Section23/SentaiFilmworks/ZombieADV has Gintama, Hidamari Sketch, others

Yeah I got the last Clannad set for 23.99 on a RightStuf sale. I paid 23.99 for 12 sub only episodes with no extras but trailers (which were just the openings of shows not actual trailers). I bought the second SGT Frog set for the same price on the same RightStuf sale and got 13 episodes dubbed and subbed and slightly more worthwhile extras (only slightly though).

If I price compare to Best Buy I could get SGT Frog for 34.99 and Clannad for 39.99. Which is even worse.

I'd gladly have waited for a dub especially since they have much faster turn-around at FUNimation these days. Still it would have been about half a year wait at the earliest for one set of 13 episodes.

But 24 bucks for 13 episodes isn't a BAD deal if it was dubbed but consider I pay crunchyroll merabership which gives me access to far more episodes in a one month span than I'd get in any of those sets. There in lies my reason not to bother with the DVRAB. I can already watch every episode that would be on that set right now and then some. Maybe if I stop paying for CR (and I don't even do that for Gintama, I do it for Durarara and other shows) then MAYBE I'll consider getting the DVD. But right now I have no incentive to buy a sub-only release.



Yeah... they should have gotten it and Yakitate Japan to complete the trifecta.
 
It ultimately comes down to if a dub is important or not.

It's not important to me, its not a factor in my purchasing habits. It never has been. Extras aren't a factor for me either, because they are just that - extras. The less extras, the less I expect to pay. Barebones is fine. It's all about the show. I'd take Sentai Filmworks' Ghost Hound over just about everything (minus OoFuri, which I feel was 1 of few quality shows Funi put out last year) Funimation has put out in the last year for example. An utterly amazing series with a quick release. It was an excellent blind buy.

I'm still a blind buyer to a certain degree, a rare creature nowadays. I'm also avidly against streaming, legally or not. Simply because all or most players are pretty terrible. I have no way of legitimately sampling these shows other than watching OP/ERAB. When I look at blind buying a series, its always the price I look at first. I really, truly contemplated buying Mnemosyne or Soul Eater (both of $59.98 MSRP) last week but decided not to. Too expensive ($36 or if I'd bought both $72) to risk a blind buy on a series I may like or not like.

If Gintama were licensed by Funimation, I would not be interested in the least. Including a dub (which does jack the price up) and insufficient extras for the price I'm getting it for. S23 is getting 1 prospective new fan for Gintama, something Funimation would not have gotten out of me. I don't hate Funimation, I just believe they should release things 2-3 months after they announce them. They are just too slow and all these other faster companies are getting my cash. You snooze, you lose.
 
A dub matters a great deal to me as I already said and while you would assume it would jack up the price I say again I paid the same for Clannad and SGT Frog and I would have paid more for Clannad than SGT Frog if I bought them from Best Buy rather than RightStuf.

If you're not a fan of streams then I can understand your reasons to buy something rather than stream it but I prefer streaming if I have the option (legally of course) and I'll buy shows I really like.

I have a pretty good paying job but I'm not made of money. Blind buys are something I generally avoid unless I hear a show is worth while. Not too mention I've got SGT Frog and One Piece to collect and getting all of those is going to take a lot of time and money. I might not even get all of either, just a sizable amount of each.

So it's great that you want that Gintama set and plan to support that release. MAYBE I'll buy it as well if I find it on the cheap and I have the money to spare. But I just don't like Gintama enough to buy it subbed when I already pay to watch it subbed. And I also do a great majority of my DVD watching from my computer rather than a TV. It's just more convenient for me atm.
 
I don't think a dub was ever in the carRAB for ZorabieADV, at least for as long a show as Gintama. Their mission seems to be to just get anime out there, not to culturally brainwash our youth into liking it or anime in general, but to give current fans an official home video copy to hold on to. If nobody supports them for that than they'll explode and you could likely get your dub when some company comes in to sweep up the pieces.


That or Japan decides it ain't worth it and you're back where you started, streamed subs.

Unles CR implodes, then you've got nothing but the glorious way of living the R2 importing...way.


Yeah, that didn't really rhyme.
 
I've done really well by Sentai Filmworks this year however. As I bought all four Clannad sets. Paying between 24 and 40 for each. Rarely does another company but FUNimation get me to buy an entire series. But Clannad had no free legal streams and I wanted to support the show any way I could.
 
