This is a subject that I’ve been thinking about for some time now…so please. Give this thing a shot, read it through (if you have any interest in anime that is) and please put down a comment. I’d like to get a good discussion out of this.

Aight, from the start. My love for anime was awoken from watching Cartoon Network’s after dark programme [adult swim]. Being American television, all was English dubbed.

My visit to Iceland to see my friends let to some good opportunities to watch various anime. I continued to watch Cowboy Bebop with my friend Pétur, and introduced him to Samurai Champloo, both were English dubbed ’cause I think it’d be more… non-anime-fan friendly. In my experience. I played some FLCL eps as well but those were just too weird for him, so CB and SC were good for him, being not too weird. Other friend of mine, already well familiar with anime, Eydís and especially Gísli, among others, prefer the original Japanese speech.

Thing is, I want to get into the original speech, get used to it. Be able to sit down with my friends and watch whatever they like, maybe some series I haven’t seen before or something. I just don’t know how to do it. But I want to. I’m not gonna go so far to say I need to, but I have a strong urge to get into watching anime in its original form.
But I also like the English dubs. Often, that is. It…fits better, see, given the situation that I and whoever that’s watching it is in, sometimes English can be better. Specially for us newbs, like Pétur which I mentioned before.

So I made this list. Pros and cons of both, with references, from my point of view that is. To get some thinking going. Some you might disagree with, but that’s part of the whole point. Kinda. So here goes:

English dub.

Pros:

• - Increased understanding. Of course this really lies in the translation, but given that it’s actually good and makes sense then I’d think that the storyline and plot is made clearer. Ghost in the Shell comes to mind.
• - Newb friendlier. Explained above.
• - Fits to the plot. Rare, I know, but sometimes you got something that happens internationally, off this world, or way outside Japan and I just can’t see how the Japanese language would fit into that. A small and maybe a bit stupid point but still a point I say. Thoughts: Cowboy Bebop.
• - The role of voice acting. Now here we are getting into bit more serious matter. In almost any animation, the things that we best react to, regarding to human interaction, would be the voice. Yes, you can animate fury in a person’s face, or great sadness, but most of that must be done in rather hard manner, a bit extreme. But in my opinion, the voice can deliver such great variety of emotion, even from the slightest change of accent or pronunciation that makes a line funny or sarcastic, to something quite dramatic. Ep. 17 of Trinity Blood forced me to pause for a minute at one stage. The sheer desperation and chaos in one’s voice had me absolutely stunned.
• - Use of senses. Another big thing. Hey, it’s anime, I like to watch the animation. If my ears understand what they hear, I don’t need to read the subtitles. I actually am not very fond of the subs, although I must admit they are handy (like the masturbation joke in Firefly, the Ours Mrs. Reynolds episode. Never would’ve gotten that one without the subs), they just distract me. So, eyes on the animation, ears open for the speech.
• - Quoting. A small thing but important for me. That’s the thing with foreign films, you can’t quote stuff you don’t understand. With the exception of some certain catch phrases or shoutouts (Furi Kuri!). Quoting funny stuff is a big part of my humor, between me and friends that I’ve watched it with. A recall to good times, ya know.

Cons:

• - Supply. I’m running out of dubbed stuff to watch. There’s of course such great amount of anime available, but just a fraction of that that has been translated. [as] and others are doing a good job getting anime dubbed but it’s not overwhelming amount that’s being released
• - “Bad dubbing”. Now this is a big issue. Every now and then I hear “Damn, that’s a bad dub” or something among those lines. I know there are some dubs out there that are…questionable at best (no names). And one sometimes thinks “Hm, they could’ve used better voice for that character, dosen’t fit him, really” or “damn, that’s just overacting”. But does that mean that every voice in the original version of every anime has been spot-on? I doubt it. But then we could have the concept of intentional bad dubbing, something that’s making fun of some overacting in some certain *cough*Dragonball Z*cough* anime. The dubbed acting of the character Issei in Full Metal Panic’s OAV: Fumoffu is bad yet brilliant in this concept. By the way, what is your definition of bad dubbing?
• - Japanese culture references. Not really an English dub con, but some do get lost in translation. More on that on the other con list.
• - Voices and lip movement. A pet peeve, really, but sometimes the difference between mouth movement and what the dub is playing is too great. And I certainly haven’t heard anyone say for real “Why would you say such a mean thing, huuuuuuuuuuuh?”. Also, unusual and out of concept       breaks in       sentences. To make stuff fit. At least they’re trying.

