Naruto! Believe It!

So, I realise this is pretty late; it was originally meant to be posted last Wednesday, 16th August. Well, thanks to my ever wonderful friend Bhavna, I was hooked on reading a webcomic by the title of Joyce and Walky! The link takes you to the latest comic, which is part of an arc of fun stuff. The actual story started almost 10 years ago, and I'm not going to force you to read it from the beginning. That's your choice. Aw to heck with it, here: Roomies!

As of last night/wee hours of early this morning, I was finally up-to-date with the comic and feel pretty unfulfilled what with the cliffhanger, and some issues related to the personal lives of the characters. Anyhow, not my story...all I can hope for is some out-of-the-hey! miracle.

You'll find three new links under "Webcomics": Shortpacked!, Joyce and Walky!, and Shortpacked! at TNI

I'll check out TNI on Sunday and see how the new comic will be put up, i.e. whether it will replace the current one or if you will have to navigate to it. Depending on this, I will change the link on Sunday.

Right, back to business. I have one other piece of news, but I figure this post will become too long what with having to include my review of the dubbed Naruto (oh God...here it comes, not another fan raving). So, I'll save the other piece of news for like...tomorrow.

Before any of you think that I'm an angry fan, I'm not. Yes, I'm angry, but no, I'm not a fan. In fact my love for Naruto died when the 100+ episodes of fillers were brought in; I kid not...there are really 100+ filler episodes. In these fillers, the characters have been totally dumbed down and Naruto has been turned into your typical "I-care-not-for-authority" sort of character. What really got me peeved was how Rock Lee was really weakened, when he's one of the really powerful ninjas in the village. Oh and don't get me started on Shikamaru.

Anyhow, this is the dub we're talking about, and so the dub we'll focus on. The dub of Naruto was aired on Saturday 22nd July 2006 on Jetix. The adverts were shown about a week prior, and my ears recoiled at the mispronounciation of the title..."Na-ROO-toe", with "Na" being pronounced like it is in "Nathan". I've just been watching subs so long, that english pronounciation of foreign words have gotten kinda on my nerves. What's more is that dubs don't seem to help that at all, I mean...would it kill them to actually have someone teach them proper pronounciation? I don't think so.

The first thing you're exposed to, when watching an episode, is of course the opening sequence. I really liked the original opening, but it's a sad thing that they couldn't get the license to actually use the song. So, I understand that they had to go and make their own one, but they could have made it more...decent. What we get is a pretty bad rockish tune, full of not-so-cool electric guitar sounds, all rounded off with random bits of voice that say something I can hardly make out. What I could make out was the following: "Huh!" and "Fight!" and the rest is pretty unintelligible. Also, the clips put to the "music" was not so cool...I seriously could have done a better job with the opening. I know whining isn't going to get me anywhere, but I really do feel strongly about some aspects. I accept that they didn't get a sweet deal, but at least they could have made a better job of it.

Next, a lot of mispronounciations, but I've already covered that. Ah yes, the title characters voice. Not so cool. It sounded okay to me at first, then it just got annoying and unemotional. You see, because the actress makes the voice kinda scrappy and gravelly, she's compromising emotion. Like when Naruto is kinda angry or summat, he sounds just like he normally does. Oh and when he's crying and feeling emotional? He sounds like he peeved about something. Very bad directing there.

Rock Lee's voice sounds good, I just dislike how they've given him this "I-must-pronounce-every-single-word-I-utter" kind of dialect. Makes him sound like an annoying robot.

The use of "Jutsu". Why could they not have just used the word "Technique"? Okay, so you want it to sound good and true...but if you use an entirely english translation for a phrase, you may as well use english all the way, rather than a 3/4:1/4 phrase.

"The Village Hidden in the Leaves" Too long for my liking. "Hidden Leaf Village" made just as much sense, and sounded better when mentioning the "Hidden Sound Village". I wonder how they phrased it in the manga translations...

Pretty much the last thing to note, would be how they chopped the episodes and threw in their own "neato-mad-computer-skills". They've chopped bits out, which I can live with since the West has different broadcasting regulations, but they've also overlapped scenes to make a "cool" effect. Also, to compensate for the lower episode content due to chopping and overlapping, they actually pause episodes at a certain point while characters are speaking off-screen or thinking.

Personally, I'm not sure if I'll buy the DVD...cool it's uncut, but I dunno. I have a lack of shelf-space as it is, and the series is nearing 200+ episodes.

Oh, also the series sometimes feels rushed. That makes sense, because the license for the series was only acquired early this year, with the goal of releasing the dubs during the 3rd Quarter.

What has me fearful is that Bleach has been picked up by the same studio...