Funimation | The Ocean Group | ADV Films | Sentai Filmworks
Examples of English Superlative Dubbing in anime and manga by TheOceanGroup.
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- Black Lagoon's English dub is considered one of the best dubs The Ocean Group ever made—and one of the best English dubs period—with the script pulling no punches in its use of vulgar language, as well as perfect casting for the lead characters (plus, the English dub is totally free of any and all Engrish). Brad Swaile and Marÿke Hendrikse are well-cast as Rock and Revy, while Tabitha St. Germain's Roberta is also a fan favorite. Hendrikse in particular steps out of her bubble as Revy, since she's usually cast as cute little girls. Revy is quite the opposite. Fans were surprised when she did a brilliant job, getting Revy's tough, and vulgar side down. When Funimation licensed the Roberta's Blood Trail OVAs, it kept the Ocean Group cast.
- Death Note also has a first-rate dub, with nearly all of the characters excellently cast and performed. Of note are Light Yagami (Brad Swaile), L (Alessandro Juliani), and Ryuk (Brian Drummond). One of The Ocean Group's all-time best dubs.
- MegaMan NT Warrior: Despite its heavy edits on TV broadcasting, especially on Kids WB, most of the English voice acting is rather well done. Brad Swaile as Lan Hikari managed to fit his personality decently. Andrew Francis as MegaMan.EXE is Mega-Awesome! The rest of the English cast of The Ocean Group did surprisingly well with the dialogue as well despite a few cliched lines and even some cringe worthy puns. In NT Warrior Axess, however, the English voice acting improved with most of its dialogue close to the Japanese Version, much less edits/censorship, and the voices themselves. It's like watching an English Dub of Gundam Seed and it's odd since both anime were dubbed in 2004.
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00, with its dub done by The Ocean Group is exceptionally well-dubbed. The Gundam Meisters sound not too different from their Japanese voices. Brad Swaile nails Setsuna's voice perfectly, Samuel Vincent does Tieria pretty well, and Lockon and Allelujah are also quite well-voiced. On the other side, we have Trevor Devall, who makes Patrick actually not sound like a complete idiot, Graham Aker's voice (done by Paul Dobson) sounds almost identical to his Japanese voice, the personalities of every single character remains intact, or in some cases actually get improved a bit.
- Say what you will about the shows themselves, but the dubs for Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny done by The Ocean Group are spot on. Matt Hill and Samuel Vincent are excellent as feuding best friends Kira and Athrun, with their voices making an excellent contrast with one another, Trevor Devall is the perfect Big Brother Mentor as Mu La Flaga, and Mark Oliver as Rau Le Creuset...? He's damned good, outhamming the original dub by far, while still keeping the general feel of the character. Then again, Gundam in general gets pretty well dubbed.
- Although it has more than its fair share of haters, the dub for InuYasha is very well done… at least from about Season 3 onward. Praise especially goes to the lead actors: Richard Ian Cox (Inuyasha), Moneca Stori (Kagome), Kirby Morrow (Miroku), and Kelly Sheridan (Sango), all of whom nail their characters' personalities and quirks right out of the gate and just get better as the series drags on. In fact, most of the actors do a great job voicing their characters, and the few who don't are easily overlooked most of the time.
- Ranma ½'s English dub was polarizing when it came out, and still is to some extent, but has risen as a very nostalgic production full of memorable performances, most notably from its supporting characters voiced by Willow Johnson, Myriam Sirois, Paul Dobson, David Kaye, Angela Costain, Cathy Weseluck, and the late Robert O. Smith. The most polarizing aspect of the dub is the voice of boy-type Ranma himself, who was voiced by Sarah Strange for the first 3 TV seasons, both movies, and all 12 original OVAs with Richard Ian Cox taking over the role for the last 4 seasons of the TV show. Both have their fans, and neither voice has been declared a clear winner in that debate, which still continues to this day. The dub's writers also understood the show's weird humor, and though it could be considered campy, they were able to put their unique own spin on the material after a while.
- Ronin Warriors was known for being enjoyable without taking itself too seriously, from Mina E. Mina's ghostly Talpa to Paul Dobson's menacing ham as Anubis, not to mention the heroes having funny, charming dialogue. The script itself avoided a Macekre, with a whole lot of Snark-to-Snark Combat being added while the surprisingly dark content for the time remained largely untouched, from the massacre of the Ancient's clan to showing on-screen deaths.
- The Ocean dub of the first three Dragon Ball Z films is excellent, with incredibly accurate scripts, the original Japanese music, and some amazing acting, especially from Peter Kelamis as Goku, whose screams in these films sometimes come eerily close to sounding like Masako Nozawa.
- Zoids: New Century has a very solid dub, especially considering that it's an Ocean Group dub from 2001. The voice acting is well done and it still manages to hold up today. Some would say that Zoids: Chaotic Century and Zoids: Fuzors are examples as well.
Blue Water (Calgary)
Blue Water is Ocean's budget sister studio, which often uses non-union voice actors. Similar to Sentai, their dubs tend to be hit or miss due to their lower budget, but quite a few times, they tend to hit. Some of their voice actors have even been cast in the main studio's dubs!
- Futari wa Pretty Cure's dub is yet another example of a localized dub done right. Sure, the characters' names are Westernized, and takoyaki are called "donuts", but the overall spirit of the show is kept, thanks to minimal censorship that doesn't interfere with the plot and excellent ADR direction. Rocio Barahona and Michelle Molineux have perfect chemistry together as Nagisa and Honoka (or Natalie and Hannah in this dub), and the supporting cast all give excellent performances. Due to licensing issues, this dub has never been legally available in the United States, but many girls growing up in Canada and the UK in the late 2000s and early 2010s remember it fondly. Definitely one of, if not the best Blue Water dubs.
- Gundam
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam manages to keep all the ham (if not adding more of it) of the original, something not many dubs can boast. All of the soundtrack was kept intact, as well.
- Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam has an excellent English dub. Pretty much all the dialog was changed to sound more natural in English without anything being lost. Jonathan Lachlan-Stewart as Kamille is brilliant, which helps the War Is Hell theme hit home. Jonathan Love as Scirocco nails down what kind of man he is as soon as he appears, and can ham up a room faster than Lelouch, as well as gaining a harem of women to fight for his ideals. Though the entire cast was good, Tom Edwards' performance of Char/Quattro takes the cake.note Another gem gained in the English translation is Mauve Shirt Apolly Bay now has a hilariously clueless voice, which helps the few moments he has something to say be a lot funnier, which isn't to say he can't sound epic or sad well either, he can do that too.
- Hunter × Hunter (1999)'s dub is an odd case of this, as not everyone gives spectacular performances (there are some miscasts such as Elinor Holt's Gonnote and the actress doing Feitan), but quite a few cast members make up for this. Cheryl McMaster's Kurapika shows off the character's Tranquil Fury while still preserving his Effeminate Voicenote , Annika Odegard's Killua genuinely sounds like a 12-year-old defusing tyke bomb, can sound full-on Creepy Child when the time comes, and isn't as scratchy as Cristina Valenzuela's pre-Vocal Evolution Killua, and Brendan Hunter's Hisoka is so good that several fans wanted a Role Reprise for the 2011 anime.
