Koi Kaze english dub [Archive]

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Damaramu

01-03-2006, 05:20 AM

Got these discs mainly due to some of the good things i've read on these forums, but took a while to get to them, mainly due to the infamy of the subject and some other things i'd read about it. Still to watch the last volume.

Overall the music, pacing and animation blend well into a kind of slow, memorable step with nothing feeling rushed and the impression that everything is given just enough time to be explored and dwelled upon.
The dub sounds great, and i can see why several of the nominations for 'hidden gem' performances were given to these characters, as well as the director.

Michelle Ruff's Kaname Chidori sounds naturally fun and authoritative. Favourite line so far was how she subtly suggested going for drinks to Koshiro.

The maiL man delivers another creepy-but-can't-help-liking-it performance as Odagiri. While not as manic as usual, this character still borders on bizarre within the bounds of this series, yet seems so....fitting. Not too sure if he's meant to serve as a living warning or reminder of the impossibility of the central relationship, or just comedy.

Koshiro was a bit of a surpise initially, since i'd kind of gotten used to hearing Patrick Seitz's voice from more collected, older characters, like Keigo Onishi. While the character isn't exactly young, he does sound muddled and uncertain to fit well. And he does seem to grunt a bit. During the first volume, i thought he was harsh, foolish and somewhat messed up, but with some more varied growth in the second volume, i'm feeling that he is messed up but sympathising with him more since it's all he knows. The emotion, quick anger and frustration was great, and surprised me in episode 4.
Oh and i may not have a good ear for it, but was the younger Koshiro also voiced by Patrick, or someone else? I couldn't find a separate listing in the credits.

Nanoka sounds a typically innocent and adorable youngster, except during the flashbacks to age 2. Tiffany Hsieh brought out the terrible twos very convincingly in a short amount of time. In a bit of a scary way, i sensed some of the similar akwardness that may have helped stunt Koshiro in some ways, but the character sounded disarmingly cute (emphasising the negatives in some of Koshiro's interactions with her) and honest. I even kind of cringed with her the way she mentioned of cramps in episode 3, rather than the mere mention of 'female problems' as Guts so eloquently put it in Berserk.

The buzz about the dub was just enough to get me to buy this, but this series is still a bit of a hard sell. While at the moment i'm enjoying the awesome character portrayals, there are still things that make one uncomfortable watching, and it's a hard hurdle to overcome in considering a new series to buy. It's taken a while to get around to it, but i'm glad i got to check out this really great show, and a damn fine dub.
It's just that it may take some time to work up the courage to re-watch it again

Does Koi Kaze sometimes induce a desire to yell 'no' at what some of the characters were thinking, or could other's get past that more easily than i could/can?

The Pirate Queen

01-03-2006, 07:43 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Damaramu said:
Does Koi Kaze sometimes induce a desire to yell 'no' at what some of the characters were thinking, or could other's get past that more easily than i could/can?

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, very much so - it's not supposed to be a comfortable series to watch.

bctaris

01-03-2006, 07:17 PM

Nice write-up, Damaramu. Much appreciated (not that I didn't already know by now that the dub is probably worth my time to get around to hearing /images/graemlins/wink.gif) but nice to see.

Damaramu

01-03-2006, 08:38 PM

Oh god. I watched the last volume, and i know i won't have that difficult an experience watching an anime as long as i live (well, i'm pretty sure). Yet it ended in a weird kind of limbo.

I thought things had passed by the critical point in episode 9, but that was just a warm up. Episode 10 gave Tara Hudson more time to shine as Nanoka's worried, but mostly upbeat friend. The time she wasn't upbeat left a huge impression, and from around that, the tone of the series shifted down some. It was a great and welcome surprise to hear from Erika Weinstein again; the sibling vibe with Tara Hudson was fun. Although the show didn't give too much time to dwell on that.

Episode 11 contained what i can now see was probably the best moment in dubbing for all the new releases i've seen from 2005. It's just after Koshiro forces Chidori to hide with him when he sees Nanoka outside his apartment. Michelle Ruff's Chidori breaks out the cold, grim and then disgusted that i don't think i've felt before and Patrick Seitz's Koshiro responds with frayed, harried and desperate. Yep, I cried and that was kind of the last chance i had to let that be the foremost emotion experienced.

The final two episodes were kind of gut wrenching, and kind of had me thinking of the conclusions left to them, but while hinted at and one of them kind of explored, none of them happened, leaving things doomed.
Tiffany Hsieh's Nanoka still sounded kind of naiive, but doomed. Wonder if Bitterman's watched this yet, everything is SO DOOMED!
Her confrontation with Chidori was touching, but she sounded so young and out of her depth.
She creeped me out several times with a kind of ambivalent sounding "doesn't matter either way. I'm OK with it if you are" and it was used at the scariest of junctions.

Koshiro was several kinds of wobbly and broken until finally kind of giving in. Best performance i've heard from Patrick.

Koi Kaze is a very moving and strong series, but really, really hard to watch. The lead performances got me attached to them, and i was muddling through the episodes trying to figure out what they were thinking, and figure out 'why?' that path had to be chosen.

This series may be cursed with a small audience willing to watch it, but the performances throughout were astounding. If a re-view is to change my mind, that probably won't happen for quite some time though. 

i've only just finished watching and suck at separating dub from content. Any comments about both welcome.

evilarrex

01-03-2006, 09:12 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Damaramu said:
i've only just finished watching and suck at separating dub from content. Any comments about both welcome.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not that squeemish.
Dub and content both rocked. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif
Koi Kaze was flat out the best anime release of 2005.

