What I watched in August: Digest Version, Part 1 of 2

b Broken Blade: Oh, that opening is stuck in my head until the next time I watch the Guin Saga closer.  (Keep those amazing theme songs for dramatic fantasy/sci-fi mecha coming, folks! ; )  I liked this the second time through, too, but I was still frustrated by the dangling threads that those who read Japanese will get to see resolved in the manga, which I think is still being published.  There is certainly closure to some things, but the things I was most interested in were not among them.  Again, it was nice to see adults have most of the starring roles.  It brings some different things to the table.

b Guin Saga:  Thank goodness this isn't even close to as graphic as the novels.  Unfortunately, it's totally watered down, instead.  (I'm mostly okay with that since my stomach couldn't handle such horrific violence in a visual medium.)  Actually, it's kind of like an anime Cliff's notes.  Holy cow!  They tried to cram something like 40 volumes worth of the novels into 26 episodes.  Something had to give, and that something was details.  Those details were pretty important for character development, so the end result is you get to go further in the adventure, but you care less.  Or maybe that only applies if you read the novels and know what you're missing.  I would like some folks who enjoy fantasy to give it a try and let me know their reaction, so I can see if it holds together better for people who haven't read the novels.  Not that I'm really, really complaining because since it doesn't look like any more of the novels will see print in English, it was sort of nice to find out what happened down the road, right?  Then again, I may be lying to myself because I've never liked Cliff's Notes or abridged versions because they tend to take out all the really important words in trade for a clearer/cleaner plot.  Not that the novels need help since their plots are pretty straightforward . . . 

The dub for the first half was pretty serviceable, though I wasn't too fond of Istavan's voice for some reason I couldn't pin down even though I usually like David Matranga's work, and then . . .?!?!  WTH?!  The dub for the second half is increasingly awful.  It got selected for worst dub on Anime News Network, but I thought that was for the songs.  (Which were pretty bad in English.  Just leave 'em in Japanese, guys; it's okay.)  What bothered me more is that it's like they stopped caring!  They started adding all these ad-libs and going for comedy readings (this approach worked in Wedding Peach because it wasn't straight drama and was pretty ridiculous).  This ill-considered and executed humor served to destroy any integrity remaining in this 100% serious dramatic action fantasy.  So many of the shows Sentai releases don't have dubs, so it seems inexcusable to spend the money to produce one that's so sub-par.  Usually I don't take this kind of thing personally, but I'm a tad offended.  The next time through, I'll watch it all in Japanese, and maybe I won't have this bitter taste in my mouth.  And I will probably listen to/watch the ending theme song every time again.  : )