Rich emails:

Just writing to say thanks for your review and commentary on Shingu.  It just finished a run (dubbed only) on Comcast on-demand.  The last time I gave up on it after a few episodes because it seemed so stilted; perhaps that is just the dub, but the way some of the characters spoke just seemed to much like a teleprompter in use with artificial cheer injected.  Except for Nayuta...

If all you've heard is the dub version of the show, you've missed much of the fun. I listened to the dub for a while, but I couldn't listen to it for long.

The voice actor who did Muryou was awful. Just the pits. He made Muryou sound like an arrogant prick, which is the opposite of how he comes across in the Japanese version.

And if you listened to the English dub, then you missed out on the Japanese voice work for Nayuta, which was absolutely sterling. And of Kyoichi, who has the same seiyuu as Kyon in Haruhi. This part is even more fun than that one.

You also missed out on Kugimiya Rie doing a non-tsundere loli in the voice of Futaba, Hajime's younger sister. (And Kyouko, Hajime's mom, has the same voice as Akane in Ranma 1/2.)

Generally I am a believer that the Japanese sound track is nearly always better than the English dub, but in this case there isn't any doubt whatever about that. The Japanese voice work was head and shoulders above the English dub.

Anyway this time I caught every episode, and enjoyed it quite a bit.  I'm not sure it would be in my top 5 list, but its definitely good, and I'll be keeping an eye open for a affordable disk set at some point.  I think I'd like to watch it subbed.

It's already out as a budget thinpak, for $45. That's what I got. It won't be getting any cheaper than that any time soon because Nozomi is not interested in engaging in cut-throat pricing like some release houses I could name.

So there's really no reason to wait, and it is worth that price.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in at 11:35 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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