Macross Zero Dub Project

[505thAirborne]

yeah it obviously never made it. Still having issues, and it'll still be the same voice overs for edgar and nutuk sorry

We're still having issues....but hey in the meantime, uuuuuhhhh, Frontier 2 is almost done!

Frontier 2, Yaaaa!!!! Do you have the link for Frontier 1, didn't get to see that one yet!

[Hikuro]

FRONTIER 1 right here, but you need a VEOH web player to view it. I onyl got the last 2/3rds on youtube as Bandai bans it due to having their own web channel which streams the series.

[Jasonc]

Any update on Zero? I know it's getting around the season where things slow down, so if you're busy, no worries.

[dougbendo]

I saw your dub last night of both. I'm really interested as to seeing the ending to both of your projects. While I don't think you can treat them both as on in the same. The macross frontier is bu far the better one at this point. To be perfectly honest I think you got the dubbing down for most of the people better then I've seen the past couple new gundam releases and I say it over all is right up there with macross 2 lovers again.

As for macross zero I really doing the problem is what you have been trying to do from voice acting as it is some much from the fact that macross zero has really frat wording all over the place. Macross Zero may need be reword so that it better fits with the animation dub. I also say that from an ethnicity stand point. When they created macross zero they put every creed and color they could in the show and gave everyone the same flat lines. I think macross zero could come out much better then the Japanese one dub if you fix the words that were written that come out of every ones mouth.

But like i said your died on with macross ft and I will be looking foward to the next episode.

Edited December 9, 2009 by dougbendo

[Hikuro]

Thanks, yeah, I dunno if I'm giving Zero the much needed love to spawn the fandom on it again, it was never my favorite and it probably shows.

Frontier is gonna get it's own little thread I think at the end of the month when Episode 2 is up...I've got a few quirks on it I want to adjust, and waiting on the final line returns before I toss my hands in the air and say DONE.

Any update on Zero? I know it's getting around the season where things slow down, so if you're busy, no worries.

Not a thing......I've given the new Aries VA a month now : / I'm close on just canning this damn thing so I can do something else that might be fund, we'll see.

[Hikuro]

Oh, btw, just adding in some info here, but while Part 1 and 3 combined have 11K views, Part 2 of Episode 1 has over 20K......and that I consider to be the most boring portion of the episode! Amazing how it just jumped so much..........I don't understand how or why. Perhaps my releases are being focused in other areas that I do not know of?

[Jasonc]

Is it on Youtube? Nevermind, did find the 3 parter on youtube. I can tell whic voices are yours, Hikuro. The sound mixing is getting better. Definite improvement on the sound, but yeah, as i said before, not too big on some of the voice choices, esp. for Edgar and Nutuk. Nevertheless, it's still a good job.

Edited December 11, 2009 by Jasonc

[VFTF1]

I also say that from an ethnicity stand point. When they created macross zero they put every creed and color they could in the show and gave everyone the same flat lines. I think macross zero could come out much better then the Japanese one dub if you fix the words that were written that come out of every ones mouth.

This is an interesting idea - but the character templates of the cast from Macross zero is not "ethnically" based in any way. That is to say, none of them act in a way that would be reminiscent of any particular nationality or culture. I don't think dubbing them on the basis of their ethnic/racial appearance would be helpful.

That would just be a case of over-lapping character traits that were never there in the original.

It would also be racist - because if you "fix the words" on the basis of "creed and color" then you basically have to create racial stereotypes for every character's behavior.

That's not a good idea.

Instead, a dub should, IMO, try to remain faithful to the CHARACTER - not to the color of the character. Edgar does not behave in any way that could be linked to any national, ethnic or racial traits. Edgar behaves like EDGAR. When he speaks he conveys the emotions and thoughts of the character Edgar.

The dub should try to do the same.

Macross, like most anime actually, does not allow ethnic stereotyping to seep into its' characters. In fact, most science-fiction doesn't allow it because it instead tries to show people as people - not as stereotypes of ethnic groups.

That said - hope you enjoy Macross Zero.

I personally always prefer watching the original Japanese with sub-titles, and actually I watch all my foriegn movies in the original with subtitles too. Even the best dubs can never replace great acting in a foriegn language.

