Castle of Cagliostro Dub Wars

I've mentioned my love for this movie and how it's a large part of my introduction to both anime and Hayao Miyazaki films in my Ponyo review, so I will do my best not to rehash that here. Suffice to say that this is one of the most loved films from my adolescent years, and I highly recommend it to everyone who loves animation and light hearted adventure.

This film was made and released in Japan in 1979, but didn't find it's way to American audiences until 1991. The theatrical release was apparently subtitled, but when released on video, a dub was done by Streamline Pictures. This is the version which I originally saw and rented multiple times from the video store. In 2000 the rights to the film were purchased by Manga Entertainment and an all new dub was recorded. Originally, this was the only copy of the film I was able to own as the Streamline version was long out of print by the time I wanted a copy. I searched Ebay frequently for the older version, but it never came up. I went to forums and livejournal communities asking if anyone had a copy of the original dub that they would perhaps make a copy of for me and I would gladly pay the expense involved. The only responses I ever seemed to get were "the new dub is better anyway" even when I explained that I wanted the old one for nostalgic reasons.

About a month ago I found out that the Streamline dub was in fact out there once again albeit in the Australian and UK releases only. International copyrights being what they are, Manga Entertainment lost the rights to distribute the film there and now Madman Entertainment has it. They decided to use the original dub on their DVD release. After doing a bit of research that assured me I would be able to watch a Region 4 DVD on my computer thanks to VLC Media Player, I gladly paid the price for the DVD and Australian air mail in order to get my hands on the movie I had fallen so much in love with back when I was young.

In the years since first seeing this movie, I went digging for other Lupin III. I've read the first few manga collections, seen the TV series that aired on Adult Swim a while back, as well as most of the theatrical release films and direct to video releases. So I feel at this point that I have a pretty good knowledge of who the characters are and what they're all about. Castle of Cagliostro is a bit different than most Lupin III films. Both Lupin and his rival/love interest Fujiko are much less deviant in this film than they are in other movies. From what I've seen, however, the other characters are much closer to their normal roles.

In order to see which of these two dubs was superior, I watched both versions of the film fairly close to one another. I went about two weeks between viewings, but considering how many times I've watched the movie and the way my memory is in general I still had the Manga dub fresh in my mind as I watched the Streamline dub. Honestly? It is, for the most part, the same exact movie. Yes, the chosen words are different. Perhaps the Streamline dub was aiming more for fitting lip movements than it was with literal translation. In terms of plot points and the storyline itself, nothing is changed. The motives of the characters, the back stories, it's all pretty much the same. Whoever did the Streamline translation had no problem understanding the Japanese. I'll try to highlight some of the main differences for you.

The Wolf vs. Lupin III
The Streamline Pictures release did not have the rights to the name Lupin III (there's that crazy international copyright law again) so they refer to him as The Wolf most of the time. Jigen also calls him boss a lot more, perhaps as another way to get around the name problem. Perhaps the funny thing is they do call him Lupin once (though they pronounce it wrong) out of necessity because the animation shows his calling card with his signature on it. I suppose this name change alone is excuse enough for a new dub, since you most likely couldn't get all the actors together again to fix their lines.

Clarice
In the Streamline dub she's a princess, in the Manga she is the daughter of the Archduke. Strikes me as a simplicity change more than anything else. She also comes off as slightly more desperate at the end of the movie, though in both the end is the same.. she loves Lupin and doesn't want him to leave her.

Voice Actors
In the Streamline dub Wolf is played by Bob Bergen, who gave him a slightly nasal voice. It gives him a slightly more cartoonish feel most of the time. In the Manga dub Lupin is played by David Hayter, perhaps best known for being the voice of Solid Snake. Hayter plays him with a voice fairly close to his natural speaking voice, and he's a bit more like your standard dashing hero. I have to admit I prefer David Hayter's performance here. On the other hand, Inspector Zenigata is the exact opposite. I like the way he starts off sounding very serious in the Streamline dub, and you hear him coming apart and becoming more frustrated as the movie goes on, whereas in the Manga dub he sounds a bit silly from the beginning. The accents are all really overdone in the Manga dub. Everyone at the Interpol hearing is a stereotype of their respective country, and Gustav, the Count's large bodyguard, sounds like a bad Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.

Jigen and Goemon
In the Manga dub, Jigen curses far too much. He shouts "Christ!" repeatedly at the beginning of the film, and it really just seems out of place in an otherwise light hearted family movie. Goemon is perhaps the character who suffers the most in the Streamline dub.. he's fairly quiet, and they decided that the times he did speak it would be nothing but one liners. He's generally a very serious character with a more dry sense of humor.

Knight in Shining Armor vs Thief in the Night
When Lupin first visits Clarice in her locked tower, he vows to rescue her. She thinks it is completely hopeless. He gives a brief speech begging her to trust him. In the Streamline dub, he refers to himself as her knight in shining armor, and in the Manga dub he is a thief in the night come to steal her away. While I can understand that since Lupin is known as a master thief the latter may make more sense for the character in general, the fact is that the knight in shining armor speech was what always stuck in my memory and made me fall in love with the character. It was very romantic and sweet, and the more literal translation just lacks a lot of its charm. Hearing it again after so long, my heart melted all over again. That never happens whenever I watch the Manga dub.

Conclusion
In the end, I think both versions have their positives and negatives and you should just pick up whichever one is being sold in your country. You could of course also just watch it with subtitles and skip this whole mess. I'm left a bit clueless as to why people think the new dub is far superior, though barring the one scene mentioned above, I'm also forced to abandon my feelings that the original was the much better version as well. In the end this is simply a fantastic animated film, and no amount of word choice or silly voices can ruin that. It's a pleasure to watch and listen to in any language!

