Cowboy Bebop

The Church Shootout. What else? It's such an awesome scene, it's needs to be bolded everytime it's mention.

edited 20th Jul '10 10:06:04 AM by Patchwork Space

The visuals are amazing. (I'm watchig it image only). The Dub really does make or destroy it though... AND THE SPANISH DUB SUCKS ASS.

edited 20th Jul '10 10:18:04 AM by RawPower

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

I thought that Spanish dubs always sucked. Is there a Mexican one?

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

I'm Finnish and I only watch dubs if they're on television like the Swedish dub of Sailor Moon and this far I've watched every Pixar movie in theater with Finnish voices and also the first Shrek and How to train your Dragon.

You'd be surprised at the number of incredulous comments I got here when I stated I wasn't interested in watching any kind of English dub, even the ones on the Superlative Dubbing page.

Damn English-centrism...

Yeah, but you still speak English, right? I mean, if I were to learn French and there was some French dub that was considered far better than the English and Japanese versions, I'd probably watch it. That's just me, though.

edited 21st Jul '10 12:05:10 AM by Nyktos

I guess it is.

It depends on much you know the language, though. Basically, you need to min/max the advantage of watching a "superlative" dub with the disadvantage of watching in a language you are not completely comfortable with. For most people, the language they are most comfortable with is their native tongue, but not always.

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I really couldn't care less if the best voice for Bugs Bunny was some obsucre guy in Kazakhstan if Mel Blanc is the voice I'm used to. I have to admit that for me it's easier to switch from English dub to the original voices for example Mitsuo Iwata is the real Kaneda and Nozomu Sasaki the real Tetsuo despite the fact I'd heard the 80's dub several times before the original.

The only time the original voice sounded a bit weird after the dub was when I was watching Moomin in Japanese and all the other voices sounded just right but Little My voiced by Rei Sakuma was a bit weird.

About Steve Blum I have to say I don't have any recollections of him although I've seen some anime he's dubbed and played Wolverine Origins demo. I'm not sure would Wolverine kind of voice really fit such a laid back guy as Spike.

edited 21st Jul '10 1:15:15 AM by harkko

Right, but I'm assuming you don't speak Kazakh. If I did speak Kazakh (even if it wasn't my first language), and the Kazakh voice for Bugs Bunny really was much better than Mel Blanc (not bloody likely), I'd probably watch it that way.

Although maybe not, because it's Bugs fucking Bunny and I'm already used to the English voice because the first time I watched a Bugs Bunny cartoon I was like six years old. But if it was a show that I'd never seen before, sure.

edited 21st Jul '10 1:31:39 AM by Nyktos

I guess it is.

That's an interesting question.

I speak English rather badly, but that's besides the point : it's not as if I'm gonna engage into a conversation with a show. What matters is my understanding of spoken English, and... it's okay, I guess  ^*

. But I get much more information out of a combination of English subtitles (which I usually read very fast and understand better than spoken English) and Japanese audio (while I don't know the language, I'm good at picking up intonation and stock phrases — which are 75% of communication in most cases).

Superlative Dubbing is a huge Hype Backlash magnet for me : to my ears, I just don't hear that much of an improvement (I watched half of Azumanga Daioh in English due to an encoding mistake, and it was perfectly okay), and it's just not worth the information loss.

Hence my usual default choice of subs for anime — to get the maximum data out of it. As I rarely watch any show twice (so many shows to watch, so little time...), checking out the English dub on a second watch (if I ever have it, which is rarely the case) just isn't an option.

Interestingly, I have nearly no nostalgia for French dubs... with one exception : watching The Simpsons in any language but French would just be blasphemy.

edited 21st Jul '10 2:25:33 AM by Jhiday

Well, that's fair enough then. I certainly wouldn't expect you to start watching English dubs on a regular basis. But since, as you said, you can understand American cartoons well enough, there's nothing that says you couldn't watch an English dub if you wanted to, even though it's not your native language. Were I in a similar situation, I'd probably consider watching the dub in the case of something like Cowboy Bebop where it's universally praised so. But that's me and not your or anyone else, obviously.

Anyway, I wasn't trying to convince you to watch the dub or anything. Despite what Smokie says, I'm sure the Japanese audio is fine.

edited 21st Jul '10 2:36:57 AM by Nyktos

I guess it is.

Whether or not the dub is better is up to an opinion and if I watched Cowboy Bebop dubbed I'd probably still use subtitles because sometimes English can sound like gibberish due to an odd intonation or pronounciation. In The Hot Spot there was one scene that I had to use Spanish subtitles what Jennifer Connelly to understand was saying and Space Firebird 2772 is almost as intelligible in Japanese as in English even if you're not good at it because some of the American/English actors like to mumble.

edited 21st Jul '10 2:43:40 AM by harkko

Urgh, mumble. My nemesis. Thankfully most cartoons and dubs are devoid of it (from my limited experience). But it's the kind of thing that discourages me from watching most American movies and Live-Action TV shows without subtitles.

