I want bloopers of Akio and Touga's Japanese voice actors trying to do their Engrish lines with a straight face.

'Baby you set my heart o-..ps...BAH no no seriously...hey guys stop that! I mean it now. Baby yo...AW YOU GOT SODA ALL OVER ME'

I want lots of arts and bloopers.  Maybe some posters or something included in the box set.  I definitely want detailed  and correctly romanized character bios (meaning, her name isn't Tenjo, It's Tenjou.  Not Otori, Ohtori.  Please.)  Interviews (especially anything that Ikuhara did, anything) would be definitely worth a pre-order.  Also, a pre-order gift would be amazinggggg. 

i go away for 1 week. 1 WEEK! and all of this is going on!  This is exciting!

I really hated the english dubber's interviews... it was rather retarded, "uh.. yeah i related to the character... *picks nose* haha.. wasn't it cool when..."

No love for the sport what so ever!

I remember when i purchased my VHS set... (YES THATS WHAT I SAID! VHS!) i got all these cool stickers from the rose bride season. I was really excited about the stickers (at that age). Once i upgraded to DVD there was no such fun thing.

Lets see what happens!

rhyaniwyn wrote:

All I have to say is, "Oh my god."  I think I might buy 2. 

My download of the remaster is plagued with artifact-ing.  Or whatever you call it with video.  And I wish I had it on DVD so it was more portable....

I wish I could pre-order right now!!

Welcome back!   I know we weren't close but I've missed your brilliance m'dear!


There is one thing and only one thing I do not want to see on the dvds, really.  Chiho Saito.  Just.  Just gtfo SKU you cliche romance writer, you!  If I find little Ikuhara but a lot of Saito shit will be stormed.

OITL wrote:

There is one thing and only one thing I do not want to see on the dvds, really.  Chiho Saito.  Just.  Just gtfo SKU you cliche romance writer, you!  If I find little Ikuhara but a lot of Saito shit will be stormed.

FUCKING SECONDED.

OnlyInThisLight wrote:

Light's Wishlist for the release, in order from most to least likely as far as she knows which isn't all that far:

An english version of the game for pc
newdubnewdubnewdubnewdub

Unfortunately, I think anything's more likely than an english version of the game for PC.

was_ohtori_akio wrote:

At this point in time, any extra they include would be a great bonus.

Another extra I would like that popped into my head would be similar to what we got in the French Rose of Versailles release, a booklet with an episode synopsis and a history of the show, how it eventuated, the hell going through licensing it, how well it does in different territories and with a few reasons why that could be, the thought process behind creating the art, story, soundtrack etc... would make for an AWESOME AWESOME extra!

Agreed, on both fronts!

winksniper wrote:

I definitely want detailed and correctly romanized character bios (meaning, her name isn't Tenjo, It's Tenjou.  Not Otori, Ohtori.  Please.)

To be fair, there's no one correct way to romanize Japanese. (In fact, "Tenjou" and "Ohtori" are romanized using two different styles.) Why, look at all these methods that Wikipedia has briefed me on!

Tenjou and Outori ("Word processor style")
Tenjō and Ōtori (Hepburn)
Tenjoo and Ootori (Modified Hepburn)
Tenjoh and Ohtori ("Passport Hepburn")
Tenjô and Ôtori (Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki)

...of course, "Tenjo" and "Otori" are probably the least accurate ways to romanize those names, since they drop any indication of the long vowels entirely, just like "Tokyo". So yeah.

Last edited by Dallbun (07-12-2010 11:52:34 PM)

You just blew my mind. Is it Toukyo?

Honestly the 'Passport Hepburn' one seems to me to lead to the most accurate pronunciation from an English speaker. Well, I suppose technically the Hepburn one is most accurate but most Americans don't like lines on their vowels and don't actually know how to pronounce them. Word processor is gonna get people going 'ow-tori' and Modified Hepburn's gonna get 'ten-jew'.

I can't recall learning in school how to use them, to be honest. I picked it up watching anime and getting translations like those.

Secret: I have seen/heard NONE of the extras on ANY of the DVDs. In fact at RoseCon if we want to watch the Ikuhara commentary, I'm good with that. I haven't the foggiest what Akio's English VA has to say about anything and frankly don't want to know. But to be fair, I kinda feel bad for him, it sounds like he did this silly easy one off episode and it roped him into something with a much larger scope. And voicing Akio can't be easy. (hurr pimpin' ain't ez)

Giovanna wrote:

You just blew my mind. Is it Toukyo?

In fact, it's Toukyou -- both vowels are long!    On the other end of the Shinkansen, Kyouto has only one long vowel -- so Tokyo and Kyoto are anagrams in English, but not in Japanese.

Giovanna wrote:

Honestly the 'Passport Hepburn' one seems to me to lead to the most accurate pronunciation from an English speaker. Well, I suppose technically the Hepburn one is most accurate but most Americans don't like lines on their vowels and don't actually know how to pronounce them. Word processor is gonna get people going 'ow-tori' and Modified Hepburn's gonna get 'ten-jew'.

My understanding is that it's not so much what's "most accurate" so much as what works best for a certain purpose, as you hint when you say that Passport Hepburn leads to an accurate pronunciation.  If you want English speakers to pronounce it approximately right, best to spell it Tenjoh (or Tenjo, perhaps with a long-vowel marker over the O if you trust your audience).  If you want to reflect, sound-by-sound, what's actually going on in the mouth, Tenjoo is best -- but only if the reader already understands that vowels in Japanese don't combine like "oo" in "hoot."  If you want to transliterate the word kana-by-kana so that the reader can reconstruct the Japanese spelling, Tenjou is the reading you want.  It's tricky!