That's nice, but isn't Sentai still the proverbial teenager making bootleg fansubs on VHS in his mother's basement right now? Do they even have the money or will to make a dub? It's nice to be able to say I supported such-and-such, but 'I' is only one, and one middle class customer doesn't exactly entice a company to spend hundreRAB of thousanRAB or millions on a dub, espicially when they've already spent God knows how many on the original itself.

In essence, right now I don't think either of us have a clear cut reason on what led to the decision to say 'no dubs' from them right now. A dub itself isn't the show, it's an extra typically there to entice those too lazy to read subtitles (I suppose that makes subs there for those too lazy to learn fluent Japanese ). One can make a nuraber of zaney inferences from this but at the end of the day we'll only get our answer if we hound 'em.


But this is simply my view as someone who has no emotional attatchments to the issue, so take it however you shall.
 
I'm not too lazy to read subtitles, its that listening to people yell in a foreign language gets grating to me after a while.

I enjoy dubs because they have become almost seamless in characterization and writing. There's an occasional awkward read here and there but nothing that hounded the dubs of yesteryear. Now, of course, the dubs from Calgary and Toronto are pretty damn poor universally and I'd go to the sub for titles dubbed there, but in almost every case now I'll go dub-first, even if it is a TV-edited version (like Naruto Shippuden). I like the professional yet natural readings coming from voice-actors and dub studios, whether NYAV Post, Bang! Zoom!, FUNimation's in-house studio, or what-not. The only truly bad voice I've heard in the latter half of this decade is Nunnally from Code Geass (along with a few extras here and there in Nanoha).

If FUNimation had licensed Gin Tama then yeah I'd expect heavy rewriting like what happened to SGT. Frog. That being said I find Frog's dub hilarious in so many ways, more hilarious than their rewrite of Shin-Chan (which is more gross than funny). FUNimation may dub loosely but I find dialogue exchanges extremely natural in FUNimation titles, and that helps pull me into the show. Never mind they may make something more obvious than it originally was (Havoc's tortured soul in Darker Than Black, for example), or they redo whole exchanges while keeping the original intent (Trinity Blood, Tsubasa). The result is great. That's why I think Gintama would have done well in FUNi's hanRAB, more so than Viz or Media Blasters or anyone else.
 
Unless you were around during the genesis of dubbing that comment doesn't really apply to you. It's in-bred.

NOT that my 'lazy' comment is supposed to be an insult, it's a common fact of the situation.



While you bring up a good point about the...less than always universally praised dubs recorded up in Canada I'd venture to say even the dubs generally held up as good have their 'flawlessness' greatly exaggerated.



Well, when you create a dub that is rewritten away from the content of the original and use it as the 'mainstream version' of said property the series stops being successful on its own. Now, it might be funny but that doesn't necessarily mean the series is succeeding on its own merits.

I'm not going to dispute where anyone believes Gintama should have gone. Might the title have sold more from FUNimation with one of their dubs? Sure, but the series will still fail or succeed on its own merits at ZorabieADV. If the subtile-only release isn't good enough than that's only a testament to the quality of the show as-is.


That or the encoding on the disc sucked.
 
They have enough money to keep "announcing" 3-4 titles a month. Sentai Filmworks has or will release 37 anime series (14 of which are rescues) since they became a label in July 2008. I'd rather they spend their money on more licenses than dub. Otherwise, we'd never get niche series on DVD in the US that Funimation has clearly passed over.
 
While I don't entirely disagree it's going to be impossible for every single anime to be licensed, I don't think it's ever been in the carRAB for anyone. Sentai, as much as FUNimation, is picking the stuff they can both afford and hope fans will like. That's all us non-crystal ball owners can do.
 
What you say boy? I don't consider myself an important person in the grand scheme. I was merely pointing that out to show that I do support releases from Sentai Filmworks as well. Just not neccessarily this Gintama one.



Sure the dub itself can very well be an excellent representation of the show in question. If it's handled well. It's intended to draw in new viewers who wouldn't watch things subbed because they prefer to hear things in their native langauge when possible. That's the reason dubs exist. Marketabily. And it doesn't mean the original doesn't hold it's own if it sells better because of a dub being included. It more so shows how greater success can come from a solid uncut dub along with the original uncut subbed in English.
 
