Dubs have always been good

One thing that annoys me as a Fan of Anime Dubs is when an apparent ally in that cause says something to imply it’s only modern Dubs they’re really defending.  When they talk about Dub haters being stuck in the past and not respecting how they have “gotten better”.

First of all given the growing overlap between vocal Dub Haters and the Gamer Gate Style Neoreactionaries of the Anime Community I think these people might be underestimating how many of those hating on current Anime Dubs like old ones, they’re Nostalgic for when Localizers made Anime less Politically Correct like the infamous Ghost Stories Dub.  Not to mention plenty of these people are Vic supporters.

Even in the 90s and early 00s there were plenty of Dubs that didn’t Censor all gender non conforming stuff and try to pretend the show wasn’t set in Japan.  Plenty of Classic Dubs for Tenchi Muyo and Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain are still what those characters sound like in the heads of a generation of Anime fans.

Maybe some of you will dismiss that as Nostalgia Blindness, people will like what they saw as a kid no matter what.  Well the three specific examples I listed I didn’t watch till within the last decade when I was already well past 25, and I will actively defend them against any haters as vigorously as those with Nostalgia for them.  Meanwhile with Sailor Moon I have fond Childhood memories of the old DiC localization but have no illusions about how wrong some of those voices sounded.  Once the Viz Dub became available all of its Voice Actors were able to override the old ones in my mind.  Meanwhile with Detective Conan and Fate/ we have different voice casts who I like enough that they can coexist. 

And even with the “Hack Dubs” I can consider a Dub good if I like the Voice Acting, maybe not great and certainly not perfect but good enough.  I can tolerate the cringiest of localization changes if I like listening to the voices.  I principally feel this way about the 4Kids Pokémon Dub, those performances still hold up so I still love that Dub, Jelly Donuts and all.

There are old Dubs with voices I don’t like, the worst of them usually aren’t in Kids Show Hack Dubs but edgy OVAs released directly to the bargain bin.  And voices I don’t like still exist, though it’s usually actors I do like being cast incorrectly.

But looking at issues other than voice acting.   I have my own reasons for preferring a lot of older Dubs to newer ones.  It kind of feels like Dubs including Honorifics have become less common in recent years.  And I can’t imagine a Dub made with 90s Nerds in mind refusing to use the word Paladin.

There is a duality to my personal localization philosophy.  When it comes to Honorifics and the use of Otaku Lingo I want the Dubs to just use the same words they’re using in the Japanese.  But as far as writing the full script goes I’m fine with Creative Liberties and feel like modern Dubs don’t take enough actually, they play it too safe.  I also like when they incorporate Meme references like "Sus" and wish there was even more of that.

Miyu Edelfelt the Supreme Kuudere

I made two prior posts on this blog discussing the Kuudere archetype of Anime and why it’s what I've in recent years chosen to username myself after.  

But in both I completely neglected to mention the character of Miyu Edelfelt from Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya.  That is a massive oversight given how I have another post on this blog proclaiming Prisma Illya to be The Most Anime.

And I can certainly argue she should have qualified for the more specific premise of Kuudere are Stoics.  She is a very emotionally driven character in-spite of her cool and calm Stoic demeanor and very intelligent, both book smart and wise, seemingly very mature for her age.  And episode 9 of 3wei clarifies the Nasuverse's Magic system to be compatible with Stoic Metaphysics. However, since I made that post wanting to share it with people in Normie Stoicism Groups on Facebook it’s probably for the best that I didn't devote much of it to the least Normie Accessible Anime of all time.

She slipped my mind at the time because I hadn’t recently rewatched Prisma Illya and often my over analyzing of Prisma Illya focuses on how Illya works as an archetypical Pink Magical Girl rather than how Miyu works as a Blue.

The Blue is more flexible in terms of her personality type then the Pink (and they aren’t even always literally color coded as Blue), what’s important is that they contrast with the Pink, so a Kuudere certainly can play that role but usually not.

