The Dubbing of Haruhi Suzumiya

[TheHaruhiIncarnate]

The dub was very very good. Crispin Freeman as usual was flawless with Kyon's voicing. In regards of Alt!Yuki's voice...I actually liked it. The thing is for me, in the Japanese dub, I found Yuki's moe voice annoying. In this dub, it suits her bookworm persona more than the moe aspect. (And I dislike moe) I actually felt sympathy for Alt!Yuki in the english dub in the sense her voice was less annoying to me.

Top notch work. Loved it!

[Asterend93]

Ok, so assuming everyone has watched the rooftop scene on the official english version of TDOHS, I would like to start up a discussion about kyon saing "Yuki". In the japanese version he only said "Yuki" But in the english version he said "Yuki......means snow, doesnt it." If this is what they originally wanted to be conveyed in the scene but we didnt understand it because of the language, then the context of what happend has completley changed and may be interpetated differently. What are your opinions? Some thought that he was calling her Yuki for the first time(therefore progessing their relationship further possibly, because of how people refer to eachother in japan), also getting her attention to look at the snoe while others just thought it was Kyon simply observing the snow. IMO it was him asking if her name Yuki means snow, which also means that not only he has kind of called her by her first name but was also obvserving the snow, and that Yuki means snow.

[GMT]

I've been working through the Blu Ray for Disappearance, and I have some notes below:

A) The movie was about as long as I remembered. Though my work schedule demanded that I watched it over the course of several nights, so the feelings of "Ugh, this thing just drags" weren't quite as bad as they were when I watched the cam-rip.

B) It's quite pretty as a Blu Ray title. Not quite the title I'd pop in to wow friends and family over the quality of high-def, but pretty nonetheless.

C) They really put a lot of effort into the dub. Though I could be feeling this because Disappearance is mostly Crispin Freeman talking to himself, and his take on Kyon is always excellent. The fact that Crispin Freeman's Kyon is more expressive than Japanese Kyon made the 353,243 years of Kyon's navel-gazing far easier to take.

D) Wendee Lee's Haruhi was good, as always. She doesn't quite have Aya Hirano's energy or range; but she does great with what she has.

E) Stephanie Sheh does annoying moeblob Mikuru and assertive, self-possessed Secret Agent Mikuru very well. Johnny Yong Bosch's Koizumi B.S.es just as well as Daisuke Ono's Koizumi; though Bandai's translation of alt!Koizumi's lines differs noticeably from the fansubs in how he expresses what he thinks Haruhi feels for Koizumi.

F) Like some others, I too found nothing wrong at all with Michelle Ruff's alt!Yuki. Minori Chihara's alt!Yuki was an annoying moeblob that was terrified of her own shadow. Michelle Ruff's alt!Yuki was just a painfully shy bookworm willing to cut Kyon some slack because he did her a monumental favor once. I found English alt!Yuki to be far more sympathetic and (not jarring at all); unlike the original Japanese alt!Yuki. In fact, Michelle Ruff's portrayal of alt!Yuki significantly improved the film for me. I remember that, when I first reviewed the film, I had pointed words about how the Japanese alt!Yuki was a useless moeblob who exceeded Mikuru in sheer and utter uselessness.

[TheHaruhiIncarnate]

Originally Posted by GMT

I've been working through the Blu Ray for Disappearance, and I have some notes below:

A) The movie was about as long as I remembered. Though my work schedule demanded that I watched it over the course of several nights, so the feelings of "Ugh, this thing just drags" weren't quite as bad as they were when I watched the cam-rip.

B) It's quite pretty as a Blu Ray title. Not quite the title I'd pop in to wow friends and family over the quality of high-def, but pretty nonetheless.

C) They really put a lot of effort into the dub. Though I could be feeling this because Disappearance is mostly Crispin Freeman talking to himself, and his take on Kyon is always excellent. The fact that Crispin Freeman's Kyon is more expressive than Japanese Kyon made the 353,243 years of Kyon's navel-gazing far easier to take.

D) Wendee Lee's Haruhi was good, as always. She doesn't quite have Aya Hirano's energy or range; but she does great with what she has.

E) Stephanie Sheh does annoying moeblob Mikuru and assertive, self-possessed Secret Agent Mikuru very well. Johnny Yong Bosch's Koizumi B.S.es just as well as Daisuke Ono's Koizumi; though Bandai's translation of alt!Koizumi's lines differs noticeably from the fansubs in how he expresses what he thinks Haruhi feels for Koizumi.

