Blue Water Studios. Any good? Thoughts?

[porkchopexpress]

So I'm interested in this show coming out in a couple of months called Doki Doki School Hours. ANN lists it as a Blue Water Studios dub. The only dubs of theirs I am familiar with are SM J, J to X and Crest of the Stars. I'm not huge fans of either Crest or J to X. The only cast member's name I even recognize is Mariette Sluyter, probably the only good part (imo) of Crest/Banner.

So, any thoughts on this? Do you think they can pull off something good here? Make me feel better.

[EmperorBrandon]

Saber Marionette J was done by Ocean in Vancouver, not by Blue Water (they only did JtoX as far as I know).

I'm not too familiar with them at this point, but I think their work on Zoids and G Gundam was decent at the very least.

[B-Rad Lascelle]

I'd be kind of curious to hear whether or not there are any legitimately awesome VAs holed up in Calgary with a unique quality and indisputable talent.

The one thing that a dub like Saikano proved is that one can find some REMARKABLE talent and moving performances from some unknown VAs if they're given the right material, the right direction and the opportunity to showcase their ability... even if the cast surrounding them stinks to high heaven.

Maybe some of the Zeta Gundam fans can chime in. I remember many a debate about that dub schooling Airwaves' dub for Gundam SEED and I'd like some examples of why and whether some of these VAs have done work worth seeking out in other Blue Water titles.

To be honest, the studio's been on my blacklist thanks in large part to dropping the ball on Crest/Banner and the subsequent lack of any properties I've been terribly interested in. But I'm still game to hear about any vocal gems I may happen to be missing the boat on.

[Mr. Nail Bat]

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B-Rad Lascelle said:
I'd be kind of curious to hear whether or not there are any legitimately awesome VAs holed up in Calgary with a unique quality and indisputable talent.

The one thing that a dub like Saikano proved is that one can find some REMARKABLE talent and moving performances from some unknown VAs if they're given the right material, the right direction and the opportunity to showcase their ability... even if the cast surrounding them stinks to high heaven.

Maybe some of the Zeta Gundam fans can chime in. I remember many a debate about that dub schooling Airwaves' dub for Gundam SEED and I'd like some examples of why and whether some of these VAs have done work worth seeking out in other Blue Water titles.

To be honest, the studio's been on my blacklist thanks in large part to dropping the ball on Crest/Banner and the subsequent lack of any properties I've been terribly interested in. But I'm still game to hear about any vocal gems I may happen to be missing the boat on.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I mentioned in another current thread, I'm quite happy with their work on Jubei-Chan.

And their Fancy Lala dub was interesting, at least.

I am hopeful for Doki Doki School Hours, a show that is so thoroughly redolent of cute that I shall be acquiring it whatever the dub.

[BigPants]

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Geoduck said:
And their Fancy Lala dub was interesting, at least.

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I rather like the Fancy Lala dub. While, the only other dub I've heard from them is the Crest of the Stars series (which is a big BLEH, in my opinion), the Fancy Lala dub was rather good. I really liked whoever played Lala.

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I am hopeful for Doki Doki School Hours, a show that is so thoroughly redolent of cute that I shall be acquiring it whatever the dub.

[/ QUOTE ]

If anything, I'll be getting this because the most excellent can/goo (http://www4.point.ne.jp/~pomcangoo/) provides the theme song. That band effin' rules!

[porkchopexpress]

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Geoduck said:
I am hopeful for Doki Doki School Hours, a show that is so thoroughly redolent of cute that I shall be acquiring it whatever the dub.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now that I have looked up the definition of redolent, I completely agree with you. /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Yukichan105]

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BigPants said:
If anything, I'll be getting this because the most excellent can/goo (http://www4.point.ne.jp/~pomcangoo/) provides the theme song. That band effin' rules!

[/ QUOTE ]

If anything, I'll be getting this because of the horribly catchy ending song by the DROPS.

DON'T STOP! DON'T STOP THE MUSIC! /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[Starwind Amada]

Although I like the Vancouver dubs more, I find SOME of the Blue Water dubs to be acceptable. G Gundam's dub was fairly well done, aside from the fact that it was edited. Zeta's was okay as well, however, it too was edited and recast any returning characters. I'm not a fan of Zoids, but their dub of Chaotic Century was shocking, because it had references to Hell and did not change the name of the Hellcat Zoid (this was heard on Toonami). I'd have to say my favorite Blue Water VA is Mark Gatha (Domon Kasshu in G Gundam, Irvine in Zoids Chaotic Century, various voices in Z Gundam).

