Farlex Dictionary Version of Revolutionary Girl Utena

At least this version at least seems reasonably objective.

skewed_tartan wrote:

THERE'S A SHOW WITH INCEST, LESBIANS, GAYS, CARS, AND SWORDFIGHTS?! THAT IS SO TOTALLY AWSEOME! I MUST BUY THE ENRIRE SERIES!

You forgot the surfing elephants and body swapping curry.

Last edited by Tamago (11-05-2006 09:22:32 PM)

The Utena dub starts off shit but it does get better, in my opinion. Cowboy Bebop has an excellent dub. Personally I can't watch it in Japanese. Now, Cromartie High School has an exquisite dub, much much better than the origional japanese.

I'm guessing most people on this forum have seen CardCaptor Sakura and then heard the travesty that is Cardcaptors. SOB. KILL ME.

Movie Akio sucks whatever language he's speaking in. Though the 'I can't find the key' speech in the dub made me chuckle for some reason.

Akio: Anthy's brother, he fucks her all the time. He is also the villain.
Touga: A douchebag.
Saionji: An even bigger douchebag than Touga.

(Although really on what planet is Saionji the biggest douchebag in the series? Come on.)

Hahahaha, that's awesomely bad. 

Akio = the villain, which takes the backseat to ongoing incest.

Touga = (snicker)  If you take him out of context, I can see it.  Terrible, very terrible, but just great.

Saionji = (Nearly died laughing about this even bigger douchebag thing)

What series?  Try the Utena movie.  (Silently hates that for the portrayal of Saionji) -_-  I mean come on.  I really can't take that thing seriously with anyone.  Except maybe tones of Anthy's character.  (Will not get on a tangent about hair and skin)

Giovanna wrote:

The movie was the worst thing ever to happen to Saionji's character.

Akio was so absolutely fucking off the wall that no one even thinks to connect the two. Saionji in the movie is close enough, some retarded warped caricature, that you can allow the movie to seep into the series and it soils the potential for any thought you might have given him.

I mean...he was foaming at the mouth.

...was he? I really don't remember that. I must watch the movie again *horror*
Mostly I don't care for the movie because Mikage and Ruka aren't in it

Ger wrote:

Giovanna wrote:

The movie was the worst thing ever to happen to Saionji's character.

Akio was so absolutely fucking off the wall that no one even thinks to connect the two. Saionji in the movie is close enough, some retarded warped caricature, that you can allow the movie to seep into the series and it soils the potential for any thought you might have given him.

I mean...he was foaming at the mouth.

...was he? I really don't remember that. I must watch the movie again *horror*
Mostly I don't care for the movie because Mikage and Ruka aren't in it

Yep, he's foaming at the mouth.  Isn't it great?
My little friend who has never seen the series is both shocked and afraid.

Want to see mouth foaming in abridged version, anyone?  Here's movie Utena V.S. Saionji.  And I say he's most definitely foaming at the mouth, there.

Once again, COME ON.    The boy does have a soul.

Last edited by jmie5 (11-06-2006 07:38:08 PM)

As I have only watched the Utena series on Youtube, I have only seen the Japanese version with subtitles so I have never heard the English dub but from what I have read about the cast in the dub, Rachael Lillis plays Utena... I have scary visions of Jessie from Pokemon dressed up like a prince with James as the Rose Bride not to mention Lisa Ortiz as Shiori, the idea that Miss Lina Inverse having an inferiority complex amuses me.

ShatteredMirror wrote:

Tamago wrote:

As I have only watched the Utena series on Youtube, I have only seen the Japanese version with subtitles so I have never heard the English dub but from what I have read about the cast in the dub, Rachael Lillis plays Utena... I have scary visions of Jessie from Pokemon dressed up like a prince with James as the Rose Bride not to mention Lisa Ortiz as Shiori, the idea that Miss Lina Inverse having an inferiority complex amuses me.

You mean like this? http://lavender.fortunecity.com/powell/ … ashion.jpg

That seems about right.

ShatteredMirror wrote:

Well James always was keen on roses.

But could James settle for just a Chu-chu instead of a Pikachu?

Dani wrote:

Starting with the Black Rose Saga, the English dub gets loads better and Rachael Lillis does some great nuanced work as Utena. The first season is TERRIBLE though with atrocious mispronunciations of characters names, etc.

