Central Park Media Lets Fans Cast "Outlanders"

Peter Tatara writes to let us know that Central Park Media is holding a public casting call for the English version of "Outlanders." For each of the four main characters you get a choice between four different voice actors. Seems like a fun way to generate interest and ensure that the majority of enthusiasts like the dubbing.

Comments

"Battia: a sexy friend"

[ReformedExCon]

The "sexy friend" has cat ears and a tail. What kind of perversion is this?

Re:"Battia: a sexy friend"

[Creepy Crawler]

Meh. My g/f has this verrry naughty dress that looks very similar to the BSD demon, horns included!!

And the breast fabric is see-thru :-D

Lets just say we Role-play certain anime that's labelled "h" for some reason ;-P

Dubbing can be strange

[Cave_Monster]

I find it weird watching dubbed anime sometimes. There are times when the finished product is comical because...

(a) the characters' mouths move beyond what has been said
(b) the character is still speaking yet their mouth has stopped moving
(c) the dubbed voice has been sped up or slowed down to match the mouth movements.

Why not just leave the animation in the native language and add subtitles?

Re:Dubbing can be strange

[fbjon]

Only because you're not used to it, and are thus a slow reader. Me, I live in Finland, where dubs do not exist (except for kids' movies, and then in two versions). I find that, while I can't glare at the screen trying to pick up all the details, I'm not constantly glancing at the subtitles either. They're sort of just inside the field of vision, so I can see what is there without looking. You need to read outside your center field of view.

This is also why subtitles should be in clear colors with uncomplicated font (i.e. not dark purple in old gothic). Otherwise it's mostly pointless, but some subbers don't get this. There is also the minimum time that a line must be shown on screen, and usually you have to start showing them slightly before the charater speaks. Also, if something is about to happen, the sub should be shown so that it can be read just before it happens.

Subtitling is an art that no fansubber I've seen has mastered yet, unfortunately, but other than that, I prefer subtitled any day.

To be fair

[Aexia]

All that still happens in the original Japanese.

Re:To be fair

[FireballX301]

Of course it does.

It's just that we can't tell.

CULTURAL APPRECIATION THROUGH IGNORANCE!

I wouldn't say that

[Ogemaniac]

I live in Japan and know a fair bit of the language. English is just as "expressive", in my opinion. The problem is that we express things in such fundamentally different ways that one-for-one translation is impossible. I agree with you - subs are better - but not because they are more accurate or expressive. They are better because you still get the emotion as it was emoted in Japanese, with the neutral English translation below. When it is dubbed, the emotion must be placed directly atop an English phrase, and they often do not match or sound really silly.

American Anime Dubbers: They just don't get it

[TuxPaper]

They really don't get it. They obviously see there's a problem with their dubs. They "see" it by all the people badmouthing the dubs, but they don't really understand it. What CPM is doing right now is a prime example of their misunderstanding. They are letting fans choose between 4 voices for each of 4 characters. All of these voices can not act. I doubt they've been to a voice acting school. Sure, you can choose the best sounding voice actor/actress (VA) out of the group, or the one that closest matches the original Japanese voice (which is hard, because all 4 voices sound very similar, and nothing like the originals), but the end result will still be poor. They still won't be able to act the parts. You'll still be left with a feeling that they are reading from a paper, or over hamming it up.

In the end, the type of voice really doesn't matter, as long as the VA can portray the character in the manner s/he needs to be portrayed in. If the VA is good, you'll soon forget that s/he doesn't sound like the Japanese voice. You'll be immersed in the story and the character.

One has to wonder if CPM (and the other anime dubbers) are being cheap, and are not hiring (or interviewing) expensive, professionally trained VAs, or if there are just no professionally trained VAs in America.

If voice in the samples are actually from people who have gone to VA school, I apologize, but the school you went to is crap crap crap.

Re:Terrible idea

[Hatta]

You don't understand voting for 4 candidates. What happens is that the minority (~26%) likes the dubbing and the majority (the other 74%) hates it.

It would be a good place to use something like Instant Runoff Voting, which solves this problem. The american government has the same problem, see the 2000 election. Using IRV in contests like this would be a great way to teach people about it.