[populuxe]

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porkchopexpress said:
So I'm interested in this show coming out in a couple of months called Doki Doki School Hours. ANN lists it as a Blue Water Studios dub. The only dubs of theirs I am familiar with are SM J, J to X and Crest of the Stars. I'm not huge fans of either Crest or J to X. The only cast member's name I even recognize is Mariette Sluyter, probably the only good part (imo) of Crest/Banner.

So, any thoughts on this? Do you think they can pull off something good here? Make me feel better.

[/ QUOTE ]

The only dub of theirs I'm familiar with is SMJ-X. It's crap on a stick. I watched it not once, but twice, because I was sure it couldn't be as bad as I thought it was. It was.

[ic14]

There work on Zeta Gundam was excellent imo.

[regz91]

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B-Rad Lascelle said:
Maybe some of the Zeta Gundam fans can chime in. I remember many a debate about that dub schooling Airwaves' dub for Gundam SEED and I'd like some examples of why and whether some of these VAs have done work worth seeking out in other Blue Water titles.


[/ QUOTE ]

Eh . . . for my money, a lot of the reason Zeta was so much better was that it had a better script. When a script is good, even a lousy VA has the opportunity to become a decent-sounding one. Seed could be pretty lousy in the script department throughout its run, though it did get better later on. Although complicating matters is the fact that it has so many flashbacks, so even a well-written episode could be dragged down by lousy lines from earlier episodes.

For the acting itself, I would say it was about even between the main Seed cast and the main Zeta cast. The only real difference is that the script dragged down the Seed cast, and elevated the Zeta cast. That's mainly why I think Zeta is such a better dub.

Still, considering Blue Water's reputation, I think it's pretty good when they can tie with Vancouver in the acting department. Zeta had some wonderful performances, from almost every member of the main cast, but especially from the VAs for Kamille, Emma, Reccoa, Four, Jerid, Scirroco, and Haman (don't remember any VA names, sorry). Incidental characters tended to fare much more poorly - it's obvious that Blue Water doesn't really have a lot of depth to its VA pool, so it's hard to get good VAs for the enormous cast of Zeta. But the potential is there for a really good dub for a show with a smaller cast.

I should mention G Gundam as well. By every normal standard, it's a dreadful dub - poorly written script (not really their fault, the material REALLY doesn't translate well, but still nonetheless a problem), poor VAs. But it rises up because of the performance of Mark Gatha as Domon. And it does so only because G Gundam so heavily revolves around Domon. I have never seen another show that was so dependant on the performance of a single character (if you think you have, it's because you've never seen G Gundam). If any other show had gotten the same dub - crap script, only one great VA - it would be an awful dub. There are a few other good performances (Master Asia, Allenby), but Mark Gatha carries this dub on his shoulders and almost physically pushes it to another level. Kind of worth watching just to see him do it.

And people really ought to stop giving Blue Water crap about Crest. Nobody rags on Animaze anymore for their old titles (which are AWFUL).

[BigPants]

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regz91 said:
And people really ought to stop giving Blue Water crap about Crest. Nobody rags on Animaze anymore for their old titles (which are AWFUL).

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Granted, it's an older release, but it's a release one can still buy and in collection form for a very inexpensive price. If the original poster is looking for recommendations, I'll gladly give them for ones I like, as well as ones I felt weren't very good either.

I'd do the same for an Animaze thread too.

[porkchopexpress]

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BigPants said:
If the original poster is looking for recommendations, I'll gladly give them for ones I like, as well as ones I felt weren't very good either.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, I'm always ready to learn. "I will do my best!"

Hows the Arjuna dub? I've always meant to rent it but it floats in the middle of my Netflix list somewhere.

[cxt217]

Admittingly I am a bit biased toward Blue Water, since one of my three favorite female VAs (Onalea Gilbertson) does (Or should I say, did.) dubs for them, as well as the fact that Betterman is sits right behind MSG 0083 at the top of my favorite series list. That being said...

