Shameful Otaku Secret!

Actually, Geass 1 dub thingy

Saturday night those of you who are US-based and aren’t too awesome for dubbed cartoons on TV might have noticed that Cartoon Network is airing Code Geass season 1 after the still-trucking Death Note. Personally I really like Adult Swim and I love the fact that they show some of this stuff. They’ve shown some greats in the past: Trigun, Eureka Seven, Cowboy Bebop, Wolf’s Rain, even Satoshi Kon’s Paranoia Agent. Now, follow that with Code Geass. But it got me thinking, and that’s never good.

Why do dubs suck?

I don’t want to get into the dub-vs-sub war, but if I rant on my blog I can at least have a one-way conversation that’s more intelligent than trying to talk about it on 4chan or something OMG DUB SUX. But what makes dubs so hated? Is it the over-localization? Or perhaps Funimation-style “repurposing” the likes of which turn Shin-Chan into an (admittedly hilarious) adult cartoon? Yes, very literal fansubs let you infer based on your pitiful knowledge of moonspeak what might actually be going on, whereas localization forces its interpretation on you. But that doesn’t bother me much. I guess I always knew my own answer, but seeing the dub of Geass, formerly starring Jun Fukuyama, it drove it home: There are five fucking people in this business.

Starring: Crispin Yong Vignogna

Hi! I am tired of hearing your voice!

While watching Spice and Wolf, it’s hard not to wait for Lawrence to make some fruity pose and Mikuru Stare someone into buying his 18,000 suits of armor. Likewise for at least 27 other characters this season. But watching American dubs, that effect is multiplied by a thousandfold.

It would make a great office pool game to bet on how many seconds it takes in the first episode of any show before Crispin Freeman shows up. Saturday night was my first ever viewing of the dub, so I instantly thought two things: One, why wasn’t it Karen instead of Kallen? Two, Johnny Yong Bosch? Fucking really? Wait, three things: BADASS MOTHER.

A matter of octave

But really, as much as you do hear Jun Fukuyama, and as much as his only vocal mannerism seems to be “rampant egotism,” how exactly do you match up his voice with Johnny Yong Bosch? Fabulous Itsuki? (actually, I did like his Itsuki dub, and his Vash role was one of the best, but that just proves my overuse point further…) Either way, it reminds me of how in Evangelion, Shinji was voiced by a girl and her voice was still lower than Spike Spencer’s.

Lots of people tell me when I meet them that I should go into radio. That is a compliment that makes anyone feel more like a man, and sure, I need all the help I can get there — but what I’d really like to break into is anime dubbing. How would I go about this? Not sure. Not interested in going back to school to learn acting, or moving to California, or any of that.

Maybe if I walked into a convention, slapped Dick Cox with a glove and shouted “I demand satisfaction!” in front of his entire legion of blobby fangirls, some ancient rule of duelling would allow me to usurp him. As long as it did something to minimize guys who sound like puberty laughed and sped by them on a moped. I know they’re hard workers, and talented and whatnot, but Crispin Freeman is the only person in dubbing who doesn’t make my ears bleed, and you can’t use him for everything — or can you? I think that was my point.

What the hell happened to this post?

Well, that went long. So, let’s do a one-sentence summary of the show this post was supposedly about — Lelouch convinces Rollo not to kill him by saying he’ll bring C.C. to him, but instead manages to trick him into joining the Black Knights with a little faux love, while simultaneously saving the would-be-executees like Ohgi and Toudou by sliding all the Brits bodily into Chinese Federation territory where they can’t shoot without starting a war.

Also, Pizza Hut sightings: ONE.

Miss Macross

Holy cow, what a week! I originally wrote a bunch of excuses here, but hands up who wants to read that. I thought so.

Recap

I fucking called it, bitches! The silliest and most endlessly-repeated ditty in the original Macross’s lineup, “My Boyfriend Is A Pilot,” was Ranka’s Miss Macross song.

I actually was joking about that, but to find I was right actually got me a little nostalgic and even pumped up. Not to mention I also called that Alto would shoot down Mikhail in training by accident, be forced to trade in his pilot suit for a bikini and have to enter Miss Macross himself, only to find Ranka a jaded maneater, but I suppose that too was a joke. Right?

Revelations!

• My Boyfriend Is Indeed a Pilot! Congratulations, princess. We knew you could do it. If you couldn’t, this series would be really short and pointless. But the fact that he managed to pass his training mission by killing a real live Vajra with no guns is impressive. Also, he poses in the mirror.
• Leon and Catherine may be on the rocks! He wouldn’t by chance be sleeping with her because of her daddy, would he?
• Sheryl is seriously going to fuck up Ranka’s day! She may be feeding the kid inspirational words to her face, but she sure has an eye for Alto.
• The official Macross Bikini is millimeters away from buttcrack city!
  
• Princess and Pappy are not on good terms! Saotome-san the senior didn’t even acknowledge that he knew who his son was. Apparently quitting the Kabuki circuit is a big deal.
• The military is totally useless! Only Blackwater SMS can get the job done.
• Ranka is pretty damn cute! In fact, much too adorable to win a beauty pageant. Because “cute” doesn’t mean “prance around sexfully and wow the judges with your immense rack,” it means “try to bow but instead bang your noggin against the microphone.” Kawaii, motherfuckers!
• Certain aspects of anime make me really uncomfortable if I think too hard about them! Wait, that’s no revelation, that’s a fact of life I live with on a near-daily basis. What the hell is Crackhead Mike on about?

