by Ryan Mathews

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October 1999

My DVD player is back! My DVD player is back! At long last, my DVD player is back!

Of course, it would be nice if my @#$%ing remote was back with it. After waiting for seven weeks, and amassing a pile of nine unwatched anime DVDs, my player finally returned, repaired, but missing the remote. Thankfully, my Dolby Digital receiver has a universal remote that's capable of controlling all the basic functions of my player, including the menu. I'll have to rely on it while I once again do battle with the service center.

One of the things I'm looking forward to, now that my DVD player has returned, is watching dubs again. After watching anime for nearly nine years, it's slowly dawned on me that I prefer dubs, in principle. Watching anime is a much more natural experience when you don't have to read subtitles, and you avoid the annoyance of the subs covering the artwork.

So, if that's the case, why is it that, out of my collection of hundreds of tapes, fewer than ten of them are dubbed? Simple. I may prefer dubs, but I'll take a good sub over a bad dub any day. And since, in my experience, the bad dubs far outnumber the good, I've learned not to gamble on dubbed tapes.

But DVD, and bilingual laserdisc before that, give me the best of both worlds. I can try the dub, knowing I can switch over to the Japanese track at any time. In the case of Pioneer titles, I nearly always end up watching the dub first.

It's truly amazing how far dubs have come. When I first got into anime, the only dubs I knew of, barring those on television, were the Macross movie and Megazone 23 Part II, two generally awful dubs. These days, there exist dubs which are considered equal or even superior to the originals.

Here are some of the titles I consider milestones in the progress of anime dubbing.

• Robotech - Okay, stop making faces. Whatever else you can say about this series, how the plots were butchered to turn three unrelated series into one, you have to admit that, for the time, this dub was surprisingly good. The actors actually had to convey subtlety, something rarely called for in American animation at the time.

• Ranma ½ - The longest-running dub of the "video era" of US anime fandom. Though this dub has been controversial since its inception (some still hate it), it's acquired a following strong enough to evoke outrage when one of the actors was replaced.

• Tenchi Muyo! - Another controversial dub, about which some still refuse to say anything positive. Still, I include it here for two reasons. First, it's one of my personal favorites. I love the voices and the excellent comic timing. Second, it was the first dub from Pioneer, who went on to set a standard for dub quality.

• You're Under Arrest - AnimEigo's first dub from Coastal Carolina studios, this dub was one of the first to be judged equal to the Japanese by many who saw it. AnimEigo's decision to use real children to play the kids in the anime was a stroke of genius.

• El-Hazard - The first dub to be judged by many to be superior to the Japanese. If you've never heard this dub, you owe it to yourself to at least try it.

• Kiki's Delivery Service - This production took dubbing to another level, with recognizable Hollywood actors lending their voices to Miyazaki's classic.

Before we move on to the topic, I'd like some help. I'm considering covering fan art pages. Here's the problem: There are a ton of these pages. I need to know what I'm looking for before I go in. "Good art" is not a helpful answer. I'm no art critic. I have a good feel for what makes a good web site, since I consider that to be a fairly objective standard. What makes good art, however, is very much subjective. I can't find good art for you, because what I consider good art will probably not match your opinions. So the question remains: What type of sites do you want me to highlight?

Okay, on to the topic!