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 --

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.

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.

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.

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.