Ghibli Update - releases March 07

[Scourge]

Just a reminder that Whisper of the Heart, My Neighbor Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle are on shelves today.

I can't recommend Whisper of the Heart enough. It won't be everyone's cup of tea because it's girly and romantic, but if you liked Kiki's Delivery Service you should like Whisper of the Heart. WotH is my favorite Studio Ghibli movie.

[Bacon McShig]

Cool. Any stores having any good sale prices on these this week?

[Scourge]

Best Buy had Howl's for $16.99. The other two were $19.99 (ie. not on sale).

[Brand]

Crap I had two of them pre-order I totaly forgot. Doh! Looks like I'm picking them up tomorrow night.

[Jester]

If Whisper's of the Heart is good enough for John Denver, it's good enough for anyone. Buy it!

[Space Pirate Roberts]

Best Buy had Howl's for $16.99. The other two were $19.99 (ie. not on sale).

Plus if you buy Howl's and one of the others, you save an additional $6.

[Bacon McShig]

Well that's a rather large detail to overlook.

In that case, I'll head over soon for Howl's and Whispers.

[Super-Eggroll]

Does anyone know if Disney plans on doing a reissue of Grave of the Fireflies?

It's not a Miyazaki movie, but still one of my favorite Studio Ghibli films.

[Chux]

I can't watch that movie again.

[Scourge]

Well that's a rather large detail to overlook.

Sorry, I didn't know that. If I had, I would have picked up Howl's yesterday.

Also, that $19.99 turns out not to be the regular price for WotH and Totoro. They are regularly priced at $23.99.

I don't think there are any plans for Disney/Buena Vista to release Grave of the Fireflies. There have been two prior dvd releases from Central Park Media, and the last one in 2004 had a 2 disc Collector's Edition which is probably equal or better than what you'd get from Disney.

****

Now a couple of words on the dub of Whispers of the Heart. I remember years ago reading some rant from some nameless internet prick and me thinking "God, if I ever get to a point where I am THAT anal about subtitles vs. dubs, shoot me." So get your guns out...

I think generally speaking the Disney dubs have been good. Really good in some cases. But I did a comparison of the English dub of Whispers and I really feel it's lacking. Fyi, I watched the movie in English then went back and checked against the Japanese track and subtitles in various scenes.

The only reason I bothered is because I didn't think the movie was as effective as I remember it being in my original viewings which were of the Japanese speaking version. And I really feel it makes a difference.

The first thing is that if you put the first set of English subs on, they are just the English script transcribed for the hearing impaired. The second set of English subs are the Japanese script translated. If you compare the Japanese script translation to the English dub script, I think you'll notice that the English dub script is dumbed down a bit and hardly as subtle.

As for the dub acting Japanese vs. English, there's something rather jarring about the English line readings that isn't there in the Japanese line readings. Again, a lot of subtleness is lost, which I think accounts for some of the emotional impact being lost. There are a lot of mannerisms in the Japanese voice acting that are missing from the English voice acting and they've taken a bit of the heart out of the performances.

Because of these things I'd recommend watching this with the second set of English subs on with the Japanese voice track. Okay, you can shoot me now.

**edit** I guess I should point out that I still loved Whisper even in English. But I really, really, really love it in the original Japanese.'^_^ (I'll never do that again I swear)