The dub had the best line ever.

Saionji: For example, the love Anthy and I share is hidden love.

Saionji: ...That's HIDDEN LOVE.
Utena: Yeah, nice skirt Saionji.




Episode five, where it went straight from Kozue to Wakaba talking was REALLY WEIRD since they have the same voice and whatnot.


I think the strange thing with Miki, maybe also Mitsuru (Don't remember his VA), was that they were played by old dudes. I remember an interview, and this old man came out all Hi, I'm Miki!  And it was like woooah.

Forgot about Shiori, I agree her dub actress was awesome, I love the scratchiness and sexiness. Kozue was pretty good too, I think she was on par with the Japanese actress. From what I recall her and Wakaba had the same dub actress. Ruka's dub actor sucked so hard, the original sounded natural this one sounded like some weird French sleeze bag.

I also want to say I really enjoyed Tatsuya "The Onion Prince" just because had the most natural and teenage sounding voice in the whole show. He sounded like a real 15 year old which was good, plus his breakdown in the elevator was better than the Japanese actor's.

The Shadow Girls were.... OK, def. not as awesome as the original but there were a couple that were really good and the others were passable.

Mitsuru's little girl friend in his black rose duel episode had an annoying voice but for some reason it really fit, apparently the actress's name is Summer Pepper, what the heck kinda name is that? lol

Mamiya was... meh too, not bad. Keiko's voice was weird.... good emotion and acting but awkward voice.

Last edited by chrisb (01-18-2010 10:06:04 PM)

I forgot about Shiori and Ruka. Best and worst character voices ever.

Usually I don't mind dub voices regardless but GOD Ruka's was terrble.



Hearing Mamiya's voice in other things freaks me out. Because all his characters sound like Mamiya. However, it only ever sounds good for Mamiya. : (



I assume maybe they didn't check Wakaba's actress's screaming, since they only did the first season, then came back YEARS later. (Didn't like her screaming.)



I can't remember any moments off the top of my head, but sometimes, Anthy's voice would REALLY bother me.

Here we go:

Actors I thought were good:
Utena -Too right on the maturity part, but the warmth in her voice and her emotional performance made up for it quite a bit.

Dios: You wouldn't miss in a second that he's voiced by the same actor as Touga, but his voice comes off as both the voice you'd expect of a young, innocent prince, yet there is something indefinably off that makes it sinister rather than cute.

Nanami: For the main part, I thought Nanami's voice actress was brilliant. She's funny when there's comedy, but she is more threatening than the original actress. Nanami's internal rages are much closer to the surface...

Shiori: What can I say that hasn't been said?

Kanae: I'll admit: she won me over. I'm a huge Ai Orikasa fan and I still think this voice actor did a great job.

Actors I thought were goodish:

Miki: Way too old for the character, but I think they were trying to get some emotional stability out of him vs. Saionji's hammy-ness, Juri's coldness, Touga's arch smugness and Nanami's condescending tone. He did a workable job and got Miki's earnest nature through just fine and it's okay, I guess, but from a casting point of view, I can understand why they picked someone who sounded older.

Touga: This was an early role for the voice actor and he'd just gotten on Slayers as a replacement and hadn't found the oozing confidence that made Alucard inspire wet seats in every English-speaking country. It's raw and at times almost dull, but the overconfident, smarmy tones fit his character and where he shines, you can see the performance that would make him a legend in the community.

Keiko: There's nothing about her voice that I don't like and she did as good of a job as the Japanese actress I think; maybe I just need to rewatch her episode. Her voice was just not that memorable to me.

Mikage: I thought they made him too arch in places and too flat in others where the opposite would have worked better. He did alright, though. He pulled off the character: disconnected and baroque.

Actors I thought did okayish:

Juri: She did a good job at projecting Juri's prickly coldness, it's just not pretty. Her voice is rather grating at times and her performance is rather uneven. Her voice is unmelodious, which is unfortunate, given how her character is supposed to be this perfect beauty without apparent fault. There isn't much of an emotional range for her.

Mamiya: Spooky and yet... it does not suit the character at all. The person did a good job, the barely repressed anger and hurt are there, it's just... the voice doesn't fit what you see at all. He would have made a better Akio.

Saionji: He was played as more manic and closer to insanity than the original and with that, I thought the director was brilliant. However, the VA decided to play the character too much like an old time cartoon.

Actors I thought did badly:

Anthy's performance is far too stereotypically warm with no depth. At all. It was awful. The only thing I could say is that later, you could believe she was a puppet if your analysis runs that way.

Akio had the same problem. The one thing he had going on for him is that you could tell he was a great big fake.