Pete

[Robelwell202]

I saw your dub last night of both. I'm really interested as to seeing the ending to both of your projects. While I don't think you can treat them both as on in the same. The macross frontier is bu far the better one at this point. To be perfectly honest I think you got the dubbing down for most of the people better then I've seen the past couple new gundam releases and I say it over all is right up there with macross 2 lovers again.

As for macross zero I really doing the problem is what you have been trying to do from voice acting as it is some much from the fact that macross zero has really frat wording all over the place. Macross Zero may need be reword so that it better fits with the animation dub. I also say that from an ethnicity stand point. When they created macross zero they put every creed and color they could in the show and gave everyone the same flat lines. I think macross zero could come out much better then the Japanese one dub if you fix the words that were written that come out of every ones mouth.

But like i said your died on with macross ft and I will be looking foward to the next episode.

This coming form a guy that violently hates everything with the 'Macross' label attached to it...

I would be VERY cautious when regarding anything DougBendo writes, folks. He's not the most honest, or gracious, person on the web.

[dougbendo]

Viper its no that I hate macross. i think the guy did an aswome job with macross frontier and I am look forward to the rest. Viper I just don't like you:) So stop trying to pic a fight with me on this guys forum. Unless he wants to start something me viper shut up.

[Funkenstein]

This coming form a guy that violently hates everything with the 'Macross' label attached to it...

I would be VERY cautious when regarding anything DougBendo writes, folks. He's not the most honest, or gracious, person on the web.

Nor understandable, as evidenced by the ...strangeness of his sentences.

[Jasonc]

Hey guys, I would keep the debates about people's ethical behavior out of this thread. While Pete makes an argument to a statement related to the dub here, that seems fine, but If dougbendo wants to talk about stuff related to the dub, whether it make sense, or not, I welcome that, as should Hikuro. Going outside of that doesn't make any situation better, not to mention that most of this is in the HG and lic. debate thread. I'm not a mod, but I just like to keep this interesting thread, clean as possible.

On the subject of making the characters more "ethnic" Pete is right in the fact that the Macross franchise has never engaged in racial stereotyping in such a manner. HG likes to advertise that Robotech broke all stereotypes in cartoons with Roy Focker and Claudia having a relationship, but in reality, Robotech's staple to their franchise is Macross, and SDF Macross was the one that set all that up. Using that as an example, inserting dialogue in Macross Zero to (what I define from dougbendo) make Edgar "more black", would be a very bad move. Edgar is Edgar, and the thought of doing that would show that there are already preconceived ideas about characters that degrade the viewing of the show. Instead of criticizing the dialogue for that reason, most people that work on dubs, whether fan made or in the industry, try to keep the intent of the dialogue and characters to a certain integrity. Going away from that not only destroys that integrity, but takes away from the original creators intent. It is a form of work that was popular with Robotech and Voltron and Gatchaman, but is kinda frowned upon these days.

[MastaEgg]

FRONTIER 1 right here, but you need a VEOH web player to view it. I onyl got the last 2/3rds on youtube as Bandai bans it due to having their own web channel which streams the series.

Why are they going after your dub in particular? There's lots of subbed instances of ep 1 on youtube and they've been up for a while.

[Hikuro]

A lot of those I think have kind of been grand daddyed in I believe. I'm not 100% sure, I think it's just bad luck but maybe I'll hav ea better chance when Episode 2 is finished. Just waiting on one more person.

[chillyche]

I'd like to weigh in about the ethnicity issue, because it's something I think about a lot.

For starters, I tend to agree with everybody here that the dialog shouldn't be altered to create racial stereotypes. It'd be plain offensive, and in general poor taste.

In particular, I suspect that part of the purpose of Edgar's character was to buck the trend. He first appears as The Black Sidekick , and is lost when the hero's plane goes down. Expendable Black Sidekicks are a huge cliche. Yet Edgar reappears later on, throwing audiences expecting a tired plotline a curveball. This becomes a running gag, with Edgar appearing in the final episode with a line translated as, "I failed to die, yet again." Whether or not Edgar is bucking the Expendable Sidekick archetype, or in particular the Expendable Black Sidekick archetype, only the creators will know for sure. But I'm down with it either way. They also buck the Kill The Black Guy First routine, which was extremely popular in the 80s, and still reers its ugly head from time to time.

