July 20, 2000
Well, yesterday was the last episode of Cartoon Network's second run through Gundam Wing. How time flies ^_^ Anyway, the series started over again today so I thought it was time for me to come back and write about what I think about the dub in general, now that I've seen it twice.
First, I'll talk about the translation of the series in general. Overall, the translation of the series was great, especially, of course, in the uncut version. Important details weren't left out, and stupid things weren't added for "comic relief" or whatever. The characters maintained their personalities (along with all their kooky quirks ^_^), and all of the political intensity of the show was still there, which is a big relief. With a show with big mechs like Gundam Wing, it would be easy for the dubbers to just try to turn it into a "blow up the bad-guys" show with no real plot going on and no character development. Luckily, BEI realized that the characters and the plot are what drives the show, not the mechs. After all, in what other series are you going to find a main character who tries to kill himself four times during the first ten episodes, and who is often more ruthless than the enemies he's fighting? And where else will you find organizations that form and split apart and reform every few episodes? For a show which starts out so seemingly simple (Gundams VS OZ) everything really goes to hell during the course of the series ^_^ And, fortunately, this was maintained in both versions of the dub...sure, the cut version had some major wussification done, but luckily the translation remained intact, for the most part (I'll talk about some of the major differences later in this Random Thought). Heh heh, you wanna hear the real proof of how good I think the translation of Gundam Wing? Well, as far as my originals go, I have episodes 41-49 in unsubbed format only. Although I've had three years of Japanese (at the time this was written), I still didn't quite understand what was going on during the last few episodes. So, I actually trusted the dub to help me understand what was going on in those episodes. Now, how often can you say you've trusted a dub to help you better understand the original version of a show? Unfortunately, it doesn't happen very often, which is why I say I must be pretty damn confident in the translation if I'm going to say I trust it more than my less-than-perfect Japanese skills ^_^
Next I'll talk about voices. There seemed to be one common theme throughout the dub concerning young characters: A lot sounded older than they should. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they were bad...but there were quite a few who didn't sound the right age. I'm sure the first to come to mind for most would be Duo...I know some people don't like his voice, but I do because...well, it's Scott McNeil! I can't hate Scott McNeil! Anyway, if you think about how Seki Toshihiko's voice, he sounded kind of old for Duo sometimes, too (Think of when Duo appears and shoots Heero in episode 2...I convinced myself the first time I saw that scene that his seiyuu was Yamazaki Takumi [Ferio's voice ^_^] but I later discoverered that was wrong...). But both of them could make their voices higher pitched if they needed to, such as if Duo was going off on one of his little "what the hell's going on?" moments (That's the best adjective I cound think of...it's too late to be writing this -_-;;). Another one that I think sounds kinda old is Heero's voice, although I can't really blame his voice actor. I can imagine it must be hard to sound monotone and young at the same time; I think Midorikawa Hikaru is the only person who can do it properly ^_^ But I would rather have an old, monotone sounding Heero than a bouncy, young Heero :P Now, back to Scott McNeil ^_^ I'm not sure what problem people have with his voice; I already talked about the issue of him maybe sounding too old. Maybe some people have a problem with the kind of surfer/Canadian sounding accent he has sometimes. Come on, it's Duo! It's not like he's some deathly serious character who would never talk in the way Scott McNeil has him speak. Yeah, he sounds like an American teenager...but guess what? Duo is an American teenager. Argh...I'll just finish this up by saying I like Duo's voice, and I'm not sure why so many people have a problem with it. Next is Trowa. His is one of the few voices that I think actually sounds the same age or even younger than the original. At the beginning, he sometimes had way too much feeling in voice. However, as the series went on, Kirby Morrow seemed to realize more what kind of guy Trowa was and he mellowed out a bit. Next, Quatre, played by Brad Swaile. He's definitely different from the original (Orikasa Ai...a woman ^_^), but I think his voice fits Quatre perfectly. He's occasionally a bit melodramatic, but for the most part, he does a good job of being Quatre (To outer space...every one of us! ^_^;;). Last of the five G-boys: Wufei, played by Ted Cole (Yamcha ^_^). Actually, the voice he uses for Wufei is a lot like Yamcha's voice (seasons 1 and 2 of DBZ), so this is another character that sounds a bit older than the original. But I think he does a great job ^_^ I'll only talk about one more voice in detail here, because this section is getting long: Zechs. Ahh, Zechs...Like Duo's voice, there are some people who have problems with his voice, but once again, I have to say...no problems for me ^_^ I'm sorry, but after watching so much of seasons 1 and 2 of DBZ, I've come to love Brian Drummond's voice ^_^;; That probably has something to do with Vegeta being my favorite DBZ character...but anyway, I'm not sure why people don't like his voice...I guess at the beginning of the series, he was using a kind of weasley, Vegeta-like voice which some people thought didn't fit Zechs at all. However, if you wait a few episodes, he mellows out a bit...and if you listen to his voice near the end of the series...*drool* He just sounds so hot ^_^ Anyway, for more information and more of my opinions on the voices, go the the voices page.
