F-ZeroOne
-
Posts
2889 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Everything posted by F-ZeroOne
-
When I used to attend anime cons, you didn't go into certain video rooms if you liked dubs... Actually, I'm kidding, but until DVD more-or-less made the issue irrelevant, dub vs sub was one of the burning issues in anime fandom. It didn't help that before a pool of established Western voice actors was created (the increasing use of voice-acting in videogames has probably helped in this regard), some early dubs were pretty awful, combined with what I will generously call liberties sometimes taken with source material by some companies (you think the altered backing music track on the Gunbuster DVD set was a crime? You should have seen the Kiseki UK DVD release! ). Add the tendency for fandom to get a little excited about certain issues, maybe newer fans who may have more passion than perspective [1] and less understanding of the production side of things, and strong opinions are sometimes inevitable. Theres also the "Kobayashi Maru" problem - my favourite example of this is that in one volume of the manga version of Maigister Negi Magi Negima, a caption refers to "The Welsh Mountains, England". This may already be raising amused eyebrows among natives... It could be a genuine translation error, or it may have been an error in the original work - in which case the translator is now damned. Do they translate literally, in which case teh interwebs will attack them for a geography schoolboy error, or do they correct the error, in which case teh interwebz attacks them for not being accurate to the source material? Frankly, I'd rather take my chances in The Neutral Zone! Another way is to look at things from the "other side of the hill". "Harry Potter" is hugely popular in Japan. In the books, one of his friends supports the "West Ham" football - sorry, soccer - team. The mere fact that it is "West Ham" is automatically amusing to a British person. It is unlikely the same reaction will arise in a Japanese person, so do you translate literally "West Ham", or do you subsititue something with a similar effect but which is more culturally relevant - "The Nippon Ham Fighters", for example? [1] I used to feel a similar way about CGI animation, until I watched "The Incredibles" extras and realised, hey, CGI is hard too.
-
Translation is arguably a bit more of an art than a science. Jonathan Clements has pointed out that one problem is that Japanese voice actors are often cast with a particular "style" in mind that they're known for, and are given some licence to improvise during recording sessions. This can be a nightmare for a translator. Mr. Clements has written a very good book on this, and other oddities of the international anime scene, though it does have the most-embarrassing-book-to-read-on-a-train title ever: "Schoolgirl Milky Crisis". Another good look at translation issues is in "The Discworld Compendium", which looks at the difficulties of translating such British concepts as "Morris Dancing" into other languages and trying to get the meaning of a joke across, rather than just the literal adaptation. Although I personally prefer subs, there a few dubs I'm quite fond of - the original "Project A-Ko" one, for example.
-
"I don't want to go... " http://io9.com/confirmed-david-tennant-and-billie-piper-will-return-f-463886055 Incidentally, as part of the 50th Anniversary there is planned a special one-off drama based on the creation of the original "Doctor Who" series back in 1963. Its being penned by Mark Gatiss.
-
Gundam Show Thread - MSG thru Witch from Mercury
F-ZeroOne replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Favourite Gundam? The Turn-A. Never have I been so surprised by a design that I absolutely hated when I first saw it. The RX-93 Nu-Gundam. I've always liked the colours on that one, black and white like its the UC Police coming to bust Chars... posterior. The Gundam Mk. II, espcially in Titans Colours. Always looked like a "bruiser". The Turn-X Gundam. I never really liked the design until I got the Robot Spirits toy of it and I was able to appreciate the design a lot more. Theres something almost "Halo" about it. -
Amsuingly enough, in the Citadel DLC, Kaiden is rather genre savvy...
-
Gundam Show Thread - MSG thru Witch from Mercury
F-ZeroOne replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
I enjoyed "8th MS Team", though if I had an issue with it its that I was sort of expecting "Gundampocalypse Now" from it and of course, its not really like that except in passing. The final episode is one of the best things the One Year War setting has ever done, and the other stand-out for me is that once - just once - a GM gets to be completely, totally, no-question-about-it, awesome. [1] [1] Of course, this is almost immediately mitigated by that fact that the GM is then instructed to commit a major war crime. But then, its a GM - its not allowed any breaks. -
Though I found the new "hub" area in the Citadel DLC not overly interesting [1], theres no denying that the central plot and the many, many character moments and jokes make it absolutely wonderful, especially if you've played the series from the beginning. I love the whole "Die Hard" 'Why does the same sh - stuff keep happening to me?!" attitude Shepards got going on in it...
-
Indeed it is!
-
March 30th, UK. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SRQu3MvRySA
-
Very sad to hear this. I had a rather odd encounter with Toren Smith - I never met him in person, but he once advertised on his website that he was looking for some "Andy Capp" books ("Andy Capp" is a British newspaper cartoon strip character who appears in "The Daily Mirror"); as it happened there was a second-hand bookshop just up the road from me which I knew had a supply and I offered to pick some up and send them across the pond to him. He accepted, and sent me some "Outlanders" books and an Adam Warren signed "Dirty Pair" print thats hanging on the wall behind me still as I type... ...oh, and lets not forget his doppelgangers role as Norikos love interest in Gunbuster...!
-
Thanks for the the recoorection r.e. Reccoa/Sayla. Think I was probably getting the events in the two series confused. Of course, Sayla could just like jungles anyway...