That said, there is a valid criticism in regards to certain productions with multi-ethnic casts where varied ethnicities are not represented in anyway other than skin-color. In the original Japanese, you will often find american characters, british characters, japanese characters, and anything in between that all speak basically Japanese. Without a great understanding of the language, I can't tell if they're giving the characters various dialects, but to my ear, the voices are homogenized. To combat this, I see no problem with performers adding a dialect or local flavor to a character they're voicing. However, the danger of stereotypes, cliches, and other ugly and/or ignorant choices is certainly there.

If we cast a black dude from Brooklyn, NY to play Edgar, and told him to speak in his own voice, rather than affecting any particular dialect or accent, we might find that he would sound "black" to us in a particular way. This without changing lines to "lemme axe you a question" or "whattup my n*gga?" A local dialect is not the same as a stereotype. We could even ask an actor to attempt the dialect, but if the actor had no real voice coaching or dialect training, they might resort to just mimicry, which would probably devolve into stereotypes, which I'd definitely be against. If one's experience with a black dialect is just based on TV or worse -- popular music -- then one has no real business attempting that dialect. Even if it's "oh, there's a lot of black people in my neighborhood," I'd be against it. We all know a crappy british accent when we hear one, the same should be true for other accents/dialects. I'm not even particularly clear on Edgar's origin. Edgar LaSalle, right? Claudia's brother? Where are they from? Are they African? African-American? Caribbean? This is an important question in determining the cultural background and local flavor of Edgar. Both he and his sister are in the military? Are they army brats? Did they grow up on bases? Did they travel around as kids? An actor playing a part usually researches these questions -- if it's not in the script, they pick the director's brain, if it's not in the director or writer's brain, then the actor basically creates this information to inform their acting choices.

Ultimately, if a talented actor chose defensible changes to the character, then I wouldn't have a problem, so long as they stayed true to the intention of the character (which I would argue, in the case of Edgar, isn't terribly well defined, what with him being a minor supporting character). But these would have to be smart choices, not stereotypes. In the case of a dub, it's pretty challenging because the performance already exists, the character's movements, stance, and physical behavior has already been set.

As a side note:

I used to read comics fairly regularly. In the early 2000s, Brian Michael Bendis became a major force in comics, and eventually wound up writing for almost every major marvel character, as well as plenty of other characters. I was a fan of his POWERS book, and thought his style was particularly fitting for ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN. However, with ULTIMATE X-MEN, though he wrote good scenarios and was able to keep the book smart for its initial run, with plenty of subtext, the book suffered from one point. All the characters were equally snarky. Bendis was writing most of the X-Men the same. Sure, Wolverine would say Bub, but other than that, the characters all sort of spoke with the same edge. The writing was amusing, but it wasn't true to the fact that we were dealing with a diverse group of people from across the world with a variety of backgrounds, etc. I do notice that sometimes, particularly if a sub-job is very literal, that individual linguistic flair is sort of lost in the characters. So, I do understand this criticism.

That's all.

[BeyondTheGrave]

FRONTIER 1 right here, but you need a VEOH web player to view it. I onyl got the last 2/3rds on youtube as Bandai bans it due to having their own web channel which streams the series.

Bandai is streaming it?

[Seto Kaiba]

I also say that from an ethnicity stand point. When they created macross zero they put every creed and color they could in the show and gave everyone the same flat lines. I think macross zero could come out much better then the Japanese one dub if you fix the words that were written that come out of every ones mouth.

I think just about everybody is going to agree that this is a phenomenally bad idea that would end up being downright offensive.

While rewriting dialogue and characters to conform to ethnic stereotypes might have been an acceptable practice some twenty-five years ago, but for well over a decade now rewrites have been considered bad practice. The primary goal of any good dub is to produce dialogue that flows naturally in its new language and conforms as closely as possible to the original dialogue of the series. After all, these days most anime viewers don't want to receive a dumbed-down or edited version, they want something that resembles the original work as closely as possible... which is one of the main reasons many modern anime fans consider Robotech unwatchable.

