Another example of japanese voice acting in the Zoids New Century anime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIhNHULbfE
Although Bit doesn't sound like a Takahiro Sakurai character. And Leena/Rinon doesn't reminds me of Saber either...
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Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
So now that I only have Genesis to watch, I've been focusing on that.
Just finished episode 37. And now it turns out there's an in-universe reason why there are so few flying Zoids in the Genesis universe.
Namely, that the Sky people didn't want them made so that no one showed up to wreck their shit.
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I just don't really like episodic series, I guess. I don't even like Cowboy Bebop because, as far as I'm concerned, if each episode is its own whole new thing, there's no drama or reason to care.
CC/GF might be silly as shit but at least I felt like things were happening and the world was at stake. The first entire arc of GF was taking down Raven with several episodes dedicated to that task, for instance. It's been a long time since I saw NCZ but it felt like just a lot of "and now something else is happening" and that doesn't interest me.
Oh yeah but then there's some actual danger at the end because we need a real finale.
At least NCZ had "continuity" unlike other episodic animes. For example, Ballad/Brad, Rinon/Leena and Jamie changed their Zoids permanently in episodes 7, 13 and 20. There's also a mini-saga envolving the Blitz Team and the Backdraft Group in episodes 12-13. Not to mention the Royal Cup in episodes 24-26.
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Jupiterian Local
New Century is about as episodic as Cowboy Bebop — most episodes are pretty much stand-alone stories, but they still contribute to the overall plot through stuff like zoids changing around, and some of them are directly part of the main story (eg, the Backdraft Group shenanigans).
Really though, as much as I love New Century, I have to admit that the Backdraft Group is silly. Why do they even care about overthrowing the Zoid Battle Commission?
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
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I guess because of Money, Dear Boy.
Almost done with Genesis.
Man, I think the tech of this world might be the most advanced yet with the shit they had in Sora City...and then there's how the mechanical pilots for the Bio Zoids are created.
Rather disappointed that they went with generic bad guy that everyone teams up against in the end.
Then again, they did that with Prozen in CC, but that was while acknowledging that there were good and bad in both the Empire and the Republic (though I think saw more of the bad in the former).
...I think I'm gonna finish up the meta series and watch Fuzors. Sure, I've heard very little that was good about it (and it seems to been the series that ultimately killed the franchise) but what the hell right? Lets go nuts.
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Jupiterian Local
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
...
Maybe they just got cocky and decided they wanted to do more. Take out the Zoids battle commission, become the only game in town, and then get even more high stakes battles (since now, all the legitimate warriors have to come to them if they want to keep being Zoids Warriors).
...or maybe the writers of the series just derped on that one.
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Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Right. Genesis is done.
Ending was...felt typically shonen. Hero gets a last minute power up that lets him save the day against a villain with a god complex who yells out This Cannot Be!! as his last words.
And then he just somehow saves his village. Not sure how since it's not really made clear in the ending, but the Zoids wiki says they put the Murasame in the Generator and used that to restore the latter.
Whatever man. I think you're still better than Fuzors...which I'm now going to watch anyway, because I've come this far, so lets get the entire Zoids meta series out of the way.
Edit: And now I've started fuzors.
Damn. That was painful. And that as only the first episode too.
edited 9th Jan '18 9:35:59 AM by HandsomeRob
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Sorry. For the animes, there's just Chaotic Century, New Century, Fuzors and Genesis. Unlike that Cash-Cow Franchise named Gundam...
But outside of the matter... look! The Holy Trinity of Clouds voiced by Takahiro Sakurai!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That's pretty neat. This has to have been a weird casting gag thing. I wonder which came first and if the second one was like "he played this other dude named Cloud already"
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Been watching more Fuzors.
On the one hand, RD seems like far more of an idiot than Bit or Van, but on the other hand, he sure seems to get a lot of shit from a lot of other characters. Then again, that's the whole reason he's dumb, which I hate.
There seems to be a synching problem with the audio in the episodes I'm watching, as what the characters are saying doesn't really match the video. I'm assuming this is an issue with the videos I'm watching (as Genesis had a similar problem early on) but I get the bad feeling this is just another sign of how poorly Fuzors was done.
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> That's pretty neat. This has to have been a weird casting gag thing. I wonder which came first and if the second one was like "he played this other dude named Cloud already"
For starters: Takahiro Sakurai voiced Bit Cloud in 2001. Later, in 2002 he ends up voicing Cloud Strife in the first Kingdom Hearts game. Some years later, after voicing both Bit and Cloud (no pun intended), Sakurai voices Claude Faustus in the Black Butler anime.
Maybe Bit Cloud foreshadows Sakurai's most important role? Doesn't help that both characters have the same hairstyle.
