Hank's Comments
Hank Wong (hankwong@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU)
Thu, 22 Jul 1999 19:56:15 -0700 (PDT)
Okay, here are my comments on the dub and panel at last:
Things I liked about the LoGH dub:
Voice of the narrator was very good.
In general, the voices of the characters were good. Frederica sounded a
bit forced in her first scene, but she got better as the episodes rolled
on.
Yang sounded a bit on the confident side, for the most part. This
seemed a bit out of character for him, but I didn't seem to mind.
Julian sounded about the right age...mabye a few years older than he
should have been, but I'd imagine that he's supposed to be pretty mature
for his age.
To avoid a spoiler, I'll just say....one of the scenes with Yang and
Frederica was very well done.
I liked Poplan's characterization (he had kind of a rough-sounding New
Yorker accent). I know that not everybody liked this, but this one seemed
to fit in with his character, albeit in a more blatant way.
A few of the Imperial Admirals had sort of "british
aristocrat" accents...not too bad, as long as they didn't all have bad
German accents (which they didn't).
Things I didn't like about the LoGH dub:
Some of the pronounciations: "Yob Trunhit," "Yulian Mintz."
Translating "Gale Wolf" as "Wolf Sturm." (pronounced German-style) That
just didn't work for me, especially when the rest of the dub generally did
not use German phrases. "The Gale Wolf" just sounds a lot better to me.
The voice acting of some of the minor characters (you know, the admirals
that show up on the screen long enough to get blown away) was a bit
overdone.
Reinhard could have been a little more, er, grandiose. It was
not a bad voice, just could have been better.
A few of the lines could have been broken up a little better. This might
have been due to translation, but it seemed some of the lines were just a
bit unrealistically long for a person to say in normal conversation.
My review, in summary: This is one of the better dubs I have seen. I
would buy/watch this if more was available. Frankly, my criticisms are
probably on the nit-picky side. The only thing I really cringed at was the
"Wolf Sturm" thing.
Quickie Comments from other fans at the panel:
Fan#1: "Above average for an American dub, but still not good
enough for me to sit all the way through it" (this fan is known for his
outspoken hatred of all dubs. But he liked LoGH so he at least made an
effort to watch it.)
Fan#2: "Early Carl Macek quality. Yang did a good job
of sounding pathetic though." (fansubber, also not a fan of
dubs)
In general, the fans who didn't like it tended to be hard core fans
who abhor the concept of dubs in general. Not surprising.
Other Notes from the Panel:
Heck, no matter what people think of the dub,
it was very nice to just see the animation in clean, crisp format, after
years of nth generation fansubs...
Dub was done by "Ocean Studios" based out of Vancouver, Canada. They were
chosen for their prior reputation, according to Kikakuwa.
People who complain about the lack of action in the series
should be satisified after ep 51 :P
About the silly fansubs question asked at the panel...well it just seems
somebody has to ask a stupid question every year But at least this year it
seems we have gained a new fan out of it :)
They are working on some new LoGH anime. Since Kikakuwa mentioned that the
VA of Yang was involved, this might be some of the Julian/Yang side
stories perhaps? (just a guess).
Tokuma has been approached by one US anime company about the rights to
LoGH, but they turned them down because they felt this nameless US company
wasn't being sincere about its plans for the series.
Currently no plans to release the novels in English. "Petition your
publishers..."
About the the high cost of LoGH LDs: Because of the relative lack of
merchandizing sponsorship, Tokuma is selling primarily via a subscription
sales model to a limited number of fans. This is why the LDs cost so much
to buy.
that's all for now,
-Hank
