Sen to Chihiro is
the most successful non-U.S. produced movie in the world. It has grossed about 30 billion yen ($226 million U.S.), which is more than Titanic (the previous record holder). We can expect it to be here around July."
John Lasseter of Pixar fame is lined up to consult on the dub. No voices
yet confirmed, but John: I'm available and willing.
While I want to see all of Miyazaki/Ghibli's movies released theatrically in North America, I can't help but wonder about the order they are choosing.
Sen deals with Japanese Mythology (which many North Americans won't know/care anything about), and of course, there's the ghost/spirit angle which will drive the biblethumpers down south crazy...
Nevertheless, they perhaps should've stuck to some more genuine "crowd pleasers" to get the ball rolling. Frankly I'm amazed that they didn't already do a full theatrical release of Laputa (or Castle in the Sky as they're calling it). It always generates the biggest and best reaction amongst first-time Ghibli viewers IMHO.
The entire audience I saw it with squirmed uncomfortably when they saw what was going on.
I find a lot of japanese girl voices to be too high pitched
But that's part of the character. When I watch anime I'm watching *japanese* animation. The characters are japanese people and the story usually takes place in japan. They shouldn't sound like american valley girls and surfers. Part of what I like about anime is seeing (and hearing) a different culture.
But this is an arguement about translation that has been going on much longer than anime has existed, with both sides having good points. When translating Tolstoy's novels to English, there was a debate about translating the russian street names into common american street names (Main, Lincoln, etc). One said claimed that the novels take place in russia, so the names shouldn't be changed. The other side said that the russian names would detract from the story because they would be unfamiliar and exotic sounding, and when *russian people* read Tolstoy they don't hear that in the names. So by changing the street names you would allow the english readers to have the same *experience* reading the book as do russian readers. I'd agree with the first arguement, but I can understand why someone might agree with the second.
One anime that I do prefer dubbed is Nadesico. There are just too many characters speaking over eachother to make the subtitles work well -- you can't tell which text goes with which character. And they did a pretty good job with the voice acting in english.
"..but let's start off by trivializing everything you've written."
movies whose box-office takes are considered "disappointing" by Disney tend to blow the revenues of American theatrical releases of anime out of the water.
Oh, please. What theatrical releases of anime? Princess Mononoke? Where did it premiere again, a converted gymnasium in eastern Wisconsin? Where was it advertised? Besides, Disney probably considered the Pokemon movies "disappointing." Must be why 12 of them were made.
Stop waiting for anime to make American animation irrelevant. It hasn't happened. It isn't happening. It isn't going to happen.
Uh huh. American animation *is* irrelevant, because there *isn't any.* Anime didn't have to do a thing. Except for the Pixar pixel-fests, and the occasional non-Disney film, any American animation is either cancelled or is itself a near-tribute to anime.
It also depends where you look. Fox just dumped Saturday morning cartoons. Nickelodeon and WB are frantically trying to find a reliable way to compete with Cartoon Network, which practically makes it's living on anime, achieves ratings that routinely smash the rest of cable television, and is now available in over 80 million households; so much so that WB actually pulled Toonami over to *network* television (and proceeded to try to out-Toonami Toonami, and failed, of course, because they don't get it either).
The only company that is still producing animated films in any appreciable quantity is Disney, and their recent efforts include a recycled version of Snow White (home video only) and sequels to Peter Pan and Cinderella. Sounds like they're doing just great.
by and large anime isn't groundbreaking, cutting edge stuff
That's one opinion.
It isn't less formulaic, either. They're just using different formulas. You may like the anime formulas better than the Disney formulas.
Then again, I might not. I'll say this: Anime, formulas or not, is written with more skill and attention to dramatic form than most current television shows or films.
Whatever they are using, it works, obviously.
but the quality of their feature animation group's work (as distinct from the TV group, which is the one responsible for such wonders as Cinderella II and other OAVs) usually isn't one of them.
It's not the animation, it's the writing. Interesting example, by the way. With all their millions, could they hire ONE WRITER, ONE??? ANYONE to come up with something better than trying to squeeze a sequel out of "happily ever after?" It doesn't matter if it's the "TV group" or not.
And in Hollywood, "daring" is relative.
So is "cutting edge."
Disney has made it very clear that they would rather do pixels and re-releases, and that they are not fans of anime in any form. Taking Princess Mononoke, and practically guaranteeing it's failure, THEN *COMPLAINING* that it was a disappointment, *THEN LICENSING A SECOND MOVIE FROM THE SAME DIRECTOR* is what causes the question marks.
The fact is, anime is cool, other (drawn) animation isn't. The reasons for this apparently cannot be grasped by animation/television/film company executives, and until it is, they will continue to have trouble competing.