Most anime that I've seen have adopted this lattermost style -- Tenjou, Kyouichi, Keiko.  Generally, the O-H spelling signals that something unusual is going on here -- usually, a long O sound is spelled O-U in the original kana, but there are exceptions.  Dallbun is by years and years my better at Japanese, but I think he's slipped up on Ohtori; I think this word's furigana is actually O-O-TO-RI, which would make "Outori" the wrong transliteration under any scheme.  Similarly, Honda Tohru from Fruits Basket has a name that is spelled TO-O, so she also gets the OH version. 

I've never seen a professional sub use the O-O or E-E spelling, but the fansub I saw of Boogiepop Phantom did so, and misled me for a long time about how one of the main characters' names (Miyashita Tooka) should be understood. 

Edited because I realized that Ohtori is two O's.

Last edited by satyreyes (07-13-2010 12:37:02 AM)

Dallbun wrote:

satyreyes wrote:

Dallbun is by years and years my better at Japanese, but I think he's slipped up on Ohtori; I think this word's furigana is actually O-O-TO-RI, which would make "Outori" the wrong transliteration under any scheme.

Nope, it is indeed written "Outori" under the "word processor" romanization. An inability to distinguish between the long "o" vowel and an "o" followed by a "u" is one of the flaws of that writing system. (DOUBT NOT MY MIGHTY JAPANESE ABILITIES, INFIDEL! )

Whoa, really?!  Does that mean that there is no transliteration system that predictably distinguishes とおい (far) from とうい (sugar coating)?  I thought that was the whole point of the word processor system, not to mention the reason it's called the word processor system.  A writing system that spells the first "tooi" and the second "toui" seems blindingly obvious and highly useful.

If they were the sight-reading Japanese names off a Modified Hepburn-based script for some reason, that would explain the "Ten-jew" that you're all complaining about... but they didn't mess up on Touga, did they? After all, he would be have been written "Tooga"... The mind boggles.

I think a reasonable English speaker with no guidance could reasonably read Tenjou as "ten-jew."  Reading Utena Tenjou as "Lieutenant Tangerine," however, may be a bit of a stretch.

Last edited by satyreyes (07-13-2010 02:23:24 AM)

Everyone wrote:

*Awesome Language Lecture*

This is really interesting. I did discover during my Japanese class the difference between

とうきょう（toukyou) & ときょ。

After growing up with Utena Subs and Dubs i did learn how to pronounce the words better but i had no idea that ohtori was spelled おおとり

This is interesting.

One of my least favorite mispronunciations is Utena.

I can't tell you HOW MANY TIMES my step father called her "You-Teen-uh" (U -Tina? Like the name? tina?)  It drove me up the wall.

At any rate... Back to the DVDS!:

I prefered (as most purists) the japanese vocals with english subs; however, Utena's voice in English had more emotion in some scenes than the original japanese voice actress imho.  The scene in the Rose Bride saga/section/arc/ whatever where Utena loses to Touga, Anthy's voice in English absolutely pissed me off. I wanted to pull my hair out... the Japanese, Anshii, was absolutely brilliant in portraying the character's emotion (or lack there of.)

and to the 3rd flip side, Utena's english actress, i feel, did an excellent job of making me feel her pain, her tragedy.


The problem with all of this changing back and forth between sub and dub is the losing of the meaning. Ikuhara probably spent a lot of time with the voice actors in the original japanese version; therefore, i think most of his message comes through those portrayals.... but in the english version, some of that original meaning was lost.

---/


Now i have a question, was the "Musical" an official prodution of the Utena crew or was it some side company thing? Because honestly, a copy of that on DVD would be pretty cool. I really like the ojisama song. Its so happy and upbeat and fun.. maybe i'm a dork and anti-purist ( but wait KFAR... you just said you were...) but the Musical (from what i saw of it on a cheap ass youtube version) was really fun... and ... interesting o.O.

Also, a chuchu plushie with pre-order = good idea. I've always wanted a chuchu plushie... i just think he'd be perfect. He would come with a clip on tie... hehe...

i think deleted scenes (if there are any) would be interesting...

I dunno, just some thoughts.

KissFromARose wrote:

Now i have a question, was the "Musical" an official prodution of the Utena crew or was it some side company thing?

Well, they were certainly officially licensed, but Be-Papas weren't very involved. The first musical was written and directed by Yūji Mitsuya, who has no other relation to Utena. The second musical was apparently produced by Ikuhara, but directed and adapted by Ei Takatori. The third musical was directed and adapted by Nakano Keiko. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like footage of the second and third musicals exist.

i think deleted scenes (if there are any) would be interesting...

Unfortunately, it's uncommon for animation to have deleted scenes, even partially-animated ones. If any existed for Utena, I'm sure we would have heard about them by now.

Dallbun wrote:

winksniper wrote:

I definitely want detailed and correctly romanized character bios (meaning, her name isn't Tenjo, It's Tenjou.  Not Otori, Ohtori.  Please.)

To be fair, there's no one correct way to romanize Japanese. (In fact, "Tenjou" and "Ohtori" are romanized using two different styles.) Why, look at all these methods that Wikipedia has briefed me on!

Tenjou and Outori ("Word processor style")
Tenjō and Ōtori (Hepburn)
Tenjoo and Ootori (Modified Hepburn)
Tenjoh and Ohtori ("Passport Hepburn")
Tenjô and Ôtori (Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki)

...of course, "Tenjo" and "Otori" are probably the least accurate ways to romanize those names, since they drop any indication of the long vowels entirely, just like "Tokyo". So yeah.

I understand, but at the same time, most of us know how not to romanize something. And that's the part I hate about Japanese. There's so many ways to do it that it almost seems like anything goes.  Sometimes I wish they would just have it written in standard Japanese but obviously that wouldn't be fair at all.