Samurai Champloo in English dubbing
May. 15th, 2005 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockI'd forgotten about the past/future visual joke in the beginning of the episode. That was cute.
Fuu's voice I adapted to instantly. I never had a strong lasting impression of her voice actress in the Japanese anyway, and this actress seemed to capture her attitude pretty well.
Jin I was not sure about with the early lines, but I got used to him before the episode ended. For him I thought the shorter lines came off better. I need more exposure to those before I can accept longer sentences from him.
Mugen... this is going to be a trial. It worked for me when he was saying things Spike would never say. It worked for me when he was swearing. But the rest of the time, I kept hearing Spike. I can't help but associate that voice with Spike's sophisticated-sexy-city-boy-who's-slumming-it voice. Mugen needs to sound younger, and more annoying, and more abrasive. And most importantly, more insane. If Bloom can do that then I could get used to him.
Overall, I probably enjoyed it more on account of it being many months since I watched episode 1. I'd forgotten a lot of details and that made me able to get into it more.
Still kinda bummed about Mugen, though. And I found it profoundly *weird* to hear Jet's voice talking about executing Spike's voice. That just was all kinds of bizarre.
To end this review on a happy note:
Look up at my naked Jin icon. Marvel at his rain-soaked body and super-grown-out hair.
EDIT: This might just be my imagination, but was that little old man in Fuu's tavern the same little old man who is later a... how do I put this... later a Barry Bonds / UN representative? There, that should be obscure enough.
Aah well. What else am I gonna watch on Saturday nights besides my historical fiction OT3 running around Japan on foot and complaining all the time?
EDIT 2: Major series spoilers in comments! MAJOR Spoilers in comments!
Fuu's voice I adapted to instantly. I never had a strong lasting impression of her voice actress in the Japanese anyway, and this actress seemed to capture her attitude pretty well.
Jin I was not sure about with the early lines, but I got used to him before the episode ended. For him I thought the shorter lines came off better. I need more exposure to those before I can accept longer sentences from him.
Mugen... this is going to be a trial. It worked for me when he was saying things Spike would never say. It worked for me when he was swearing. But the rest of the time, I kept hearing Spike. I can't help but associate that voice with Spike's sophisticated-sexy-city-boy-who's-slumming-it voice. Mugen needs to sound younger, and more annoying, and more abrasive. And most importantly, more insane. If Bloom can do that then I could get used to him.
Overall, I probably enjoyed it more on account of it being many months since I watched episode 1. I'd forgotten a lot of details and that made me able to get into it more.
Still kinda bummed about Mugen, though. And I found it profoundly *weird* to hear Jet's voice talking about executing Spike's voice. That just was all kinds of bizarre.
To end this review on a happy note:
Look up at my naked Jin icon. Marvel at his rain-soaked body and super-grown-out hair.
EDIT: This might just be my imagination, but was that little old man in Fuu's tavern the same little old man who is later a... how do I put this... later a Barry Bonds / UN representative? There, that should be obscure enough.
Aah well. What else am I gonna watch on Saturday nights besides my historical fiction OT3 running around Japan on foot and complaining all the time?
EDIT 2: Major series spoilers in comments! MAJOR Spoilers in comments!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
I was spoiled for naked Jin by the icons
Date: 2005-05-15 07:59 am (UTC)In a later dub ep Mugen's being seduced by a woman with Faye's voice actress.
That is right and wrong for all the wrong reasons.
But, omg. A creative vidder could take cuts of that exchange and overlay with CB vid clips instersperced with a music mix and we'd have ourselves and Alternate Universe Spike/Faye vid!
Tell me... is it the spunky girl I really liked who said she'd found who she wanted to marry? Because THAT would be almost karmic.
[obscure spoiler hinting] In a late episode when Mugen is yelling at a female character to run away, it'll be Spike yelling at her to run. And Spike telling a woman to run is different than Mugen telling her to run. [/obscure]
Yes. It's dramatic moments where I'm most worried that he'll sound too Spike-like. You're right, Mugen tellin a woman to run is very, very different.
