gurren lagann 01 (sci-fi), live
Categories: anime, episodic review, gurren lagann
Tagged: gurren lagann
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This will be a living post from 11pm to midnight, and then I’ll polish it a bit after that. The webserver is not cooperating right now, so Oharuhi-sama knows how well this will go.
11:01pm: Do we really need to see title screens for Manga Ent, Aniplex, and Bandai? I vote “no.”
11:03pm: Sorairo Days is playing. No subs or karaoke. I wonder how many people are tuning out of Sci-Fi channel right now to watch Family Guy on CN?
11:05pm: “Who the hell do you think I am?”
11:07pm: Kamina sounds girlish. English voice ain’t deep enough.
11:10pm: “Your drill is a drill that will pierce the heavens.” Kamina sounds awful; Simon doesn’t sound bad. The lack of HDTV feed for Sci-Fi sucks a lot.
11:13pm: Just found out that my host is doing some system backup right now on my box. Great. I rarely ever do live posts, and, when I finally do, derailed. My gosh, why did I name this blog “Derailed by Darry”? I should have named it “100% Uptime.”
11:14pm: Simon discovers Lagann… the homoerotic moment of Simon popping his drill out from Kamina’s crotch area… Kamina not saying “mole-steak” but just “steak.”
11:16pm: Second commercial break. I hate cable TV. Starship Troopers trilogy… is this worse or better than all the Kevin Anderson Dune books?
11:19pm: Why am I watching a commercial for air conditioners? And we’re back…
11:20pm: “Team Gurren”… “Bad-ass Leader”… okay, I can accept that. Whoever is playing Kamina doesn’t have great range– Yoko!
11:21pm: Mmm… Yoko thighs. “Damn, you have a mighty fine body. Surface chicks are hawt.” Needs more emotion! It’s Yoko!
11:22pm: “Thunder thighs.” Still delicious though.
11:23pm: “Ka–mi–na”… “Kick logic out, do the impossible!” Why does it take Kamina so long to say his own name? “Believe in the Ka-mi-na who believes in you.”
11:26pm: “Gotta make the impossible possible.” I really, really wish my cable signal was better. Either that or I was spoiled by all those high def fansubs. Another commercial! Rage! Great, it’s an eHarmony commercial… so far we’ve had bran flakes, air conditioners, Long John Silvers, The Mummy, and eHarmony. I don’t even know where the nearest Long John Silvers is to me… I don’t think I’ve seen one in like 15 years.
11:30pm: “Bust through the heavens with your drill!” They’re not screaming loud enough. That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it.
11:31pm: “Tasty morsel hiding in more tasty morsels.” Is Kamina hitting on Yoko, or is he pimping some new Long John Silvers fried seafood combo meal?
11:33pm: Commercial for Manga Ent. on iTunes. Going to check it out… dammit, it wants me to upgrade my iTunes… Sorairo Days is playing again. I might keep this post running a bit longer since I’ve been having technical issues.
11:35pm: It is on iTunes! But no HD option…
11:37pm: I like Yoko’s voice actress. I still would have gotten Jessie Spano and AC Slater to do Yoko and Kamina respectively instead. Mario Lopez isn’t doing anything important right now, is he?
11:40pm: A commercial for “Eureka.” I’m not sure which show I want to watch less, Eureka or Jeremiah. Kinda sad that Star Trek TNG and Gurren Lagann might be the two best shows on Sci-Fi these days. And, yeah, I have to admit, I did watch part of the TNG fest that proceeded Gurren Lagann. It was the Mark Twain two-parter as well as the fantastic episode where Picard lives a lifetime over a few days… good stuff.
11:41pm: Started working on a Sunrise-related post for tomorrow. It features meido. Though, because you know it’s me, it could be anything– from epic Sumeragi fanservice to Tieria as a meido. Maybe I should have named this blog “Russian Roulette.”
11:42pm: “See you later hon.” Really, really wanted Carson Kressley as Leeron. That would make me want to buy the dub DVDs instead of the sub ones. Yoko sounds like a valley girl… or Tenchi Muyo‘s Sasami. I need more time.
11:45pm: Didn’t realize this before, but Kamina just told Yoko that he would never die. Somethings are funnier the second time around… or… in this case, the 45th.
11:50pm: “When you are ready, come up and join me.” The foreshadowing is fantastic.