Thank god the Akio "ciao" thing is only in the movie, never in the series.

If you like the Hellsing English dub, that's Crispin Freeman doing Alucard. He does Touga for the Utena English dub. He has commented at conventions that they got NO prep time with Utena because of the low budget. They did not know their characters at all when they started; they just got handed a script and a short description. He says he watches all of the shows that he dubs for on his own time because they don't pay them for that.

It's a shame they don't screen the shows to their actors, but then again, I guess it's not like the pleasure of theviewing audience is important or anything.

I've always felt that the dub is very good, especially having grown up on a diet of Sailor Moon, Tokyo Babylon(easily one of the most painful dubs to watch EVER) Transformers and Cardcaptors (which, actually, I didn't watch as I much preferred the manga to the anime, but my sister did). I thought Rachael Lillis was damned good as Utena, esp as I only have BRS and AA to reference (God, I need to get the Seitokai arc). In some parts I thought she did better then the original seiyuu, athough I think I may be shot for expressing that opinion. She was damned good, very subtle, I thought. I always thought the girl that did Anthy was awful, and ought to be shot. She doesn't get any better, no matter what. I liked Juri's, although a lot of the time it wasn't quite on.

I can't imagine how Miki sounded older then Akio, though. Akio just sounded...not dumb, but...not....Akio...

morosemocha wrote:

I've always felt that the dub is very good, especially having grown up on a diet of Sailor Moon, Tokyo Babylon(easily one of the most painful dubs to watch EVER) Transformers and Cardcaptors (which, actually, I didn't watch as I much preferred the manga to the anime, but my sister did). I thought Rachael Lillis was damned good as Utena, esp as I only have BRS and AA to reference (God, I need to get the Seitokai arc). In some parts I thought she did better then the original seiyuu, athough I think I may be shot for expressing that opinion. She was damned good, very subtle, I thought. I always thought the girl that did Anthy was awful, and ought to be shot. She doesn't get any better, no matter what. I liked Juri's, although a lot of the time it wasn't quite on.

I can't imagine how Miki sounded older then Akio, though. Akio just sounded...not dumb, but...not....Akio...

Rachael Lillis IS damn good (although I was thrown when I watched Pokemon the first time ). She really nailed the character starting with the "For Friendship, Perhaps" episode and I think the final three episodes are real achievments for her (Episode 37 because Utena has a different mood in every scene and during the Anthy/Utena heart-to-heart on the balcony scene). The Japanese voice for Utena is heavy on the harsh tomboy inflection a lot of the time and doesn't seem as subtle to me.

YES, Sharon Becker plays Anthy like a Stepford Wife, that's an English voice I have serious problems with (Anthy in Japanese is, well, sexy) Actually when Rachael Lillis plays Anthy in the curry body swap episode, SHE does a better Anthy.

Also Akio in English sounds like a bad pimp, creepy but not nearly seductive enough. I like Miki's voice (can't get over the female Japanese voice) and Tsuwabuki, I think they convey the younger ages of the characters. Nanami, great. Juri, really good starting with the "Unfulfilled Jury" episode. Kozue, really good. And the voice actor for Shiori might be the best, she's amazing in episode 29 "Azure Paler Than the Sky". I didn't think much of Shiori as a character until I watched that episode in English. But Ruka, sheesh, the voice is weird and annoying but it kinda grows on me after a bit.

Utena got me into anime so I wasn't a subtitle junkie when I started watching it. Now that I have to settle with watching a lot of shows before they get to the US, I'm more used to watching other shows in Japanese now.

Also the English cast dubs alone so they have no one to play off of during their scenes. That's another way to cut costs which is a shame.

Last edited by Dani (11-07-2006 07:20:58 AM)

morosemocha wrote:

If you ever catch Firefly (Joss Whedon is my GOD!), there's a character named Saffron who I can see as Shiori in Space very easily. What else... believe it or not, I think with some coaching, Ruka's voice might have been better on Akio then the guy that did end up with it.