Aaaand the original Japanese list, although this is pretty much the last list with cons and pros switched.

Pros:

• “- The Way It Was Meant To Be Watched”. It’s the original. It’s the artist’s vision. Shouln’t it be viewed as such by the fan?
• - My friends watch anime like that. No I ain’t talking about group pressure or fitting in. You know what I mean.
• - Cultural references. Not such a pro for me though, but something that’s more easily lost in dubbing. More below.
• - Much larger selection, and no wait for translated versions.
• - Original voice acting. Might classify this as a “bad dub” English con but had to mention this. Sometimes the original voice acting hits the spot when a dub might translate correctly, in sense of concept, but miss the acting bit. I understand that a great scene in Trigun suffered from that (Ep 5, when Vash returns to the bar *trying to keep minimum spoilers* - haven’t verified this myself because, well, I haven’t seen the Japanese version yet!)
• - This pro list sucks noodles. guess the pro points just make sense and don’t require explanation.

Cons:

• - …I don’t understand what the hell they’re saying
• - The role of voice acting. Now I know I mentioned this before, and I might be wrong about this one ’cause it’s not alot of anime I’ve seen in Japanese where the voice acting plays a big part. But there’s just something with the “This woman sounds terribly upset, I wonder why. Let’s read on.” concept.
• - Like mentioned before, I’m not very fond of subtitles, they draw your attention from all the thing you should be watching.
• - Cultural references. Not really a con, but I don’t know where to put this. Gísli described this simply, yet brilliantly: “There’s anime in Japanese, and then there’s Japanese anime.” meaning that while some shows (like those described in the Plots point in English Pro list) don’t really have to be in Japanese, others do. There are some shows that are focused on the culture and I don’t think they should be dubbed, the language is part of the show and its plot/humor/whatever. Then there’s alot of shows that go the middle way, some culture references but not overwhelming or heavily linked to the plot. This is not such a big issue if you aren’t familiar with the Japanese culture, but if you are…

- Quick thought, it’s not bound by law that the original Japanese voicing cast is doing an outstanding job.Like, this one guy on some forums I lurk on says that two of his Japanese friends prefer the english dubs due to quality of the voice acting compared to the original. But that’s more of a personal opinion I guess.

That’s it. I’d say that the “goal” so to speak would to get myself to be able to toss myself into Anime no matter the language it’s in, but I’d prolly keep watching dubs if I have the chance. So whatcha people think? You agree or disagree with anything in particular? Have any recommendations? Anything? C’mon, talk to me.

My roommate’s moaning. Usually he starts complaining when he eats too much (Oooohh, Steini, I ate too much, ooohhhh…) but his arms have been messed up since yesterday evening, He went to the gym apperantly and now he can’t unfold his arms properly. Like, if he stands, his upper arms are in about 45° angle out, and the lower arms are in a 135° from the upper. They only go that far. Looks like he’s trying to pose all big and manly like when he’s not doing anything but when he reaches for things or turns on the oven or whatever he get’s into this old man pose, bending his knees and grunting alot just to reach things.

Oh shi…he just came in, he tried to stretch and now his arms are locked at a right angle.

I had a night flight. Flying around in circles in pitch black for an hour. Great fun. YAWN! Played some BF42 for good time sakes and got into a dedicated knive match with some guy that got so furstrated that he started his won server so we could duel in peace. Good stuff.

Oh and big post regarding Anime coming real soon. Tomorrow perhaps or even later tonight.

To get to the rooster on the other side. Almost ran over one of those bastards on my way to Orlando for my exam this morning. It wasen’t matter of speed, I’m positive that for a split second both parties were thinking “Is that fucker gonna stop or what?”.

Oh, the exams. I JAA ATPL(H) for General Navigation this morning, and Flight Planning and Monitoring yesterday afternoon. 3rd attempt for both of them, failing both at first missing only 1% and 2nd time I ran out of time and was generally ill prepared. FP&M was very smooth, not a single question that made me go “bwuh?” so that’s always a good sign. GNAV wasen’t as smooth, few hard trivia questions but the calculation bit which is the bulk of the exam was surprisingly easy.

