Plan B Forum

Just binge watched a series on Netflix called "One Punch Man". Firstly it is a piss take on the whole Super Hero genre by making the main character ridiculously over powered. (Guess what it takes for him to win a battle) but what grabbed me most about the series is how it addresses the questions of "What is a Hero?" "Can one person be the embodiment of all that is heroic? And even "what is it that we expect from or even deserve from a hero?"


The show is on Netflix is in Japanese but there is an English dub out there if you just can't bear to read.

Well, I'm a superhero fan, but I'm not a big fan of Japanese cartoons (well, except for Astro Boy and 8 Man, of course...) and I'm even less a fan of subtitled movies....(I like to read, but not while I'm watching a movie...I find it extremely detracting from the whole film watching experience)

So I have to say this one is not going to the top of my list...

Here's one I am looking forward to, that's coming out on Netflix next month:

As I said there is an English dub out there (Aduld Swim recently aired it).

Jim--isn't it (Tobor the) 8th Man? And if you liked thos, I presume you liked Gigantor as well? And Speed Racer?

As for subtitles, I guess I'm the opposite of you; I find the dubbing without an synchronization with the lips far too distracting to enjoy a film; add to that the idiotic voices often used to dub films (I recall a lot of King Fu films had the "bad" gang members sound like Asian Edward G Robinsons, and many of the Japanese cartoon films my kids liked had annoying screaming adults trying to sound like kids) and that's why I avoid dubbed films like the plague. But that's one thing nice about DVDs and (usually) downloads, you can choose one or the other.

Yeah, that was a typo...

It should have been 8th Man:



For some reason, I never really got into Gigantor or Speed Racer...(or Kimba the White Lion)

Nowadays the English dubs aren't bad they get talented voice actors. I also suspect that at least in some cases they edit the lips to move with the voice actors.

Crackpot--I'm sure there are some, but my kids (not really kids, they're well into their 20s) love Miyzaki's films (he's a pretty well known director of cartoon/anime films and he even won a special Oscar a few years back), and even his more recent ones have those horrible dubs (although Disney tried to redub one, My Neighbor Totoro, using American actors and it was pretty universally panned by critics and my kids). But even if the dubbing is good, I prefer subtitles as I like to hear the original actors and their vice inflections, etc.

Jim--forgot about Kimba. FWIW, I never liked any of them (but loved the Godzilla films and their spawn (and they were dubbed, badly--but then I was a kid when I saw them).

Miyazaki is an entirely different beast. Sort of like comparing the the toxic avencer series to the Marvel cinematic Universe. That being said being a good "hollywood" actor does not necessarily make you a good voice actor not to mention there is a large amount of dub "snobbery" and a lot of it comes from what you were first exposed to. A lot of the time that comes from differences in translation which can vary from completely changing the story *cough* Astro Boy *cough* to changing/clarifying cultural idioms. In one of the series I own there was a booklet that contained every site joke they couldn't effectively translate into English. One involved a wordplay involving the naming of kids instant ramen and the Japanese Title of Eddie Murphies "Coming to America". There is just no way to translate that.

True about translation, but that affects subtitles as well as dubbing. And while I'm sure dubbing can be done well, and probably has been in many films, I will still hunt for the subtitles. Which is why I celebrate that most DVDs and downloads offer both.

As for your comment on Miyazaki, I would hope you're not comparing his films with the Toxic Avenger series. While I am not a fan, I think of him more as a Japanese Walt Disney, amking kid films that many adults enjoy as well. Courageous Cat is more like the Toxic Avenger series.

Other way around. I would say comparing him to Disney is a bit of an insult he doesn't just bring the characters to life he makes the whole world breathe.

Anime as a style is a stripped down and low budget. The very fact that they often use the same picture with different mouths while talking as a matter of reducing cost and has evolved into a style allows for easy and cheap re editing for an English speaking audience.

Point taken.