11:51pm: Who says, “Bro” in English anymore? Can’t they find a better way to localize it better?
11:52pm: “Give it a hard manly twist.” Leeron has been leveled up.
11:54pm: IHOP commercial… I feel like pancakes now. Pan-cake, pan-cake, pan-cake daikazoku…
11:58pm: This series needs more swearing… “Don’t screw with me!” “Screw you!” I think it’s definitely a case where “fuck” works a lot better than “screw” to convey the sense of emotions running through Kamina at that moment. But what do I know? What ’bout my su-taaaaaaar?
12:01am: They’re not showing the ED, Underground.
12:03am: Good gawd! Is that what I think it is?! It is! Now and Then, Here and There… what’s it doing on Sci-Fi?! Let me bust out my old 2002 post on it. It’s a depressing show. Be warned. And, with that, I’m done. Maybe next time I’ll give a little bit more warning before I decide to do a live blog, and, definitely, will check my server’s maintenance schedule. Peace out.
23 Responses to “gurren lagann 01 (sci-fi), live”
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Yes. I am still wondering about that.
I thought the dub was good. Leeron is a tad more over-the-top compared to the Japanese version, and Kamina isn’t as EPIC, but I think Simon and Yoko are good. And we just need to give Kamina’s VA some more time. All of the Leeron parts had me cracking up.
Side Note: Can’t wait to hear Viral next week.
When I finally get home, Hopefully one of the many Torrent sites out there can gift me with a copy of the episode to watch. I want to hear how it plays in english….
*loads 5 bullets into a six shooter* Here is your gun. Quick, point it at your head…. and pray for Sumeragi….
Its like the opposite for me – How the dub performs will make me decide how quickly I buy the Dub DVD’s after I buy the Sub DVD’s
….
Yea, that’s the one thing I’ve grown to love about the Japanese commercials over here. When you’re watching a series, all the commercials are ABOUT THAT SERIES, or at least works pertaining to it. Advertisements for the bleach games while watching bleach, naruto games during nartuo, etc; advertisements for the singles and soundtracks FOR THE SHOW YOUR WATCHING; advertisements for the model kits and action figures pertaining to the show, like plamo and the asshat-figma-figure of Lulu during Geass or adds for the haruhi figma figures when watching some random late-night moe show; I think the farthest off-topic the Japanese advertisements get is say advertising products from one Shonen Sunday manga such as Hayate no Gotoku or Major while another Shonen Sunday manga’s Anime is airing (Zettai Karen Children). About the only non related ads I can think of off the top of my head are McDonald’s. This is for anime though. Their regular broadcast has the standard random commercials.
As for the dub, I haven’t seen it myself, and have little intent too, but I will agree, if they don’t make Kamina sound manly, I can see the dub being quite ruined.
As for why it takes Kamina so long to say his name, those are probably the times he’s shouting “Kono ore-sama” or “kamina-sama!” since in the dub they would be leaving out the honorifics I presume, and while those take longer to say in japanese than just “kamina” they’re nothing more than him basically declaring himself as awesome, and placing himself on a pedestal. A well-deserved one in this case. If It were me I would have probably rendered it as “Kamina the Great” same meaning, same syllable count.
Afternote: I’m willing to bet the “Ka–mi–na†is exactly what I mentioned above, and instead of opting for something like “Kamina the Great” they made the decision to render it merely as Kamina, but with over-dramatic emphasis on the pronunciation, thus the accentuated stressing of each syllable. I can understand their decision. It works, and it makes sense translation/localization wise, so it just seems off because you’ve watched the subs.
Again, I could be wrong though, haven’t watched the dub myself.
I can’t take Leeron seriouly (does that line even make sense) when he’s being VAed by Steve Blum (Spike).
The thing about dubs: If you’ve seen the sub the voices sound very off, regardless (one exception possibly: Al from FMA). Also, if you’re observant, you can see that they try to (unrealistically, on most cases) extend whatever people say so it’s long enough to fill the audio. This works well enough for normal speaking, but for epic moments and battles not so much.
In my opinion, if possible, they should take out a few frames so the animation fits the voice, not the other way around.
Leeron is voiced by Blum, who is usually typecast for the “badass” voices, and it works so unbelievably well. I probably laughed more than I should have at his lines knowing that.
