Read My Lips : 駄目!

It's no secret that I'm a Ninomiya Kazunari fan. I may be perceived as someone who has an Anti-JE stance in terms of general entertainment, but I have loads of goodwill towards this kid. Way before I discovered him to be an unabashed idol---who liked to cop a feel at band members and whose sarcastic remarks [screamed Napoleon complex at the get-go] and laidback attitude could potentially polarize viewers---he already won me over with his hilarious portrayal of a virgin boy in Stand Up and his outstanding work in the film Ao no Hono-o. There's no easy way to say this, but this kid had me fooled. He might look like a hunched gerbil with black gums and an abnormally scrawny torso but I love watching him all the same. He's the exception.

Now before anyone starts to think that I've gone fangirl loco* over this boy, let me get straight to the subject of this post. To make a long story short---I loved the Neener and therefore, I was doomed... doomed to suffer through 2 hours, 10 minutes and 49 seconds (give or take) of the English dubbed version of GANTZ because I was stoked to see it and had nothing else to do, and of course, having the emotional quotient of a toddler, I dove in without fully taking into account the fact that I would be listening in to nerve-grating audio and horrible dialogue. O, woe is me! To have seen what I have seen and have heard incongruous dubbing!

To sub or to dub?

I know it's an age-old dilemma that film buffs and anime lovers alike have debated upon  for years without reaching a satisfying conclusion. Whether the intention is to appeal to a wider audience or to meet the demands of purists and netizens, there are admittedly pros and cons to each side, which is why film production outfits are forced to make a judgment call. Proponents of both schools have come up with reasonable arguments for utilizing either method, but at the end of the day, when all is said and done, film distributors would always render a decision based on profit; taking a huge gamble by giving the viewers the option to either put up with it or skip it. And while it all boils down to personal preferences and the relative exposure  of each individual to foreign films and different cultures, I'm of the opinion that since subtitling and dubbing exist for the purpose of translating materials for an audience that doesn't speak the original language, it should follow that both be as accurate or in keeping with the film's context as possible. Furthermore, it should be unobtrusive to the viewing experience as a whole, or at the very least not be so off-putting as to draw attention away from the film.

Coming into GANTZ, I was already at a bit of a disadvantage. Having read parts of the manga, I already had a preconceived notion of how the story should play out; having watched a number of Asian dramas, I was already used to reading subs and therefore preferred the original version over the "localized" release this time around. But if there's such a thing as bad and  good subtitles, then surely there's also such a thing as good and bad dubbing. Just as subtitles are expected to be clear and concise, the quality of dubbing should also be held at a certain standard. The problem with this version of GANTZ is that the dubbing didn't seem to complement the movie at all, the voices didn't match the characters and most of the lines were delivered either in a stilted manner or a cloyingly cartoonish tone. There's an obvious rift between what you hear and what you see onscreen, it's a dissociation that lasts from start to finish, giving you a feeling that things weren't conveyed properly because the voice actors were less than convincing. It may all sound trivial, given that it's a sci-fi adventure movie, but the English audio certainly worked towards diminishing the fantastical elements of the story, making dialogue-laden scenes free of  action sequences a total buzz kill. Plus, anyone who's seen Ninomiya Kazunari before would no doubt lament missing out on his vocal inflection---there's a world of snark, angst, conceit and self-consciousness in Kurono Kei's character that simply didn't come across in this big screen adaptation. Another issue I had was how the dialogue sounded unnaturally choppy, the sentence construction was awkward at best, particularly during Kanata Hongo's brief, crazy-eyed monologue.

Some may argue that part of the reason why GANTZ turned out to be an utter disappointment was because the script for the film didn't even come close to replicating the graphic violence, wicked humor and plain awesomeness of its source material---to which I say, this argument is not without merit (but I'll save that for another post once the second installment comes out).  Point is, the English dubbed version of this movie pushed it from generic, mindless entertainment to a catastrophically BAD big budget movie, given that it already failed to establish a working story with characters whom you would care about and want to survive should aliens infest the planet. It's a bit too early to say this, but this duology might eventually come down as a prime example of what not to do when making a live-action version of a popular manga series. Still, for those who might want to see this film, take my advice and wait for the official release, don't settle for the English-dubbed version because, trust me, it's absolutely cringe-worthy. 

 ---------------------

* loca -- What can I say? I suck at foreign languages. 
Featured movie stills care of nurikocam - http://twitpic.com/21o828
Suggested Reading - To Sub or to Dub: The Challenge of "Translating" Films for Foreign Audiences

Read More