In particular, I suspect that part of the purpose of Edgar's character was to buck the trend. He first appears as The Black Sidekick , and is lost when the hero's plane goes down. Expendable Black Sidekicks are a huge cliche. Yet Edgar reappears later on, throwing audiences expecting a tired plotline a curveball. This becomes a running gag, with Edgar appearing in the final episode with a line translated as, "I failed to die, yet again." Whether or not Edgar is bucking the Expendable Sidekick archetype, or in particular the Expendable Black Sidekick archetype, only the creators will know for sure.

I'd say there's a pretty good chance that that's true, though I think the main purpose of Edgar was to provide another tie-in to the original series. The show's creators did engage in the same prank on a much larger scale in Macross Frontier, spending an entire episode making it look like Ozma Lee was going to die the exact same way Roy Focker did, and then at the very end of the episode revealing that he was still alive. Luca might be an example of the same gag on a smaller, more persistent scale, since he was the Kakizaki-analogue of the group, and even wore Kakizaki's green colors from DYRL, which had a lot of people marking him for death... yet he lived through the entire series while the Max-analogue (Michel Blanc) got offed. In that light, it doesn't strike me as unreasonable for Edgar's gag about failing to die being a case of subverting the usual trope of the expendable ethnic sidekick.

[chillyche]

I was going to mention the Frontier examples, also, even though those are cliches confined to the Macross universe, it's still clear that the show creators had fun playing with conventions. Particularly the Ozma episode which has several red herrings in it.

[Hikuro]

Bandai is streaming it?

There is a Bandai channel but their stuff is not subtitled, it's whatever is liscened be it in english language (no macross) or japanese raw. So don't get your hopes up.

[BeyondTheGrave]

There is a Bandai channel but their stuff is not subtitled, it's whatever is liscened be it in english language (no macross) or japanese raw. So don't get your hopes up.

I know Bandai has a Youtube channel. and even it has series with just an eng sub on it. Gundam unicorn looks pretty cool tho.

If your going to re-write lines so don't get engrish or odd sounding lines... use the King's English and leave the slang out of it.

I don't think i'd find a character that talks in a stereotypical manner offensive but more so stupid.

[chillyche]

I know Bandai has a Youtube channel. and even it has series with just an eng sub on it. Gundam unicorn looks pretty cool tho.

If your going to re-write lines so don't get engrish or odd sounding lines... use the King's English and leave the slang out of it.

I don't think i'd find a character that talks in a stereotypical manner offensive but more so stupid.

Slang is not necessarily stereotypical. I say that research into a character's background is essential for picking the dialect, accent, and speech patterns of a given character. GOOD research rarely leads to stereotypes, since, by definition stereotypes are broadly painted generalizations, often defined not by those being generalized, but by outside observers. A thoughtful writer knows his/her characters' backstories and can make choices about how the characters will speak, and a serious actor explores this information and delves deeper, providing the heart to that language, and embellishing it as necessary to bring a collection of lines to life as a character.

I'm actually against making all characters speak in the "king's english" because it then sounds like a dictionary wrote the thing. We know Roy Fokker's character, we know he wouldn't speak in perfect king's english. He's a drunken, womanizing flyboy who is prone to speak in colloquialisms, slur words, and drag proper speech through the mud. Unless it's a character trait -- such as a character who learned english in the UK or a non-english speaking country, where they actually follow the rules of the language -- it wouldn't make much sense for characters speak in the king's english. Certainly very few do that around here (with here being the United States). In the case of Frontier, it would be hilarious to have a bunch of high school students speaking perfect king's or queen's english. Of course, neither do I suggest trying to "totally teen-ify" it with lame fad words.

I think dubbing a script is more than just speaking the translated words. It's about maintaining a balance between the original language of the script and creating the same dramatic tension and natural flow in a new language. If I want the words to be exactly the same as the original, I watch a subtitled version, or learn the original language. A dub is so that it makes sense to my english-listening ears.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Slang is not necessarily stereotypical. I say that research into a character's background is essential for picking the dialect, accent, and speech patterns of a given character. GOOD research rarely leads to stereotypes, since, by definition stereotypes are broadly painted generalizations, often defined not by those being generalized, but by outside observers. A thoughtful writer knows his/her characters' backstories and can make choices about how the characters will speak, and a serious actor explores this information and delves deeper, providing the heart to that language, and embellishing it as necessary to bring a collection of lines to life as a character.

