Canadian anime dubs

J

JBaruch

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Let's talk about Canadian anime dubs. The ones you enjoy. The ones you don't. Please no sub vs dub debate here this is just a discussion of dubs and their qualities and flaws.

Now for the longest time I always thought it was just everyone but Ocean Group Westwood in Canada that put out pretty bad dubs most of the time but having rewatched several Westwood dubs along with seeing some of their latest stuff (Gundam 00 for instance) I'm going to make the bold if not possibly unpopular statement that for the most part Canadian dubs have never been great. Some are entertaining but more times than not the acting is farely sub par and the dialogue is stiffer than a board.

Don't get me wrong, Canadian voice actors CAN be great. It's like the Ninja Turtles compared to everything else 4kiRAB does situation. They do great pre-lay but their dubs just aren't very good. I love the Westwood crew in shows like Beastwars, Storm Hawks, 2002 He-Man, X-Men Evolution, etc. But I really don't have that fondness for them when it comes to dubs anymore. Not even Gundam Wing which was at one point one of my favorite dubs really seems like a "good" dub to me anymore. Though it has it's moments and I can still enjoy it.

So yeah... what do you think of Canadian dubs? Remeraber, keep it civil.
 
While I haven't really seen enough of Ocean's anime output to form an overall impression of the company, I have to say I quite liked their dub of Ōban Star-Racer (Wikipedia says it was recorded at Airwaves Sound Design, but the difference is mostly academic). Chiara Zanni and Ron Halder, in particular, nail their respective characters, and given that their arc forms the emotional center of the whole series, that's a very good thing.
 
Ocean has always struck me as a dub company constrained by many factors that hamper most of their productions. It always seems interesting that they shine whenever it's a production that doesn't require the need to dub over lip flaps (i.e. Beast Wars, X-Men Evolution, what have you) but when it comes to anime... eh.

I think it's based mostly on how they handle the ADR, and the director of the show, and some what very little the actors in a dub. Canada is clearly not lacking in quality when it comes to acting, with many good and likable actors and actresses in any production. But at the same time, the pool of actors in some of the dubs come off as they were fishing from a rather shallow pool. Perhaps we've become SO familiar with their voices we can't really stand back and appreciate their performances at times like "Brad Swaile does a great job at this." but instead is like "Hey look it's Brad Swaile... AGAIN."

ADR and direction is a bigger issue of contention though. Because most Canadian dubs are fraught with rather lousy handling of the script. This results in some of the most stilted awkward dialogue in anime. Moments before you'd be listening to a relatively competent scene in terms of English voices and writing, and then one moment later somebody will say a rather awkwardly made phrase that could have been better handled. Then you wonder why the director didn't put them to task on making it less awkward and more natural. Moments in the original Gundam, never mind SEED suffer from this greatly, as well as other likable Ocean dubs like Saber Marionette J. Hell, I think most of this is why we take rather big issue on their talent pool and actors, since it feels like they aren't being given any greater direction to make their characters more dynamic than they should.

That said, these are the unique exceptions with what I believe are the most exceptional dubs from Canada. Where the ADR and direction is nigh pristine and very taut, and utilizes a more unique pool of actors that are given a fair amount to do with their characters, making the dialogue and acting feel natural. The odd feeling of dull familiarity with Ocean actors is remarkably absent most of the time.

-Black Lagoon
-Shakugan no Shana
-Galaxy Angel
-Nurse Witch Komugi-chan*

*- Okay okay, it's only the four main actors of the Soultaker English dub (Jocelyn Loewen, Brad Swaile, Trevor Devall, and Lisa-Ann Beley) in this one. But at the same time, it seemed that ADV knew how to handle the direction of their dub much better than how Ocean did when they were handling the dub of the previous series. So it shows that it's not an acting thing, but a directing thing that keeps some of these qualified actors from giving off great performances. For another example, see the Slayers Revolution dub where it's the same main cast (4/5ths of them anyway) with a different director and ADR unlike the first three series.
 