In the original Japanese she is voiced by Nazuka Kaori and in the English Dub she is voiced by Caitlyn French, both are excellent, however the English Dub only covered the first season, the Dance at the Sports Festival OVA, 2wei, 2wei Herz! and some of the shorts made with those seasons, so unfortunately the Onsne OVA, 3wei, the movies and Prisma Phantasm remain undubbed.  Caitlyn French also voiced Yakumo Tsukamoto in School Rumble, which isn’t the only other Dub I’ve watched she’s been in but the only time I instantly recognized her as Miyu, that character may also count as a Kuudere but its been awhile since I watched it and my thinking of her as sounding like Miyu may have influenced my perception.  French is also Shiro in No Game No Life who probably does count as a Kuudere but isn’t the kind I’m mainly thinking of when I reference the concept.

I keep feeling compelled to reiterate how the main reason for the 3 episode rule is that it can take 3 episodes of a show to fully set up what it even is, and expressing what I mean by that with merely the word “premise” before because that’s the word Trixie used was a mistake, it’s more than just the premise.  Miyu is the reason the three episode rule applies to Prisma Illya, she’s the Deuteragonist, so her not even showing up till the end of episode 2 is narratively necessary but still a reason what the show is actually like isn’t fully apparent from only two episodes.  The third episode is entirely about introducing Miyu and establishing her character and how she contrasts with Illya.

I have said before that I’d like to see someone make Fanart that recreates the Iconic “Don’t worry I’ve got you.”  “But who’s Got You” moment from Superman The Movie with Prisma Illya and Miyu.  The reason why that reference should work for fans of this show is because of episode 4.  

Update: Triekkie Post Script.

Comparing a Trio of main characters to the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic is one of the most generic comparisons nerds make.  But I couldn't stop thinking about how well it works here.

Illya refuses to accept a no win scenario, this is once we reach 3wei the core of her character.  This is what every Magical Girl Protagonist has in common with Kirk.

Miyu from what I said is obviously the Spock, while Kuro complete lack of hesitation to say she's sacrifice an entire world she doesn't know to save her friend is very McCoy.

Amazons and Anatolia

Speculation about if there were real warrior women in the ancient world who inspired the Amazons of Greek mythology (even if the Greeks massively exaggerated how literally Matriarchal they were) usually focuses on the Scythians and Sarmatians.  But I have some issues with that.

The idea of connecting the Amazons to the Scythians and Sarmatians began in antiquity with Herodotus, but to him it was that the Sarmatians came from Amazons and Scythians mating together, so they were connected but still distinct.  Later classical sources would start swapping the order and having the Amazons begin north of the Black Sea and travel south like the Scythians themselves did.  I similarly think Diodorus Siculus’s Libyan Amazons narrative is based on late speculations, but once his Myrina narrative reaches Anatolia it could reflect actual ancient traditions.

The myths and stories about the Amazons that are definitely older than Herodotus even if they weren’t written down till later geographically associate the Amazons with Anatolia aka Asia Minor.  

In the Iliad Bellerphon’s encounter with them places them either in or near Lycia, where they are also associated with the Solymi named for Mount Solymus near the border of Lycia and Pamphylia.

Other stories say the Amazons founded the city of Ephesus and other cities of Greek Asia minor like Myrina, Smyrna, Cyrne, Magnesia, Pygela, as well as on Islands like Lesbos and Lemnos.  Queen Hypsipyle who Jason encountered on Lemnos I think was originally part of the Amazon tradition but was separated from it later.  On Lesbos Mytilene was named after the sister of Myrina.

Gargareans is the name of a Male Tribe the Amazons are said to have gotten their husbands for breeding from.  Strabo based on the post Herodotus Scythian fixation tried to place them near the Caucasus, but there is a mountain called Gargara on the North-Western Aegean Coast of Asia Minor just a little south of the site presumed to be Troy.

Speaking of Troy the Amazons are presented as a Trojan ally.  All of the other Trajan allies like the Mysians and Dardanians came from very near Troy, lake Ascania in western Bithynia seems to have been the eastern extent of Troy’s sphere of influence.  Later traditions do add a Memnon of Ethiopia but there is no hint of him in the Iliad besides how the Prose Edda may have confused him with Menon who was a Trojan soldier not an ally.

