Topic: YES! Vindication! An Anime that actually cares about Immersion!
Blayne Bradley
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posted
Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl has a scene that takes place in NORAD with the American officers actually speaking English! I was so shocked I almost ruined my screen with my drink, instead I nearly choked. Falling out of my chair and saying "What the crap" in awe ensued.
And this isn't a mainstream anime afaik that is expected to be released in America either.
This anime just earned so many points with me that it would physically have to cause gross bodily harm to me and teleport alien headcrabs into my room before I would start seriously marking it down for what is probably a boilerplate romance plot.
Now if only all other Animes that DO have big budgets would actually start following suit the world would be a better place.
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Lots of anime have Americans speaking english. (of course, they didn't actually hire an american seiyu so they're Japanese people with VERY thick accents.) Were the accents good in Kashimashi?
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Actually yes, very much so, although in a weird way like watching early episodes of Pokemon. As in I didn't notice any accents but it felt like I was suddenly watching a dub, so good but weird.
I divide it into 4 categories of Bilingual Language Immersion or BLI:
-Don't make any effort although clearly someone at some point should be speaking another language. -Make a minor effort. -Compromise effort. -Make a solid effort.
No Effort: I'm not sure of a show in the first category as most are in the second but lets say Gundam Wing, I only saw it in English though but still applies SOMEONE should have been speaking something else. I think YuGiOh can fall into either this or the second one, they went to America but not ONE person spoke a single sentence of english?
Minor Effort: Most animes I think fall into this, generally in the form of gratuitous english or english or other language text books.
Compromise: They know they're in a specific country but for technical reasons cant hire the number of voice actors required so they DoTheirResearch on the culture of the area so well that while everyone is speaking japanese the sheer immersion from everything else can make you believe your watching it in that language.
Monster is a GOOD example, everyone spoke Japanese but I forgive them for that as the depiction of Germany, and Czechoslavakia was so well done I didn't care. Maybe Full Metal Alchemist, you can sorta see it as early 20th century europe and they're probably supposed to be speaking German so just pretend thats what they're doing.
Good effort: the aforementioned show which while probably more of a boilerplate anime made what I considered a remarkable effort in immersion even if it was for only 1 60 second scene thus far.
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azumanga Daioh is a show Ild put under "no effort whatsoever" they had the perfect scene and they ruined it by being lazy, the scene was a tourist from I would geuss Austrailia or the US bumps into one of the two female teachers and she grabs her friend to speak with him, the scene continues with them spekaing in english but is ACUTALLY Peanuts-speak (when kids in Charlie brown talk with adults) and is all gibberish.
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Blayne: Maybe they just realized none of them spoke english and it was better not to try. Or that their audience might know what the person was saying and NOT understanding made the audience empathize with Yukari-sensei more (it was Yukari, right? It's been a long time since I watched Azumanga)
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
They would have impressed me had they when hiring a voice actress found one who was at least semi fluent. The anime came after the manga right?
To quote Yahtzee, "its not bad, its... just shallower then was advertised" generally its understandable but I would have enjoyed it greatly had they done the effort and considering the intended audience IS japanese its not like it would have lost its effect.
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posted
If you like that sort of thing, you'll like the first episode of Eden of the East. The main character is visiting Washington DC, and they hired actual americans to speak english. There's this funny part where a black female cop jokingly asks one of the japanese people to "show me your Johnny" and they pull their pants down.
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