The Future of Ghibli US Releases

ChibiOne writes "Nausicaa.net is reporting very interesting news regarding the US release for the works of (Hayao Miyazaki's) Studio Ghibli. Steven Alpert (VP at Tokuma International, parent of Studio Ghibli) spoke after the screening of "Porco Rosso" in New York and revealed several new release plans. AnimeOnDVD has a complete report." It says "every Ghibli feature film should be released in the US by the end of next year" as well as a widescreen re-release of Totoro. Here's hoping!

Comments

Was at the screening on Friday

[nyamada]

Porco Rosso was stunning and the english dub was really quite decent.

If any of you get the chance, please try to see Miyazaki's work on screen -- I've seen Porco Rosso before on DVD and it's about 10x better on film --

Re:Was at the screening on Friday

[nyamada]

1) It's not Miyazaki's last work -- it was released in Japan in 1992. He's currently working on "Howl's Moving Castle", which is slated for release in Japan in July.

2) The audio was fine -- were you at the same screening I was? -- rich, convincing stereo sound --

Has Studio Ghibli ditched Disney yet?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Because I would like to watch one of their productions without selling my soul to the Most Evil Corporation from Hell.

Re:Has Studio Ghibli ditched Disney yet?

[MooCows]

There are some Region 2 releases with English subs, like Nausicaa

You'll have to import them from Japan though.

Re:Has Studio Ghibli ditched Disney yet?

[WIAKywbfatw]

i agree that disney has turned into a money greedy corporation, but i am curious. anyone familiar on when exactly this took place? what was it like in the 50s? 60s?

I can't tell you when it took place but I can tell you that my feelings about Disney have less to do with their marketing and willingness to put their characters on anything that can be sold for a profit and more to do with shit like this.

Let's face it, George Lucas, Peter Jackson et al don't exactly spurn marketing and sales opportunities but I've never heard of extras playing stormtroopers or uruk-hai having to share smelly, diseased jock-straps and other "previously enjoyed" underwear.

Re:Has Studio Ghibli ditched Disney yet?

[F34nor]

They became EVIL when they undermined the US Constitution with the Sunny Bono Copyright Extension act. The creation of intellectual oligarchy is by far their worst crime.

Re:Has Studio Ghibli ditched Disney yet?

[hype7]

Because I would like to watch one of their productions without selling my soul to the Most Evil Corporation from Hell.

Well, if that's not possible, I know of another sort of Ghibli that's at least as enjoyable ;)

-- james

Re:Has Studio Ghibli ditched Disney yet?

[Bloomy]

I've heard they've been behind more copyright extensions than just that one, though that may have been read here on Slashdot, so grain of salt.

What's more galling is that I read they held off on releasing the Jungle Book in the late 60's until Kipling's copyrights expired. And their "reimagining" of Treasure Island as Treasure Planet makes me want to use misuse "raping and pillaging" of the public domain the same way they misuse piracy to describe copyright infringement.

Re:Has Studio Ghibli ditched Disney yet?

[F34nor]

Ok you're missing the forest for the trees here.

1. Disney is one company, one cadre of workers right? So if they are evil to their workers (which is debatable but I will accept your premise for this argument) then it is a local problem for the board and the shareholders to work out.

2. Disney is responsible for the hygiene of their workers and if they place them at risk they are opening themselves up to lawsuits by their employees. This is a self-correcting issue.

3. Disney is being dumb if they skimp on laundry only to pay out the ass for healthcare.

Now on to the real issues of evil.

1. This country was founded to fight oligarchy and concentration of power into and unreasonable small group of people.

2. This country was founded on the free exchange of ideas.

Disney is a corporation. This means the officers have limited liability. Since the 14th amendment was read as giving human rights to property they now have free speech. This means they have more rights than an individual. Strange case in a country devoted to the individual and individual rights hunh? So they are able to be Evil without any real threat of going to jail for it. So then can
1. Use that evil behavior to generate money.
2. Use that money as a form of political speech.
3. Use that speech to pass a law that it totally anathema to the ideas of the framers of the constitution.
In effect they made themselves an oligarchy based on IP. In this case a chicken scratch on a pierce of napkin by Walt. Copyright was invented so that people didn't starve to death after writing a novel and having it stolen by printers. It was extended so the widow and kids didn't starve too. Walt's fucking dead and his kids are millionaires. Disney deserves no more than the original 7 years dictated by the framers. To make matters more offensive Mickey Mouse is as much as symbol of the US as the American flag or Apple pie, HE IS PART OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN! We have paid for him a thousand times over. He is our property. What makes this all the more offensive is that Disney is devoid of original ideas, all they do is mine the public domain for material, which they then copyright and prevent others from using it. If they weren't a soulless corporation (back to the rights of the individual) then I'd say they're hypocrites.