The overlap between locations definitely associated with the Amazons already before Herodotus and places that were associated with the Scythians are just Themyscira and the Thermodon River and Sinope in Pontus, but that’s a region the Scythians held hegemony over only for a brief time in the 7th century BC.  The core of what was meant by Scythia to the ancients was north of the Caucasus. And likewise for the Amazons Themyscira seems to be a place some of them migrated to later.

The evidence that Scythians and more so Sarmatians had occasional female warriors is legit, but it was still uncommon enough that they were never included in actual Scythian artistic depictions of warfare.

The association of the Amazons with Horses is another reason the Scythian connection is attractive to people.  That’s what the Hippo and -ippe in many Amazon names mean.  But Domesticated Horses in Asia Minor by 1600 BC and it’s in fact to be from there they came to Greece.

So IF there was a real tribe that inspired the Amazons however loosely it could be one of the Arzawa peoples known from Hittite Inscriptions.  Apasa/Abasa is what the Hitties called Ephesus while Lazba is what they called Lesbos, and there was also near them the Seha River Land and Mira.

So Ethno-Linguistically I think the Amazons were in fact Hellenes with different Gender norms than most, since they are the alleged founders of so many Greek cities, in fact even Themyscira was a Greek City in Antiquity.  Usually people seek to explain all the notable Amazons having Greek names by the Greek myth tellers translating the meanings of their names.  But when Greek myths depict the Levant or Mesopotamia they are fully willing to transliterate foreign names.  Artistic depictions of the Amazons also show them in Greek style military garb.  And again they founded cities that archaeologically seem to have always been Greek.

As far as the etymology of the word Amazon itself goes, I still don’t believe in the “Breastless” or “One Breast” Folk Etymology.  A more likely Greek etymology would be *n̥-mn̥gʷ-yō-nós 'manless, without husbands'. 

So this post is a reversal of prior sentiments I’ve expressed on this Blog.  When I’d said one of the things DC Comics Wonder Woman lore gets wrong about Greek Mythology is presented the Amazons as essentially being Greeks.  But I now think that was correct actually, other things DC still gets wrong (or changes intentionally, however you want to look at it), but on this issue they are more correct then the Xena Warrior Princess Amazons.

Western Otaku usually still have a limited perspective on Anime

Last October, when the Pluto Anime went up on Netflix was the first time I ever watched any Anime of the Atom or Astro Boy franchise. I liked it a lot.  But it’s interesting to think about.

I’ve been considering myself enough into Anime to call myself an Otaku since late 2016.  This followed an increasing interest in Anime that went back to at least 2014.  But I’ve kind of had some limited interest in Anime most of my life since I first caught DiC dubbed episodes of Sailor Moon on Sunday mornings in 1996.  Yet it wasn’t till late 2023 I finally watched something featuring the character who arguably started it all.

Imagine being into American Animation and Comics for 7 to 27 years without watching or reading anything with Superman in it?  But that is the equivalent.  Yet I don’t think that’s at all unique to me for a Western Otaku.  We all know of the importance of Astro Boy but are frequently not too motivated to actually watch it.

And it’s the same with Mazinger Z and other Super Robot shows of the 70s, or Sally The Witch or Detective Conan.  All shows we know of and some of us sometimes actually watch but not always.  I know some people complain that not enough American Anime fans watch Lupin III or Gundam or Macross but those shows are damn near ubiquitous compared to the shows I’m talking about.

Thing is this isn’t an issue I’m even at all motivated to fix in myself.  My ability to enjoy Animation that predates my own birth on either side of the Pacific is limited.  I can respect and appreciate the groundwork they laid, but it’s nor what I’m personally into, what I mean when I say I’m into Anime is mostly specific kinds of Anime, trends and styles that started in the 80s but really took off in the 90s.  So Detective Conan I’ve gotten way into because it started in the 90s, but for most stuff pre-1985 it would be a disservice to them for me to be the one finally making Video Essays about them, I’m not qualified to explain their appeal.

