Talk:Licensing in USA

The Dub: Online Clips + Trailer

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.

One interesting thing he mentioned was that the dubbers expected a veteran to do the lines in single takes, but they ended up doing lots of retakes and spending time trying to get it right. The JP interviews said they expected to spend a lot of time doing retakes, but ended up nailing things in one shot very often. Kind of reminds me of sports, one team is getting out of their usual comfort zone for a big game, and another is aiming for the championship and has one of those days when they're in the zone and can't be stopped. KM 08:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

So I watched the director and Sayaka interviews. And you're right, the director guy seems to be genuinely enjoying the show and the work he put into it. Sayaka's VA is actually not so bad, either. Not the level of KitaEri, but she'll definitely be one of the better voices of the dub. Any clip of the dub featuring Mami, though, is just... That voice just doesn't suit her. At all.

I'm curious to hear more scenes of Kyubey and Homura next ;) And well... I just wonder how eps 10-12 will end up in the dub. Those were so epic performances of the original seiyuu, and I can't help being afraid of those eps getting ruined by the English VAs... --kFYatek 11:02, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Is there any method to view those videos outside of US? I'm unable to view those videos. But I'm very interested in them. Yorkwoo 12:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

You need some kind of proxy. This one seems to work pretty well. You can also try eg. ones listed on this site or google "youtube proxy". --kFYatek 00:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much. It works. Yorkwoo 19:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I kind of like the attitude of Mami's VA. She actually may not turn out bad in this role, but it's a totally different way of portraying her than in the Japanese version. Kaori Mizuhashi's Mami is much more cheerful and high-spirited, while Carrie Keranen is just gentle and caring. "Tiro Finale" with American English accent is just awful, though, sorry -_- --kFYatek 16:30, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Cristina Vee is awesome. In general, I mean. She contributed to Haruhi dub adverts, she dubbed Mio in K-On, she has some skills and... well, is awesome in general. I liked her interview the best so far. But... she's also NOT the right person to do Homura. The voice just doesn't go together with image well. She would be great as Mami or Sayaka, I guess, but Homura is definitely not the right character for her... I have really weird thoughts about the guys who did the US casting... --kFYatek 14:28, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, the Kyoko girl, Lauren Landa. She is certainly the worst among the cast in terms of pronouncing Japanese names. She makes the name of her own character sound more like "Kiyoko" than "Kyoko" :/ But thankfully Kyoko doesn't say people's names too often, and in terms of the actual dialogue, she might actually be better than I expected. She has a totally different voice than Aipon, but it might actually work; she seems to authentically like her character, which will certainly help. --kFYatek 14:32, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

This seems barely noticeable to me, though.... I mean, I'm in the midst of taking my second year of University Japanese (might've been third if I heard about the Japanese program freshman year...), and I'm only hearing some of that now that you and some random youtube poster mentioned it. But even then, it doesn't sound like the "Ki" (き) part of "Kyo" (きょう）is drawn out much, at least not on a consistent basis; it's a subtle enough difference to be overlooked in the bigger scheme of things. I have definitely heard a whole lot worse pronunciations of Japanese names and words, let me tell you. Anyway, we've heard Lauren Landa say "Kyoko" more times in this cast video than she ever will while actually playing the part of Kyoko in the series, so whatever "flubbing" there is here should matter little, as you've kinda already said. On a separate note, I'm really loving what I've heard of Kyoko in the cast video; I'd be lying if I didn't get a big grin stuck on my face after hearing her dub lines between the 0:31 and 0:37 mark. Animerican-Redeemed 18:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It stood out really obviously to me, and felt like there was an extra syllable. I fear the bad habits it might encourage among people who have never heard it in Japanese. But aside from that, I agree that she had more of a Kyoko feel to her than I expected from any dub. KM 23:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The Dub Premiere: February 11, 2012

You're MINE, Madoka, MINE MINE MINE!

February 11, simulcast Nico broadcast in of Ep 1 in North America, Japan, UK, and Australia with English dubs and Japanese subs. 2012/02/11 (Sat): 13:00 Opening 13:30 (JST). http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv79795448 --randomanon 12:36, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, Saturday 13:00 JST is:

• Friday 20:00 (8 PM) PST (US West Coast)
• Friday 23:00 (11 PM) EST (US East Coast)
• Saturday 4:00 (AM) UTC (UK)
• Saturday 12:00 (noon) WST (Western Australia)
• Saturday 15:00 (3 PM) AEDT (South-Eastern Australia)