F) Like some others, I too found nothing wrong at all with Michelle Ruff's alt!Yuki. Minori Chihara's alt!Yuki was an annoying moeblob that was terrified of her own shadow. Michelle Ruff's alt!Yuki was just a painfully shy bookworm willing to cut Kyon some slack because he did her a monumental favor once. I found English alt!Yuki to be far more sympathetic and (not jarring at all); unlike the original Japanese alt!Yuki. In fact, Michelle Ruff's portrayal of alt!Yuki significantly improved the film for me. I remember that, when I first reviewed the film, I had pointed words about how the Japanese alt!Yuki was a useless moeblob who exceeded Mikuru in sheer and utter uselessness.

Agreed so much with you. The English dub made me more sympathetic to Yuki than in the Japanese version.

[ijuinkun]

Originally Posted by Asterend93

If this is what they originally wanted to be conveyed in the scene but we didn't understand it because of the language, then the context of what happend has completely changed and may be interpreted differently. What are your opinions?

The entire purpose of the line in Japanese was to play on the total ambiguity over whether he was saying "snow" or saying her name. The main point was that the viewer was left wondering which he meant. However, without knowing the "snow" meaning, a non-Japanese speaker is not going to get any of that unless there's a huge footnote inserted explaining the whole thing.

[Asterend93]

So in the end, Kyon saying "Yuki" and what he is meaning by that is totally up to the veiwer. Since i know the double meaning of the context of the situation i tend to believe it is a little of both

[Ithekro]

It is the first time he's called used her given name to her...regardless of usage. He's always called her Nagato.

[Takamura Mamoru]

Originally Posted by Asterend93

In the japanese version he only said "Yuki" But in the english version he said "Yuki......means snow, doesnt it."

That's brilliant. I was wondering how they would solve this problem, well done.

[Asterend93]

Yea I know right? Still leaves the ambiguity a little bit though. I still think he meant both things about it, calling her by her name then reference to how it means snow.

[Gamer_2k4]

Saw the movie last night, and overall I was pretty pleased. I remember adamantly not liking Asakura's or Kunikida's voices, but I don't think the voice actors changed for the movie, so I guess that doesn't really count. I like both Kyon's and Haruhi's Japanese voices better than the English ones; both seem more assertive and confident in what they're saying. Both feel more expressive. I just can't take Crispin's Kyon seriously whenever he raises his voice, because it sounds forced and hammy. Dub Yuki sounded more like I'd expect her to, at the expense of her "new" (English) personality sometimes not matching up with her facial expressions. Any time she does that cringing blush thing, it bugs the heck out of me (though I'm pretty sure it did in the original, too). And of course, it's still a disappointing shock to hear her go from expressive to monotone at the end of the film.

As far as changes go, I thought the ones that I noticed were well-deserved. Haruhi saying "I swore I'd never touch alcohol" comes across better than "I'd never drink it again" or whatever she said before (that referenced something that happened in the novels but not the anime). Koizumi's new lines concerning Kyon and Haruhi are more implicit and less "yeah this is pretty much how she feels about you and that's a fact," and I liked that. Finally, at the end, there were two things that caught my attention. Yuki saying, "transmitting" instead of "I will tell them" implied that she was doing it right then - something I didn't catch in the original. I didn't like the change from "You tell them that's bullshit!" to "You tell them to go to hell!" It lost a lot of the bite that the original exclamation had. Oh, and of course the "Yuki means snow" bit was probably the best they could've done with that. Unfortunately, it makes it so that the ambiguity is only there for a second, instead of permanently. Oh well.

Overall, it wasn't a bad dub, but it felt somehow artificial. I never quite got over the feeling that these were people speaking for characters, rather than the characters themselves talking. However, that's just my take, so don't anyone let it dissuade you from checking the movie out.

[Takamura Mamoru]

And what did they make out of the "If anything happens to you, I will [...]" line?

If I remember correctly in the novel he said "I'll go crazy" or some crap which really bothered me, because it had none of the bite that "I will let all hell break loose" had.

[StarRodMan]

I think I like Michelle Ruff's Alt!Yuki voice better since it sounds closer to her version of Yuki's voice than the Japanese version does to hers. Sorry, Minorin!