Lucas is playing him as "I'm Mugen, the tough punk rebel kid who hates authority and poseurs like Linkin Park!" when he should be "I'm Mugen, and I was raised by PIRATES AND PARTICULARLY UNCIVILIZED WILD ANIMALS!" and such. See my icon! See his expression in my icon! That is a man who would eat babies but is too ADD to learn how to prepare them properly!
Yes yes yes and yes again. Word to ALL of that. And wonderfuly put, by the way.
How could you have known it wasn't Fuu's sad nekkid!Jin dream sequence, huh? :P
Date: 2005-05-15 08:22 am (UTC)No, sadly (although that episode hasn't been English-dubbed yet, so who knows? but it would be almost TOO karmic). It's the girl in...actually I think episode 2, the prostitute who seduces Mugen to put poison in his drink.
Yes. It's dramatic moments where I'm most worried that he'll sound too Spike-like. You're right, Mugen tellin a woman to run is very, very different.
Mugen and Spike react completely differently to emotionally dramatic moments. They react completely differently to dramatic interactions with people. Spike likes people, especially women. He'll go out of his way to save you if it doesn't inconvenience him (this sounds like a contradiction, but it's not); he likes to play when he saves the day because he'd save the day and the girl anyway, so he's spicing it up.
Whereas if Mugen is saving you because he actually cares about what happens to you as a person? That's an "Oh my god" moment. Mugen doesn't have Spike's self-awareness; he might not even know that he cares about you. But Spike doesn't have Mugen's defensive shield and that's what gets him, though Mugen's life under his armor isn't that great anyway.
You know what I realized now is the fundamental difference for me between the guys? Spike is a fool for love (ha!) and always has been and knows it. And Mugen's never loved anyone or had anyone love him in his whole life. And despite their superficial similarities that one thing makes them such profoundly different people that I can't believe I didn't think of this before.
because I'm an optimist and naked!Jin dream post-Jin-mortem never occured to me!
Date: 2005-05-15 09:05 am (UTC)Actually, THAT'S pretty damn karmic too, which says all sorts of things about the Spike/Faye relationship.
Spike likes people, especially women. He'll go out of his way to save you if it doesn't inconvenience him (this sounds like a contradiction, but it's not); he likes to play when he saves the day because he'd save the day and the girl anyway, so he's spicing it up.
Yes. I've noted several times while watching CB that Spike treated all the women he met better than the men, and it wasn't chivalry, just a general respect he has when he meets a woman initially that he doesn't have when he meets a man. He treated Faye the same way, until she came back and wouldn't go away, after which he started treating her superficially like another guy for most of the anime, albeit one with girly habits he could complain about.
One of the many reasons Spike wasn't in it for the long haul (ha!) when it came to the gangsta lifestyle.
Whereas if Mugen is saving you because he actually cares about what happens to you as a person? That's an "Oh my god" moment.
21 definitely had me going "Oh my god".
Spike is a fool for love (ha!)
And Mugen? Would love kitten poker.
You know what I realized now is the fundamental difference for me between the guys? Spike is a fool for love (ha!) and always has been and knows it. And Mugen's never loved anyone or had anyone love him in his whole life. And despite their superficial similarities that one thing makes them such profoundly different people that I can't believe I didn't think of this before.
I think I'd talked about that with you or someone else after episode 21, at least a little. I remember. Maygbe not in those exact words, but the fact that Spike has had love and knows what it's like to care about people and to fight for that, and the fact that Mugen has never had anything like that.
It's too bad we can't go explaining all this to the new people who are gonna be all "OMG it's Spike in ancient Japan!" because we'd have to spoil them silly. And there's so few plot spoilers to anticipate in this series that spoiling anything from 20 onward or spoiling Mugen's backstory just seems unnecessarily sadistic.
Oh man, I want it to air already! I want a marathon! So people can start watching it and start spreading the word AND START WRITING ME FANFIC DAMMIT! I'M DEPRIVED OF CHAMPLOO FIC HERE!