Joss IS a god and only one season of Firefly is a travesty. You're dead on about Saffron, what a conniving bitch (doncha love her!). Buffy is my favorite show of all time but anything Joss (TV, movies, comics) is all gold. Hmm, a show about a heroic, kick ass heroine who finds herself attracted only to characters with a dark side, plus a cast of screwed up characters who learn by her example and seek redemption. But hey, no similarities to Utena, nah, course not

Dani wrote:

Also the English cast dubs alone so they have no one to play off of during their scenes. That's another way to cut costs which is a shame.

This, I feel the need to point out as someone in the acting industry, is simply incorrect. North American dubbing is virtually always alone, budget nonwithstanding, and the reasons don't really have to do with cost so much as the difficulty of scheduling entire casts together (since voice acting is not a full-time lucrative industry like Japan), the fact that North American audiences are more concerned with mouth movements fitting dialogue (which is well-nigh-unto impossible to do with full cast recordings) and the precision instruments used, which pick up every time somebody shifts in their seat, breathes wrong, moves, or really does anything at all. For an illuminating example: voice actors can't even pronounces the letter "p" like a normal person because of the "pop" you automatically make when you do it (listen for yourself); instead, what they say is something of a mix between "p" and "b".

Many actors prefer the North American way of doing things, many prefer the Japanese way. There is no consensus on the topic, and there's advantages to both methods.

It's also not correct to say they don't have anyone to play off of. They are watching the show as they dub it, generally speaking, and they will be working off the prerecorded lines of their cast members. Of course, what lines are prerecorded just depends on scheduling, but that isn't always a bad thing. You have to intensely focus to get into your character in solo dubbing, which can often lead to a greater identification with that character.

As far as the Utena dub goes... it's something I have a love/hate relationship with. I find Japanese dubs, generally speaking, very uninspired and cookie-cutter; the Japanese voice acting industry loves to pigeonhole people into "types" of voices rather than encouraging individualism (look for the latest clone of Megumi Hayashibara in an anime near you!), which is something I dislike. They do have a certain baseline level of competence that some early anime dubs (and many non-anime-dubs, like video games) don't have, but that's something that in recent years has vanished (there's virtually no badly acted/directed English dubs in anime anymore, though many TV dubs have cartoony voices and edited dialogue, of course). I do appreciate that apparently every Japanese voice actor can sing halfways competently, but that rarely makes or breaks a series for me. English voice acting, on the other hand, I find has more freedom to be real individuals who use the individual qualities of their voices rather than "generic hyper girl/deep-voiced rival/squeaky-voiced perverted old man/old woman who sounds like she's sucking gravel/etc", which helps me appreciate characters better. As well, animation is a visual medium, and subtitles are thus an inherently inferior way of watching it (as they necessarily distract and obscure the visuals).

So I usually prefer English dubs these days, though some anime I still like the original Japanese dub (and in some shows, such as Shaman King, I can hardly stand either, unfortunately). Utena is iffy for me. Some things in the Utena English dub I really, really like (Jimmy Zoppi's Miki is, AFAIC, ten times more nuanced and interesting than Aya Hisakawa's bog-standard rendition of him, and his voice is not really that deep), and some I really, really don't (Nanami's voice actress, while perfect-sounding, is not actually a very good actress in my opinion). The mispronunciations of names are very unfortunate, oweing to Software Sculptor's low budget and poor directing at the initial release. I understand why they kept them later for continuity's sake (except in the movie, where they quietly fixed a few), but it's still very grating on me to hear, especially Koe-zoo-ay.

I wish I could throw both versions in a blender and come out with a perfect dub, but failing that, I tend to watch whatever appeals to me at the time (often depending on what character is being focused on). The only exception is the movie, which I find basically the best part of the dub (it probably doesn't hurt that Nanami isn't really there and Kozue's name never gets mentioned) and thus strongly prefer the English... which is good, since it's the most visually appealing part of Utena.

As for Wikipedia, it's much easier to ensure an accurate article in something that can be fact-checked and cited (like scientific topics and historical events). The problem is it's almost impossible to accurately and reliably moderate an article on something like a TV show. All sources other than watching the thing yourself may be just as biased; beyond even that, so many things are matter of opinon (the Utena article does or did state that Utena has a clear canonical sexual interest in Anthy, something many people might agree with but I rather vehemently do not). So it's just a situation that can't be solved, unfortunately. As others have said, don't take it as gospel, though it makes a good starting resource for many topics.