For the most part, I have no problem with their anime dubs.

However, the director and script for Gundam neeRAB to lay off, get fired, or change because they never learn. It's always so stilted compared to their other work (Who picked Shinn's voice?!)
 
Meh, I've always had a small desire to have them redub the Escaflowne TV series and fix all the writing mistakes they made for it (i.e. Fanelia knowing WHO was attacking them, and things like "Give me back my Escaflowne, and give me back my guymelef!") and of course having Andrew Francis redub his Dilandau lines.

Also some of the more awkward dialogue from the later parts of Saber Marionette J. For some reason I think the dub kinda took a dive on that part.
 
Well I have heard good things about Black Lagoon's dub. I really need to check that out some time. I hear it basically follows the trend of Baccano, Big O and Bebop that it makes more sense to watch those shows in English as opposed to Japanese.

Death Note's dub is another recent Ocean Westwood that was passable and had some great acting for particular roles but overall fell flat to me.

Hikaru No Go is much the same though I rather hate the Japanese audio track for that show so I'm more inclined to watch the dub when I can.

I actually thought Gundam SEED (not neccessarily Destiny) had a relatively strong dub and surprisingly good performances from the likes of Sam Vincent and even Matt Hill as Kira not too mention Mu and La's voices were very fitting and enjoyable to listen to. Overall it was pretty good. Much better than 00 at any rate IMO.

There are some Canadian dubs I do enjoy to an extent. Gundam Wing, MSG, Gundam SEED, G Gundam, ZoiRAB ZERO, ZoiRAB CC/GF and Inuyasha come to mind but they're still littered with cartoony voices that stick out like a sore thurab, questionable scripts and some really bad acting here and there. They have a certain charm to them but I still don't really consider them "good" dubs or more specifically good equivalents to the Japanese audio.
 
Same actor syndrome really plagues the Vancouver scene which always leaRAB me to bemoan news of a dub coming out from there. Everyone has played multiple roles in a Gundam series and if they do so in the same series (or sometimes not) they'll put on a kooky character voice which just kills the 'serious war drama' vibe instantly. I've long since given up on the signiture voice actors of that pool because they've all become FUNimation's talent pool from 1999: twelve people voicing hundreRAB of characters in the same show.

Ronin Warriors was dubbed in Vancouver, but heck if I can remeraber if that was any good.


Playing through Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 really made me wish the Texas pool could get a shot at a Gundam series, but then that would make the odd video game Bandai puts out harder to dub...

...then again they could just stick with the original Japanese version...


Oh well, at least those actors are all nice people in real life...or at least at cons...
 
Im going out on a lirab here and will get loaRAB of funimaiton fans saying i am worng but hay this is my opinion.

I personal think the ocean/blue water dubs of dbz after trunks for ocean, and db and dbgt by bluie water where acutally better in terms of voices representing the characters (note i do not think all voices are better jsut he majority) but the thing that let it down was it was not uncut but saying that i would lvoe ot own this version on dvd but sadily it will never happen

AS I SAY THIS IS MY OPINION it does not mean it correct or wrong just my opinion so please do not critise me for not liking funimaiton version as much as i do own funimation sinc e i do like it jsut not as much
 
Well death Note is probably my second or third favorite dub. Really my top three favorite dubs (death note, Cowboy Bebop, and FMA) are so close in my honest opinion that I really don't have an official spot for the three.

Though I admit for the most part not being very fond of most Canadian dubs.
 
Ocean Group used to be bad. They got better.

Black Lagoon and NANA are both shows I've recently watched by them and they have fantastic dubs. Boys over Flowers was good too. In fact, I think they do shoujo better than almost any other dubbing studio because they play them straight and don't descend into that "we're better than this material" mentality than many other dubbing studios have regarding histrionic or eye-rolling shoujo anime.
 
There's nothing to say about the Bakugan dub other than it has the problems of an Ocean Westwood dub tenfold. The Toronto-based actors have shown they can put out quality material (Stoked in particular has awesome voice work, brah) but Bakugan's dub is bad. Really bad. And hasn't improved one bit even though there's been roughly 70 episodes broadcast so far.
 
