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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.
-Tom
Just once I'd love for them to do a good sub-titling job, and release it in the states, and have it be wildly successful to show that people really do enjoy the subs.
... like they did with "Princess Mononoke," "Spirited Away," "Laputa," and "Kiki's Delivery Service?" If you're going to knock the quality of subtitled releases, the Studio Ghibli releases in the US are the wrong place to start complaining.
You mean
And in any case, the dubs of those movies have generally been of very high quality as well, for those who like to be able to have the chance to pay extra attention to the animation. I see no reason to doubt that the dubs of Nausicaa and Porco Rosso will be fantastic as well. (Well, almost -- I admit that the dubbing work on "Castle in the Sky" was below the standards of the others.)
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Nausicaa is pretty much Princess Mononoke actually - the story and characters are somewhat similar,
I honestly believe people who think this about these two films have utterly missed the point of Nausicaa. (You're not the only one - it seems a common view, especially among westerners I know who have seen both films.) Look at the time Nausicaa was made. Look at what was going on in the world at that time. Miyazaki has always made films that are allegories to issues he considers important now (though they also have timeless messages too - it's just that those timeless messages are always extremely apropos of the moment).
Nausicaa is an anti-war film - specifically, an anti-nuclear war film (Miyazaki himself has said the Cold War at that time deeply affected him, and he felt the Japanese public was not paying enough attention to it). Princess Mononoke is a film about man living in harmony with nature. They are two very different messages, though I suppose if you really stretch, you can connect them.
My take on it, is that americans are racist when it comes to translating asian films. I always found it funny, like you note, that they subtitle european films, but dub anime (or even like action). To me, it shows a lot of disrespect towards the cultures/languages (i think a lot is lost when you remove the emotional impact of the native language).
The reality, no matter how distasteful you may find it, is that a large fraction of the viewing public (as opposed to self-styled "anime fans") finds subtitles distracting, and a major obstacle to their enjoyment. And many of those people, no matter how much you may sneer at them, would enjoy a work like Nausicaa if they had a chance to view it in English.
Heck, it's not necessarily even an issue of artistic purity. I find that the original Japanese voice acting is usually higher quality than the dubs. I'm not sure exactly why, but I suspect that the way that the dubbing takes place has something to do with it. As I understand it, most American dubs have the cast come in and record their parts separately and then mix the whole thing together, while the Japanese actually have the whole cast together in the booth as a group. It's not at all clear to me why the dubbers do things that way, since that's not the way they do the voices when doing a cartoon that's originally in English.
There's also a clear advantage if you actually understand some Japanese. There are some shades of meaning that are very difficult to convey properly into English compactly that you can catch if you hear the Japanese. An example of this that I remember seeing recently is from RahXephon. When Ayato leaves Terra HQ to go back to Tokyo Jupiter, he tells Haruka "Ittekimasu". This is translated as "goodbye", but it's specifically the way of saying goodbye that you say when you're planning on coming back afterward. That's something that I would have missed had I been listening to the dub (or I'll admit if I had been watching the sub but hadn't been paying enough attention on other occasions to catch that particular distinction).
I don't think that the numbers support you on this point. The (admittedly unscientific) surveys that I've seen on Anime websites suggest that dubs have a substantial following. I'm not sure if it's a majority, but it's at least a large minority. It's enough that every Anime has a dub track unless there's some specific contractual or historical reason not to- and that's despite the fact that dubbing is clearly a lot more expensive than subtitling.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Miyazaki stated his inspiration for the story was to create a film that businessmen could relax to while on a flight - a film that wouldn't require too much thought to follow. It's a simple, enjoyable tale.
Nausicaa is another fantastic film. Though, if you have the chance, read the manga as well - there's a lot more in there than the film can deal with. In the manga edition I have, there are 6 books. The film only covers the first book.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."