Konnichiwa! This is the Home-schooled Otaku. Today I'm going to introduce the"Japanese Word of the Week." Every post will be accompanied by a randomly (or possibly not so randomly) selected Japanese word and it's translation.
This week's Japanese word is: Seiyuu (Voice Actor)
Something I've observed: There seem to be many different degrees of being a fan of anime.
First off you have those more common people who are really only interested in a handful of anime which are already popular here in the west; shows like Dragon Ball or Naruto or Fullmetal Alchemist. This type of anime fan is probably only interested in the anime itself and doesn't pay much attention to the sort of "behind the scenes" stuff that goes along with it. They can probably only name one or two American voice actors off of the tops of their heads - usually Vic Mignogna or Crispin Freeman... possibly J. Micheal Tatum, your homework this week is to Google them if you don't know who they are - let alone any Japanese voice actors. This type of anime fan will most likely not care whether they get to watch their anime in Japanese or in English and won't care to pay attention to the quality of the English voice work in comparison to the Japanese.
Then there are the fans who have a marked preference for the English dub of anime. They were probably introduced to anime by the English dub and never cared to take the time to watch their anime in the original Japanese. They figure "Why bother?" They already know what will happen in the story; when you watch it with subtitles, you can never quite catch all of what's happening on the screen, AND to them, Japanese "just sounds like gibberish."
Fans of American anime will probably, as opposed to the first category that I mentioned, know A LOT of american voice actors and be able to name which studios those voice actors are affiliated with. For instance Actors like Yuri Lowenthal and Stephanie Sheh mostly do voice work for VIZ Media, whereas Todd Haberkorn, J. Micheal Tatum and Brina Palencia are affiliated with FUNimation Entertainment.
Many fans of English dub may prefer FUNimation's anime over VIZ's or vice-versa. It depends on what they are familiar with. English dub fans may also listen to pod-casts such as That Anime Show and may be as big a fan of the production staff as the anime itself.
Then you have the strictly Japanese dub ONLY otaku: Those purists in all things anime who s firmly have the mentality that all English dub anime is crap on a screen. With this type, I can only speak from my own experience.
I used to fit into this group. I discovered anime when my sister introduced me to Prince of Tennis. Since, of course, VIZ Media only released and dubbed the first fifty episodes of that particular anime, we had to make do with fan subtitled versions of the episodes, which we subsequently lost access to and had to make due with the officially released episodes of which, as I mentioned above, VIZ only managed to hash up the first fifty. I think I may say with little contradiction, that both the VIZ dub-work and subtitles are dull and, to the sincere PoT fans, excruciatingly painful to listen to, but that tangent is for another post.
While I only beat down on VIZ Media's dub-overs, I'm afraid that many have followed my poor example of thinking that the talent displayed in VIZ's work is sum-total of all American voice work. Many have likely only watched one episode of English dub and, if they're anything like me, had to turn it off halfway through the episode because the found the English to be painful and cheesy. With all fairness, these otaku aren't entirely wrong. I have found that certain English dub-overs other than Prince of Tennis, don't pass muster. I should say, though, that I would not make the foolish mistake of saying that ALL those who prefer the original Japanese only do so because they haven't given the English a chance. I'm not that stupid.
The last of many characteristic's that I can list for this particular brand of otaku is that they have more of a tendency to be picky about how the names are said. I still do this. They may crucify any English dub in which they mispronounce Japanese names, put the names in Western order (first name before last), or, heaven forbid, actually try to translate honourifics or those cute little idiosyncratic lexicon that certain character put on the ends of all of their sentences like dane or de arimasu.
Lastly, we have those otaku who like both English and Japanese dub. The people who pay attention to who voices what character in both versions, and what is more, will want to listen to both and compare the performances. They can not only name all those more obscure American voice actors like Alexis Tipton and Micah Solusod, and Scott Freeman, but also some of the Japanese ones like Fukuyama Jun, Ono Daisuke, Fujiwara Keiji, Okiayu Ryoutarou, Orikasa Fumiko, ect. This type may, depending on whether or not they first listened to the English or Japanese, prefer to use the eastern order of names (Family name before given name), but have come to terms with the fact that, in the interests of the greater public, NO American studio is going to use the eastern order of names.
This all is just my take on some different kinds of anime fans. Please don't crucify me if you find that I've "labeled" you or tried to corral you into some kind of stereotype. I wasn't trying to.
This is just the type of thing you have time to observe when you're a Christian, Home-schooled Otaku.
Next time I think I'll talk a bit about just how I came to get caught up in anime/manga.
No comments:
Post a Comment