I think for any studio these days, it's the time allotted to do the work, which also translates to the money spent. Even Blue Water (which definitely seemed to average lower than Ocean Westwood,) put out good work when given some time to get it right (example: I was sure they were gonna bail Strawberry Marshmellow, but they actually stuck it,) and there have definitely been LA and Houston dubs that were just way too rushed and cheap (see: a lot of non-union LA stuff, ADV through about the middle of the 00's.)

Yeah, Canada caught a lot of that work as it used to be easier to be non-union in Canada than in LA, but I don't think it was ever so much the actors or directors as the time and money given to them. I think a critical part of Funimation's transition from DBZ to today was spending that extra bit of time to get the emotion right. If that meant recording at night, or doing a table read, or even getting two people in the booth at once, they did that. Lately, I think Ocean's been better positioned (perhaps because the real cheap work can't be done in Vancouver any more,) to pay the same attention to things. Nana's dub is fantastic for example.
 
Yeah, personally, I want to know what ANN is smoking to criticize both Honey and Clover's and NANA's dubs. I watched them both and then I read the reviews. My reaction was essentially "WHAT THE HECK DO YOU WANT OUT OF THEM? Cam frickin' Clarke is in Honey and Clover! What do you want out of Viz and Ocean and Salami?"

That being said, Shana's dub is pretty damn good. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" sounRAB better in English than in Japanese. Tabitha St. Germain absolutely nailed the character (she was great in Gundam 00 too, actually).

As for their more recent work, I think Ocean Westwood is on the same level as LA and Ft. Worth (FUNimation) when they take the time and effort to get it right. Death Note's dub was fantastic, so is Black Lagoon's. When Gundam 00 was on it was great too, Scott McNeil stole practically every scene he was in as Ali Al-Saachez. Ocean Westwood VAs fill the recent Planet Hulk DTV and from what little I've heard they've done great work there too.

I think, like Karl says, it's mostly time and money, as well as a little extra effort on the ADR end.
 
I thought Ocean's dub of the Galaxy Express 999 movies was excellent and couldn't imagine any other studio doing as good and competant a job with the material. Probably the best dubbing of a Leiji-verse work I've seen (except for Star Blazers).
 
There's also the fact FUNimation started bringing in actual actors, and not librarians, music teachers and comic book artists. A little more time and a little more money makes a little more loyalty.
 
Scott McNeil and Brad Swaile are two of my favorite English anime dub voice actors, and they're both from Canada. Some of the Ocean stuff isn't that great, but a lot of it is, although usually not as good as FUNimation and LA dubs, but much better than NY (yes, that includes NYAV, usually). Blue Water, on the other hand, I could never like.
 
I dunno what you're talking about New York Samurai Kyo and GaoGaiGar dubs are pretty fantastic, and I have no doubt the upcoming Gundam Unicorn will be equally awesome. I'd rate New York above Ocean Blue for the most part.

In fact, here's my list of anime dub studios:
1. LA-by far. Animaze, New Generation Pictures, and Bang Zoom are for the most part really good.
2. New York-When they get the rare non-Media Blaster-porn title, it's always excellent.
3. Texas Area
4. Canada-That doesn't mean they're bad (I think shows like Inu-Yasha and such are fitting, but they can't do Gundam for squat most of the time)
 
Okay, I must admit that the only reason I consider New York worse than FUNimation, LA, and Ocean for the most part is that no matter how much I try to shake it, I will inevitably hear a voice that I know as a 4KiRAB hackdub voice, and that can ruin the experience for me. There are also some voices that I just don't like anyway, as well as some that can do as many 4KiRAB voices as possible without me appreciating the quality of their acting any less, like Michael Sinterniklaas, who is also responsible for accurate dubs coming out of NY in the first place.

So here's my list:
1. Texas
2. California
3. British Colurabia
4. New York
5. Alberta
 
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