Anime Expo Day 1: The Paneling
I guess it's time to get back to Anime Expo reporting! I'll just jump right into it.
We last left our heroes in the room for the Iyuno panel, attempting to figure out whether their dislike of English dubs is valid or completely irrational. (Let's be honest, it's probably somewhere inbetween.)
The panel was very good. The panelists started out by introducing themselves and what they do--there were a couple of producers, a couple of sound engineers, a couple of directors, script adaptation writers, a casting director. They talked a little about the process, they showed us clips. They talked about what they look for when casting characters, which was pretty much what you'd expect: someone who fits their image of the character, including delivery of the lines and whether or not they sound like the original voice actor. The casting director made sure to point out that she has a folder of auditions she calls "Strong but Wrong," which means the actor had a great audition, but they just didn't quite fit the role.
They talked about looking for people who actually spoke with specific language accents (as opposed to an American faking one), which was odd, because there aren't a lot of foreign language accents in anime, so we were like, "What in the world kind of roles are you casting?"
Anyway, the important thing is that they shared some clips, and the clips were...strong but wrong. (In our opinions. Obviously, since they were the finished product, the directors felt differently.) Based on snippets we've heard of dubs from other companies, and an Anime Expo panel with a certain voice actor from The Seven Deadly Sins, we had gotten the impression that a lot of American voice actors (at least for anime) are more focused on doing a voice than on playing a role. But the people at Iyuno do seem to care about the actors actually feeling what their characters are feeling, and that did come across in the clips they showed us. Nevertheless, it still sounded off.
Based on what we heard at the panel, our analysis has identified two potential culprits. (Excluding the one about us just maybe being biased.) The first, as usual, is the translation. The panelists did of course mention that they're usually given straight translations that need to be adapted, partly because they don't sound like natural English (to which our response, as translators, is that that can be fixed by using better translators), and partly because they need to match the lip flaps.
Based on the clips we heard, I must say, the adaptations could still have used some work. I don't know--maybe the dialogue would have sounded natural anyway if the actors had really nailed it, but there was one clip that we were rewriting as we watched it... That might have just been for stylistic reasons. There was this guy who was talking to this other guy during a fight, and he was all, "Now you're going to do one more magic trick! Disappear!" And Athena was like, "That's not how magicians talk. Maybe something like, 'Make yourself disappear!' Or even, like, 'You're going to disappear!' I feel like 'disappear' by itself sounds odd as a command in English, whereas it's not odd in Japanese." Maybe it's just us? I don't know.
So yeah. We felt like the scripts weren't doing the shows any favors. We don't know to what degree they had been rewritten. I don't know if it's the skill level of the adaptation writer that has it still sounding off, or if it's connected to the second culprit: apparently Anglophones are obsessed with lip movements matching the words being spoken. This was something that came up kind of a lot in the panel, and it's something we've heard from other people we know in real life--it bothers them when the words don't match the lips of the speaker. One of the panelists pointed out that the lip flaps don't usually match perfectly in the original Japanese, and we were like, "We know, and that's why you shouldn't care so much!"
The thing is. It seems like they're so obsessed with making sure each syllable matches each lip movement that that takes priority over all other matters. This is going to lead to adding filler words to the dialogue, or subtracting ones, just to make sure the sentence is the exact right length. It's also going to restrict the actors' performance, because they have to make sure they don't draw out this syllable too long, or that that syllable isn't too short.
Yup, ultimately, I think the problem is that Americans care more about whether or not the lip flaps match than whether or not the character is talking like a normal person or the actor feels present in the scene. Of course, since we're not native speakers of Japanese or French, we can't say for sure if the dialogue for the original (or the Japanese or French dub) really sounds natural, but we do enjoy French and Japanese voice acting much more than we enjoy current American voice acting. And we know from watching many, many things in both languages that neither the Japanese nor the French are overly bothered about matching lip flaps.
I wonder if this is because there are so many movies that are enormously popular around the world that came from America. In countries where English is not the common language, there's going to be a dub, and with live action movies (or even Disney ones, where the animation is done so carefully), the mouth movements are not going to match regardless of whether or not they have the same number of lip flaps, because mouths move differently to make, for example, an OO sound versus an EE sound. A "thank you" in English might have the same number of lip flaps as a French "merci," but the shape of the mouth when saying it will be very very different. So if you're watching French dubs of, like, Star Wars, you'll be used to that kind of thing and it won't bother you if it happens in anime. On the other hand, an American watching Star Wars will have the luxury of the words and mouth movements always being in perfect harmony...unless something's wrong with their tech. XD
Another potential problem with English dubs is that we're told that sometimes the actors don't even see the script until they walk in to record their scenes, so they may not really know what's going on with the character. But we figure that can be fixed with good directors who do know what's going on with the characters.
