Shaman King Uncut DVD's volumes 1 & 2

[Lovely]

I realise that technically this thread could be considered redundant. However, I just thought we needed a thread that more specifically referenced volume 1 & 2 of the uncut DVD's. This thread is about technicall issues and content. So please post your thoughts.

Oh, also, I'm the admin. I can be redundant if I want to ! neener neener! (just kidding ^_~ .)

My thoughts on the technical stuff (crossposted at AoD.com)

Alright, so I've finally seen disks 1 and 2 and here are some quick thoughts. I haven't really had a chance to check out the dub yet, but I did spot check it in a few places.

Positive notes: So bright and beautiful! And I can finally watch the original show in my room. In the past I've only seen Shaman King in the computer room on my somewhat crappy monitor. It's such a joy to finally see this while comfortable ^o^ .

The neutral thoughts:
The menu has a remix of the 4kids adapted dub music. It doesn't sound bad exactly, it's just kind of odd that it's there. Odd... and kind of funny ^o^ .

Now, for the not so positive.
1- only one of the eyecatches are shown This one, the original show had two, one shown right after the other. Here it is, for those of you who are curious. The problem with the absence of this is that in a future episode I believe the characters talk a bit during them ^^; .
Also, I think this is just the fact that the DVD has different masters than the t.v version. But in the scene where Manta is getting soda, there was elipsis points that showed up on the scene. I suspect this was removed in the Japanese DVD too (another example is that the stars in the first episode are different from the Japanese T.V broadcast to the Japanese DVD.)

2: The dubtitles. Oh, I'm not complaining about the accuracy, it's just that because the fact that the subs are timed with the dub in mind, the timing on the subs if often off for the Japanese dialouge. Annoying. Also, a few sentences here and there just read akwardly.

3: The chapter stops. For those of you who like to skip opening songs, be aware that you'll also skip part of the episode. In other words, you have to fastforward through the opening in order not to miss the begining of the episode, VERY annoying.

4: Signs or text that should be translated but aren't. I'm specifically refering to scene where Yoh is going through his "special training" and the kanji for the days of the week quickly flash on the screen. It's not translated, so I'd imagine a few people would be confused here.

5: Translated credits! I want them so! I like knowing who voiced who you know...
Did you all know that the voice of Ren is Romi Paku? The VA who voices Ed in Fullmetal Alchemist? No? That's because we need translated credits!


These are all just little annoyances that I'm hoping will be fixed for the next set of DVD's. On that note, does anyone have the addresses of the people whom I can write to to voice my complaints to?

Finally, I noticed that the dvd's don't have extra's. So, I have some suggestions :neko:.

1: Clean opening and closing. and I KNOW they exist...
2: Unintenionally funny 4kids adapted dub lines.
With such great lines as "I'll send you to the land of the nolonger living!" we could all laugh while being thankfull that we have the uncut dvd script .

Any other suggestions for extras ^_^ ? (wow... I made this post longer than I originally planned it to be ^^;;...)

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Thoughts on the actual content and the new dub will be posted by Lovely... eventually!
But until then feel free to add your own thoughts ^_^ .

[Pinkechidna]

Mmm, I'm with you on the clean opening/ending thing. Oh, and how about some lineart? The "added attractions" being only crappy previews for crappy animes was really vexing. Let's have some real extras people.

[resurie]

ooo....sounds...average...., only one eyecatch? why?! the music during the second eyecatch is cool! curses!

the dubtitles...so Lovely? does that mean theyre accurate? i mean exactly how accurate in your opinion?

i dont really mind the rest....so..im done here...yea...though those extras sound like good ideas,

as for writing for complaints, why not try FUNimation? the website that is.... is there a website?

[Lovely]

resurie said:

the dubtitles...so Lovely? does that mean theyre accurate? i mean exactly how accurate in your opinion?

Super accurate from what I can tell. I'll quote what the reviewer on AoD said as say "about 95% acurate" .

