Talk:Licensing in USA

The Dub

Somehow, the voices from the English-dubbed trailer seem really bad to me. Madoka, Sayaka and Kyubey are pretty OK, but Mami, Hitomi, Kyoko and (especially!) Homura totally lost their character from the original... Well, thank God we have multiple audio tracks and softsubs, they ought to be the best invention in home video technology ever ;) --kFYatek 17:32, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

They all sound horrible to me... --84.77.58.17 18:48, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm really disappointed by the dub so far. All the characters sound forced to some extent, Sayaka by far is the worst in this aspect. Madoka is trying too hard to sound "cutesy", Mami sounds like she is in her 30s, Homura has no personality and sounds like she is reading a script. On the brighter side, Kyoko is alright as far as dubs go (but lacks the Nonaka Ai charm) and QB is... mediocre. I never trust dubs, but this one really did let me down. --Lord Chestnut 19:15, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Sayaka's voice itself is actually a good match, but she and the rest of the cast didn't show any acting ability. Relistening to it, it seems like it's not the quality of the dub relative to the typical dub that's so bad, but rather the exceptional work of the Japanese VA's, which was clearly above the level of the average Japanese-version anime, added so much to the characters that they make "typical dub" feel like "amateurish butchery." I wonder how much time the dubbing staff spent listening to and understanding the nuances, emoting, and precise voice control in the original.KM 04:29, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't like the dub. The voices are trying to imitate the 'cutesy' way the Japanese speak and it sounds really fake and stiff. All the girls sounded similar to me, reminds me of Puchi Puri Yuushi. There's not distinction to the characters. Most dubs I've watched so this, they try too hard and it just flat out fails. Like someone in another thread mentioned, that unnatural/stiff sound in the voices isn't present in original English cartoons. If they voices /are/ better in the anime and the trailer was supposed to fool us, I'll be damned. Though it's highly likely that won't be the case. I just wonder what goes on in the VAs/director's heads when they do dubs. Do they even know the personality of the character they're supposed to be portraying? Also, to quote someone on YT, "cutesy doesn't translate well to this language". That's my opinion, anyways. ViralJuggernaut 07:54, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Sooo, another sample video is there. Unfortunately it's region-locked, but fortunately, there are proxies ;) Anyway, technicalities aside - not in the slightest did that convince me that the dub might be better than I think it'll be. It may be cruel, but it seems that the problem is kind of lack of emotions to the show from the cast. When Aoi Yuuki is talking about the show, for example in the BD/DVD commentaries, she really feels attached to it and it's clear that she had put her heart into the recording. And Christine Marie Cabanos in that interview seems as plain as humanly possible. It gave me a feeling of "oh well, just another dubbing session, not much to say about it". The only thing I wonder about is - is the dub bad, or are the original seiyuu just that good? --kFYatek 01:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't comment on dubs because I don't follow them. But I can say the way the seiyuu talk about Madoka is unusually passionate. They're all very good seiyuu and Japanese fans have repeatedly praised the quality of their performances in Madoka. --randomanon 02:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I liked what I heard from that guy they had on the script. He seems to be putting thought into it. But on the VA side I got the impression that they were overwhelmed and learning as they went along. That probably means making a trailer composed entirely of lines from the very beginning wasn't the best way to show off. As for Aoi Yuuki, she's totally off the deep end even by hardcore standards, and puts average Japanese VAs to shame. If you try to find someone to dub James Bond, Connery will make them all look like amateurs, especially if they are amateurs. KM 08:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)