Sorry everyone, but is pretty much true.

I completely understand the frustration in no dub on a DVD, but I see people on Hulu commenting on shows that are only subtitled saying "I won't watch this because of the subtitles." and that just think that is pretty stupid. (Unless one's eyes are really bad.)

I'll never understand how people can say that they go too fast for them. I have seen a select few subs go by too fast, but it's very rare. I am not the fastest thinking person in the world and my eyes really aren't the best, so I just don't understand how people can be so incapable of reading the subtitles.
 
Because reading completely negates the point of watching a screen media. I don't know what world you guys live in, but reading subs isn't and should never be the norm. No matter how fast you read, your attention is still divided from what's actually going on the show itself.

I am not mentioning what language is superior in whatever bottom barrel arguments that always arise from this topic. The dub serves to cater to those that want to hear what they can understand, context and all. Treating slight changes like it's Robotech as an excuse to "stick to the sub instead" is insulting to those that want to enjoy their cartoons just like everything else they watch.

If you people really want anime to be mainstream or at least close to it, stop cramming "The subs aren't that fast to read" as a norm. They aren't.
 
O.o



You misunderstand. I am not insinuating you have that attitude at all. I was pretty much telling you something you already knew because that's where my thought process was going. I don't recollect calling foul on your choice (then again, that could be the day crawlin' along at a slow pace), you shall do what you shall and I'm sure the matter will be entirely forgotten in a few days time. I really have no invested interest in the matter.



I think you might've misunderstood me. I could be wrong, however.

My point is, in terms of the 'mainstream representation of the franchise', if the series is marketted based on that dub, if that's made the focal point of the entire franchise's presentation in America, the Japanese version--perfectly good as it is--isn't succeeding based upon its merits. The franchise is succeeding upon a licensor's adaption to be a success. Bare with me as I sound like the poster child for fans of the Japanese version of the Dragon Ball franchise. FUNimation's entire marketting scheme has always skewed toward their dub, one that is about as tonally a complete 180 degree opposite of what the original is. Dragon Ball's "Golly-it-is-Sammy-Sosa-on-a-pogo-stick success" in America (boy do I hate saying this) has pretty much been based on their 'reversioning' of the series, insert rant about all of that such entails here. As such, discussion can be a pain, yadda yadda yadda (I'm sure you'd appreciate it if I cut that short).

Getting back to the point I was originally trying to make, if this release succeeRAB than there will be no doubt it succeeRAB based upon the merits of the original.


I quickly touch up on the matter of subs: watching something in its original language with [accurate subtitles], I would propose, actually forces one to pay better attention. No language barrier stifles good acting. Your ears are meant to follow the emotional journey the actor is performing and making real while. Having to use your eyes to follow subs increases reaction time and quite quickly one should be able to simply glance at the worRAB and understand the story as you follow the actor's storytelling. With a show like Death Note where most of the story is just people sitting their talking following the vocal performance is key, espicially if you're on a second or third run-through.


Then again I took three years of high school Japanese where reading subtitles was key for the numerous anime and J-Dramas, so my opinion is as good as...whatever you decide to take from it.
 
It's funny that we've been waiting for this show for a while, and now that it's here, we're arguing over the fact that it has no dub and not the fact that it's licensed.

The ANN forums are not faring so well either.
 
@Jacob: What are you talking about, now? We're talking about a dub possibility on Gintama by ex-ADV, not FUNi's marketing on your beloved DB.

The dubs by most every company are accurate and faithful. I take quality of voice-acting based on context, and that is post-lay is the worst possible thing you can have as a voice-actor, especially when you're doing what was a pre-lay by a language that has 20 percent more syllables.

Once again, sub-people arguing whether or not a dub is necessary is completely useless. Why comment on something you'd most likely only complain about and have no effect on you? It's like a baseball loyalist calling the Super Bowl a terrible match-up.
 
Really? I have no problem with reading and watching at the same time, not to mention I've never had my attention divided. I'm not the only one. It's perfectly acceptable. People who watch bopth live-action foreign films, anime and other screen media who have sub-only DVRAB, fansubs and legit subtitled series would disagree with you. You really should think before you make such a wild statement.
 
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