An Example of Dubbing Done RIGHT: Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt ep. 1-2 dubbed

Oh hey I have a blog, I almost forgot.

 

Anyway, I was at Anime Central and had the pleasure of attending the Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt dub premiere. This mini review here contains my feelings on it. Enjoy.

 

What specifically was screened was the dubbed version of episodes 1 and 2 of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. In other words, the four short segments “Excretion Without Honor and Humanity”,  “Death Race 2010”, “The Turmoil of the Beehive”, and “Sex and the Daten City”. As such, this means I have no idea what the Demon Sisters or Corset will sound like, but I have a pretty good sampling of everyone else. This is the cast list:

 

Panty – Jamie Marchi

Stocking – Monica Rial

Garterbelt – Chris Sabat

Chuck – Ian Sinclair

Brief  – Joel McDonald

Kneesocks: Cherami Leigh

Scanty: Colleen Clinkenbeard

Corset: Chris Ayres

Fastner: Chris Bevins

 

Personally I’m not too worried about Scanty because I generally like Colleen Clinkenbeard, though I don’t know anything about Cherami Leigh.

Anyway, as for the actual dub? Let me sum up about how the characters sound. Panty sounds like an oversexed bitch. Her voice is lower, pretty similar in pitch to the Japanese, actually, but it doesn’t sound like they’re trying to match pitch with the Japanese like so many awful dubs do. It just seems to me like Jamie Marchi happens to have a similar pitch to Arisa Ogasawa, the original seiyuu, on top of being more or less perfect for the part. Stocking sounds like the rude gothloli that she is. Her voice has a distinctive quality to it that I can’t really describe, but I like it. It definitely suits Stocking. I had a friend who saw the trailer say they expected her to sound more girly, but I have to say what Monica Rial did with her was way better than that would’ve been. Chuck sounds like….Chuck. Yeah. I’m not entirely sure what the point of dubbing him even was, but Ian Sinclair enjoyed the work and it gives another actor some money to eat with, so I’m not complaining. Garterbelt sounds like a flawless combination of a black Southern preacher and a black cop from a cop show. This is extra hilarious given how utterly not black Chris Sabat is. Brief sounds like a nervous wreck and a nerd.

In short, everyone is spot on.

Now, I know a lot of anime fans hate the practice of “fifteening”; when unnecessary swearing that wasn’t in the original dialogue is inserted into a dub to make it sound edgier. Normally, I also hate this practice. However, with Panty and Stocking, it’s more or less necessary, and entirely welcome. I mean, really, it’s Panty and Stocking. Not maximizing the foul language would just be wrong. They’ve managed to include quite a few interesting curses into the dialogue, as well, such as “shit pickle”. Garterbelt has some rather phenomenal lines that I can’t recall to recite verbatim that had me rolling with laughter.

Now is probably a good time to note that, if anyone is still actually worried about censored anime DVDs, it’s been confirmed that Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt’s release will be 100% uncensored. The trailer has bleeps, yes, but that’s since it’s posted on the internet where just about anyone can get to it.

All in all, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt is pretty clearly getting a dub that is both true to the series’ original tone and feel and is excellently executed. Definitely worth picking up.

Anime Central 2011 As Experienced by Stringed

It’s a bit late at this point, but I thought doing an ACen 2011 con report may be fun! I didn’t make any industry panels, but I did attend a fair amount of fan panels, which are also important in my opinion. So, these are my thoughts and feelings on ACen 2011. Enjoy!

Anime Central 2011 program guide

Pokemon Black Day #10 – FINAL

I finished the game like…two months ago, but got lazy about doing this post. Sorry about that! For the record, these are my thoughts on the game.

I never played Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald or Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, but I can definitely say that I like the direction that the Pokemon franchise is going with Black and White. This is the first time I’ve ever really cared about the in-game characters. This is the first time that I ever felt like I could say I was interested in the plot in a Pokemon game. I had my reservations at first, but I loved the pokemon this gen. All in all I really loved Black and I’m glad I played it.

Breaking All The RRRRRRUUUUUUs – A Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt Review

Taking a break from the Pokemon posts before I put up the last one[s]. Enjoy!

Okay for starters let me just address what a miracle it is that I watched the whole thing straight through as it came out and never got more than two episodes behind.  This review is going to contain spoilers, by the way, so if you haven’t seen the whole thing, proceed with caution and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Pokemon Black Day #9

I am addicted to this game ho boy. Since when do Pokemon games have such awesome plots?!

Pokemon Black Day #8

Haven’t done one of these in a while! Sob I’m so lazy.

Pokemon Black Day 7

In case you couldn’t tell, these “days” aren’t real 24 hour periods of any sort, just whenever I’ve played enough for a proper update.

Pokemon Black Day 6

For real this time. If anyone caught my post titling slip with the last one.

Pokemon Black Day 5

Or Stringed is WAY too happy about her friend who is further along giving her a Litwick.

Pokemon Black Day 4

FINALLY.