Posted under Anime/Manga
I don’t know if anyone knows but i hate, HATE WITH A PASSION, Johnny Yong Bosh. He sounds the same in every damn thing he does and this dub of Code Geass is just the same as all his other roles. I just saw the first episode of Code Geass online at AdultSwim.com and i have to admit, i hated every minute of it. Kallen sounds like a whinny bitch, C.C. Sounds too monotone, Lelouch sounds just… TERRIBLE! Rival sounds like he’s trying to be too damn cool. Shirley sounds like a dingbat (oh wait she is) but worse in this dub, Milly sounds like she’s in love with Lelouch. Orange-kun sounds like your generic bad guy, Suzaku sounds like a sissy. it’s easy to say that I don’t like dubs, if you honestly love anime why not watch it in its original form.
What made Code Geass worthy for me in reality was the seiyuu performances, Fukuyama Jun’s performance was what made me keep watching Code Geass. He is Lelouch! His performance embodied the character so well, it’s impossible for me to imagine anyone else playing this role as well as he does. You don’t go see a foreign film dubbed do you? You watch it in it’s original language! You can’t watch Life is Beautiful in English and not expect it to lose it’s charm and flavor! You can’t see Pan’s Labyrinth and hope that the story still makes sense in english! Why should anime be any different! Wouyld you appreiciate going to another country and seeing Gone with the Wind in Dutch or German or any other language? Would Rhett Butler sound the same? Would “Frankly i don’t give a damn” sound the same? It won’t, so if you love anime so much why watch it butchered in this fashion.
You can see this horrible dub in action here, but i won’t recommend it.
J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you
9Tale on 25 Apr 2008 at 10:14 pm #
I’ve only gotten to the part before the OP as of now, but it’s terrible already. I have no real problem with C.C. other than it’s not Yukana, though.
I’m not part of the Purist Faction, I don’t hate many dubs, but the delivery of lines is terrible (like at the end), and Lelouch is simply Fukuyama Jun. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
lol on 25 Apr 2008 at 10:19 pm #
lol, i kinda liked it, but i agree with you on every single point. Thought the same exact stuff when watching.
dirtycash on 25 Apr 2008 at 10:39 pm #
true. It’s terrible!
I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I was laughing my butt off.
I just couldn’t sit there watching it.
RmX on 25 Apr 2008 at 10:58 pm #
“You fellas know full well what this badass mother can do!”
Best line to make fun of right here.
IcyStorm on 26 Apr 2008 at 12:21 am #
Well I’m gonna sit through two episodes of this dub and two episodes of Lucky Star’s dub… I hope it isn’t THAT terrible…
IcyStorms last blog post..WordPress 2.5.1 Released
yumeno on 26 Apr 2008 at 12:23 am #
Yup, English dubs are just plain “ugh”.
yumenos last blog post..Visual Kei
53RG10 on 26 Apr 2008 at 12:43 am #
This afternoon, I got a glimpse of it out of curiosity…and my curiosity let me down again… -_- I skipped most of it and just went to the scene when he uses Geass for the first time.
Lelouch doesn’t sound as empowering or menacing as the Japanese counterpart…he just sounds like your average rich kid.
53RG10s last blog post..DaCapo II S.S > DaCapo II
kuromitsu on 26 Apr 2008 at 1:29 am #
Oookay, just a moment there.
I’m more than willing to believe that the Geass dub sucks ass (I’ve never seen an American dub of anything that I liked, but then I’m no American), and generally I prefer subtitles when they’re available. However, saying that dubs don’t make sense by default because they’re on different languages, and that dubs are inferior simply because they’re on a different language is… a little ignorant, don’t you think? Many people go see dubbed movies, and they survive somehow. Imagine, there are countries where most everything you see on TV is dubbed, and people still get by somehow. Dubs are easier to screw up than subs, but that doesn’t mean they automatically suck and can’t ever be anything close to good. (And unless you’ve seen Pan’s Labyrinth without subtitles and watch and read anime/manga in Japanese, you’re in no position to judge whether a story does or doesn’t make sense in a different language.)
tl;dr - hate the translation, the voice actors’ performance, the dub director or all these, but hating on dubs in general simply because they’re “not the same” doesn’t make very much sense.