My bro uploaded some pictures from our flight, check ‘em here. FYI those that do not know I’m the grumpy skinny one.

First of all, my brother was here. Just for a day though, he was at a conference in California and landed in Orlando around 10 after 3 connected flights from CA to Las Vegas to Dallas to Orlando.

First order of buisness: Go flying. (Excluding Lunch and Bestbuy.) Flew with him to Melbourne after a briefing and introduction to the aircraft. A little before takeoff a what I suspect a controlled forest fire was started 5 NM southwest of the airport which created a few problems for helicopter traffic, with the smoke rising to at least 3000′ right in the path of the preferred entrance/exit routes for the school aircraft. We kept our distance of course, but were close enough to take good pictures of the area on fire.

Melbourne tower but us on taxiway Kilo for out touch’n'go, which is north of and parallel to runway 9L (and 9R for that matter) to give way to a Piper Cherokee on final for 9L. Usually MLB dosen’t put helis on Kilo unless you announce you’re a student pilot. Just for treats.
Smooth flight, although we didn’t find any alligators at St. John River as I promised. Just not their season nor their part of the day.

Oh, and my roommate bought a Xbox 360 last night, so after I dropped my brother off at the airport for his flight home (after just 6 hours) I went and bought Gears of War. Yes I’ve played it before but only in splitscreen dual mode.

Lastly, I’ve got written exams coming up, another attempt at my JAA ATPL(H) GNAV and Flight Planning so no flights till those are over. Prolly not alot of posts either. I’ll post some of the pictures my brother took once he sends em over.

I flew 3 flights today, all VFR X-C for total of 4.1 hours.

First one was to the South, open farmside area with various ranches and such. First waypoint was supposed to be a ranch but I never found it. Neither did I find the private airstrip that was supposed to be next to it. Maybe, I dunno, maybe because I had to use a 10-15 years old map with handdrewn points of interest? It’s supposed to look like a JAAA VFR chart but they seriously need to update this. Hell, there’s a runway missing on one of the airports! Flew few circles around the area before I gave up and vent on towards Tedford, small private strip that I like to use, but I know the owner of that land isn’t so happy with people coming into land just like that.
Second one was to the west, over to Orlando, always fun to fly over urban areas. Except finding forced landing areas in case of an emergency. Went first to an abandoned private field halfways towards Orlando, called RYBOLT. Pain to find, cause the once paved runways are all grass now, but the runways themselves are slightly discolored so I managed to find the field and touch down. From there I went to Orlando Executive, Class D airport in downtown Orlando. Fairly smooth, but just on the other side of the highway was Orlando International, Class B airport. Big whitebodies commercial airliners, you get the idea. Wanted to stay the hell away from their airspace.

Those flights were both solo. The 3rd was dual, night flight. Getting my hours up to be certified to do solo nightflight. Went down to Melbourne following the I-4 and back same way. Made an ILS approach to TIX runway 36 but we lost the glideslope just after the Outer Marker so we used the PAPI to guide us in. The same thing happened to Mick, my roommate, during a checkride, most likely the same aircraft.

I think I’ve never flown for as long in one single day so I’m not surprised being a bit tired. I’ve no flights tomorrow so I can sleep out, but my bro is dropping by for a day on Wednesday and I’m planning to take him for a flight. Take him down to Melbourne so I can log it as C-X and then to training area Alpha, see if we can spot an alligator on the riverbank or something.

PS: It was damn close to freezing this night. Temps were around 4° C at sunrise. 1st day in FL that I had to wear a jacket all day long (plus it was freezing up where I was flying).  I put on a hat due to weather. You that met me last xmas know what hat. One of the instructor claimed that he liked said hat on me. I like that hat.

from roughly half of my blogs readers (of total of two), I give you my Closet Comp.
I hope my landlord dosen’t read this, I doubt she’d like the idea of me taking the wardrope doors (which you can spot behind the desk, matching colors) off like that.

Also, I gotta go, have a flight to New Smyrna to take care of.