[Takato]

While I do like knowing who worked on the anime I'm watching, I also kind of like how they're including the Japanese text on the opening/ending credits simply because I think it looks cool. ^^;; What I wish anime DVDs would do though, is use the alternate angle buttons, so you can go back and forth between watching the credits with Japanese text or English text. Or if they don't want to do that, they could use the Japanese text for the credits on the show itself and have a seperate set of ending credits in English at the end of all the episodes on the disc. So, do these uncut DVDs still have the purpleish stars in episode one?

[Lovely]

Takato said:

So, do these uncut DVDs still have the purpleish stars in episode one?

Yeah, they do ^o^ . I so need to go back and fix up some of the older episode comparisons .

Concerning (untranslated) Japanese credits:
I will NEVER understand why so many fans think they are "cool". It's text. Text that most of you can't read. It's like being impressed by a school textbook. "But the layout between the math problems and the roman alphabet is so ARTISTIC! "
yeah.

[animeninjaNIPPON]

Lovely said:

Concerning (untranslated) Japanese credits:
I will NEVER understand why so many fans think they are "cool". It's text. Text that most of you can't read. It's like being impressed by a school textbook. "But the layout between the math problems and the roman alphabet is so ARTISTIC! "
yeah.

yeah, what's up w/ the Japanese-only credits? Iria is the same way. well, it has Engish credits at the very end of the DVD, but it doesn't say who did the dub-voices (I really wanna know- they were good).

[Takato]

Lovely said:

Yeah, they do ^o^ . I so need to go back and fix up some of the older episode comparisons .

Concerning (untranslated) Japanese credits:
I will NEVER understand why so many fans think they are "cool". It's text. Text that most of you can't read. It's like being impressed by a school textbook. "But the layout between the math problems and the roman alphabet is so ARTISTIC! "
yeah.

The same reason why the Japanese like to have anime characters shout out random Engrish or have it written on billboard advertisements; we'll never know. It's one of life's greatest mysteries and even I don't understand why I think it looks cool. It just does. ^^;; And textbooks would be more fun to read if the layout looked prettier.

[Dessa]

Takato said:

What I wish anime DVDs would do though, is use the alternate angle buttons, so you can go back and forth between watching the credits with Japanese text or English text. Or if they don't want to do that, they could use the Japanese text for the credits on the show itself and have a seperate set of ending credits in English at the end of all the episodes on the disc.

Most DVDs translate the credits on the OP (or remove them completely), and include the Japanese and English voice casts in the credits, followed by the Japanese staff, followed by the English staff.

Many movie DVDs will include the credits with an angle option, for pure Japanese (with some translated names at top in subs), or for English (with full credits for both).

Occasionally a DVD (Saiyuki season 2 comes to mind) will leave the Japanese closing alone, followed by "English credits."

FUNimation tends to like to put angles in... with the original, Japanese credits in one, and the English credits in the other... of course, the English credits ONLY have the English VA...

[Lovely]

Alright, I've finally seen episodes 1-6 of the new dub. Let me tell you, it was one of the most sureal experiences in my life. The dub VA's... saying the correct script...with the original music going on in the background... it's almost a dreamlike situation.
It's SO close to the original that the fact that they kept the dub names still comes across as silly to me.


Now, my opinions on the other performances.
Rio and Len still have thier odd accents. Buuut, they deliever their lines better for the most part. Rio actually sounds threatening in the begining! Oh, and now that Len isn't forced to say some of the horrible lines he said in the dub ("I'm gonna play tiddly-wiinks with my sister!!!") he actually doesn't sound that bad. Also, I think Len toned the accent down a bit. I don't know, it just sounds a bit more natural.

Yoh's va: I still think he doesn't sound quite calm enough in some scenes, but he didn't do too bad. He's really got that "yoh chuckle" down! And there was one scene that he tells Len to shut up that sounded REALLY good. He delivered the line in a way that you would tell someone you were familar with to "shut up" and not really in an angry way. It was cute!
However, I do have a complaint. Every-once- in - a while... his...voice...sounds kind of...stil-ted. I would like to blame the script (maybe a little TOO acurate.) But whatever it is, it just sounds odd 0_o . He only does it everyonce in a while though. And, he's the only one who seems to do it soo...