AnIMeLuvER on 26 Apr 2008 at 6:59 am #
It so ughhhh……
especially the part where C.C goes: ” No! he Cant die!”
Im all like O.O
yeah…
that idiot!!!! He totally ruined lulouch….. The rest of them just sound weird….
Dancing Queen on 26 Apr 2008 at 10:34 am #
@kuromitsu:
i’m not trying to say that countries that live of dubs suck or anything. I have family in Frances, Spain, Argentina, and Mexico who all watch american tv shows and mvoies dubbed. The live watching those since they’ve never seen it in another launguage or don’t have access to it. For exxample my Uncle in Frances is a HUGE movie buff, he has a region free dvd player and he gets all sorts of movies online, yety he only watches the movies dubbed. He has openly admitted to me to not liking some movies for they didn’t make sense. I then explain to him the movie since i’ve seen it in english and can explain to him american customs and american jokes and he then fully understood it. Thats why i brought up “Gone with the Wind,” he claimed to have hated the movie when it’s a favorite of mine. I then had a discussion and found out that many things were lost with the translation. On top of that you loose people’s hard work of acting when you just dub over their voices. Voices are a powerful thing and it’s a way we express our emotion and feelings. when you just copy over someone’s hard work you loose all those feelings.
lostty on 27 Apr 2008 at 5:48 pm #
I completely agree that it is a horrible dub! I watched the clips and I was cringing in disgust. Lelouch is the worst one by far, it doesn’t suite his personality at all! He sounds like a stupid voice from Bleach and it takes away from his character so much! It was one of the worst dubs I ever heard
losttys last blog post..Death the Kid = Awesomeness
Kitanishi on 30 Apr 2008 at 7:17 am #
lol xD
“Milly sounds like she’s in love with Lelouch”
:3
Well she is
“Orange-kun sounds like your generic bad guy,”
I am sorry, but If you are going to say something bad about Crispin Freeman, you better have a good reason. He is not “generic” bad guy, he is known for PSYCHO roles
“Suzaku sounds like a sissy”
Well thats the point. We have an evil retarded hypocrite trying to sound heroic. To me his voice was 100% perfect in dub, as you can hate him from the very first second.
“JYB”
Agreed…. Why does that damn power ranger has to go in nearly EVERY new anime dub?… =.=
Well here’s hoping that he will sound at least A BIT BETTER later on…
“Rival sounds like he’s trying to be too damn cool.”
Isn’t thats how his personality should be? As far as I remember he was always an unlucky guy who would try to be cool and fail.
“C.C sounds monotone”
True… Katie Higgins = Fail. Someone should kill her before she ruins ANY MORE females…
“Shirley sounds like a dingbat (oh wait she is) but worse”
So you hate the voice because u hate the character or what…? -.-”
Well, as to summarize. Too much dub hate. Yes the dub is not PERFECT. Yes I won’t watch it. And Yes I will buy the DVD sets. But I have to say that its damn fine dub, in regards of other dubs currently floating around (-.-”) and a good introduction to the show for english speaking fans who do not like to pause the episodes and read the subs(i know lots of people who JUST CAN’T read and look at the events at the same time)
Dancing Queen on 30 Apr 2008 at 11:04 am #
@Kitanishi:
well first off, Have you even SEEN Code geass? have we seen the same series? and i stand by every word i wrote in my post. this dub is utter crap
DmonHiro on 06 Jun 2008 at 12:57 am #
I’m very sorry, but this dub is NOT shit. Shit is usefull. We can make fertilizer with it. We can throw it at people that we hate. It CAN be usefull. This……….this……abomination, has no value whatsoever. Lulu’s voice is………hideous. It ACTUALLY hurt my ears. C.C. sound like she could not care less about ANYTHING that happenes. Suzaku, who, BTW is supposed to be a strong soldier, sound like a kindergarden little boy. DOWN WITH ENGLISH DUBS!!!!