If you disagree with me you don't understand what the revolutionary war was actually about and what we won by it. I frankly don't worry too much about what Disney does to its workers because that part of law is well covered by local, state, and federal laws and is overseen by OSHA as well. But when a corporation starts fucking with my rights and the constitution its go time.

Re:Has Studio Ghibli ditched Disney yet?

[ll1234]

The Japanese DVDs are released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment Japan, which is owned by. . . hold on to your seat. . . Disney. For those that want to wash their hands from any Disney-related company try the R3 (Hong Kong) releases, they're done by IVL.

Re:Has Studio Ghibli ditched Disney yet?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Sorry, but I missed the bit where the workers getting screwed were more concerned with some copyright law than they were with their own health.

If I remember correctly, Disney doesn't allow its workers to join unions, and we aren't exactly talking about the best paid jobs in the world, so your legal restitution route is all but useless most of the time. To people concerned with putting food on their kids' plates, keeping a steady job and not getting fired for being a troublemaker are more important issues than whether or not copyright lasts for death plus 70 years, 90 years or even a million years.

People in the real world have real world problems. The rights and wrongs of copyright laws aren't often among them.

Disney dismay

[Snart Barfunz]

I wish there were some way for these to be released through another studio - somehow the Disney association devalues them for me. But it's great news that the dual language DVD is coming out. I prefer to watch Miyazaki's movies in Japanese with English subtitles, rather than hearing voices which don't fit the characters, or lip-synch properly.

Re:Disney dismay

[_bug_]

I prefer to watch Miyazaki's movies in Japanese with English subtitles, rather than hearing voices which don't fit the characters, or lip-synch properly.

I agree with you in the sense that I like watching the with the original Japanese and English subtitles, but you've got to be kidding me on that lame lip-sync excuse.

Any decent anime that's been dubbed within the last 10 years has gone through some excruciating processes to get the English dialogue to sync with the lips. More so, I dare say, than the original Japanese dialogue would. There was an especially interesting situation with Neil Gaiman writing the English script for Mononoke. Some of the script had to be rewritten (by others) to get the voices to sync with the lips.

A few years ago I was given a VHS copy of Serial Experiements Lain vol2 which had been manufactured without subtitles for whatever reason. So it was an English box but only the Japanese audio track. I watched it anyway, having already seen the series, I figured it'd be interesting to actually watch, and not read. It became obvious very quickly how the Japanese dialogue did not sync with the lips.

I started turn subtitles off on a few other series I have on DVD and started noticing this was not unique to my copy of Lain.

I think a lot of English-speaking viewers have this misconcieved notion that an English dub won't lip-sync well whereas the Japanese version does. However, I don't think those who feel that way ever took the time to actually look at the lip syncing. They were probably too busy trying to read subtitles.

Perhaps a few years ago the voice acting on the majority of anime wasn't as good as the original Japanese track. Perhaps this is still true. Japanese voice actors do seem to get more emotion out of their voices, although there are certainly many bright spots in American dubs.

The English dub for Lain, I thought, was very well done. So much so that I actually prefer the American dub over the original Japanese. The same goes for Lodoss War. Cowboy Bebop, on the otherhand, I can't stand the English voice cast. I don't think anyone but Aoi Tada could ever do the voice of Ed. The same goes for Escaflwone, Akira, Nazca, etc...

Point is this: lip syncing isn't an issue, and to make it one is just a lame excuse to make up for having no reason at all to stick with Japanese dialogue other than simple personal preference. There's nothing wrong with that, btw, you don't need to make excuses for that.

Secondary point is this: English dubs can be pretty good* and you ought to give them a chance.

*Ignore the whole Gillian Anderson as Moro, the English director for Mononoke just totally missed on that one.