Morty :
He's a great actor. I still think his voice isn't QUITE as cute as I would like it to be, but, he delivers pretty much all of his lines incredibly well. And, now that he gets to stick closer with the shows original script he comes off a bit cuter as well.

Anna: She delivers her lines a touch too harshly a lot of the time. Besides that, she's fine.

Besides a few characters keeping their dub names, ALL other items and things keep their original names or a translation of their names.
For example Ren's attack "Chuuka Zanmai" is translated as "Slash Dance". The Harusame keeps it's name. The town keeps its name. Ren's last name, Tao, is mentioned somewhat frequently.
Itako= Spirit medium
Doushi= kept as "Doushi"
Lot's of things like that.

The only random thing that is different in the dub is that Morty's last name is Manta (Resurie already mentioned this I think). On the one hand, I'm happy to hear "Manta" on the other hand I miss "Oyamada". I wonder if his last name is "Manta" in the adapted 4kids dub as well?

Well, that's my take on the dub. It was surprisingly enjoyable ^_^ .

[resurie]

Lovely said:

The only random thing that is different in the dub is that Morty's last name is Manta (Resurie already mentioned this I think). On the one hand, I'm happy to hear "Manta" on the other hand I miss "Oyamada". I wonder if his last name is "Manta" in the adapted 4kids dub as well?

*falls* aheh..nope wasnt me lovely XD but its kinda nice you thought it was me, i saw that too, it was on one of the reviews you posted...i dont remember which one...^^'''''

as for the thing you said about yohs voice...i didnt really understand.....do you mean that he-talks-like-this?

and what do mean the script being a 'a little TOO accurate'? isnt that a good thing...?

[Lovely]

By "too acurate" I mean that it can sometimes make for some akward sounding sentences.
Erm... how to explain this....
Somethings sound fine when you read them, but when you say it out loud it just sounds ... off. That's all I mean.
And yes, I meant Yoh-occasionally-talks-like-this...

[DarkMaster]

So overall they are worth getting then.

[Pinkechidna]

Hmm, reguarding Yoh's voice...I think he sounds-like-this sometimes is because of the more accurate script. It seems like they are trying to keep it as accurate as they can, but with the new dialouge the lip synching may be off. Like in Japanese, there might be a break between a short word or syllable. I guess when they dubbed it in english they couldn't compensate for that extra mouth movement very well. Though it may be better that random dubbing of old Godzilla movies. That's my theory. It's not overly distracting to me though.

[SakoNakara]

About the credits: I believe Bandai, and also FUNimation occasionally, practice this. I gurantee you, some fans DO get mad about this stuff (no Japanese credits). I don't know why, I'd rather have credits... I guess 4Kids wouldn't want to tamper with the Japanese footage? They could just do an alternate angle then... FUNimation does that with Detective Conan and Dragonball GT.

The dubtitles: annoy me. I really don't like them, and I'm sure it wouldn't have taken that long for 4Kids to time a new script. But whatever... I hope this problem gets fixed in the future.

Second eyecatch: Meh. Not really important I guess... At least they didn't cut BOTH of the eyecatches. The Yu-Gi-Oh DVDs were like this too, it originally had two eyecatches but the DVD only had one.

Lack of translating certain things: This annoyed me too. Particularly during the "MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY..." scene. I had to look up on here to see what it said. They should have at least had Yoh talk in the dub.

Chapter stops: Hmm... yeah. It could pose a problem for some people, but not for me ;D I don't generally skip over OPs/EDs.

Lack of previews: Surprised you didn't mention this... annoys me... but not as much of a big deal. Well, the DVDs are pretty good. And because I like to make my paragraphs all fancy, I'd like to fill this pointlessly with my LATEST ACHIEVEMENT - being that I've learned how to draw good Anime eyes. At last. My fanart is complete!