Anyway. That's what we learned from that panel. We also learned that Keith David is truly a legend. They played a clip from Pluto, and we were like, "Is that Keith David? It sounds like Keith David. I think it is Keith David. But would they get him for an anime?" Then they talked more about the clip, and it turns out they did get Keith David for an anime. (He still sounded just a little off to me. I really don't know if it's my anti-dub bias or if it's the lip flap thing.) Apparently they weren't sure they could get him, because it's Keith David (Goliath from Gargoyles, Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog), but they called him and explained the project, and he agreed to do it! Then he showed up at the first recording having read all the manga. Legend. And then he asked to run the scene before recording! (I feel like this shouldn't be so rare, but the director (who was on the panel) seemed really surprised by it, and was concerned about time constraints. Clearly tight schedules is another problem plaguing anime dubs.)
Alright, now I'm done rambling about anime dubs. It was a happy coincidence that the Iyuno panel was in the same room as the panel we most wanted to go to, so we didn't have to wait in line outside and risk not getting into this panel. Which panel was it? The Kodansha & Bones new anime announcement panel! They were trying to be sneaky about it, but we all knew it was about GachiAkuta. They even posted a picture of Rudo on Anime Expo's Instagram when they announced the panel. Nevertheless, at the panel, they played a montage of a bunch of Bones anime (including our most beloved Noragami!) and said, "Now we're going to announce a new anime!" And it was GachiAkuta! Tadah!
...That about covers it, I think.
Okay, just kidding. I'm not sure how much I can remember, because I guess I was just overwhelmed with the awesomeness of it all. They had a video interview with manga artist Kei Urana and graffiti artist Hideyoshi Ando, and oh my goodness, they were like Daikoku (Ando) and goth skater Kofuku (Urana) from Noragami. And Urana-sensei was wearing a Super Mario hat. No one knows why, but she rocked it. The main thing I remember from that interview is that she talked about listening to music while drawing and how she'd bop to it, and Ando-san was like, "No, you full on dance!" Then she got up and danced while pretending to draw, to show us what it was like.
They asked her about the themes of GachiAkuta, and if I remember correctly, she said she wasn't really setting out to make a manga with a recycling theme or whatever, she just wanted to draw a manga about trash. She really reminds me of Remlin, actually. I also remember that Urana-sensei and Ando-san wanted to come to Anime Expo, but they couldn't, so that was kind of a bummer. But at least we did get to see the interview.
The panelists were the editor of the manga, a producer from Avex, and a producer from Bones, and I think they mostly just talked about how they all read GachiAkuta and thought it was super dang cool, so they wanted to make an anime. Apparently the three companies had been wanting to work together again since the success of Noragami (our beloved!), and now the stars have finally aligned. They also showed us a little bit of behind-the-scenes stuff from the very early production stages of the GachiAkuta anime. It was all very cool.
Oh, I just remembered! The panel was hosted by some influencer guy, who started out by saying, "You all know who I am, right?" And Athena and I were like, "No." But he didn't bother introducing himself, so I was like, "No, seriously, who are you?" and the girl sitting next to me apparently thought that was a very funny joke. I did eventually get her to tell me that he was an influencer, and that's really all I needed to know.
What reminded me about it is that I was about to write that they had some manga to give away. I saw Mr. Influencer holding it, and Athena and I were like, "Cool, they're giving away copies of the manga. We don't need it, though." Then they told us it was autographed, and we changed our minds. Nevertheless, the manga was given away by raffle, and neither of us had the lucky numbers. It's cool, though, because we still got the super awesome towels they were also giving away, with the title logo and a picture of Rudo.
And the best part! (Maybe!) Is that, after the panel, the panelists were all hanging around signing autographs and letting people take pictures of them. That helped us to screw up our courage and introduce ourselves to the manga editor as the English translators of the GachiAkuta manga! And we said, "We just wanted to say hi," and he said, "Thank you for your hard work," and we said, "We look forward to it every week!" Athena reminds me that he told us that (Urana) Sensei is very happy about our work, too! That's exciting! (The question now is, is she just happy that an English translation exists, or does she actually have an opinion about how good the translation is? There is no possible way we could have asked that, even if we had brain power to come up with the Japanese words for it.)
...Well, I think this post is long enough, and I'm still not finished with day one! This is what happens when we get passionate about things. Anyway, tune in tomorrow for our report on the Uta no Prince-sama 3D hologram concert!
Today I'm thankful for getting to learn more about anime dubs, getting to see an interview with the artists behind a super dang cool manga, the super cool GachiAkuta towels they were giving away at the panel, getting most of the stuff done today that we wanted to get done, and having some Twix ice cream bars to try out.