Next thing I'll discuss is basically what this page is about: The cuts, edits, and dialogue changes made to the cut version. Like many dubs, these things were often inconsistent with each other. The majority of the cuts made to the series were short cuts of only 1 or 2 seconds when people were shown being caught in an explosion. However, these were cut pretty inconsistently, especially near the beginning of the series. Other cuts that were made included ones involving guns pointing at people; if they were too close to the person's head, the scene would be cut. This led to the two biggest cuts in the series: one of Lady Une pointing a gun at Professor G for over 20 seconds and the biggest cut at over a minute of Hilde pointing a gun at Duo's head...a shame because that was a really cool Duo scene ^_^ There were other cuts involving guns; sometimes scenes of people getting shot were cut out. In other words, most of the cuts made were "violence cuts." Now, edits: Pretty simple, because most of the edits made were "blood edits." It still doesn't make sense to me, though...you can look at any other show in the Toonami block and you'll be able to see blood...I guess they were just looking for another way to make the cut version different from the uncut version, because it certainly wasn't Cartoon Network that made them do it. Finally, definitely the biggest difference between the two versions: Dialogue changes. Although many episodes have no cuts or edits made to them, almost every one of them has dialogue changes. The most common words which end up getting changed are "damn," "hell," and "kill." Also if the word "god" is being used in a "controversial" way (Like Duo calling himself the God of Death or Treize saying that God is just something created by the imagination of human beings), then it ends up getting changed, too. There are some odd changes, though: The word "die" is changed if it's being used as a threat, but sometimes it gets changed even when it's not. And there are inconsistencies, sometimes even within one episode. The best example is episode 13: The word "execute" is used four times in this episode. The first two times it's used, it gets changed to something else, but the second two times it's left the same...strange, isn't it? Well, anyway, the main purpose of the dialogue changes is to tone down the language so no one will be "offended" by it...I highly doubt that this is actually supposed to be a way to "protect" kids, but rather to keep parents off their backs...Argh, this country sickens me sometimes! Sorry, I'm going to go a bit off-topic for a minute, but this really is connected to this page, in a way: It was recently announced that, because of parent complaints, Viz is going to have to start editing their DB comics. My God, what is wrong with the parents in this country? Do they think that if their kids see a young naked Gokuu or Bulma's breasts that they're going to suddenly become perverts or criminals or something? There was also a recent incident at an anime convention that was apparently on Disney property, and the Disney people came in and made people get rid of anything with nudity or that looked "suggestive." *Sigh* It's a shame how things are dealt with in this country; if something could be considered "offensive" then it must be blocked out at all costs! We must protect our children by taking away everything that could "damage" them instead of actually trying to teach them right and wrong on our own! No, we'll just sit them down in front of the TV and hope it teaches them some good moral values!...Argh, it's that kind of mentality that I just can't stand! And thats what really fuels me to make this page: the fact that our country actually has the need to have a cut and uncut version of a show which was, of course, shown uncut anywhere else it aired.
OK, so now it's time for my thoughts in general: As far as the uncut version goes, everything is great; the translation is dead on, the majority of the voices are good, and the characters actually act like they should. Now, the cut version: Translation is good, although "disturbing" things are changed, the characters lose a bit of their personalities (Heero can't say his favorite line: "I'll kill you", and Duo is no longer the God of Death), and a lot of things are cut or edited if they're deemed "too violent" or whatever. So I'd definitely say watch the uncut version if you can. If you can only see the cut version, well, that's better than nothing. I mean, even the cut version is way ahead of where most other anime airing on TV are when you look at translation, but when you compare it to the uncut version...well, there's just no comparison ^_^