Re:Disney dismay

[Wyzard]

FWIW, the dubs are pretty good. I prefer to watch most anime in the original Japanese (notable exception being the Kenshin TV series -- I like his English voice better) but it's nice to know that if you want to watch a movie with people who aren't used to reading subtitles, you can set the dialogue to English and not worry that the quality will be lacking.

The US release of Spirited Away includes a second disc which contains, among other things, a look into Disney's work in adapting the movie. They were very careful about preserving the meaning of the dialogue in translation, only making small changes in places where the American audience might otherwise misunderstand. For example, when the injured Haku drops the stolen magic seal, the protective spell comes out of it in the form of a little slug-like thing. Some people in the translation team got confused at first because the slug-like thing looks a bit like a seal (the animal) so they changed "seal" to "wooden seal" in the dialogue to make it clear which object is meant. Especially after watching that, I don't think the Disney name detracts from the release at all.

Re:Disney dismay

[Robotech_Master]

The reason anime lips don't often sync to the Japanese dialogue is that, in many to most cases, animation over in Japan is dubbed exactly the opposite of how it is over here. In America, the voice track is recorded first, so that the animation can be perfectly synced to the mouth movements. In Japan, the movie is animated first, leaving about what they think is enough mouth movements for the dialogue, then the actors have to match their words to the movements as best they can (and most Japanese directors aren't terribly finicky about this. For an example, watch the Japanese making-of documentary on disc 2 of Spirited Away...there's a bit that covers the voice recording--and it's done in a movie theater style auditorium, with the actors matching their movements to the animated images on a big screen!

Re:Disney dismay

[Sangui5]

Especially after watching that, I don't think the Disney name detracts from the release at all.

While I can agree that many newer english dubs (WHR, Noir, and Haibane Renmei come to mind) are rather good, Disney's dubs are not amoung them. I'm sure others can generate a more complete list of Disney doing a terrible job, but I'll stick with one particularly glaring example: the opening of "Castle in the Sky".

Watch it with the translated subtitles on, but the English soundtrack. There's an awful lot of dialogue, but no subtitles to match? Are the subtitles broken or something? Try the beginning again with Japanese language. Nobody is saying anything. The dub has new dialouge spun out of whole cloth. This isn't a creative interpretation of what was being said, changing the word structure to get the lips to sync, or even a sloppy job. This is purposeful and deliberate mangling of Miyazaki's work.

Perhaps the flak Disney took for these changes (and others in Mononoke-hime) convinced them to remain more faithful to the original script in Spirited Away, but I don't trust them. I'll listen to a little bit of the English dub just to see the quality of the voice acting (which, is of higher quality than usual, but not as good as the newer stuff ADV or Bandai is putting out) and to see if I can match voices to famous actors, but that's it. Watching the entire thing when I can't be sure if what I'm hearing is genuine or mangled isn't worth it.

That, and Disney is just evil anyway. Well, Michael Eisner's Disney is at least.

Re:Disney dismay

[tepples]

Misspellings don't matter much on Slashdot; even the editors make them.

ObTopic: I hate Disney too. In fact, if I were a fan of Studio Ghibli's films, I would region-mod my DVD player just so that I could buy DVDs from regions where Disney isn't distributing Ghibli.

Pretty light on details.

[andih8u]

So who's going to be distributing this? Will it be a major studio with wide theatrical release? Or a quest to find a theatre that's playing it? All in all, they'll still find out that US audiences in general still won't be interested in it as most people still regard anime as "cartoons", so a theatrical release will be a money loser for them.

Re:Pretty light on details.

[nyamada]

Disney is distributing this -- they have a deal with Studio Ghibli for all their works, I believe.

I believe that it will _not_ get theatrical release in the US, but will be released straight to DVD, as was "Castle in the Sky" and "Kiki's Delivery Service". More's the pity.

Re:Pretty light on details.

[tuffy]

So who's going to be distributing this?

Disney will. Some films might get a limited theatrical run but all will eventually wind up on DVD with new dubs and the original language track intact - much like the last three Ghibli films Disney put out ("Kiki's Delivery Service","Castle in the Sky" and "Spirited Away")

Re:Pretty light on details.

[meringuoid]

I saw Majo no Takkyubin at the cinema. One-off showing to promote the DVD. What the buggers didn't mention was how completely appalling the DVD subs were - English for Hard of Hearing only. Not only dubtitles, dubtitles with SOUND EFFECTS! Yuk!

