Bleach in the U.S.

[PumpFreak]

now i dont know exactly how many people on these forums are Bleach fans but i figured this would be a good place to post an opinion about one of the greatest anime's of all time and to see people's responses to it since there seems to be a pretty strong anime fanbase on this site.

I have been a fan of Bleach since fansubs started poping up (i had read about it in Shonen Jump and saw it on anime-suki) and when I started watching I thought "WOW! Here's a really good anime" now keep in mind, this was when Naruto wasn't licensed. Well when Bleach entered it's 2nd season Naruto got licensed (now I have not been a fan of Naruto but that's neither here nor there) but when I found out that Naruto and Bleach were under the same production company I thought "Fuck, Bleach is gonna get licensed next" (and thought worse when I saw the piece of crap that is the US version of Naruto)

Well almost 90% of the way done with Season 4 and Bleach got licensed in the US, it was inevitable but I was still upset, just to spark my curiousity I actually watched an episode on Adult Swim. When I saw people saying the voice acting was actually good, I thought "maybe i'm wrong about this", needless to say the voice acting was exactly how I expected it to turn out, crappy, with one major exception.

Ichigo

The voice acting done in Ichigo is living proof that American anime still has a chance of not sounding like broken jibberish, granted Ichigo is not perfect in voice acting (what anime character in the US is? with the exception of Cowboy Bebop) but had the licensing group done a better job of giving ALL the characters good voice acting and translations from fan-subs instead of literal translations, Bleach would be an amazing anime here in the US (and actually have a competition between which is better? Japanese or English)

I was curious to see how other people reacted to the American version of Bleach, so feel free to speak your thoughts, but as for me

Bleach (Japanese ver.):
Bleach (American ver.):

[ANGRY ABOUT ENGLISH]

Just a tip: we've already made a few minor observations (because as you can see, Bleach discussion is somewhat slow here) in this thread.

For the record, though, I'm in the "pretty nice voice acting" camp. Can you explain why it was that everyone save Ichigo's voice irritated you? I'm a little curious as to what irritated you specifically (and, uh, there wasn't a literal translation as opposed to "fan-sub quality": Ichigo's dialogue in scene one makes it clear they've modified the direct translations to fit the language.)

[Monster in a box]

I've seen a lot of people complain about Orihime (was that her name? Orange haired girl with disproportionate...features) and I can't even imagine why. I'm the farthest thing from a sub-junkie, but when I heard her voice I thought it matched her perfectly. Better than the soul reaper girl anyway. (whose voice isn't BAD, but not as good)

[Phil ver0]

For some reason people tend to jump on the dub version sucks bandwagon since the Buu saga of Dragon Ball Z hit the U.S. on Cartoon Network.

I haven't watch the fan subs yet, however, I watch an episode last night for the first time and I have to say the show is fine....for the moment until I see the fan subs.

[Akkaraju]

Originally Posted by Phil ver0

For some reason people tend to jump on the dub version sucks bandwagon since the Buu saga of Dragon Ball Z was hit the U.S. on Cartoon Network.

I haven't watch the fan subs yet, however, I watch an episode last night for the first time and I have to say the show is fine....for the moment until I see the fan subs.

i'm not jumping on any bandwagons here, but i thought the dub wasnt the greatest, but it was better than most efforts.

maybe its just the fact the Kon and Ichigo's VA are really annoying

[PumpFreak]

Originally Posted by Fletcher

I'm a little curious as to what irritated you specifically

Isshin (Ichigo's father) was just plain awful, Inoue was somewhat on the spot (in Japan she's the token cutesy girl and her voice in the US wasn't on par to her Japanese counter-part) and is it me or does Rukia's voice actor seem better suited for maybe say idunno...Aizen? Hitsugaya? anyone that's not a girl?

Maybe I just put my expectations a little too high for a translated anime

[ANGRY ABOUT ENGLISH]

See, I think Rukia's, at least, fit her well, being royalty by adoption and all (it would probably be a good idea for those of us with manga/sub knowledge to spoiler shit for a while), whereas Ichigo's family really doesn't play much of a part in things aside from comic relief for a good long time, so I suspect those voices might have just been given to random actors who were around.