There are exceptions, I’ve watched and loved The Rose of Versailles and both animated Lupin III movies from the 70s.  But the 70s Anime I want to watch the most is one still not even subbed, La Seine No Hoshi.

But it’s not just with older Anime that Western Otaku aren’t watching as much as they think.  Even with current seasonal Anime, what we even talk about is a small percentage of what’s actually airing on TV in Japan. I don't just mean the shows all of us are watching, I mean even the seasonal shows with only a small group of evangelists.  Even the people making YouTube videos predicated on claiming they’re watching literally everything aren’t actually watching most of it.

I’ve seen more Anime from 2017 than any other single year, and the Winter season I’ve possibly seen the most of within that year.  Yet when I go to the MAL page for that season and filter it to show only shows I haven’t seen even one episode of, sorted by most members, there are still 2 or three that are well known even though I didn’t watch them (Konosuba season 2 and Gintama mainly).  Yet even them combined with what I did watch are still dwarfed by the number of shows I don’t recall ever hearing anyone talk about at all.  And that’s just going off TV Anime that started that season with at least 12 episodes and at least 20 minutes per episode runtimes.  When you go down to what’s continuing from prior seasons it’s not just the two cour shows from fall 2016 and the three long runners everyone makes fun of, there’s dozens of shows that started in the 80s and 70s still airing that have never even remotely been on our radar.

It’s important to remember that even those of us who seek to present ourselves as knowing more and going deeper than most are still barely paddling out of the kiddie pool.  It’s like how the Roman Empire referred to itself as ruling the world when in fact most of the earth’s surface they’d never even visited and a good chuck they didn’t even know existed.

Re:Creators and the Crisis on Infinite Earths

 So I finally watched Crisis on Infinite Earths Part One recently now that it’s on MAX and I liked it, the unique framing they chose was pretty cool.

It of course get me thinking about the 2017 Anime Re:Creators again. One of the things I’ve been thinking about that show since I finally first watched it last year was that it has, perhaps by pure coincidence, some structural similarities to Crisis on Infinite Earth.  The scale is ultimately much smaller but the parallels you can make are neat.

Souta Mizushino plays the thematic role of Pariah to some extent.

Meteora is The Monitor and Altair the Anti-Monitor.

Mamika plays a role similar to Supergirl.

My thoughts on this really weren’t all that worthy of an entire post, but that’s fine.  I might take a break and not post anything else till sometime in May, it all depends on if inspiration strikes me.

Update: And I did not know when I wrote this that Amazon let the license to Re;Creators lapse so now it's not possible to legally watch at all.  Very frustrating.

Anime Neo-Westerns

I have little ability to actual proper Westerns and yet something about Neo-Westerns in Anime I’m able to enjoy quite a bit.

They have the ability to recreate what can be fun and entertaining about Westerns but while also feeling sufficiently divorced from what Westerns represent Socio-Politically in American Culture.  Westerns are loved by the right and loathed by the left for multiple different reasons.  And even the “Subversive” Westerns that some Breadtubeers seem to like reflect how what I want from left wing media is often the opposite of most of them.

There are indigenous to the U.S. examples of Western Tropes being translated into Sci-Fi or Fantastical settings, but they usually bring the politics with them whether they want to or not.  I liked the recent Fallout series on Amazon Prime and The Mandalorian/Book of Boba Fett, but they aren’t the same as these Anime Westerns.

Spaghetti Westerns are the more well known example of the Western being taken on by another country.  However a lot of them still involve certain Hollywood figures like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.  And Italy is still part of the West.  

It’s not that I think these Anime westerns are “Apolitical”, they are always saying something about the internal politics of their own worlds at least.  But certain issues are so fundamentally different in Japan that an Anime couldn't do them the same way an American movie would, certainly not by accident, and if they tried I'd trust their external perspective to have some value.