I’m pleased as punch that the Zentradi are back in my life, but the first full-fledged one we meet changes from a huge-breasted Amazon beast into a Loudmouthed Loli when she hits the Micloning machine.

This is a few kinds of wrong.

1. The loudmouthed loli archetype is already a means of veiling pedophiliac tendencies behind a thin wall of “comedy.” Naming a loudmouthed loli as your favorite character just means you think her “comedic” “antics” are trés hilarious!
2. The fact that Klan is, in her true form, a real woman with gigundic bouncing tits further legitimizes your attraction, you sick puppy.
3. Lolification is a real trend, whether you enjoy it or are indifferent to it, and now it’s in my Macross, which is worse than that time you got your chocolate in my peanut butter. Ranka was one thing, but it’s spreading.

Kilobytes upon kilobytes have been written on this subject, and I’m not trying to add fuel to that monotonous and endless fire. Or am I? I definitely don’t want to be associated with my more prudish countrymen at places like ANN, i.e.,  “I write vicious indictments of harmless TV series because secretly I’m fapping to this shit and I’m as culturally hypocritical as five Japanese people stacked together.” Just wanted to give my thoughts. I’m fresh off starting an ef review, and I was struck by the reverse situation (”my body is basically an ok place in some jurisdictions but I have the mind of a 12-year-old, fetishize me please”), so maybe I’m being overly sensitive right now. Also, I’m just a little touchy about Macross.

Final Thoughts: Take care of yourselves (and each other)

I’m probably sensitive because Macross F is thus far the closest parallel to the original that I’ve seen, and it’s so pants-shittingly exciting sometimes — even “My Boyfriend Is A Pirate” got me going — but I’m just waiting for it to go to pot. It hasn’t yet: this was my favorite episode — it had the singing, it had the fighting, it had hints of the drama revving up. And it was awesome! Bonus points: froggy cellphone, Valkyrie backpack, extreme jiggle factor (legitimately for lulz).

Shiny happy robots ending war

Aside from being the oldest mecha franchise in existence, the Gundam meta-series is also the quintessential one. While Macross focuses on the music, Evangelion is a dense religious metaphor, and Full Metal Panic! is about panties, Gundam is about robots. Always has been, always will.

That said, I’m not too familiar with the franchise up to this point. I have never seen Gundam Seed, nor the original in its entirety. What I do know is that Gundam 00 shares a lot of common elements: war fought with mechs called Mobile Suits, large casts of characters, and (superficially) thick webs of politics. Oh yeah. And highly effeminate pilots.

Story

It’s the future, and the world has consolidated into a few power blocs: one based around the US, one around western Europe, and another at Russia and China. Each owns an elevator into orbit, which serves the dual purpose of transport into space and the collection of solar energy. The economy of the Middle East has collapsed thanks to the near-total abandonment of oil-based energy.

Out of nowhere comes a bizarre paramilitary organization called Celestial Being. They’re in possession of crazy mobile suits called Gundams that can take out pretty much anything without batting an eye. Celestial Being’s ostensible goal? To eliminate war by fucking up anyone who fights. Violent pacification, as it were.

The world attempts to stop them, of course, with all their different means — the Russians with their engineered super-soldiers, the Americans with advanced suits called Flags.

Characters

The cast is huge. Of course the focus is on the androgynous Gundam pilots with their patchy backstories and ridiculous code names: Setsuna F. Seiei, Allelujah Haptism, Tieria Erde, and Lockon Stratos. Then there’s their leader, Celestial Being’s chief strategist Sumeragi Lee Noriega, the obligatory alcoholic female in charge (with an even dodgier hinted-at backstory), and old-guy Gundam developer Ian Vasty.

That’s just a few of the Celestials: I couldn’t even bother listing their pilots, the Russians (Colonel Smirnov and supersoldier Soma), the Americans (Graham Aker and company), the Europeans (idiotic Patrick Colasour), the queen of a failing middle eastern country who may or may not have fallen for Setsuna (Marina Ismail), the mid-season interlopers with imitation Gundams (Nena, Michael, and Johann Trinity), the various mysterious puppet masters of Celestial Being (Wang Liu Mei, Alejandro Corner, and others), the mercenary Ali Al-Saachez, or the poor hapless Japenese civilian Saji Crossroad and his doomed loved ones.

Who named these people?

Dangers of Watching

• Keeping a billion names straight
• Aside from a complicated list of names and affiliations, a pretty shallow plot
• Not incredibly awesome character design, not incredibly sympathetic characters for that matter
• Personal investment in the story directly proportionate to how many people are offed

Benefits of Watching

• Brightly colored robots
• Decent animation (not too horribly augmented by computers), and the first Gundam to be shown in HD
• Action, action, action
• Pretty good, big-name music (such as L’Arc-en-Ciel)

Bottom Line

Twenty-six episodes can, of course, be a long time to wade through something that doesn’t truly hold your attention. If given the choice, I couldn’t recommend Gundam 00 over any of the more obligatory modern mech series (such as RahXephon, Evangelion, or Macross Plus) if you haven’t seen them. But as an update on an undisputed classic genre pioneer, it’s fully capable and plenty entertaining, especially the last couple absolute blowout episodes.