Hmm.
I like Thief King Bakura's Japanese theme, but at the same time, the beginning sounds like when you go in Bowser's castle in the early Mario games. LOL. The Japanese theme captures the menace of the character, at least at some points, but I love the sweeping epic feel of the English theme. So for him, I like both, but prefer the English.
Listening to Marik's Japanese theme some more, I think it's actually more fitting for him post-Battle City. I hear some rebellion in the piece, and some mystery, but not anger, malice, or danger. For those, only the English theme really cuts it. Some characters are so complex that they need different themes for different times or aspects of their lives, and I think that's the case with Marik. The Japanese theme, honestly, sounds playful. I am just finding it very difficult to equate it with Marik's menacing, treacherous behavior during Battle City.
I also feel it's the case with Seto. I like his Japanese theme too, as it's very smooth and cool, but I prefer the techie emphasis the English theme has. Then there's Kaiba's Arrival theme, which is also pretty awesome and is a good entrance theme.
Listening to lots of the Japanese music this round makes me feel like I like the Noa's Arc soundtrack the most. But I still love some of the tracks of the Doom Arc soundtrack. I should rip the bikers' themes to the computer so I can play them on Repeat, as I did years ago. Their themes are perfect! Each one captures the focused character so well: Raphael's toughness and rebelliousness, Valon's playfulness, Alister's sadness. The bikers never had themes in the dub, which is a shame. All they got was a recycling of Bandit Keith's theme to cover them collectively.
Then I discovered the other day that I seem to be pretty much hopeless when it comes to attempting to watch YGO in Japanese. I wanted to watch the mind-controlled Joey episodes in Japanese because I don't have season 2 on DVD and I've wanted to see those episodes uncut anyway, so I went to CrunchyRoll and watched the first one. And even though I prefer Seto's dialogue way more in Japanese ... it just wasn't "my" YGO. I couldn't get used to hearing different voices and I missed the dub music and humor. So I dug out my tape and took a chance on watching the saga in the living room, and wonder of wonders, I wasn't interrupted. What I seem to like best is watching the dub episodes, then going to Yu-Jyo.net to fill in the gaps and learn what was cut and changed.
I will say, though, that yikes, people were right about some of the season 2 episodes being especially badly dubbed. Watching the first episode of the saga in Japanese and then in English was like watching two different storylines. But even knowing that firsthand doesn't make me want to switch to watching in Japanese. Hopeless.
And I also seem to have learned that in the Japanese Nesbitt episodes, Tristan doesn't seem to have such a problem trusting Duke? That certainly fits better with his behavior towards Duke in other scenes. But with the dub version so ingrained in my mind, I'm not sure I can switch on that point in my fics. That's been one of the building blocks of how I write their interaction for years. But I feel guilty to hold to the dub version on that, when normally I try to bring out in my fics what the changes were and stick with the original Japanese depictions so that other dub fans like me can see the whole picture.
Then on the plushie-making front, I am feeling frustrated. The wig I thought would work for Seto was bought before I could get to it, and the one I thought would work for Duke has either been bought or wasn't what I thought it was. I may have found a wig in a slightly different style that will still work for Seto, although it's more expensive than the first one. Bleh. I really hope I can use doll wigs for those characters, instead of having to resort to fleece or whatnot. I do have fleece in the right color for Seto's hair, but I really wanted a doll wig.
Ah well, at least I found the right fabric and colors for their clothes and whatnot....
Then I've been pondering on Halloween costumes, because it's never too early to think about fun things like cosplay. I wish we had masquerade parties around here so that Halloween wasn't the only time I could dress up. I'm hoping to bring back my Baxter costume this year, but I also want to try something else too. I remember last year I had thought of trying a Bakura or Yami Bakura costume, as I actually have a white wig, a shirt with horizontal blue stripes, and gray pants. I might try that this year, as all I'd really need to do would be to make a Millennium Ring. That could be easily done with a small foam wreath base, a piece of triangular cardboard and some smaller pieces of cardboard, and gold foil. Then I realized that one of my pairs of trousers is black cargo pants. I could update my Marik costume. I generally played manga Marik before, as I had light cargo pants, but this time I could play anime Marik. I could also bring out my jewelry props, which were cardboard covered in gold foil, or I could try updating that too. One reason I switched to manga Marik was because the armbands I made were rather uncomfortable. I'd like to redo them or else find some costume gold bracelets or something.