By the way, I'm not the original poster, I just jumped into the conversation. I've already watched Cowboy Bebop years ago  ^*

, and wasn't much impressed. Sure, the soundtrack is awesome, the animation is well done, Ed is Made Of Win, and some of the random episodes are superb... but I was thoroughly underwhelmed by Spike's subplot, which I perceived as an unenjoyable Cliché Storm. And that's a third of the series. So Yeah, not interested in rewatching it anytime soon.

About the show itself I liked it more than I thought I would have. I was afraid of hypebacklash and Soundtrack Dissonance but luckily Yoko Kanno knows better than just fill every scene with jazz. Toys in the attic for example had quite orthodox and fitting low key horror music The Real Folk Blues fit surprisingly well in the last episode.

Just finished watching all the anime episodes and the entire movie. So now I've completely seen all of the media (not including the manga). Sigh, it was great but it's too bad it ended. Almost nearly makes me look forward to the Live-Action Adaptation, kind of. actually, no not really

You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.

I KNEW IT! Yes yes yes!

I mean, I worried it was just the Francophile Effect, like how the Nihonophile Effect sometimes causes 'meh' seiyuu to sound better than English VAs, but YAY! I knew that dub was as funny as the original!

One show that isn't any funnier in French, though? Family Guy. Ugh. Like the original wasn't bad enough.

Anyway. On-topic. Steve Blum is a boob. His Spike ain't bad, but... there's something too American about him; I find that jarring in a space show when that isn't the point, like with Firefly. My ideal Spike would be somewhere in between his and Yamadera's.

A True Lady's Quest - A Jojo is You!

What do you mean, too American? He's an American person working in American voice acting. What do you expect him to sound like?

edited 8th May '11 1:12:02 AM by Sporkaganza

Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.

my bad.

edited 26th Sep '10 8:07:00 PM by fdafda

^ This is probably THE most american influenced japanese show I have ever seen (besides maybe baccano)

SPOILER BELOW (I can't work the freaking spoiler thing in the forum.)

and steven blum is way overrated he is spike but...

every single character he tries to play ends up sounding either too much like spike or will just randomly break into a spike voice. Like in dynasty warriors. or big o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dk1qXYMZ4

on topic. Yea hype backlash is a major problem with the show. Luckily I didn't get that so It's one of my favs.

I love how the titles aren't just random songs but actually fit the theme of the episode.

the colorist is great too

I just watched sympathy for the devil I haven't watched in a while so this may be in every episode

supersecretspoiler:foreshadowing was amazing. Both spike and fay's conversation being almost verbatim the conversation before spike went to see vivacious in the last episode. And then you have the old kid ask him "so I can finally die...I feel so happy...do You understand?" "yea...as if" then spike throws the harmonica in the air and does the finger gun "bang" And then there is of course the obvious (word I don't know goes here) that the Death Seeker plays the blues

man that was awesome

edited 26th Sep '10 9:06:45 PM by fdafda

The dub of Cowboy Bebop is the ULTIMATE example that EVERYONE who considers themselves a fan of anime NEEDS to see at some point in their life.

We're talking about an anime who's creator thought the Japanese actors were great, but the English were BETTER.

We're talking about an anime that only further cemented (and greatly skyrocketed) Yoko Kanno as the Goddess of Music.

You just need to see it. Also, the dub of Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex for the exact same reasons.

edited 26th Sep '10 11:05:08 PM by DRCEQ

^^Vivacious?

I absolutely love Steve Blum, and I do plan to watch the dub eventually... when I find the time.

Oh, not to derail... but anyone find that the pacing of the anime went a little south near the end? I feel like if they had grouped all of Spike's character-arc episodes near the beginning, or grouped them at all, the last two or three episodes wouldn't have seemed to come so hard out of left field.

It's been fun.

...Eh, I don't really see it.

edited 27th Sep '10 1:23:19 PM by Nyktos

I guess it is.

^^ I agree, but I feel like it was always there, but they just kept it in the background/almost nonexistant for most of the episodes (which helps anyone just tuning into the show, but I wanted to see more of Spike and Julia together in the end.

^I really just felt like Julia was a terribly shoehorned character. Faye and Spike had a really interesting dynamic (even beyond my, I'll admit, Faye/Spike tendencies), but Julia was there to angst about and get shot.

...I'm not spoilering that. This show is classic now; It Was His Sled.

It's been fun.

^seemed more like she was supposed to be a "self insert you're perfect woman" sorta thing but yea...We know literally nothing about her.

You gotta remember wanatabe wanted to show the backround story but they knew it would be to violent for television. I guess it's a product of that.