-
Tomino broke one of his own Gundam Club rules with Leina... First Rule: Everybody dies. Second Rule: No-one comes back. Thrid Rule: No-one comes back. IIRC, Sayla bumped into Kei in a jungle in Zeta, so maybe she just likes jungles. (I maybe getting mixed up and thinking of ZZ after all, though... )
-
Keep with it. Believe me, I felt much the same way about ZZ until I got a few episodes further in than you've reached. Its also worth noting that the first half of the series was made when Tomino was having one of his upswings in moods; before Turn-A Gundam, it was vitally important that if you wanted great Gundam, you had to have sad Tomino in the snow...
-
It gets better - seriously - but you have to wait until around the 20-episode mark or so. The really weird thing is that Tomino did wacky mecha hi-jinks really well in Xabungle, I guess they just don't work so good in the more serious Gundam Universal Century timeline...
-
Aircraft Super Thread Mk.VII
F-ZeroOne replied to David Hingtgen's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Theres apparently screenshots showing that even Iranian TV had stated that the flying shots were of a model, but yes, someone has been playing a little too much "Ace Combat" and making "Airfix" kits when they should have been working... Its been pointed out from other released images that the cockpit instrumentation appears to be all commerical, off-the-shelf stuff (not entirely unusual for prototypes and demonstrators, the X-29 for example was built partly from spares from other aircraft)... -
The only question that really needs to be asked about the Leejiverse is: are you a MAN? [1] [1] Please note that in the context of the Leejiverse, the term "MAN" covers everything from alcoholic space pirates to willowy space blondes to sharpshooting dwarves in ponchos to sentinent train conductor uniforms, and quite a lot else besides...
-
According to reports, next series to debut in the U.K. on the 30th March. If its not postponed for snooker or international welly flinging [1]. Bit of a late follow-up, but I just re-watched the Christmas special and did some background reading - apparently even the biscuit tin is a reference to a previous adventure, and the Doctors lack of memory about meeting the "Intelligence" before is a shout-out to the fact that the adventure in question was one of those wiped during an archive purge at the BBC in the 70s...! [1] For the younger generation: in the days before catch-up on demand services or personal media recorders, and when the choice of channels in the UK was limited to 3, having a favourite sci-fi programme postponed - or worse, not shown entirely - because some sporting fixture couldn't finish at the agreed time was the most annoying thing in the universe. And, this being the UK, in those days everything on TV was sport...
-
Oh, and while I think of it - posisbly streatching the definition of "Mech" here a little bit, but a "collectors" Dalek. Again, there have been plenty of toys but nothing sort of "Chogokin" standard. I have one of the "Ironside" variants and its a real shame it doesn't have a voice feature to deliver the best Dalek line ever:
-
The obvious one for me is Big Dai-X from "X-Bomber"/"Star Fleet". Takatoku made some pretty good toys back in the day but a "Soul of Chogokin" style treatment would be awesome: The other would be the "Turn-A Gundam" from... go on, guess. There have been a few toys before as well, a couple of them pretty decent, but nothing really "preminum"...
-
Aircraft Super Thread Mk.VII
F-ZeroOne replied to David Hingtgen's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Scary scenes in London today as a helicopter reportedly clipped a crane in misty weather and crashed into the streets; two people (the pilot and a bystander) are reported to have been killed and several hurt. Having said that, the incident could have been a lot worse as it occurred close to at least two major London train stations as well as the M.I.6 building (technically the Secret Intelligence Service building but I doubt that even Mr. Bond calls it that). http://www.bbc.co.uk...ngland-21040410 -
One thing about CCA - it does at least look gorgeous, one of the very last examples of big-screen 80s anime. I personally like the movie a lot, but Tomino has always had a distinctive directorial style that may not be to everyones taste. It is also all right not to like something - thats something that took this once-bright-eyed anime fan a long time to learn... (as long as, in general, you have reasonable objections that you can explain - though we all have our irrationalities... )
-
Steven Moffat seems to be more keen than Russell T. Davies was to pay homage to previous Who lore.
-
The Christmas special isn't the first time the Doctor has run into... ahem... "abominable snowmen" and "The Great Intelligence" is apparently related to that but I have to admit, that reference went over my head as well until it was explained!
-
One of those posts I wish I hadn't had to make... Thanks everyone for reminding me about "UFO", which as has been said, was in some ways ahead of its time. Its trouble was the same as probably haunted Anderson all his career - he was the "puppetmaster", which is pretty much how the British media is reporting this (it was interesting to see io9, which as far as I'm aware is a US site, give more emphasis to "Space: 1999"). Regarding the second season of "Space: 1999", I recall a story about the second season - they bought over a US producer or script-writer, and he came up to Anderson and said "Heres what the new episode is called - 'The Rules of Luton!". And Anderson kind of looked at him funny and said "Luton? Where did you get that name?". The writer/producer replied "Why, I saw it on a road-sign as I was driving to the studio!". (Luton is a town in the UK...! Please note that I am not trying to bash US-based writers etc, just giving an example of the sort of things Anderson had to work with occasionally!).
-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-20845407 We never got the future Gerrys shows promised, but that wasn't his fault - the world decided that it needed shinier phones more than Mach-7 atomic-pile powered transatlantic airliners. Farewell, and thank you for that future, and for making it explode on a regular basis.