So many ideas, so few opportunities to use them....
Listening to Marik's Japanese theme some more, I think it's actually more fitting for him post-Battle City. I hear some rebellion in the piece, and some mystery, but not anger, malice, or danger. For those, only the English theme really cuts it. Some characters are so complex that they need different themes for different times or aspects of their lives, and I think that's the case with Marik. The Japanese theme, honestly, sounds playful. I am just finding it very difficult to equate it with Marik's menacing, treacherous behavior during Battle City.
I also feel it's the case with Seto. I like his Japanese theme too, as it's very smooth and cool, but I prefer the techie emphasis the English theme has. Then there's Kaiba's Arrival theme, which is also pretty awesome and is a good entrance theme.
Listening to lots of the Japanese music this round makes me feel like I like the Noa's Arc soundtrack the most. But I still love some of the tracks of the Doom Arc soundtrack. I should rip the bikers' themes to the computer so I can play them on Repeat, as I did years ago. Their themes are perfect! Each one captures the focused character so well: Raphael's toughness and rebelliousness, Valon's playfulness, Alister's sadness. The bikers never had themes in the dub, which is a shame. All they got was a recycling of Bandit Keith's theme to cover them collectively.
Then I discovered the other day that I seem to be pretty much hopeless when it comes to attempting to watch YGO in Japanese. I wanted to watch the mind-controlled Joey episodes in Japanese because I don't have season 2 on DVD and I've wanted to see those episodes uncut anyway, so I went to CrunchyRoll and watched the first one. And even though I prefer Seto's dialogue way more in Japanese ... it just wasn't "my" YGO. I couldn't get used to hearing different voices and I missed the dub music and humor. So I dug out my tape and took a chance on watching the saga in the living room, and wonder of wonders, I wasn't interrupted. What I seem to like best is watching the dub episodes, then going to Yu-Jyo.net to fill in the gaps and learn what was cut and changed.
I will say, though, that yikes, people were right about some of the season 2 episodes being especially badly dubbed. Watching the first episode of the saga in Japanese and then in English was like watching two different storylines. But even knowing that firsthand doesn't make me want to switch to watching in Japanese. Hopeless.
And I also seem to have learned that in the Japanese Nesbitt episodes, Tristan doesn't seem to have such a problem trusting Duke? That certainly fits better with his behavior towards Duke in other scenes. But with the dub version so ingrained in my mind, I'm not sure I can switch on that point in my fics. That's been one of the building blocks of how I write their interaction for years. But I feel guilty to hold to the dub version on that, when normally I try to bring out in my fics what the changes were and stick with the original Japanese depictions so that other dub fans like me can see the whole picture.
Then on the plushie-making front, I am feeling frustrated. The wig I thought would work for Seto was bought before I could get to it, and the one I thought would work for Duke has either been bought or wasn't what I thought it was. I may have found a wig in a slightly different style that will still work for Seto, although it's more expensive than the first one. Bleh. I really hope I can use doll wigs for those characters, instead of having to resort to fleece or whatnot. I do have fleece in the right color for Seto's hair, but I really wanted a doll wig.
Ah well, at least I found the right fabric and colors for their clothes and whatnot....
Then I've been pondering on Halloween costumes, because it's never too early to think about fun things like cosplay. I wish we had masquerade parties around here so that Halloween wasn't the only time I could dress up. I'm hoping to bring back my Baxter costume this year, but I also want to try something else too. I remember last year I had thought of trying a Bakura or Yami Bakura costume, as I actually have a white wig, a shirt with horizontal blue stripes, and gray pants. I might try that this year, as all I'd really need to do would be to make a Millennium Ring. That could be easily done with a small foam wreath base, a piece of triangular cardboard and some smaller pieces of cardboard, and gold foil. Then I realized that one of my pairs of trousers is black cargo pants. I could update my Marik costume. I generally played manga Marik before, as I had light cargo pants, but this time I could play anime Marik. I could also bring out my jewelry props, which were cardboard covered in gold foil, or I could try updating that too. One reason I switched to manga Marik was because the armbands I made were rather uncomfortable. I'd like to redo them or else find some costume gold bracelets or something.
So many ideas, so few opportunities to use them....