I'm told Tenku no Shiro Rapyuta has the same flaws. So did Mononoke Hime, but at least Gaiman's translation was close enough that it didn't annoy much. It's just the moments where nobody's talking, yet the subtitles keep on rolling...

Re:Pretty light on details.

[aardvarkjoe]

I'm told Tenku no Shiro Rapyuta has the same flaws. So did Mononoke Hime, ...

You were told incorrectly. There are two sets of subtitles on the DVDs; one is for hearing impaired (literal transcription of the English) and one is a translation of the Japanese, which often differs from the English dialogue quite a bit -- Especially in the case of Laputa, the only Ghibli movie so far which I think that the dub was poorly done.

Re:Pretty light on details.

[meringuoid]

True for region 1. I neglected to mention that I'm in the UK, and Disney screwed up our releases. I am baffled as to why, since by all reports they did a fine job in the UK. Yet the fact remains that my Kiki DVD has no literal English sub, only the sub for the deaf. Doubly baffling is the fact that the _storyboard_ special feature has the proper literal sub...

If they mess up Spirited Away, then I'll start importing from Australia. Madman seem to take subs seriously, and they make region 2+4 DVDs. Nice.

Ghibli releases

[platypussrex]

If you are not familiar with Ghibli, these are some of the finest animated movies out there, and some would even argue some of the finest movies of any kind. Disney did Spirited Away for the US market, so that's what the Disney comments are about (which have been modded off-topic in some cases... mods with no clue).

Interesting to compare the dubbing done by Disney to the subtitling done by various fans. I have seen at least three sets of subs, all of which vary a bit depending on the translator. Sometimes Disney's dub makes sense, and sometimes it is just plain strange. Hopefully the new realeases will be better translations, although personally I prefer to hear the original language and read subtitles.

Re:Ghibli releases

[ajs]

Disney did Spirited Away for the US market

As well Mononoke (dub script by Neil Gaiman, no less). Mononoke (Web site, DVD), IMHO, was his finest work, and anyone who has not seen it should rush out and grab the DVD.

Trademarks of these films tend to be: children (usually girls) as main characters; flight as a major theme (both magical and realistic, often in the same film e.g. Kiki's); powerful older women (both good and evil); technology as a force of decay or at least at odds with nature.

I would say that his films are the finest examples of children's storytelling to hit the big screen. So much so, in fact, that even jaded adults often find the films captivating and meaningful.

Re:Ghibli releases

[bellings]

I think I understand the point you're trying to make, but I don't know if I agree. I don't believe that animated japanese movies are enjoyed only by painfully clueless people who live in their mother's basement, unable to carry on a normal conversation.

The question was, "why would a sub be an (intrinsically) better translation than a dub?" I imagine there are intelligent people out there who could give valid reasons. Just because most anime fans on this site come off even more clueless than the normal slashdot horde doesn't mean they're all incapable of delivering a coherent answer, as you implied.

Re:Ghibli releases

[MonkeyDluffy]

Subtitles can be more accurate than the dubs for a number of reasons. One is that dubs may modify the script so that the dialog corresponds to the lips moving - so they may have to add or shorten the actors lines. Another is that sometimes there is a tendency of sanitizing/deculturalizing the dubs, while the subtitles for the same movie/show are a more correct translation of the japanese. By sanitizing I mean that sexual or volent dialog may be cleaned up, and by deculturalizing I mean cultural references may be changed to something more "westernized", or language jokes changed to different puns or jokes in english. Subtitles are assumed to be for the purists, and dubs are assumed to be for kids (hence the sanitization) and casual viewers.

-MDL

Re:Ghibli releases

[dead sun]

One of the reasons is that there are varying lengths to a variety of words in Japanese and English. The dialogue may take 10 seconds to say in Japanese and boil down to about five English words (minor exageration). When this happens, you have to fluff up the English a bit or it looks like a bad Godzilla dub. We're talking no sound for a couple seconds and the mouth is still moving.

A subtitling is under no such pressure. If the subtitle takes its sweet time to say the same thing, or puts the sentence into the five words it really means, well, it does. You read, you comprehend, you get sound with the mouth moving, even if it isn't perfect. (You don't think the Japanese always lines up perfect, do you?)