Resting my feet up to the wall the last few months while computing has left a very noticeable black spot on my standard white painted wall. This I discovered when I moved my computer (and comp. desk) from the living room to my bedroom’s closet. Sounds strange, yes, but it was hardly being used, and once I took the doors off it was perfect for a desk plus the benefit of getting a whole new wall to use.

I usually rested my feet either on top or around the small bass box for my rarely used 2.1 system, leaving a odd looking white square in the middle of a black stain next to the floor. It’s black ’cause I wear black socks almost all the time. And that’s ’cause I own pretty much only black socks. Fits to the pilot outfit.

To make the whole thing fit into my room, I had to rearrange the entire thing. I’m still finding place for the various stuff I’ve been picking up around the apartment but I’ll finish that tomorrow. I must say I am very satisfied with the room and setup, but the wall is empty on one paticular location, where I had the shelves. I need to invest in a poster, maybe I I’ll get myself one of those…those…one of those Half-Life 2 posters with the citadel on it and a combine soldier standing in front of it? They don’t make those anymore? Damnit!

It’s 4:18 and I’m tired after carrying stuff around. Gonna get some sleep and all that, and I’ll post a pictuer of the new setup tomorrow, kay?

My alarm clock woke me up ’bout 2 and a half hour ago. Having only 3 hours of sleep after losing myself writing late-night blog post (it’s coming soon, stay tuned), I started the day with a healthy dose of hallucination. Plus some dreaming. Something about a spider made out of human flesh and bones, 3 storeys tall terrorizing my airport. Something really stupid.

Got the same routine every time the clock went off: The alarm scared the shit outta me, I hit the snooze button, opened my eyes, discovered that my pupils had their own free will so the room appeared to be blinking, felt dizzy, closed my eyes again and rolled on my other side. I managed to gain enough consciousness on the 5th buzz to turn the damn thing off and roll myself out of bed.

Once I got down to the airport, just over an hour ago, I was relieved not seeing any signs of a monstrous man-spider-thingie, but somewhat saddened to find out that my booked heli was down for maintenance. Engine and rotor RPM indication wasen’t coordinated, plus excess vibrations. I turned down an offer for another flight later that day ’cause with this amount of sleep I knew I’d be useless in the afternoon.

On the way home I accidently hit the left aft window button . Couln’t get the window back up, looks like the motor’s busted. I can hear it spinning and all but the window isn’t connected to the damn thing anymore. Probably a pulley that’s broken, I’ll go now in the afternoon, check with my ever-so-helpful car dealer Larry, see if I can borrow some tools to rip the panel off the door and confirm the motor’s useless. Then I’ll order a new one from eBay. Shame, that’s the only window motor I haven’t replaced yet. Driver window motor got worn out early last year and around the same time some moron tried to break into my car by pulling down both windows on the right side. See, those motors use a wire that runs over a pulley, and if the glass is forced down the pulley breaks so the glass *should* just fall down under its own weight, but either there’s some backup system that holds the window up or just something that jammed the glass ’cause it only went about 1/3rd down.

Aanyways, put some WD-40 on couple of rusty hinges on the front doors and some more on those slots for the other car windows, the rubber stuff that holds ‘em in place. Lots of friction there.

Gonna take a nap. Or do something. yeah. tired.

I’ve flown 2 flights since I came back. Out of…6 planned. Mostly due to weather. The first flight was a shot at Melbourne ILS, first time I’ve flown to another airport using instruments. The other one was earlier today, a VFR crosscountry to Melbourne, solo. What made this crosscountry flight diffirent was the fact that I did no major planning before, just followed roads and such till I got there. And I saw a bald eagle. Saw him in a bit much detail for my taste, but not too close.

I have another crosscountry tomorrow, and I think I’ll do the same this time. It’ll be my 2nd flight to New Smyrna but shooting the unmistakeable landmark of Highway 95 takes me right there. The bit that worries me is communications though, I need a real headset soon, some things are still blurry to me.

I better go to bed, I plan to get up in 6 hours so I’ll be getting out of bed in about 7.

My XP finally crashed after a long time of being way too funky. I’m running on a Vista beta build 5728 at the moment, trying to get things to work till I get my hands on a working copy of a OS install disk. See if I can…uh…perfectly legally…get my hands on a Vista when it’s released to the public…

First flight’s tomorrow. 1400 hours.  Gotta dig up my pilot shirt and all…