Kanon dub: Thoughts.

Yes, The Anime Network (ADV's privately-owned digital cable network, in case you didn't know) has put out a preview of Kanon, which will premiere on the 28th. (The first DVD comes out on New Year's.) The scene they use for the commercial, available on their site, is from the first episode; Nayuki goes grocery shopping and Yuuichi gets dragged off by Ayu. Naturally, I felt compelled to review it.

Good. And bad.

Good objectively, or at least as objective as I can get with something like Kanon. The actors are obviously professional, and they seem to understand their characters well enough. They've also taken new directions with their characters, instead of copying the Japanese versions. Anyone that watches the dubs (yes, I know that's not most of you) will have no problem with it.

But the bad thing is also, well, the new directions. I love Kanon 2006 and I've seen it a million times. I even liked the original Kanon, styrofoam snow and all. This whole time, just as the rational side of my brain was praising the voice actors, the rest of me was wailing and clawing at the screen. "Why doesn't Nayuki sound slow and sweet? Why isn't Yuuichi sarcastic enough? WHERE'S HORIE YUI?" Suffice to say, with a show that gets you as emotionally invested as Kanon, you get used to the original and don't like change.

Of course, getting exact copies of the original voice actors would not only be impossible but counterproductive, so says the rational side of my brain. Then there's the rabid fan side. Good as the dub is, this is not the show to choose when you want to convert an avid sub-watcher.


Now I want taiyaki. Or ice cream. Preferably not "jam".

Freedom to Read and Compare

Geez, guys, lay off Akiko. This past Kanon episode has caused the blogosphere to form two camps: those that believe that the crash was emotive and point to the real-life crash that everyone seemed to instantly find, and those that laughed at the crash because Akiko was crushed and "disappeared". I am planted firmly in the former camp and think the latter is just trying to get attention for contrariness, for the record, but honestly, this is getting out of hand. I'm almost missing the Nayuki conspiracy theories.

So I couldn't take it anymore and checked out the back covers of a few of the Galaxy Angel manga I'm missing (I never seem to get the right ones so I'm stuck on number four). Let me say that it's very apt that the anime was a parody of adaptation decay. If you don't want to be spoiled, skip to the next paragraph, but apparently Chitose comes in early, Eonia stays around through Moonlit Lovers and beats out the Val-Fasq conspiracy (which, I guess, is probably for the best because they cut out the entire Eternal Lovers arc), Chitose actually turns evil, and who knows what else. Am I buying it? Course I am! Especially since I heard the newly released GAII manga does the characters a lot of justice. A few of my friends that hated Rico on principle now love her to bits, so it can't be that bad.

Happy Freedom to Read Week! In celebration, read something that was banned for a stupid reason.

I don't often review things, but...

Well, I was at the comic shop and randomly decided to pick up the January 2007 Newtype USA, if only because I'd have something to review and that sort of thing is a nice break from the stuff I usually do. Besides a two-page spread on Kanon (which focused entirely on the girls' chosen foods, might I add... I didn't know taiyaki was a kind of crepe, but there you go), the magazine included a promo DVD that included episodes from Coyote Ragtime Show, Best Student Council and Utawarerumono.

Well, since I seem to be the only one around here that actually cares about the English voice actors companies use (seriously, they're not that bad), I figured I should review the ADV brigade's performance. Utawarerumono had the best lineup for the characters. For some reason, they showed episode 4, instead of episode 1, like the other series. I guess it was so they could show off more characters, because the acting's pretty good. And in case you didn't know what happened before (as they should know, this being a promotional disc put out by the most anti-fansub company we've got, a lot of people wouldn't), they had a little recap at the start kinda like the recaps at the beginning of Gargoyles episodes, only with a static screen and text, not clips and narration. Fun. Best Student Council, AKA Gokujou Seitokai, was meh. I guess my judgment's tainted, though, because I never really liked that series to begin with and only saw the first episode anyway.

Coyote, though, was a big mix. Most of the voice actors were really good. They did a new take on May that fits her character pretty well (plus we don't have to hear her "uhuhu" anymore) Chelsea was even less annoying than her Japanese voice. There were three voices, though, that irked me. Bishop was excusable, because his normal voice was fine, but disguised as the bomb squad guy, he sounded like a rat trying to write on the chalkboard with its teeth. Jessica Boone is normally a decent actress, but she needs to concentrate her work on her lower register; as Oct, Nove and Diesse (they changed her name to Dec... I guess that makes more sense), she was just annoying. But those pale in comparison to the travesty of Mister. He's supposed to be this great master coyote, but played by John Swasey, he just sounds like a dirty old man. I appreciate that the actor was trying to emulate Ootsuka Akio's gravelly voice for the character, but... no, just no. On the plus side, I so called Christine Auten as Angelica, and she was great. So most of the cast is on the good side, but Mister and the ugly box cover are just wrong.