We last left our heroes in the room for the Iyuno panel, attempting to figure out whether their dislike of English dubs is valid or completely irrational. (Let's be honest, it's probably somewhere inbetween.)
The panel was very good. The panelists started out by introducing themselves and what they do--there were a couple of producers, a couple of sound engineers, a couple of directors, script adaptation writers, a casting director. They talked a little about the process, they showed us clips. They talked about what they look for when casting characters, which was pretty much what you'd expect: someone who fits their image of the character, including delivery of the lines and whether or not they sound like the original voice actor. The casting director made sure to point out that she has a folder of auditions she calls "Strong but Wrong," which means the actor had a great audition, but they just didn't quite fit the role.
They talked about looking for people who actually spoke with specific language accents (as opposed to an American faking one), which was odd, because there aren't a lot of foreign language accents in anime, so we were like, "What in the world kind of roles are you casting?"
Anyway, the important thing is that they shared some clips, and the clips were...strong but wrong. (In our opinions. Obviously, since they were the finished product, the directors felt differently.) Based on snippets we've heard of dubs from other companies, and an Anime Expo panel with a certain voice actor from The Seven Deadly Sins, we had gotten the impression that a lot of American voice actors (at least for anime) are more focused on doing a voice than on playing a role. But the people at Iyuno do seem to care about the actors actually feeling what their characters are feeling, and that did come across in the clips they showed us. Nevertheless, it still sounded off.
Based on what we heard at the panel, our analysis has identified two potential culprits. (Excluding the one about us just maybe being biased.) The first, as usual, is the translation. The panelists did of course mention that they're usually given straight translations that need to be adapted, partly because they don't sound like natural English (to which our response, as translators, is that that can be fixed by using better translators), and partly because they need to match the lip flaps.
Based on the clips we heard, I must say, the adaptations could still have used some work. I don't know--maybe the dialogue would have sounded natural anyway if the actors had really nailed it, but there was one clip that we were rewriting as we watched it... That might have just been for stylistic reasons. There was this guy who was talking to this other guy during a fight, and he was all, "Now you're going to do one more magic trick! Disappear!" And Athena was like, "That's not how magicians talk. Maybe something like, 'Make yourself disappear!' Or even, like, 'You're going to disappear!' I feel like 'disappear' by itself sounds odd as a command in English, whereas it's not odd in Japanese." Maybe it's just us? I don't know.
So yeah. We felt like the scripts weren't doing the shows any favors. We don't know to what degree they had been rewritten. I don't know if it's the skill level of the adaptation writer that has it still sounding off, or if it's connected to the second culprit: apparently Anglophones are obsessed with lip movements matching the words being spoken. This was something that came up kind of a lot in the panel, and it's something we've heard from other people we know in real life--it bothers them when the words don't match the lips of the speaker. One of the panelists pointed out that the lip flaps don't usually match perfectly in the original Japanese, and we were like, "We know, and that's why you shouldn't care so much!"
The thing is. It seems like they're so obsessed with making sure each syllable matches each lip movement that that takes priority over all other matters. This is going to lead to adding filler words to the dialogue, or subtracting ones, just to make sure the sentence is the exact right length. It's also going to restrict the actors' performance, because they have to make sure they don't draw out this syllable too long, or that that syllable isn't too short.
Yup, ultimately, I think the problem is that Americans care more about whether or not the lip flaps match than whether or not the character is talking like a normal person or the actor feels present in the scene. Of course, since we're not native speakers of Japanese or French, we can't say for sure if the dialogue for the original (or the Japanese or French dub) really sounds natural, but we do enjoy French and Japanese voice acting much more than we enjoy current American voice acting. And we know from watching many, many things in both languages that neither the Japanese nor the French are overly bothered about matching lip flaps.
I wonder if this is because there are so many movies that are enormously popular around the world that came from America. In countries where English is not the common language, there's going to be a dub, and with live action movies (or even Disney ones, where the animation is done so carefully), the mouth movements are not going to match regardless of whether or not they have the same number of lip flaps, because mouths move differently to make, for example, an OO sound versus an EE sound. A "thank you" in English might have the same number of lip flaps as a French "merci," but the shape of the mouth when saying it will be very very different. So if you're watching French dubs of, like, Star Wars, you'll be used to that kind of thing and it won't bother you if it happens in anime. On the other hand, an American watching Star Wars will have the luxury of the words and mouth movements always being in perfect harmony...unless something's wrong with their tech. XD
Another potential problem with English dubs is that we're told that sometimes the actors don't even see the script until they walk in to record their scenes, so they may not really know what's going on with the character. But we figure that can be fixed with good directors who do know what's going on with the characters.