I think the live stream won't be too popular among UK fans ;) But still, that's great news, it may mean that a UK license is around the corner - hoping heavily for it! --kFYatek 19:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, so I actually happened to stay up this late and find a (somewhat) working proxy, so I watch it, until ca. the time Mami shows up, the proxy went down at that time, so I couldn't hear her. Anyway, the dub was better than I thought it'll be, it flowed quite good, and the voices fit. Surprisingly even Homura. QB shows a little bit too much emotion, though. I'll comment on it more once I watch the Mami scenes, but the dub seems OK, definitely not worse than the Italian one. --kFYatek 05:23, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, though, didn't Kyubey sound a bit "emotional" himself originally? I just saw all four of the episodes, subbed, of the LE that arrived early for me, and he doesn't seem to be talking with the same lack of passion that we've tended to associated with him after knowing more about him. I feel that many fans have just over-credited Kyubey with an emotionless voice, as if he was fully lacking any personality on a vocal level for all twelve episodes. Its this beginning part of the series, in this 1-2 episode period before the first big jump down the rabbit hole abyss, that he goes all chirpy salesman the most, and tries to appeal to the girls the most on an emotional level.Animerican-Redeemed 04:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not saying that Kyubey was totally and utterly emotionless in the original. Just that he was noticeably less emotional than in the dub. --kFYatek 04:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, managed to finish the episode. Well, Mami's voice is definitely the worst part of this dub IMO. I didn't make it to the /a/'s ep2-4 streams, but the lines that are in the Mami's VA video ("Tiro Finale"... OMGWTF) don't help... ;] Well, we won't be hearing her too much anyway xD --kFYatek 05:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that Mami's voice is worst part of the whole thing. On the other hand, Tatsuya's voice is so adorable and Sayaka sounds like KITAERI. I found it pretty weird that they re-dub Anthony voice, though. (Oh I wish I could watch it without lagging every 3 seconds.) --0x99 06:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Anthonies were dubbed in Italian too. Yes, it's weird. Kraff 06:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe the Japanese are just giving copies without Anthonies' voices to the dubbing companies and they have no choice but to redub them. Anyway, the "English" Anthonies were much closer to the original and much better-sounding overall, than the "Italian" ones, at least to my ear. --kFYatek 13:14, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

FYI- 37K viewers, 88K comments, overall high approval rating on Nico live broadcast of ep 1.

When the stream closed, it was reading 39,176 visitors and 93,216 comments. KM 10:37, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

You're confusing the former, which is Japanese Nico with the latter, English Niconico. They're different sites for viewing. --randomanon 22:18, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

On another note - anyone else noticed how the Japanese subs were an exact transcript of the original dialogue? Which wasn't a faithful translation of the English audio at times since the dub took liberties here and there. --kFYatek 13:31, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The Dub: Episodes 5-8

Huh! It seems like overall wiki community interest has dropped in the Madoka dub. I don't think I've even seen any impressions for anything in episodes 2-4. Beyond a posible lack of interest, perhaps the information that's been coming in from the PSP game has diverted a lot of attention from it, huh? Well, here's some of what I took away from the L.E. Volume 2 set (which admittedly takes some basis in what I've already said on ANN):

Madoka: Cabanos' crying scenes sounded quite nicely done to me, and unlike a few other scenes infused with a lot of vocal emotion, I didn't have any inclination/temptation to directly compare it with the Japanese performance "just to be sure" or anything insecure like that. It felt pitch perfect, really. It's kinda too bad how her character writing kinda limits how much she can do in this set, though.

Homura: Cristina Vee's doing her job as the Magical Girl of Mystery. She sounded an edge bit meaner in her confrontation with Sayaka in episode 8 several seconds before she was about to kill her-- she gave a coolly worded "I don't give a damn if you live or die," or something extremely close to that. Her emotional burst with Madoka felt pretty spot-on, even sounding eerily like Chiwa Saito when she cried out "Madoka!"

Sayaka: Sarah Williams did a particularly great job here, aptly pulling off her big Emotional Scenes in episodes 7 and 8 and more. She's practically the American Kitamura, for me! That said, I can't help but keep on comparing her and Kitamura's performances of the breakdown in the fight against Elsa Maria at the end of Episode 7/start of Episode 8. I'm definitely liking Kitamura's performance there a bit more-- her voice felt somewhat deeper, more inhuman (and thus more powerfully dissonant from her normal voice for Sayaka) than what Sarah Williams did. No question, Sayaka's breakdown was on clear display in both-- it might be a very subject personal preference, here.

Kyoko: Yep, really liking Lauren Landa as her. She might've most quickly adapted to the role than the other girls, and makes a believable transition into her more serious and stern/ less playful voice in the later episodes. In a few bits (particularly her introductory fight with Sayaka), she sounded fairly similar to Sayaka, but it seemed to be less evident/prevalent/cared about by me as the episodes' content moved along.

Kyubey: Fine in my book-- sounds gender-neutral neutral enough. Really don't have any particularly strong feelings either way for the dub, though I trend more positive. Not as memorable as Emiri Katou-- but then again, Katou didn't pull a win at the 6th Annual Seiyuu Awards for nothing.

Mami: ... Uh, her picture on the front of Aniplex USA's LE box is nice.  ;-)

Those Male Hosts on the Train: Well... that was interesting! (lol) The first 2-3 lines sounded like they were spoken by (and please, pardon the use of a stereotype here) black people. There were enough uses of "hoes" to make Sideshow Bob trip and fall unconscious. One of the male hosts even managed the first three-fourths of a low-sounding "motherf*****" before Sayaka cut in, hah. I think the change works more than not-- there really isn't a 1:1 American equivalent for hostess clubs or their hostesses, with the nearest things probably being a night club and, uh... "hoes?" (Yep, hoe was a stand-in for hostess in the spoken dialogue.) And with the dub more or less making those equivalencies, the language sounded dirty enough to evoke the general image that they're scummy misogynous guys and "oh, these guys must come from a night club" or some place like that. (Still, I think the voice director and script adapter might've tried a little too hard, here.)

So, any new thoughts on the voices from any of you guys, yet? Animerican-Redeemed 04:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Puella Magi Madoka☆Magica Meet and Greet at Anime Jungle February 17th, 2012

Celebrating the release of Puella Magi Madoka☆Magica Vol. 1 in North America, Aniplex of America had a special Meet and Greet Event with the English Voice Cast of the series.

This is part 1/3 of the Q&A.

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