Definitely couldn’t keep myself from cracking up at Blum as Leeron. I never knew he was capable of doing a role as fabulous as Leeron, but now I do. o_O Michelle Ruff as Yoko was an okay choice for me, but the more she talked the more I could hear Yukari from Persona 3. Siiigh.
The Dub is fine… better than some, although I agree Kamina’s VA wasn’t that great.
Listen I hate to say it but as soon as you air Gurren Lagaan at 11pm on the Sci Fi channel instead of 10 am on one of the Saturday morning cartoon shows you’ve already lost. Gurren Lagaan is, at heart, a Saturday morning cartoon with heart and depth. Its Bugs Bunny with continuity and mecha.
Anyway Yoko pretty much assures that won’t happen, but by putting this on late at night on a cable channel, your losing all of the audience who hasn’t already seen it. Its a damn shame too.
As last i heard. AC Slater was doing america’s next best dance crew. Or something like that. They are in the middle of season 2. It’s on MTV i think. Or VH1. Some of it is cool. But otherwise more random reality show crap. They had the winners from the first season at one of the games during the finals in LA though.
Shoot, I forgot it was on. Any chance they could be showing the episode again at some point or is it online somewhere legally?
This was a million miles better than Geass’s horrific dub. After watching two episodes the shock started to wear off and Kamina seems ok, not great, but ok.
The sped-up OP and the lack of an ED at all will make it less of an experience. But overall, not a bad thing to watch on a Monday night, especially with “Now and Then” after.
Dissent — I disagree, considering how well cartoon network has done. I guarantee Adult Swim brought some of those shows to a new audience.
If you miss the airing on Scifi I believe they are offering it on the site as a stream. Need to double check though.
@emotoaster side note its Sam REGAL (Fate/Stay Night Shirou Emiya, Code geass Clovis Britannia, and Lucky Star Minoru Shiraishi)i don’t think his voice will match with Viral character.
>>And we just need to give Kamina’s VA some more time.
*sigh* If only…
I agree with otou-san; Kamina got better with exposure. Sure, maybe not as gar as we all would’ve liked, but Blum makes up for it in fabulousness. And Kamina’s yell at the end was pretty good. It’s too bad Sci-Fi’s basically butchering the charms of the show (read: eyecatches and OP/ED), but it’s a small price to pay for bringing the greatness of
Yoko’s thighsGurren Lagann to the US.Agreed with most on Kamina’s VA, though it really. REALLY. Could’ve been worse. It’s not the manliness or anything to that extent… it’s just that he seems VERY emotionless– not in the sense that Kamina wouldn’t care, it’s more around the lines of… just less than high-quality voice acting. It’s a FAIR choice for Kamina, but it’s just. Not. Kamina.
I’m actually VERY pleasantly surprised with Yoko’s VA. She has a quality that very much matches the seiyuu. And, so far, the other cast members aren’t miserably chosen either.
Simon… must’ve been chosen for his adult voice; I’m not too enthused about his “kid” version, though this, too, was not a miserable choice.
LEERON FRICKIN’ ROCKS. I doubt they’d have found much of a better voice actor. “SSSpin on! Give it a MANLY Twisssst~!”
So far so good. I look forward to the next few episodes.
I agree that Kamina isn’t quite as epic and loud as he should be but i’m sure he’ll get better once he gets into character. Hopefully soon for obvious reasons (>_<). I really like Simon, Yoko and Leeroy. They sound good. I have high hopes for this dub, hopefully they can get into character quickly.
whoops I meant Leeron. I can’t believe I misspelled that (-_-;)
No one can replace my gods’ places!!!: Tetsuya Kakihara and Katsuyuki Konishi!!!!! @_@
Lol welcome to the world of cable (or satellite, whatever), where commercials are the most evil things ever (they made me want to buy a damn hard boiled egg peeler)
I enjoyed this very much, reminds me of the time I had cable at home, swearing at the bad voices and cursing the programmers for taking out endings
I’ve only watched the first episode, so I can only comment on Kamina, Simon, and Yoko. Simon and Yoko were both great, but as the majority stands on, Kamina is lacking. Though I and a lot of other people will probably get used to him like I did Johnny as Lelouch.
I think what’s missing from Kamina, based on what I’m reading from the comments, is that Passion of Manliness. Emphasis on Passion. I haven’t seen the episode though so I should go watch first.