This is a post I was thinking about writing at several points last year then semi-forgot about.  But I was inspired to return to the subject after watching Grimm Variations which recently went up on Netflix, where episode 5 the Town Musicians of Breman took this Neo-Western approach.  I'm not familiar with the original fairy tale so can’t judge it on that ground, but as a throwback to this niche Genre of Anime it was great.

And it is a throwback, the golden age of this particular Sub-Genre of Anime was the 2000s.  

El Cazador De La Bruja was my first exposure to it which I watched for its thematic connection to Noir and Madlax, and it was great, it still holds up to this day.

Burst Angel is another very fun mid 2000s Neo-Western that I recommend everyone check out.

Gun x Sword is a show I  haven’t finished yet but I like plenty of what I’ve seen so far.

Sands of Destruction has some western vibes going on at times but I wouldn’t necessarily say this is it’s main genre.  Same with Black Cat from 2005 but in a very different way.

I haven’t seen any of Gun Frontier yet but I plan to eventually, it’s annoying that it isn’t on any of the official streaming sites. (Most of the shows I just mentioned should be on Crunchyroll, but Sands is sadly one of those that was still only on Funimation when it died).

Now I know that many assume Cowboy Bebop should be one of the first shows mentioned when talking about Anime Neo-Westerns, but to me Bebop has little of the western in it, it is much more built on the Film Noir tropes.

Vampire Hunter D is a good example of an older Anime with Western influence, I like to describe it as a Sergio Leone film drenched in Goth.  The first movie is the only one I personally like, Bloodlust does some things with its Vampire lore that really grind my gears.

Are Giant Robot Anime about Giant Robots?

So a number of weeks ago I watched a YouTube Video from the channel The Bellam called Anime Cryptids that begins with the author talking about hearing people praise a given Mecha Anime, most often Evangelion, for being a Mecha Anime that “isn’t about the Robot”, and then goes on to explain how no Mecha Anime is actually about the Robot, especially not Gundam.  

And yet to me the obvious response to this annoying type of Evangelion fan should be “what do you mean Evangelion isn’t about the Robot?”  If anything Eva is more about the Robot then Gundam since in Eva the Robot is actually a character with sentience of its own, but mostly the point is key to why Eva should be compared to Super Robot shows like Mazinger Z rather than Real Robot shows.

Still I find it amusing that to both sides of the debate in that video it’s treated as a good thing for a show to not actually be about the Robot.  I feel like especially in shows that are named after the Robot that should not be the case, it should never be a good thing for a show to be named in-correctly.

Clearly we are dealing with different people prioritizing different senses of what a show is “about”.  This video’s argument for Gundam not being about the Robot is the abstract philosophical themes of the overarching metanarrative of the Gundam Franchise. On that level no piece of Genre fiction is actually about the premise of it’s Genre, but no one feels the need to defend the integrity of their favorite Batman story by explaining how it isn’t actually about the Billionaire dressing up like a Bat to fight crime.

The author of this video clearly strongly feels only someone who hasn’t actually seen Gundam would think it is actually about the Gundam, but I’m not so sure.  I explained above one reason for viewing Gundam as less about the Robot the Evangelion.  But on the other hand Gundam feels more structurally built around the Mecha battles then Eva does.

Now I have to admit I did not initially respond to this video with the strong disagreement I’m expressing here. I initially left a comment saying something like “Robotics;Notes is actually about the Robot and that’s why I like it”.  But why did I feel that way?  At the time I would not have been able to explain myself and the counterargument that it doesn’t even exist yet for most of the show could easily have been thrown in my face.

It feels more narratively about the Robot then a lot of other Mecha shows because building the Robot is explicitly the Goal of the main protagonists, as an end unto itself not merely as a tool to achieve something else.  The build up of the Evil Conspiracy they will wind up having to thwart is mostly treated as a background plot till the final stretch of episodes.  But I guess even then the creator of that YouTube video could argue the Robot is actually just a symbol of something else like Communism maybe.

So I guess the answer to the question is both Yes and No.