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Anime Central - FUNimation Presents: Suzuka Screening and Panel

By Marc Lunden May 16, 2007

The Suzuka panel, starting an hour late as a result of numerous other delays throughout the day, began with a brief introduction by Adam Sheehan, and then a screening of episode 1, also the premiere of the dub.

Following the first episode, there was a Q&A session with Leah Clark and Brina Palencia, the English voice actors for Suzuka and Honoka, respectively. Brina gave a description of her character, since Honoka didn't appear in the first episode. Other works were discussed, Brina directing the dub for School Rumble, and other dubs the two have been in together such as Shin-Chan and Negima. There were several questions about Leah's character; it wasn't too hard for her to get the role, and she likes her character since she feels like she and her character have a lot in common. Brina, on the other hand, wasn't as excited about Honoka at first, due to Honoka coming across as one of the typical shy and timid characters, but found some really good character moments as the show progressed.

Leah was one of the writers for the Suzuka dub, and while she didn't really have anything to do with story development (in response to a question about developing characters), there were still contributions to be made when writing. She and Brina talked about working with Caitlin Glass as the dub director, and Caitlin's preferences as far as Japanese names for things like food (keep them as-is, avoid explanatory equivalents or replacements), and pronunciation of Japanese names and words (be authentic, listen to the Japanese track for correct pronunciation, modify inflection only when it would sound completely awkward in relation to the rest of the English).

There was, of course, the question about behind-the-scenes stories. Leah and Brina and others such as Greg Ayers leaving behind gag takes for the next actor in the booth. Leah being in the booth to do a number of alternate takes for a short line that just wouldn't turn out right, and Brina and the engineer setting the tape reel to keep cuing her up with beeps before sneaking out and leaving her there doing takes over and over for a while. Leah and Todd Haberkorn, the voice actor for Yamato, trying to decide why Yamato likes Suzuka despite all the abuse he gets from her initially. And so on and so forth, all to lots of laughs from the audience.

Following the Q&A, episodes 2 and 3 were screened.

Panel report verified by FUNimation.