(It reminds me of this Mickey Mouse poster that I got for my fifth birthday, except ugly and red. Keep that in the 90's, people!)

You know I just did this article for an excuse to post this.

My amusement for the day

More fearsome than the cabbage.

So I was looking for something to do when I found this. It's a fighting game. You put two names in, click the start button, and they start fighting each other. Of course, I had to play with it. Check out my results...

Perfect Isn't Easy

Feena Fam Earthlight VS Takamizawa Natsuki

Take that, perfect princess! Now if she could only beat the anime production team.

Ugu~ asa da yo!

Tsukimiya Ayu VS Minase Nayuki

Of course, we already knew this.

Long-Standing Battle

Me VS Peppers

I suppose I will still have to eat them now...

So yeah, an interesting diversion. It amused my friends, anyway. And by that, I mean that my boyfriend thought it was a riot and the one other person that was on kept putting herself in to face the rest of us and tackled me when she lost to me.

Ugu!

All, right, everybody, tenth entry! Woohoo! Now I can submit this blog to RSS things. Of course, technically I had more than ten entries before the move, but whatever. To celebrate, I figured I'd immerse us all in the spectacle of the current season (and by that I mean fall anime, but I don't want to say fall, because it's winter). I need to get myself organized, too. So, I present...

Things To Do Before I Die New Year's Comes, And With It, Winter TV

1) Make like Hinano Ayu. Go to the Asian grocery store and pick up some taiyaki. Go to every Asian grocery store in your area if you must to find some. Then warm it up, get a paper bag and carry it across town, eating some as you go. Note: stealing the taiyaki is not encouraged.

2) Dye your doll's hair blue and dress it in red Victorian clothing.

3) Get out the caution tape from Halloween and tape it across your door when you're changing.

4) Prank call Pizza Hut asking about their support of the rebellion in Japan.

5) Get that plastic sword from when you were a knight in the play in grade four, hide in a random classroom until everyone has left the school, and roam the halls hunting demons.

6) Take your brother's million-candle watt flashlight, aim it at the moon, and spell out "Take your princess back, please" in Morse code.

7) When you beat everyone else in an exam, whisper "Niisan" and walk off. Offer no explanation.

8) Burn an ugly flag with a lion and a snake on it in front of the nearest legislative building.

9) If you are in band, play your instrument in the school hallway. If you are not, I would say to borrow someone else's, but I was in band and can tell you that that is just unsanitary. Even with clarinet cleaner, my clarinet left a weird stain on my dresser that is there to this day. So you get off free on this one.

10) Wear a pink toque and squeal "Onegai Monster Ball!" at small animals.

11) Sneak up to someone in a cardboard box, throw it off and declare your everlasting grudge against this person. Double points if it's some kid from your old elementary school that you haven't seen in years or something along those lines, since you probably can't conform to the actual, spoilerish (even though it's been revealed now) situation.

12) Force your friends to do the Galaxy Angelrune line dance in public.

13) With the caution tape.

14) Play "guess the crossdresser" with random people on the street. Point out random girls and say they are guys when they are clearly not, and vice versa.

15) Dress your significant other's younger sibling as a younger version of you, and turn yourself into an older version of them. Gauge his/her reaction.

16) Cower in fear of small, cute baby chickens. Alternately, feed them and see if they will beat people up for you.

17) Pack your schedule full of intense physical training. When questioned, reply that you want to pilot your mecha in sub-light speed.

18) Record your alarm clock singing "Asa~ Asa da yo~ Asagohan takete gakkou iku yo~".

19) When your friend falls asleep in class, try and make them jump up and give a welcome speech from a restaurant. If they do not do this, fake it yourself.

20) Wear animal ears around school and try to get everyone else to do so.

21) Bother me because I haven't seen enough fall anime to do a more comprehensive list.

Got any suggestions? Send them here~

I need to practice image editing, or at least learn to draw, so I can do this too.

I'm getting impatient waiting for Soukou no Strain subs, but there's no way I'll be able to understand the raws. So I've just been holding off and muttering under my breath. Come on, they just aired episode 5! Speaking of subs, SS and Eclipse are doing a great job of Kanon with their combined release. I'd recommend that release over any of the others. A.F.K is doing well too, except for putting "Misaka" as "Misaki"- have they corrected this?- and the fact that I generally dislike groups putting Japanese names in Western order. Plus SS and Eclipse are using a cooler font. I'm such a flake, I know.

I got an Ayu-headband. It looks absolutely horrible on me. I don't know why I got it when I'd do better as Kaori than as anyone else, but, well, I have it now. I wore it to school today. People stared... but that was probably because I was running like Ayu in the ED to get to my Latin class.

Hm, what other news is there? Well, you might know by now that Muteki Kanban Musume got licensed. And it'll be released under the name... Noodle Fighter Miki. The original name was funnier.