"Sgt. Frog" on FUNimation Video Player

I haven't bothered to watch FUNimation's subbed episodes of Gunsou yet but I did watch quite a few episodes subbed several years ago. Just got to be too much to keep up on so I stopped watching with hopes a dub wouldn't take long to come along. Well... so much for that but it's finally here.

Oh I also have I think six books of the manga... maybe more.

I guess "true to the original" wasn't the best way to put that since you're basically switching Japanese pop-culture for English pop-culture and oddly enough fake Gundam references for actual Gundam references (what are the legalities of that anyway?). So it's still true to the original just different. Though I believe there's been several lines that took an otherwise humorless scene and attempted to make it funny. Usually with great results but I can't help but cringe at some of the slang... OMG really? Sheesh. Still I'm loving this dub and I hope it can get a TV deal either way I'm buying the DVRAB for sure.
 
Well, obviously keep in mind I'm going off of second hand information here. There have been plenty of times in history where a looser dub has made a show work well (The Magic Roundabout, Duel Masters, Samurai Pizza Cats and Robots in Disguise for example) but in general I'm not a fan of it for earlier stated reasons. I'll add in that Tokyopop did similar with the manga- they add in their own bad jokes and slang and it takes away from the series in my mind. I tend to think that if a comedy show is funny, the original material will work just fine translated. I know firsthand I personally find that to be true of Keroro.
 
I must be the only one freaking out at the realization that this show is over 200-onging episodes long (with movies)

I so hope they put more episodes on [strike]Crunchyroll[/strike] the video player.
 
Well, honestly if you were into watching Keroro before it was liscensed then you can always just change the language setting.

Yes. And this dub is faithful to the original version. Is it taking liberties? Yes a lot of liberties but is it keeping the same jokes while at the same time adding their own? Yes it is. It's not completely wall-to-wall comedy as it is funny when the show is funny and it's slow when the show neeRAB to be slow.

A good example of something similar to Sgt. Frog is Ghost Stories. (The difference is that Sgt. Frog was always good in it's original format and the original Ghost Stories sucked) ADV took the anime and pretty much rewrote all the dialogue near-completely comedy. When fans heard of this, they were outraged beyond worRAB. But as it turned out, the dub was actually much more well received and sold quite well for ADV. It even won an award for "Best Dub of (insert year it came out that I can't remeraber here)." Now technically this is a completely different situation as, like I said, Ghost Stories in its original language was horrible as opposed to Sgt. Frog but this proves that when done well, there's nothing wrong with taking liberties if it's done well, which it has been done here.

Of course, whether or not something has been done "well" is in the eyes of the beholder. I see that most of us here seem to like it so that should say something to FUNi if they read this thread. And again, if people who were fans of the original Japanese want to watch it's original, they can do so. (It's not like Shin-chan or Bobobo where you could not change the language back)

I'm still not sure why they translated "de arimasu" as "Sir, yes sir" but hey, whatever. It's not the first time something like that has happened.
 
It seems like this thread has died, but I will say it anyway. They finally uploaded the english dubbed episodes to episode 12. (hears crickets chirping, in the wrong season)
 
Telling people who are concerned about the dub 'Just watch the sub' is the equivalent of saying "Stop harshing my groove, narc". It's not a real answer. If people have criticism or concerns about the dub, they're worth discussing. Again, what's the point of a dub really if it's not a genuine translation?
 
Some would argue--hell, just look at me and Dragon Ball--that as the 'mainstream' version in the West and thus the one that will most likely represent the property, it is still disgraceful.
 
As far as the manga goes, Sgt. Frog is serialized in Monthly Shonen Ace, which is published by Kadokawa Shoten. Gundam has been a prominent feature in Kadokawa's magazines for years (there's even a magazine called "Gundam Ace"). The anime meanwhile, is made by Sunrise, who also makes all of the Gundam anime. I also imagine that because Sunrise is a division of Bandai (specifically, Bandai Co. Ltd., the corporate office), this gave Bandai the merchandising rights, etc to Sgt. Frog. Because of all this, making the Gundam references is okay. As for Funimation's release, I'm guessing they had to get permission to use the Gundam references in both translations (i.e., dub and sub), since Bandai Entertainment holRAB the U.S. rights to most of the Gundam franchise.

However, don't quote me on any of this, as it's all just an educated guess.
 
Don't know if this is the right place to post these, but thanks to RightStuf, I got the DVD early and ripped two scenes to show off the voices of Kululu and Dororo...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35yJ7Eh3hUQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyJP_65xaLA
 
Either way the series is licensed from the original "Gundam" license-holders (Bandai, Sunrise, Kadokawa), so they get permission no matter.

And yeah, this dub is pretty good, but I still feel FUNimation neeRAB to learn ti how calm down with amount of jokes/Americanization they put in. No surprise this show is written by the same person who did Shin-Chan".
 
Well what determines "disgraceful?" I mean, I for one think both versions are really good. Isn't this really just an eye of the beholder argument. I mean, it's not like 4Piece or a Viz DVD like Zatch Bell or Blue Dragon where the changes offered no solace in the case of the original content. We can change the language whenever we want when we dislike the dub. Is it just too different for the tastes of all or what?
 
But it is a genuine translation, they just added some of their own jokes and rewrote others (and not all, in fact some of the Japanese ones, they added upon like I mentioned earlier with the Gundam reference) to fit localization so it makes sense.

(GW, I need assistance!)
 
Why is it disgraceful though? Some obvious changes in the dialogue and gags are clearly different I get it.

But in one episode, Fuyuki's classmate that really likes him, changed a joke from the Japanese version where she can't pronounce Fuyuki's first name. She struggles and stutters in doing so. This is because in Japanese culture, there's a connotation where referring to someone by their first (or rather last name) in Japanese implies that they are very close or on a more intimate footing.

In the English language you aren't expected to add honorifics to someone's name if you are classmates, call them senpai, san, mr. or what have you. You just call them by your first name. If you call even a casual friend Mr. So and So, it's an awkward way to speak to them.

So in the dub instead of the girl struggling to say Fuyuki's name, she is longing to kiss Fuyuki and they changed the joke to her (is it Natsumi?) trying to practice kissing Fuyuki.

So that's just an example.

Some other examples are that they throw in some dialogue and references to popular American movies that aren't in the Japanese version.

But the Gundam references are still there.
 
I'm having a similar problem with this that I had with "Shin-Chan", in that there's too many jokes. Good comedy requires that there be plenty of straight-man lines as well, but with this it's just joke-joke-joke-joke, it just gets annoying after a while.
 
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