New Sailor Moon Dub is online

by
in anime on (#2S8Q)
story imageHave you always wanted to share the silly fun of Sailor Moon with your geeklings? Now's your chance! 23 episodes of the original, newly re-dubbed anime are now available online through Viz Media and Hulu.
If you suffered through the Sailor Moon DiC dub in the 90s, you'll find things are different now. In Viz's new dub, character names now match the manga. Sorry, Serena! The voice acting seems to be higher quality, with an admirable effort at matching the animated mouth movements without rushing the dialogue too much to fit the words in. Usagi is appropriately cute and whiny without being grating; my five-year-old commented more than once, "Sailor Moon is hilarious!"

The opening and ending songs, as well as the background and transformation music, remain unchanged and undubbed, which made me happy as an anime watcher who prefers subs over dubs. (I'm a sub snob.)
1 This article is a bit of an experiment. Never covered manga and related on Pipedot before. If you're interested in this topic, speak up; if you're not I probably won't submit similar articles since they're not really my cup of tea.
Reply 28 comments

Spoken language (Score: 3, Informative)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-09-10 22:17 (#2S8V)

I'm a big fan of watching media in its original native language. Japanese animation should always be watched with the original Japanese audio. Subtitles are nearly always available, and preferable to dubbing, if you don't understand the native language.

Anime fan-subbing is perhaps the world's largest subtitling community. With high quality releases of popular titles mere days after airing, the fan-subbed versions often far surpass the quality of the eventual commercial release.

But what about the legality of fan-subs? Well... the content industry shot itself in the foot on that front. When digital video came out (LaserDisk, DVD, Bluray, etc) the industry divided the world into different "regions." U.S. and Canada are region 1, Japan and Europe are region 2, and Australia and South America are stuck in region 4. The idea being, they can charge different prices for the same content to different areas of the world. Charging higher prices to wealthier countries is, of course, illegal under free trade agreements - but something being illegal never stopped the content industry! However, this also brings up a small window of time, where a work is released in region 2, but not available for purchase in region 1. During this window, animation companies normally turn a blind eye to fan-subbing groups - as long as they promise to cease distribution once the official commercial license is finalized.

Re: Spoken language (Score: 3, Interesting)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-09-10 23:10 (#2S8X)

Much is said about piracy killing the video industry yet had it not been for the underground rippers subbers and dubbers I would not have gotten a start in anime.
In the 90s I was a huge Ranma fan. The only videos were crappy but huge 100mb badly subbed episodes. It would be 10 years until I put down cash to buy it. 10 years. Even then it was a PITA which I got around by having a dvd drive region set for it and otherJapanese discs. I have often wondered how many people just give up. By the time I saw the Macross box set I had moved on in life with no interest in reliving weekday morning cartoons. That said, I could go for some Samurai Pizza Cats ... will check youtube :-)
Good to see a classic anime back on, and here's hoping that we see more soon.

Re: Spoken language (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-09-10 23:31 (#2S8Z)

I own a few region 2 anime discs that wouldn't play in my standalone region 1 player or my computer drive. I eventually broke down and bought an expensive "region free" DVD player that the manufacturer had to specially modify - just so that I could watch my discs.

The whole region locking thing really is a pain.

Re: Spoken language (Score: 1)

by commonjoe@pipedot.org on 2014-09-16 14:55 (#2SFD)

You can look into XBMC and VLC in the future. I live in Germany and own Region 1 and Region 2 DVDs. Both programs seem to play most of my DVDs in my Windows computer despite region locks. I usually hook up my computer to watch movies. We don't even own a "real" DVD player anymore. I keep an external DVD player around for the rare DVD that won't play. Be aware that XBMC is changing their name very soon to Kodi.

Re: Spoken language (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-11 03:53 (#2S9G)

As an adult, yes. But as the summary and article imply, this is a great way to introduce kids who are too young to be able to read that quickly.

Re: Spoken language (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-09-11 04:14 (#2S9H)

Young kids shouldn't have a problem reading the predicable dialog in Sailor Moon. Honestly, they wouldn't even have to read for long as they would learn many of the words and start to become fluent in the language.

Watch an episode of Sailor Moon, or better yet a better series like Card Captor Sakura with the orginal Japanese dialog and with the subtitles turned off. Even with no previous experience, even adults should be able to pick up a few words and begin the process of learning the foreign language.

Re: Spoken language (Score: 1)

by konomi@pipedot.org on 2014-09-14 05:38 (#2SCQ)

I find I tend to only have soft spots for a few English dubbed Animes, mostly ones I was exposed to as a child. One of them in Sailor Moon of course. But I generally agree with the watch it with subs for every other single Anime mantra. English dubs COULD be good but it seems the studios do not go to the effort to get voice actors that match the original Japanese voice actors in tone or character, I find it to be a real shame. I've also had the unfortunate experience of purchasing a few dubbed Animes and the extras on one certain series had the voice actors doing a commentary, one episode the voice actors were making FUN of the show. Never again Mad Man. Never. Again.

Re: Spoken language (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-18 09:46 (#2SJA)

Fruits Basket being an example better in English

so this means (Score: -1, Troll)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-11 00:43 (#2S94)

We can post articles about Joan Rivers' death? About McDonald's workers trying to strike / form unions? About terrorism and 9/11/14 tomorrow? About my favorite brands of hummus?