There's also another thing that fansubbing does at least. That is to use a few Japanese words (well, their romanizations) in the sub itself. The average watcher is generally pretty clueless to it, so I don't think it'd be a mainstream (read: Disney) thing, but it adds a lot when these little things are carried over because they have a different feel to them than the English translations tend to. Especially the suffixes used with names, sensei, sama, chan, kun, etc.

When these are translated to what they mean, like little Yahiko in the Kenshin DVD subs (can't stand the English voices) instead of Yahiko-chan like in the fansubs it makes my skin crawl. Little Yahiko is not something that anybody'd think to say in English except maybe in the instance of "poor little Yahiko" which would have waaay been better in the Kenshin instances because chan is used as mocking Yahiko. Anywhere else and you don't really think to call a child little, so "Thank you little Chihiro" is right out, where "Arigato Chihiro-chan" is, well, proper (even if I may have killed the spelling). So it invariably gets dropped in the dubbing process. This leads to a different problem, you lose the information of the relation of two characters by not using these methods of address. Sama and sensei are terms of respect, and to call Yahiko by the term Yahiko-sama means you have respect for them. Instead it's just lost, or translated into a Mr. Yahiko, which in a lot of cases sounds dumb and doesn't imply the same respect.

Just my two cents on the whole dubbing process. And before anybody thinks I'm being too harsh, let me say I have a lot of respect for the people that dub in both the original Japanese and the English releases. I've been working on a fandub with some friends (bad idea, but fun to try) and, while it's coming along, it is incredibly time consuming and difficult to get the voices to sound consistantly in character, let alone capture what's being said in approximately the proper length of time and sound like you mean it. I imagine there are similar problems getting from Japanese script to English subs, just to make the lines sound right when reading, but I think there's less pressure to change things to fit the length of time that mouths are moving and thus the sub can be more true to the original Japanese.

Totoro!

[nonmaskable]

...let's hope the great job Disney has done so far continues. In particular, no matter what, do not buy the Fox 'Totoro' - everything about it sucks.

Sad treatment for a movie acclaimed by many as one of the best movies of all time.

Pom Poko?

[SmileeTiger]

Any idea if Pom Pokow ill be released? I couldn't see an anime where raccoons run around with exposed *ahem* bits. Perhaps Disney will nuter them?

Re:Pom Poko?

[BJH]

They're not raccoons.

Re-relase Totoro Please!!!

[kyoko21]

I have about 7 region 2 Ghibli DVDs. They are cool. Except for Totoro. The english subtitles were not actually done by Ghibili, but instead, they are the actual scripts for the english audio tracks. The english audio tracks were ok, but unfortunately, the english audio track has added lines in places where there moments in the scene they felt "too quiet" so they added lines in. So when you watch the DVD with the Japanese audio and the english subtitles, you would see lines that you have no audio for. (BTW, this was done by Disney...blah).

Please Ghibili! Re do the Totoro DVD!!!!

WHEW!

[JeanBaptiste]

I first read that as 'the future of Gigli US releases'

got a little freaked out for a sec there...

"You are so lucky..."

[mekkab]

"You get to watch John Lasseter's sicophantic introduction to every Miyazaki DVD over the course of an entire year!"

(this joke will only make sense to those who have seen the Disney Ghibli releases)

Good news bad news

[chiyosdad]

Now, I love Ghibli as much as most people, and it's great that more people will be exposed to it, but I'm not looking forward to the consequences this will bring. Imagine what would happen if these movies attain the popularity they deserve in the states. Will hollywood producers say, "we should stop putting out utter shit, and think about ways to improve the quality of our films to match and surpass Ghibli films", or will they say "holy cow, people are into that bug-eyed japanese shit? We better ride this fad out and milk it for all it's worth"? You're going to have an army of clueless directors using "anime-style animation" to tell mediocre stories about uninteresting characters, and they're going to ruin a perfectly good artform.

Studio Ghibli all region DVD collections

[yulek]

I have the 4 disk 7 film (Laputa, Grave of the Fireflies, Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco-Rossi, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away) all region Studio Ghibli limited edition collection. It's very high quality and it's all widescreen. The dubbing is quite decent (for e.g. Princess Mononoke uses the U.S. theatrical dubbing which was quite good) but more importantly all the movies have the japanese versions as well (unlike the Disney releases). And the subtitles are actually quite good.