Ruka: Do I need to say anything?

I know it's been mentioned, but can we have a moment for how horrid Saionji's dub voice was? Oh lord. When I was first watching the series on dubbed VHS, I HATED Saionji. He was whiny and flat and irritating. But when I started to get farther into the show (when I had access to the wonders of DVD language selection) I started to understand more of the character simply because of decent voice acting, because he didn't seem like a whining jealous caricature  anymore.


Grrrr.

Am I the only person who likes the dub? I've seen one of my favorite titles dubbed by 4kids, and ever since then I'm happy with any that doesn't butcher a character's original personality.  Maybe I'm biased because it was the first version I saw.

I think Jack Taylor's Saionji is incredibly sexy and believable. He really captures his intensity and occasional maudlinism. I was surprised when I heard Ruka's original voice, but I still think his English actor did a wonderful job of making him sound confident and sharp. Finally, I loved Mikage...and not just because I like Dan Green.  Yep, I "totally" have a better reason than liking Dan Green.


The only characters I disliked were Anthy, Akio, and Nanami's henchgirls. I don't think Anthy's English actress was emotional enough. For instance, she doesn't sound panicked at all when Saionji tries to slice Utena in half at the end of episode nine. Akio sounds way too calm during the English version of the final battle and Keiko, Aiko, and Yuuko don't sound like bullies at all when they slap Anthy around. Maybe it was the timing, but it made me cringe.

Vampire Princess Miyu's dub rocked, don't rag on it

I haven't seen most of the series in English, so I'll comment as I can.

I can't stand dub Anthy. I have friends who I'll randomly go up to and I'll start talking to them as dub Anthy and they'll just bowl over laughing. I actually completely disliked Anthy whenever I saw this character in dub. She may as well have been a different character

I do like dub Nanami. The only thing I dislike about her compared to sub Nanami is that sub Nanami achieves a certain softness that I never see dub Nanami get down to.

Utena, I like the uncertainty and softness with which dub Utena is played but I much prefer sub Utena because of the potential androgyny of her voice.

Juri, I much prefer the sub. While the dub is not bad when the moments are filled with anger, softer moments seem to trip the actress up.

I think that's about as much as I can comment...it's been so long since I've seen it in English.

Mitsuru's dub voice sounded like his balls dropped way too early.

When I hear Utena, I keep thinking of Jessie from Pokemon.

Shiori's voice was great but then again I'm biased towards Lisa Ortiz.

Some of how they pronounced the names really bothered me especially how they pronounce Kozue as 'clothes-away' (Well thats how it sounded to me).

Its 'ko-zay' dammit.

Shinolala2 wrote:

did you know that wakaba and kozue english voice are played by the same person. and that i believe its shiori's jap or eng i forget also does the voice of the elf chick in the anime record of lodoss war the newer one.

You talking about Deedlit the elf maiden, yeah she's the same VA but the character I remember her voicing most is Lina Inverse from the Slayers TV series.

CoyoteMemories wrote:

I can't stand dub Anthy. I have friends who I'll randomly go up to and I'll start talking to them as dub Anthy and they'll just bowl over laughing. I actually completely disliked Anthy whenever I saw this character in dub. She may as well have been a different character

I do that to my mom.

LOOK MISS UTENA, THE CLOUDS ARE MOVING SO QUICKLY.




But god, Ruka's voice was so horrible.
I mean really. This is just horrible on everyone's part. Well, except Shiori. But everyone else is so bad, it feels like overacting or something.

You know, I think the first 13 had better English acting. Let's blame the huge pause inbetween.

The overall consensus seems to be that most of the English cast only play one or a few facets of their character's well.  Take Rachel Lillis as Utena, for example.  She never quite captures the tomboyishness, youth, confidence or completely unself-conscious obliviousness of Utena's Japanese VA.  In fact, she plays a more self-aware, soft-spoken, cautious and feminine Utena, which only really seems to fit during the later part of the series, when Utena becomes plagued with self-doubt and struggles with her sexual identity.  So, did Rachel Lillis's voice acting actually improve to fit the character, or simply was she simply chosen with only later-Utena's personality in mind to begin with?

And Saionji... like I said, it's not his acting that is the issue, it's just that the age of his voice (much like Miki's) is completely inappropriate and hard to ignore when he isn't being aggressive.  And Miki's VA is not only miscast in age, but seems to lack any of the hidden and subtle malice or distaste that Miki's Japanese VA wielded.

And sometimes the acting IS jarringly bad.  Lines in the middle of a conversation that are either said so flatly or just plain so strangely that you cringe.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (01-20-2010 08:33:53 PM)