'Cause all those nontech things affect me and others WAY more than someone's particular fondness for a style of animation.

In other words, NO WAY does this belong on Pipedot in my opinion. Unless it's just B's personal blog, which of course is his right.

Re: so this means (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-09-11 02:39 (#2S9A)

Slashdot has had an "anime" topic since forever. Many anime series include hard sci-fi topics, such as space-junk, Internet, cybernetics, and the obligatory giant robots!

Surely at least some geeks are interested in these things, ne?

Re: so this means (Score: 3, Interesting)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-09-11 02:52 (#2S9B)

Other recommended examples:
  • Denno Coil - Augmented reality (think future Google glass)
  • Stratos 4 - Shooting down a group of comets before they impact Earth
  • Twin Spica - Astronaut training school
  • Chobits - Kawaii robot companions
  • Cowboy Bebop - Bounty hunters in space (think Firefly)

Re: so this means (Score: 1, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-11 03:22 (#2S9F)

No, I honestly don't see a point there. "At least some geeks" are interested in knitting or baking or cars or country music too, but that doesn't merit a random new recipe or ballad or poncho or sedan design making the front page -- unless there's an interesting and unique tech angle.

Again, if it's here because you're into anime and it's your site, fine, I get it, but there's nothing inherently geeky, let alone techie, about a particular cartoon being released.

All that whined, I mean said, if you want you could take a poll, but I recommend you ignore my opinion and do what makes you happy. Rule by overthought consensus is what's making Soylent such a miserable place. :)

Re: so this means (Score: 2, Insightful)

by vanderhoth@pipedot.org on 2014-09-11 10:36 (#2S9R)

If it was three or for anime articles in a row I might be inclined to agree with you, but one every now and then isn't an issue. I for one am an anime fan and thought this was a nice piece to skim over. You could have chosen to just not read it if you don't like anime. For a lot of us "geeks" anime has been a part of our lives since we were clacking away on our first keyboards.

BTW, I've really enjoyed the content coming out of the pipe for the last few days. Lots of great and interesting articles. I've noticed the comments are also increasing too. Keep it up.

Re: so this means (Score: 2, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-11 11:43 (#2S9V)

Exactly so, Vanderhoth. It's just that Zafe invited opinion in the summary. I'm an old geek too and it's never been my thing, but the occasional link is very much not a big deal. :)

So what I'm saying is do NOT stop liking what I don't like. :-)

Re: so this means (Score: 2, Insightful)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-09-11 11:50 (#2S9X)

Well done, AC. By the way, for what it's worth, I wouldn't worry about this place overdosing on anime. Anyone who wants a more intense dose of anime in their newsfeed probably knows of better sites than this one.

Re: so this means (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-09-11 07:02 (#2S9N)

The link between anime and geek culture is undisputed. I'm unaware of a similar affection for Joan Rivers or any of the Muppets except perhaps Beaker. As for this being B's personal blog, have a look at the history (http://pipedot.org/pipe/history) and see how many others have contributed.

Re: so this means (Score: 2, Funny)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-09-11 11:41 (#2S9T)

It is looking far more like zafiro's blog recently :p

Luckily for us, he has good taste.

Re: so this means (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-09-11 11:48 (#2S9W)

Seriously, help!!!! I like reading stuff other people submit, too! As long as I'm the one posting, I hope you all like opensuse, FreeBSD, and Android, because that's what you're going to get! :)

Re: so this means (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-11 08:37 (#2S9P)

Hey, Captain Butthurt - what kind of a retard comes to a tech site and then cries himself to sleep because he can't read about his favorite brands of hummus? Those topics don't belong on a tech site. Try SoylentNews.org, which is more broadly focused. Or go try buggering off.

I'm going to go join the "greenpeace" blog and complain they don't have enough articles about awesome hunting rifles.

Dumb ass.

Re: so this means (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-11 10:28 (#2S9Q)

Exactly, genius, the hummus doesn't belong and neither do cartoons. Teachers told your folks you had issues with reading comprehension, right? That, or you're a particularly poor troll.

Re: so this means (Score: 1)

by hyper@pipedot.org on 2014-09-11 13:51 (#2SA3)

Slashdot started out as ChipsNDip.

You could submit a feature request to show/hide topics on the front page.

Japanese Culture (Score: 5, Informative)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-11 04:36 (#2S9J)

Anime is so ingrained into Japanese culture that they often illustrate posters and release promotional materials depicting characters drawn in the "anime" style.

Take, for example, this video promoting the joint JAXA and NASA space launch of the Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) satellite. This animated short relates to a real life launch of a real satellite project and is very geeky indeed.

Re: Japanese Culture (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-09-13 09:33 (#2SC8)

That short anime is most impressive. Sub for it would be nice for those of us who don't understand Japanese :)

Re: Japanese Culture (Score: 3, Informative)

by zenbi@pipedot.org on 2014-09-13 12:10 (#2SCD)

Enable closed captions. They are there.

Animation (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-05 04:46 (#2T3Q)

What's wrong with animation?
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/10/05/0125205/the-era-of-saturday-morning-cartoons-is-dead
Not geeky enough?