Interesting, a similar thing occured with Richard Ian Cox, his english/canadian whatever voice actor. He started voicing Bit Cloud in 2001 before voicing his most popular role in 2002. Granted, in Japan, Inuyasha debuted one year before Zoids New Century, but in America/Canada whatever, Zoids Zero debuted one year before Inuyasha.
There's some things that Bit and Inuyasha have in common: They fight with claws (more or less), one of his companions is voiced by Kelly Sheridan and they have a enemy turned rival voiced by Scott McNeil.
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Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
So still watching Fuzors. I might have said it before but it bears repeating: I can understand why this killed the franchise.
Obviously, the animation took a massive dip, but also the fact that it seems to have little to no direction or logic.
Why does the head of Savage Hammer hate Mach Storm so much? Why is Blake so hell bent and determined to take down RD when nobody else seems to think RD is anything worth dealing with until he fights them? Now, I already know why these things are the case due to reading character profiles on the Zoids wiki, and I assume we'll get answers about these things later, but this is stuff that should have been mentioned a while ago.
I can't tell if these issues were always there, or if it's the dubbing that's causing the problem. Next up there's also the tendency for the lip flap to not match the audio, but again, that might be a problem of the video player I'm using, and not the actual dubbing (though the fact that it's been consistent in all the episodes I've watched, and almost always near the end of the episode makes me wonder).
The change in dub studios seems to have not done any favours either: why did Sho-Pro change the Ligers attack to Laser Claw Strike Attack? Strike Laser Claw was a perfectly fine name, and I'm baffled by them making such a needless change.
The original writers must have hated the Konig Wolf, considering they insist on having Amy lose every battle she uses it in. Either that, or one of them based her off an ex girlfriend of something.
Blake is probably one of the worst rivals. Having him show up all the time, trying to fight RD and often failing undercuts his status. True, having him utterly superior to RD in every way can also be annoying, but at least it would make him a legitimate threat.
I'm not even totally done the series yet, and I gotta say, I'm not much impressed, which is a shame, because I feel like the Fuzors concept deserved a better showcase. I also rather like the Gairyuki for some reason I can't explain, and wonder how it would have looked in the more traditional animation style of Chaotic Century / New Century Zero. Hell, I think that about all the Zoids that have shown up in this series.
For my last question...how does the Jet Falcon (and by default, the Liger Zero Falcon) even fly? It's like, it doesn't even have the proper wings you tend to see on other flying Zoids. This is especially notable when it merges with Liger Zero. At least the Fire Phoenix had actual wings that flapped and everything.
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Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Double post for this video:
The Mirage Fox. Another Shadow Fox variant, and pretty damned cool.
As an eternal fan of the Shadow Fox, I liked this.
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Not to mention there was one thing I never understood:
In one of the early episodes, the protagonist team wins because apparently the other team's Zoids run out of battery. This somehow nullifies the prize money they win from the fight?
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
That one is explained.
The villains ran out of battery power, but the protagonists could also no longer fight, so it was declared a draw.
I think. The logic in this series is so wonky that there's probably something wrong about i.
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Jupiterian Local
Was that Fuzors? I definitely don't remember anything like that in New Century.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Indeed it was.
Call me a voice actor freak, but one thing I'm right: The English dub of Fuzors also envolve some voice actors from New Century:
Brad Swaile = RD (Fuzors) = Harry Champ (New Century)
Brian Drummond = Blake (Fuzors) = Jack Sisco and Oscar Hemeros (New Century)
Ted Cole = Sigma (Fuzors) = Leon Toros (New Century)
Samuel Vincent = Malloy (Fuzors) = Brad Hunter, Sebastian and Dark Judge (New Century)
Scott McNeil = Reynard, Vareth and TV Announcer (Fuzors) = Major Polta, Stigma Stoller and the Zoid Battle Chairman (New Century)
Michael Dobson = Dan and Alpha Richter (Fuzors) = Dr. Laon/Layon/Leyon or something like that (New Century)
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"Hi, my name is RD and I'm a man destined to be king!"
Nowadays, Brad is known for being a man destined to be a god of the new world. Even more funny, Jack Sisco is Ryuk. Makes that battle between Blitz Team and Champ Team on episode 5 even more interesting.
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Honestly, I know him best as Lan Hikari.
Though he wasn't the first Lan.
Edit: Just caught episode 21 of Fuzors. So despite having the typical arrogant rival personality Blake is apparently just as much a noob as RD, which explains why he comes off as so much weaker than most rivals. This is still something we needed to know early to explain the formers animosity towards the latter.
edited 26th Jan '18 12:40:35 PM by HandsomeRob
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I gotta agree honestly.
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