sincere | Re: This week's sCRYed

New voices -- I was pleased with Asuka's voice, although he could've sounded younger. He didn't sound overly masculine or strident -- just his usual forthright arrogance. Eelian only got one line, but that was also a pretty decent voice. Mimori and Kazuma both need a bit of coaching on how to vocalize under stress (there's no sense of urgency in her voice when she goes from fearing for her life to sobbing, so you look at her and go "Rrr?" when she turns out so much more upset than she sounded; he makes the cries for his attacks sound really textbook, like he read them somewhere and doesn't really know what they mean) and Ryuhou still needs to sound less like he forgot his pocket-protector and Harry Potter glasses.

Edit: TJ informs me that they've translated Asuka's Eternity Eight to be "balls". The dub loses major points for this. I don't want two episodes full of "My balls! What have you done to my balls! Stop touching my balls!" Grow the hell up and call them "spheres" like those of us who aren't twelve -- "tama" can be either easily and refers to the shape, not like, a bouncy ball. The only place those words should exist are in questionably tasteful Kazuma/Asuka NC-17 fanfiction.

First of all, this episode it seemed really obvious that they're not handling the volume very well for segues. IE, they paid for these voice actors and are therefore reluctant to turn them down to mute them, even when they're just supposed to be background chatter. It's very distracting to hear the strident voice of the prosecutor speaking louder than Kazuma's internal monologue, because Kazuma is wounded and vocally playing up his weakness. When Sherrice hollers "Look out!" they SO carefully make sure you can hear her that the noise of a man going through a solid concrete wall sounds like a stack of Tinker Toys falling.

Secondly, they really, really, really toned down Kazuma and Ryuhou's dialogue. They sound like they're having banter over the dinner table. I'm terrified that this is going to bring out the slash fen even more than previously, despite the fact that they translated Mimori's dialogue excellently and she doesn't even sound like a bleeding heart so much as she's just being RATIONAL.

But really. "Let's resume our little dance"? What the hell? Kazuma, do you hate this man, or do you secretly want him to take you out to dinner?

Which reminds me:
Original Subs -- "Okay, you're Ryuhou. I hate you. Now it's your turn to hate me: I'm Kazuma. Don't forget it."
Dub -- "Okay, you're Ryuhou. I won't forget it. Now pay attention: my name is Kazuma. Don't forget it."

The unspoken insinuation there seems to be that Kazuma has put Ryuhou in his address book, and they'll get together over coffee sometime. (Edit: Going back over the Japanese, this seems to be a decent translation of what he said -- it's just the rest of the bantering that's coloring it.)

On the bright side, Ryuhou/Mimori is more plausible, if less attractive, since Ryuhou sounds like he's the math club representative. He seemed really distressed for her. Every time Kazuma twitched in her direction he was like "Alright! Don't hurt her. I'll give you my phone number."

When Kazuma and Mimori dropped down the elevator shaft, Ryuhou did not call Kazuma's name like a distressed girlfriend. He said "Is that guy an idiot??" (Bright side again: Mimori's VA screamed very nicely when motivated.)

Thirdly: Cougar enters the scene. Cougar and Kazuma -- split-shot -- staring at each other -- Kazuma goes "You're--!" but it's clear that he recognizes Cougar. Therefore, "Who are you anyway?" is not accurate enough to make me happy. He knows exactly who Cougar is.

And when Cougar melds his car to Mimori's to stop her from going over the edge of the road, he leaps out of his car and hollers, "You made MEEEE stop?!" This pisses him off a lot a lot a lot, because he's Cougar, and you don't do that to Cougar. In the dub he's apparently angry because Kazuma made him wreck his car. This is somewhat hypocritical because Cougar wrecks his car at least once a day as a matter of course. It's just what happens when he drives.

Side-note to anyone confused: No. Mimori isn't really a princess. Sherrice was being snarky because Ryuhou was worried about Mimori.

Re: This week's sCRYed

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