There's also the 6 disk, 12 movie collection which adds Nausicaa, Only Yesterday, Whisper of the Heart, Pompoko, Ocean Waves, and On Your Mark, but doesn't include Spirited Away (this is a newer collection and my guess is the omission of this film from the collection is due to Disney...) Although I can't speak of it's quality I can't imagine it being anything but as good as the 4 disk one.

You can get these collection on eBay. Just search on Ghibli. But you'll end up buying them from distributors like this anyway (they heave the 7 and 12 film collections).

I'd seriously considering grabbing the 7 movie version just to have a non-Disney version of Spirited Away.

These have to be the most imaginative, creative, and beautiful films ever made. The power of animation taken to full advantage (imagine a live version of Totoro? ugh, i just got a bad premonition...)

I can't recommend each and every one of these films enough for anyone with a shred of imagination.

Re:Studio Ghibli all region DVD collections

[meringuoid]

I realise this is /., and I realise what we usually think about large corporations and copyright, especially Disney, but seriously: this is Miyazaki we're talking about. These are pirate.

So speaketh the man with divx versions of every last Miyazaki film. But I'm buying legit DVDs as they come out, conditional only on there being a decent literal subtitle...

Ghibli and Miyazaki

[yulek]

Miyazaki is just one of the founding members of Studio Ghibli. He's become somewhat of an icon here in the U.S. and as such is attributed as the creator of all Ghibli films.

Grave of the Fireflies was directed by Isao Takahata who also did Pom Poko, Yamada and Only Yesterday for Ghibli.

Miyazaki is definitely the driving creative force at Ghibli but it's important to give credit to Takahata. Grave of the Fireflies is one of the most powerful animated films ever made.

Surprised by Mononoke rerelease

[Robotech_Master]

Don't get me wrong; I like Mononoke quite a lot. But it's Miyazaki's darkest film, made for a teenaged set, not a kiddie set like Spirited Away, the movie for which he won an Oscar. Add to this that the rerelease is in a foreign language, with subtitles (which is usually the kiss of death for theatrical showings)...why are they even bothering? It'll probably show on about three screens and about six people will see it, and Disney will end up another $10 million in the hole. That's not going to do a lot of good for Miyazaki's reputation.

Why is everyone so happy?

[dancingmad]

Why is everyone so elated about this? I picked up the three movie set of Laputa, Spirited Away, and Kiki the day they came out as I love Studio Ghibli's movies. And frankly, Disney screwed them up real nice.

The packaging is substandard. Those of you with Region 2 DVDs know, the Japanese DVDs are much better put together. The menus are beautiful watercolors, the DVD covers look real nice. Unlike the American DVDs, which look pretty cheap.

Additionally, Disney put in a lot of crap on Laputa and Kiki, including commercials for one or the film. I can see a small anime company feeling the need to do something like that, Disney ought to know better.

Despite that, there weren't many decent extras on Laputa and Kiki discs. Some crap with the American voice actors, but nothing of real interest. Sen to Chihiro had a great Japanese documentary on the creation of the film, though.

But the big bugaboo with the three discs is that, at least on the release I got, there were major typographical and grammatical errors. For example, several times as combinations are shown as a;. Other typos and mistakes are abound.

I love these films, I wish Disney would show them some respect. They're nto shovelware, they're beautiful creations of art.

I hope the rest of the Ghibli canon (including Umi ga Kikerou, Ocean Waves) is treated better.

Now if they'll just redo Castle in the Sky...

[Cranx]

Now if they'll just redo the english dubbing of Castle in the Sky and get some voice actors that don't make you try to scratch your skin off, and get rid of that uber-cheesy non-stop TADADA! music that drones ENDLESSLY, I'll be set.

Problems with the Fox Totoro; other options

[MEK]

We are used to the Fox dub voices -- and fond of them. Nonetheless, the overall average of the voiice acting quality is higher in the Japanese original. I hope Disney's dub is at least as good.

While the Fox dub preserved the original sound effects and music, it muted these -- quite severely at points. Environmental noises are very important in this film -- and they are all too often almost inaudible. However, the Fox dub did an excellent job in their translated re-recordings of the opening and closing songs.

The pan and scanning of the Fox release does make a big difference. In some scenes, important visual information is definitely lopped off.

The source used by Fox was a bit battered and faded (not their fault, I suppose -- and Ghibli/Tokuma did not make any new source available for the Fox DVD). The restored version of Totoro issued by Buena Vista Japan looks absolutely gorgeous -- and scenes that take place in the dark are vastly better looking.