I'm actually against making all characters speak in the "king's english" because it then sounds like a dictionary wrote the thing. We know Roy Fokker's character, we know he wouldn't speak in perfect king's english. He's a drunken, womanizing flyboy who is prone to speak in colloquialisms, slur words, and drag proper speech through the mud. Unless it's a character trait -- such as a character who learned english in the UK or a non-english speaking country, where they actually follow the rules of the language -- it wouldn't make much sense for characters speak in the king's english. Certainly very few do that around here (with here being the United States). In the case of Frontier, it would be hilarious to have a bunch of high school students speaking perfect king's or queen's english. Of course, neither do I suggest trying to "totally teen-ify" it with lame fad words.

I think dubbing a script is more than just speaking the translated words. It's about maintaining a balance between the original language of the script and creating the same dramatic tension and natural flow in a new language. If I want the words to be exactly the same as the original, I watch a subtitled version, or learn the original language. A dub is so that it makes sense to my english-listening ears.

I'm not saying perfect kings english but more so in a way that the character has had proper education and having them talk in a way that makes sense to the viewer. Don't take MZero and combine it with Frasier. Make it sound natural as if the lines were coming from the person versus someone just reading it off a piece of paper. An example of this would be the dub of Cowboy Bebop vs. the dub of DBZ. Cowboy Bebbop sounds more natural where as DBZ sound like a someone just reading their lines at times in my opinon.

If the script calls for the character to slur his/her words then so be, but NO EBONICS.

Making it teen-ify is a stupid move because it wont withstand the test of time ie six months.

An episode of Frontier where they all talk as if they're on Frasier.... that would be hilarious.

[chillyche]

I'm not saying perfect kings english but more so in a way that the character has had proper education and having them talk in a way that makes sense to the viewer. Don't take MZero and combine it with Frasier. Make it sound natural as if the lines were coming from the person versus someone just reading it off a piece of paper. An example of this would be the dub of Cowboy Bebop vs. the dub of DBZ. Cowboy Bebbop sounds more natural where as DBZ sound like a someone just reading their lines at times in my opinon.

If the script calls for the character to slur his/her words then so be, but NO EBONICS.

Making it teen-ify is a stupid move because it wont withstand the test of time ie six months.

An episode of Frontier where they all talk as if they're on Frasier.... that would be hilarious.

Macross Frasier is a hot show. Ha ha ha.

Ebonics is fine, if it's called for. I can't think of any scenario in which it's called for in Zero, though. If we're talking about Edgar, then we know that he's American and black. That's about it. We don't know if his parents were recent immigrants and he should sport an african accent, or whether his family are descended from black america slaves, and thus have been in america for generations. I haven't been able to find what PART of America the La Salles are from, either, so that poses a bit of a challenge. A chicago accent is pretty different from an Atlanta accent which is different from Oakland or Brooklyn. Both he AND his sister have military careers, so one could begin inventing a backstory for them (as an actor would, canon or not).

Claudia is portrayed as having a lot of poise and being somewhat stoic, though still having a feminine and fun side. If I were forced to invent a backstory for her, I'd say that she was raised by both parents, both of whom usually held down a job. They stressed education and were somewhat strict, though not brutal. Her parents would probably smack her if they caught her running off at the mouth with some of the more hood language out there, so she steers clear of particularly hood speech. Still, her inflection and vocal patterns tag her as having grown up in a middle class neighborhood in BK, NY. Edgar, her younger brother was something of a nerd as a kid, and didn't run with the cool kids at school, and also avoided a lot of street language, but he too has tell tale black american vernacular speech patterns.

As long as we're not dealing with the Jiggabots from Transformers 2, then I'm fine.

[Hikuro]

well, in all debates aside.......Episode 2 of Frontier is nearly done...I'm working on the final main VA right nwo before I figure out what I'll do for left overs extras. Which seriously isn't much I'll probably just do the recordings off those before I finalize the effects and ship it out.......maybe TONIGHT.

[Hikuro]

or hah sooooooo maybe not, there's some piss poor audio and I don't think the BD release is syncing up nicely, that or I'm screwing something up. We'll find out soon and if it doesn't work I can figure it out tomorrow.