...Blue Waters had to go through the pain of the learning curve just like everyone else. If you compare Crest of the Stars with Banner of the Stars (I have not seen Banner of the Stars 2 - and I am not going to unless it appears free on my TV, since I dislike the entire storyverse.), it was a noticeably better dub production. One big problem is that Blue Water has done (Comparatively speaking.) few dubs compared with the mighty likes of Ocean's main production in Vancouver, Bang Zoom!, and the like, which makes comparing the quality a bit difficult. And of course, their pool of VAs is rather small too.

Still, the VAs they do have does produce some fan favorites for me. Besides Gilbertson, Mark Gatha and Mariette Sluyter have been mentioned in the thread. I would add Mark Erickson and Meredith Taylor-Perry as well - I always rather liked their performances.

C.T.

[BigPants]

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porkchopexpress said:

Hows the Arjuna dub? I've always meant to rent it but it floats in the middle of my Netflix list somewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Arjuna dub is fantastic, I think. Probably my favorite dub out of Vancouver. Althouhg, I don't think Blue Water is behind it... but if they are, sweet job.

[bctaris]

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BigPants said:
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porkchopexpress said:

Hows the Arjuna dub? I've always meant to rent it but it floats in the middle of my Netflix list somewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Arjuna dub is fantastic, I think. Probably my favorite dub out of Vancouver. Althouhg, I don't think Blue Water is behind it... but if they are, sweet job.

[/ QUOTE ]

Arjuna (http://www.crystalacids.com/database/series/arjuna.html) is Vancouver, out of Ocean's Westwood studio, not Blue Water.

[porkchopexpress]

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bctaris said:
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BigPants said:
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porkchopexpress said:

Hows the Arjuna dub? I've always meant to rent it but it floats in the middle of my Netflix list somewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Arjuna dub is fantastic, I think. Probably my favorite dub out of Vancouver. Althouhg, I don't think Blue Water is behind it... but if they are, sweet job.

[/ QUOTE ]

Arjuna (http://www.crystalacids.com/database/series/arjuna.html) is Vancouver, out of Ocean's Westwood studio, not Blue Water.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah thats where all my mistakes are coming from. I thought Arjuna and SMJ were Blue Water dubs, but they just share the same ADR director with Crest/Banner 2, J2X, Galaxy Angel etc. Man, how could one director put out stuff like SMJ and Galaxy Angel /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif, and stuff like Crest and J2X? /images/graemlins/cry00000.gif Maybe it really is all in the writing.


*pushes up Arjuna on flix queue*

[Legion]

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porkchopexpress said:
Ah thats where all my mistakes are coming from. I thought Arjuna and SMJ were Blue Water dubs, but they just share the same ADR director with Crest/Banner 2, J2X, Galaxy Angel etc. Man, how could one director put out stuff like SMJ and Galaxy Angel /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif, and stuff like Crest and J2X? /images/graemlins/cry00000.gif Maybe it really is all in the writing.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is, at least for Crest (probably J-X as well) that the budget given by Bandai for those dubs wasn't very much at all, thus they had to over-rely on the 'Wordfit' system (a system that stretches or speeds up dialog artificially) in order to get the job done. For Crest, apparently most of the lines were only recorded in one or two takes. So while the ADR director (Teri Snelgrove, I think) is indeed talented, he's not good enough to produce a steller dub under such circumstances (I doubt there's anyone else who could either).

[O-chan]

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regz91 said:
I should mention G Gundam as well. By every normal standard, it's a dreadful dub - poorly written script (not really their fault, the material REALLY doesn't translate well, but still nonetheless a problem), poor VAs. But it rises up because of the performance of Mark Gatha as Domon. And it does so only because G Gundam so heavily revolves around Domon. I have never seen another show that was so dependant on the performance of a single character (if you think you have, it's because you've never seen G Gundam). If any other show had gotten the same dub - crap script, only one great VA - it would be an awful dub. There are a few other good performances (Master Asia, Allenby), but Mark Gatha carries this dub on his shoulders and almost physically pushes it to another level. Kind of worth watching just to see him do it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Y'know. I never really felt that way about the dub. I thought it was servicible and decent. There were some wooden performances and slight miscasting but nothing that made me cringe or distract me from the show. In fact when I have the time I want to add G Gundam to my anime collection. It's probably the only Gundam anime I REALLY want to own.

O-chan