Although the Japanese DVD LOOK utterly gorgeous -- it has the most annoying dubtitles imaginable. Not only do we have subtitles for conversations we don't hear taking place (or which are 10 times wordier than the Japanese dialog), but we get subtitles for noises (as with hearing impaired subtitles). The Korean DVD (R3, NTSC), on the other hand, looks just as good, is considerably cheaper -- and has excellent real sub-titles. It also has a very good Korean dub (the Korean father is the best one in any version). For those with little kids to entertain, the Korean might not work -- as it does NOT contain the old English dub. For anyone who doesn't need an English dubbed alternative -- the Korean release is highly recommended.

(There are also Taiwanese and Hong Kong releases. I don't have -- and haven't seen -- either of these, however).

MEK

Dub not so good

[Anonymous Coward]

I was at the screening as well.

While the print was excellent, I thought the dub was only so-so (compared to the rather good Mononoke and Spirited Away dubs). Michael Keaton as Porco is just wrong - we get Batman cool instead of Japanese Porco's more world-weary cool. Gina wasn't great, and I found Fio's english voice very grating.

But don't let me stop you from watching this movie - it is just fantastic.

Hewitt (English Adaptors) Interview

[ll1234]

Nausicaa.net held an interview with Cindy and Don Hewitt a few months ago that covers a lot of interesting material such as:

• General Overview
• Voice Actors
• Translating
• Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
• Whisper of the Heart
• Spirited Away
• My Neighbor Totoro
• Howl's Moving Castle

Had you read the interview when it came out you would have already known a new "Totoro" dub was in the works. ^_^

Not so, not really close at all

[Srin Tuar]

If you watch it with subtitles, the whole ending sequence was wildly redone for the english dub.

The english version left me somewhat confused- it didnt really sync up well with what the characters were doing. I had to rewatch it with subtitles.

I think disney had a problem with the ending: perhaps they didnt like the way that the good guys and bad guys werent clearly delineated towards the end, so they chose to make yubaba seem more spiteful and adversarial to the last. (and chihiro strangely overbold)

Madman (Australia) got there first ...

[tdelaney]

Madman December Newsletter

I don't know who's doing what where though - mastering, dubbing, subbing, etc - it may well be that the Madman releases will be sub-only (SBS-subtitled I would presume) if there isn't already a dub, or Madman may be getting the dubbing done in the US, or it may be part of the US deal ... I don't know.

"Prepare Yourself for the Biggest Announcement of the Century!

We are absolutely thrilled to announce the acquisition of a treasure trove of Studio Ghibli anime feature films.

After the success of the acclaimed Madman release of Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli has entrusted Madman with the DVD releases of 10 of their classic films including their newest feature - The Cat Returns.

Stay tuned and connected for updates and news on release dates and other details about this exciting announcement. In the meantime, make room on your shelves for all of these Ghibli Classics...

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
Laputa: The Castle in the Sky (1986)
My Neighbour Totoro (1988)
Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
Only Yesterday (1991)
Porco Rosso (1992)
Pom Poko (1994)
Whisper of the Heart (1995)
My Neighbours the Yamadas (1999)
The Cat Returns (2002)

Studio Ghibli's animated features are world-renowned for their intricate stories, multi-faceted characters and fluid animation. The painstaking attention to detail is evident in every cell of their largely handcrafted anime features. Its founders - Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata - have long been celebrated in Japan as visionary directors and icons in the field of animation.

Madman Entertainment plan to release all ten Studio Ghibli titles over the year between April 2004 and May 2005. Theatrical screenings and a Ghibli film-festival touring select locations will showcase the collection. Takahata's GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES - release date 11 February - will also form part of Madman's Ghibli Collection.

We hope you are as thrilled and excited about this announcement as we are... Stay Tuned!"

Re:lip-sync=shorthand?

[AhBeeDoi]

I agree with you that lip-syncing per se isn't a problem, but I think when people say that, they're often using it to summarize a whole range of things - like the OP said, voices that don't fit the character, for example.

General Patton was a little guy with a high and squeaky voice, a stark contrast from the commanding and very masculine voice of George C. Scott, the actor who protrayed him in the movie Patton. Often times, the entertainment business is not so much about fulfilling fantasy as it is about reinforcing our prejudices.