Anyway. That's what we learned from that panel. We also learned that Keith David is truly a legend. They played a clip from Pluto, and we were like, "Is that Keith David? It sounds like Keith David. I think it is Keith David. But would they get him for an anime?" Then they talked more about the clip, and it turns out they did get Keith David for an anime. (He still sounded just a little off to me. I really don't know if it's my anti-dub bias or if it's the lip flap thing.) Apparently they weren't sure they could get him, because it's Keith David (Goliath from Gargoyles, Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog), but they called him and explained the project, and he agreed to do it! Then he showed up at the first recording having read all the manga. Legend. And then he asked to run the scene before recording! (I feel like this shouldn't be so rare, but the director (who was on the panel) seemed really surprised by it, and was concerned about time constraints. Clearly tight schedules is another problem plaguing anime dubs.)
Alright, now I'm done rambling about anime dubs. It was a happy coincidence that the Iyuno panel was in the same room as the panel we most wanted to go to, so we didn't have to wait in line outside and risk not getting into this panel. Which panel was it? The Kodansha & Bones new anime announcement panel! They were trying to be sneaky about it, but we all knew it was about GachiAkuta. They even posted a picture of Rudo on Anime Expo's Instagram when they announced the panel. Nevertheless, at the panel, they played a montage of a bunch of Bones anime (including our most beloved Noragami!) and said, "Now we're going to announce a new anime!" And it was GachiAkuta! Tadah!
...That about covers it, I think.
Okay, just kidding. I'm not sure how much I can remember, because I guess I was just overwhelmed with the awesomeness of it all. They had a video interview with manga artist Kei Urana and graffiti artist Hideyoshi Ando, and oh my goodness, they were like Daikoku (Ando) and goth skater Kofuku (Urana) from Noragami. And Urana-sensei was wearing a Super Mario hat. No one knows why, but she rocked it. The main thing I remember from that interview is that she talked about listening to music while drawing and how she'd bop to it, and Ando-san was like, "No, you full on dance!" Then she got up and danced while pretending to draw, to show us what it was like.
They asked her about the themes of GachiAkuta, and if I remember correctly, she said she wasn't really setting out to make a manga with a recycling theme or whatever, she just wanted to draw a manga about trash. She really reminds me of Remlin, actually. I also remember that Urana-sensei and Ando-san wanted to come to Anime Expo, but they couldn't, so that was kind of a bummer. But at least we did get to see the interview.
The panelists were the editor of the manga, a producer from Avex, and a producer from Bones, and I think they mostly just talked about how they all read GachiAkuta and thought it was super dang cool, so they wanted to make an anime. Apparently the three companies had been wanting to work together again since the success of Noragami (our beloved!), and now the stars have finally aligned. They also showed us a little bit of behind-the-scenes stuff from the very early production stages of the GachiAkuta anime. It was all very cool.
Oh, I just remembered! The panel was hosted by some influencer guy, who started out by saying, "You all know who I am, right?" And Athena and I were like, "No." But he didn't bother introducing himself, so I was like, "No, seriously, who are you?" and the girl sitting next to me apparently thought that was a very funny joke. I did eventually get her to tell me that he was an influencer, and that's really all I needed to know.
What reminded me about it is that I was about to write that they had some manga to give away. I saw Mr. Influencer holding it, and Athena and I were like, "Cool, they're giving away copies of the manga. We don't need it, though." Then they told us it was autographed, and we changed our minds. Nevertheless, the manga was given away by raffle, and neither of us had the lucky numbers. It's cool, though, because we still got the super awesome towels they were also giving away, with the title logo and a picture of Rudo.
And the best part! (Maybe!) Is that, after the panel, the panelists were all hanging around signing autographs and letting people take pictures of them. That helped us to screw up our courage and introduce ourselves to the manga editor as the English translators of the GachiAkuta manga! And we said, "We just wanted to say hi," and he said, "Thank you for your hard work," and we said, "We look forward to it every week!" Athena reminds me that he told us that (Urana) Sensei is very happy about our work, too! That's exciting! (The question now is, is she just happy that an English translation exists, or does she actually have an opinion about how good the translation is? There is no possible way we could have asked that, even if we had brain power to come up with the Japanese words for it.)
...Well, I think this post is long enough, and I'm still not finished with day one! This is what happens when we get passionate about things. Anyway, tune in tomorrow for our report on the Uta no Prince-sama 3D hologram concert!
Today I'm thankful for getting to learn more about anime dubs, getting to see an interview with the artists behind a super dang cool manga, the super cool GachiAkuta towels they were giving away at the panel, getting most of the stuff done today that we wanted to get done, and having some Twix ice cream bars to try out.