Ponyo

Last night I watched Ponyo. I've been looking forward to seeing it for quite some time. In fact this was the first movie that I made a point to get from Netflix exactly on its release date. As an animation fan, Hiyao Miyazaki films are required viewing for me, as they should be for any other animation fans out there. When the Sci-Fi channel was still new, they would have Anime Week, where every night they would play a new film, dubbed of course. This was my first real exposure to anime, and I remember being particularly hooked by Project A-ko and a compilation film called Robot Carnival. My brother and I took this interest with us to the video store, and one of the first we rented was Castle of Cagliostro. I fell in love with that movie. I loved the characters and the story, but I also loved watching Lupin III fall from a great height, with another person landing on top of him, yet still walking away unharmed, and I loved watching him leap from one building to another in a manner no one should be able to do. And its not like he has super powers.. it's just a fantastical part of the film, in the same way that the Looney Tunes can walk off a cliff and yet not fall until they look down.

As I've followed Miyazaki and most of his films, its this love of the fantastical mixed with the ordinary that makes him so wonderful. There are only two films of his I truly love: CoC and Spirited Away. The rest are good, they're just not the type of movie I would sit down to for repeated viewings. Ponyo now sits on a scale just below those two movies, but a cut above the rest. Visually, this movie is absolutely breathtaking. The sea creatures are so large, robust, and beautiful. When the waters swell and begin to take over everything, it is literally a feast for the eyes. In the opening scene when Ponyo's father is creating? feeding? creatures in the sea all you can do is just ogle at it. I'm not a fan of Wall-E because most of the dialogue-less beginning was simply unable to hold my attention. The exact opposite is true for this film. There are many scenes in which there are no dialogue.. but you're not lacking because there's simply so much to look at, so much going on. Even the everyday normal scenes, like Sosuke and his mother going to the grocery store and then bringing the groceries home, are a delight. The way his mother struggles with holding the groceries as she opens their front door... it's just so true to life! Part of what makes Miyazaki so great is that he puts just as much focus on realism as he does on fantastical. This helps to make the fantastical moments feel more real, more likely to happen in the world you are seeing.

The story here is basically that of The Little Mermaid, a story I have a great affection for thanks to the Disney film. I remember being so surprised to find out the original story had such a tragic ending.. her love is not returned and she ends up turning into sea foam. The story in Ponyo once again takes it in a slightly different direction. The threat of her turning to sea foam is there, but in this case she is really more of a goldfish (be it a rather odd one with a face) and her affections are toward a five year old boy. This lends the story a great deal of innocence and keeps it at a very sweet level. The story feels like its made much more for young children than for adults. When Ponyo's mother and father are saying that if the boy can't love her she will turn to sea foam, I foresaw a much more mature and different ending. As an adult, I could not help but think that surely a young boy of five would not continue to love this same girl for the rest of his life. The ending of the movie however, doesn't go anywhere near that far, and ends "happily ever after", in a rather abrupt fashion (or at least that's how it felt for me).

However, unless I'm going crazy, I'm pretty sure the title in the beginning of the movie said "Part 1." At first I thought the story might jump around a bit, and there would be other parts in the movie itself.. but it never did. This leads me to believe that maybe their story isn't a happily ever after at all.. that perhaps in the end, Ponyo will turn into sea foam, just as the little mermaid did in the original story. Or maybe, if you're an optimist, you can choose to believe that their love was young and pure enough that they will grow up together forever. I couldn't find any mentions of a possible sequel being planned, and I've never seen any other Miyazaki film with a sequel really.. so even if I'm totally wrong, I kind of really like this idea of mine.. it helps save the movie from the ending which just left a sour taste in my mouth. Of course, that sour taste may be completely my own fault, and definitely isn't something that would make me tell anyone not to watch it. Just remember that you're watching a children's fairy tale, and you probably won't be as disappointed as I was.

I should point out that I only watched the subtitled version of this film. Disney has been making the dubbed versions of Miyazaki films for quite some time now (7 years, according to the bonus feature on the disc), and they often pick out a very stellar cast, a mix of well known actors and their stock children stars. I can't fault this as it probably gets a lot of people to watch these films that wouldn't otherwise. For me, I just love the sound of the Japanese language in general, and I find the tone of voice they normally use fits these movies a lot better than the dubs do. Anime is known for its extremely expressive faces, and I think a lot of actors/voice directors seem to think that just because a character's mouth is opening a little wider than they do in American animation, said character needs to whine or shout all the time. Meanwhile, if you slip over to the Japanese voice actors.. well, they're not doing that as far as my foreign ears can tell. Another problem is that English dub translations try to fit the mouth movements, so the translation is generally not as literal as the subtitles. A fun way to see the difference in this is to select the English voice track on your DVD along with the English subtitles. Sometimes they're saying the same things in a re-worded manner, and sometimes you get quite different things being said. Obviously, don't do that on a first time run through unless you're really good at multi-tasking.

One thing that left me a little puzzled in the "lost in translation" department was why Sosuke refers to his mother and father by their first names. At first I thought maybe Lisa was his stepmother, but later he also refers to his father by name, and many people refer to Lisa as his mother. Ponyo talks about her mother and father only by those handles so I'm just not sure what that's all about.

Definitely worth the rent, unless you just can't stand fairy tales for some reason.