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Miyazaki's "Nausicaa" Dub Updates
srstoneb writes "Earlier this week the Disney dub of Miyazaki's "Porco Rosso" premiered at the Austin Film Festival. It will probably be the only theatrical showing of "Porco", sadly, but reviews of the dub have been quite favorable. Even more exciting, as reported at Nausicaa.net and elsewhere, is that the Hewitts -- who did the English scripts for "Spirited Away" and "Porco" -- said they're currently working on "Nausicaa"! The cast includes Patrick Stewart, as well as Uma Thurman and, tentatively, Natalie Portman. A post to the Nausicaa.net mailing list by fan Dan Vogler further states that Stewart's role is Lord Yupa. (Somebody already made the inevitable joke about Picard being stabbed by a Nausicaan, so don't bother.) Both movies are tentatively intended for DVD release in spring 2004." Porco Rosso is a great flick, check it out if you aren't to dead inside to enjoy a kids flick. Greatly looking forward to both DVDs.
Based on a pre-existing fan-produced translation, I produced my own... if people are at all interested in reading it. I also talk about various translation issues I dealt with (or didn't deal with) in my "Notes and Reflections" page.
The hardest parts, for me, had less to do with cultural differences, but with linguistic differences where a Japanese expression was extremely compact and difficult to express in English, given the time constraint (one could argue that this is due to a cultural difference). One of my goals was to try and come up with something that could potentially be used for dubbing.
Of course, the opposite problem, where the Japanese phrase is longer, is not an issue, because it's always easy to make something more wordy.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
Not only do many people have trouble reading fast enough, some people (a great number of them) have trouble because of dyslexia.
On the other hand, it's not so much that the dubs are bad as it is that often the Japanese voice actors use unnatural voices for the characters. Almost all young/teen girl voices are done this way. You look at some of these "the making of..." specials and you watch this little girl voice come out of a twenty something Japanese voice actress....it's weird.
English dubbing voice actors/actresses don't do this, of course. So those of use who are used to the unnatural voices of the anime characters get completely discombobulated by the difference in voice pitch.
Though it must be said, also, that Disney was one of the first ones to have done it - witness Snow White's voice - though I think the voice actress for Snow White didn't force it too much - her voice was already pretty high and girly.
Whether a dubbed anime will work depends also largely on the type of anime and how the characters are designed. With more serious or "adult" animes, dubbed voices actually work fine. I think that Cowboy Bebop dubbed was pretty good because of this. Of course, if you have "cute" looking girls in the anime, and then this deep western woman's voice come out, it's natural to think it's mismatched.
In Princess Mononoke, for example, Minnie Driver's rendition of Lady Eboshi's voice was a good match for the character.
Hayao Miyazaki it's one of the greatest animators in cinema history. His films are highly praised wherever they're shown/sold.
Why haven't those in the USA heard mcuh of him? Because his films had not legally been distributed in the US, due to the fact that, the first time an American company got the rights to distribute one of those films (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind), it was totally mangled and destroyed to some piece of crap known as "Warriors of the Wind" (heck, even the poster for that was wrong, featuring characters straight out of Marketing's mind).
Some 8 years ago, Disney acquired the distribution rights to Miyazaki's (and all previous Studio Ghibli's) films. Which is why American audiences have gotten more exposure to them.
Commercially available titles in the US are:
- Princess Mononoke
- Kiki's Delivery Service
- Castle in the Sky
- My Neighbor Totoro
- Spirited Away
with the first and the last being shown in theaters, and "Spirited Away" obtaining the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Now, Disney being as it is, their marketing for these films has been TERRIBLE, which is why lots of people hasn't heard about them, not even now they're commercialy available.
These films are different to any "anime" clasification you may have seen... They don't fit in highschool girls categories, nor in giant robot anime, nor in *mon categories.... none of that. (Miyazaki has said that anime shouldn't be categorized, and that each work, be they TV series, direct to video o theatrical films, should create its own category).
Give these titles a chance. They're FANTASTIC.
Regarding "Porco Rosso". Yes, originally it was intended as an action-comedy film to be shown in Japan Airlines flights, but the perspective and the project grew, and it became the box-office sensation in Japan in 1992.
"Nausiaa of the Valley of the Wind" (1984) is, in my opinion, the best Miyazaki film.
Chibi-1 out-