I am very surprised -it's obvious a lot of time and effort went into this!  Plus, you didn't rip off of Naji's jokes or rely on already popular names to garner views like some other abridged SKU I could mention....  You even set up a hilarious sort of new plot structure for future episodes to follow -and nothing suits Utena like meta-humor.  Your voices were also very good -Wakaba and Saionji sound remarkably similar to the english VA's! 

The criticisms I have are that Anthy's voice is hard to understand at times -the sound quality is pretty rough on her in addition to her voice being softer, and some scenes in general the music is a little too loud.  You may also need to trim down some unnecessary dialogue - such as a few of Utena's response's to Wakaba's name-introduction scene that were more filler than funny.  Some of the longer bits of dialogue also needed a bit more oomph, as either the VA got a bit wooden (like they were reading versus acting, which is understanding when the line is long) or their wasn't much editing flair and it was just a character's face or a still shot during.  Some snappy editing will really help spruce up those scenes and help with comedic timing.  Some scenes can be written/edited to be much shorter, so you don't have to force humor into a scene because you otherwise need it there to help the plot make sense.  Most viewers of this will have already seen Utena, so straying from the confines of what happens in each episode won't make anything too incoherent. 

But seriously, considering this is your FIRST episode the fact those those niggling, insignificant things were all I could criticize is AMAZING - most, if not all, first episodes for an Abridged series are awful -even the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh abridged was pretty much kinda lame.  This is right-out-the-door very polished and funny. 

I'm glad you guys enjoyed it! I "stared" it about a year go, so it took a while to work out the cast, level up in editing, and finally stop tweaking it and release. It was originally a scene-for-scene parody of the first episode, but I ended up cutting at least a third of it (even longer monologues! FOR GREAT JUSTICE!). The morph to a different format still kind of works, but the pacing and transitions suffered. It's still more of a parody than an abridged series, but we'll see how the writing develops!

Anthy (Spirals), Utena (R4v3n), and Miki(Mikey) don't have condenser microphones (though Mikey has upgraded, so his Miki lines should have a big jump in quality.), and I have to manually clean every line. For Sprials, her mic quality is usually passable on louder characters, but not so much on the quiet whisper lines I asked for. About half of the cast received directing, while the others were kind of on their own....and it makes a noticeable difference in the deliveries. Utena and Spirals are also super new to playing series leads, but I'm sure they'll continue to grow the roles. Now that I have an episode to use as a baseline for mixing and editing, and the mic qualities of the full cast to consider, it'll be a lot easier to mitigate the growing pains. As for snappy editing, most of the series is still shots, panning, and recycled footage. I'm not a big fan of intensive shooping/masking and a bit of a crappy editor, but perhaps if I get a better processor and more practice I'll be able to thrown in some sparkle.

Lo-Lo-Loved Wakaba's voice work! The humor during the battle scenes was handled very well too, and it must be hard to do that in a series with a lot of those. To be honest, I already like it better than the other two out there.

: D I'm glad you all enjoy it! It was fun voicing Wakaba! I totally wrote the script at 2 am ,after weeks of lack of sleep. It the only time Utena makes perfect sense, and apparently, the only time I can make write anything decent, so perhaps I'll have to do that for the next one as well. No pressure, right?

The other two series aren't my cup of tea (Jpaul and Whip), but I really loved Nanji's from back in the day. It was super awesome given the available resources of the time. Shame it stopped updating!

I think there's a device that can help prevent muffling sounds - I can't remember what it's called - a p filter?  They're pretty cheap and smooth out the harsh sounds p and b sounds make due to the harsh air they cause you to expel, which may be the issue -if she has to whisper chances are she's moving closer to the mike in order to be heard. 

Also, just noticed Utena calls Saionji lucky charms.

And that Touga's VA is amazing as well.  Same dude who does Saionji?  HOW SYMBOLIC. 

Juri:  *ahem*
Touga:  You count as a guy.
Juri:  I meant Miki.

Wow. I never knew an abridged series could be so meta. The SPG were already engaging in some meta shenanigans so (if they ever show up) will they be even odder?

This series is pretty awesome so far. I have only a few negative things to say. Anthy's voice is very soft, but people have already mentioned that. The only other thing I've noticed is the music. I know which scenes had certain music in the original series, so hearing "The Belladonna's Trap" (a remix of Poison that appears in the movie) during a scene that didn't involve Anthy or Akio ruined some of the humor of that scene.

Also, I know it's supposed to be funny, but hearing Wakaba wishing for a romantic subplot with Saionji made me cringe because she's foreshadowing her own Black Rose Arc episode.

ROCKIN' AWESOME.

Saionji sounds like he owns a plantation in Jamaica.

Also please do episodes with Akio in them and keep the ANGRY BRUTHA voice. Please?

I doe one would like to hear Akio sound a lot like Obama.

Well, it depends from person to person.

Some people would say Obama embodies fake idealism. Just like Akio's.

While Dios stays true to his pimp roots and doesn't try hard to be someone else.

Its just a matter of perspective.

OnlyInThisLight wrote:

Juri:  *ahem*
Touga:  You count as a guy.
Juri:  I meant Miki.

This bit absolutely slayed me as well! XP I quite liked the first episode, looking forward to the rest. :3 I can also highly agree on SMA being amazing. I need to get back to watching it...

Okay, admittedly I've been watching this thread and avoiding watching the episode because I was worried I wouldn't like it. But thankfully I got bored enough to force myself to click the link, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually quite funny.

Hope to see more of these!