Reper4666 on 19 Jun 2008 at 9:59 pm #
If anime should be in its original form, learn to speak japanese and stop talking English.It was made in japanese WITHOUT subtitles, so learn to read there lips instead of the words at the bottom of the screen.This dub is actually better then most i’ve seen.
ChuckNormis on 24 Jun 2008 at 11:01 am #
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
More people need an attitude like yours, There are 3 things I hate in this world with a passion: Onions, Liars and dubbed anime. Every single time I find a really good anime and start watching it, it gets dubbed and then a bunch of loser retard white kids see it and think its the shit. Pisses me off so bad I would like to go down to whoever is responsible’s main office and massacre the entire staff. Naruto, Bleach, Dragonball Z, Gundam SEED (then again Gundam and Dragonball where actaully pretty good dubs) but the point is that it ruined the fan base.
I thank you for speaking what needs to be heard. And good movie reference
Deleted1 on 26 Jun 2008 at 7:42 pm #
So i decided to check out the dubs on youtube and i found them to be actually pretty good (with the exceptions of Kallen, the empereor’s speech, which didn’t carry enough emotion, and the child version of lelouch). The voices may sound weird at first but as you continue to watch it, you soon get used to it. That’s when you can truly start appreciating the quality of the voices. In the beginning, I thought that the voices weren’t right, (it was strange to hear lelouch’s voice so high not the mention that kallen’s voice acting was pretty bad in the first episode). But as i continued to watch because i was bored, It still retained the majority of all the excitement and charm the first season had. It was hilarious when I heard lelouch’s scream when the cat stole the zero helmet and all the times where lelouch is surprised. Then i started to notice how well done his voice was. Lelouch’s voice actor is actually pretty good. Most of the other VAs manage to bring out the characters as well as the japanese voice actors did (except Kallen, i just can’t feel the emotion behind her voice acting and i also find it difficult to listen to it like bad singing).
Yes it doesn’t sound like the original voice actor, but why should it? The voice actors put their own emotions into the voices just as how the japanese voice actors do. The quality of the voice acting is still superb (except for the exceptions) once you abandon the stereotype that all dubs suck. The english dub deserves more alot more respect that people give it and i applude the VA choices for this series as it still brings out what’s good about Geass.
I’m looking forward to the next dubbed episode because Code Geass is just that good (even though i already saw the whole series in japanese plus the recent R2 episodes, which i have to say disappoints me but hopfully it gets better after the chinese arc). The voice actors really do justice to the show that a rewatch is actually still entertaining. It also provides a whole new experience as you watch how the VA’s portray the characters emotions.
BPurg on 27 Jun 2008 at 9:12 am #
I have been spoiled by Fan subs to the point the only animes I watch in english are Cowboy Bebop, Trigun and Hellsing. Lelouch’s Jap. voice is to melt for and I’m slowly picking up on how to speak a few words in Japanness and culture refrances.
What killed a freind of mine’s desire to see any type of english dub anime was the scean in Full Metal Alchemist where the women is having a baby. In the original she is calm collected and just flat out had the dignity a women should have when giving birth. English she was the styroe typical histarical basket case that America is fond of portraying for the sake of comidy (cuz boys running around screaming they don’t what to do omg omg isn’t funny enoghf?).
Even the English subs leave something to be desired. In Elfin Lied the DVD subs had I supose a more ‘pc’ translation then the fan subs. There was apoint where she speaks (acording to the fan sub notes mind you) Latin meaning ‘ultimate suffering’ . In the store bough DVDs the translation wasn’t even close. Infact it went a diffrent direction with her stating she was bored. There was some other flaws too. Not a big -ehm…I’m not going to join a Purest Faction over it, but I will state my 2cents and enjoy my Fan subs more. n_n
I spread the word of Fan dubs where/when I can, saddly I have a freind who is a rabbid fan of the Power Ranger dubber and other English dubers to the point she has posters and sighned DVDs by them. I forgive her cuz she dosen’t get out much.