Magic_Knight

01-03-2006, 09:20 PM

One of my favorite scenes in the whole show is when Kaname visits Koshiro's apartment when only Nanoka is there. After some pressure from Kaname, Nanoka gets really angry and calls her an "Old hag" and confesses her feelings for her brother. The acting in this scene is perfect and almost scary as it shows a side of Nanoka we haven't seen before. It really shows how badly she wants Koshiro.

Fantastic series, and another fantastic dub from New Gen.

populuxe

01-03-2006, 11:34 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Damaramu said:
i've only just finished watching and suck at separating dub from content. Any comments about both welcome.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty amazing job Liam did, wasn't it? Koi Kaze has a significant hurdle to overcome, as you say, but the dub isn't going to be one of them. I think your writeups are right on the money, and closely parallel how I feel about the show. Every volume made me glad I bought it, but the honesty of the emotions was so real and raw, it's not an easy show to watch.

B-Rad Lascelle

01-04-2006, 12:14 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Damaramu said:
Episode 11 contained what i can now see was probably the best moment in dubbing for all the new releases i've seen from 2005. It's just after Koshiro forces Chidori to hide with him when he sees Nanoka outside his apartment. Michelle Ruff's Chidori breaks out the cold, grim and then disgusted that i don't think i've felt before and Patrick Seitz's Koshiro responds with frayed, harried and desperate. Yep, I cried and that was kind of the last chance i had to let that be the foremost emotion experienced.

[/ QUOTE ]
Exposed (http://www.dubawards.com/Exposed.mp3) (Michelle Ruff & Patrick Seitz)

[ QUOTE ]
Magic Knight said:
One of my favorite scenes in the whole show is when Kaname visits Koshiro's apartment when only Nanoka is there. After some pressure from Kaname, Nanoka gets really angry and calls her an "Old hag" and confesses her feelings for her brother. The acting in this scene is perfect and almost scary as it shows a side of Nanoka we haven't seen before. It really shows how badly she wants Koshiro.

[/ QUOTE ]
Chidori Makes a Stand (http://www.dubawards.com/Chidori Makes a Stand.mp3) (Michelle Ruff & Tiffany Hsieh)
The Rest of the Clips from Volume 3 (http://forums.animeondvd.com/showflat.php?Number=1090701)

Damaramu's done about as good a job as anybody encapsulating just why Koi Kaze's dub is so damn brilliant. It works BECAUSE of how unsettled it makes the audience feel. I've watched this series through several times in both languages and am still positively blown away by how each line is delivered, how naturally the dialogue flows and how raw the emotions are. The dub not only does the already stellar Japanese language track justice but it blows it out of the water.

I plan to go into more detail in a week or two with exactly what makes this dub so special in my year-end overview but I'll go on record now by saying that Koi Kaze was my easy choice for Best Dub of 2005. It may have helped in the end to rationalize that Wolf's Rain was more of a 2004 dub and Princess Tutu was more of a 2006 dub... but in the end, I'd have probably voted for it regardless.

Patrick Seitz's Koshiro is also my pick for best male performance of the year. I believe Bob Buchholz's Hubb Lebowski and a half-dozen Chris Patton characters make up the remainder of my Top 10. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

evilarrex

01-04-2006, 06:45 PM

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B-Rad Lascelle said:
It may have helped in the end to rationalize that Wolf's Rain was more of a 2004 dub and Princess Tutu was more of a 2006 dub... but in the end, I'd have probably voted for it regardless.

[/ QUOTE ]

True. If there had been more Tutu, it may have given Koi Kaze a run for its money.
Such a pity that people find the subject matter of a series like Koi Kaze disturbing but are happy to guzzle in stuff like Elfen Lied. /images/graemlins/relief1.gif Feh. It deserves a much wider audience.

Damaramu

01-04-2006, 08:48 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Arrex said:
True. If there had been more Tutu, it may have given Koi Kaze a run for its money.
Such a pity that people find the subject matter of a series like Koi Kaze disturbing but are happy to guzzle in stuff like Elfen Lied. /images/graemlins/relief1.gif Feh. It deserves a much wider audience.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, with Elfen Lied the violence is kind of like the panties in Najica. You just accept them as window dressing after a while. It's not as crucial as the issue is within Koi Kaze, and the characters didn't grow on me anywhere near as much as with this show.

Thanks for the clips, B-Rad. I was holding off my votes for the 2005 end of year awards, but after yesterday, the bias in what i'd picked should be obvious.

I"m still feeling kind of affected and confused over that last volume. I don't know of s a word strong enough to describe what everyone who worked on this accomplished. So for now all i can do is say "thanks" to them.

evilarrex

01-08-2006, 07:31 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Damaramu said:
[ QUOTE ]
Arrex said:
True. If there had been more Tutu, it may have given Koi Kaze a run for its money.
Such a pity that people find the subject matter of a series like Koi Kaze disturbing but are happy to guzzle in stuff like Elfen Lied. /images/graemlins/relief1.gif Feh. It deserves a much wider audience.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, with Elfen Lied the violence is kind of like the panties in Najica. You just accept them as window dressing after a while. It's not as crucial as the issue is within Koi Kaze, and the characters didn't grow on me anywhere near as much as with this show.

[/ QUOTE ]

See? There is something wrong with that! Kid Slaughtering Violence and Upskirt Panties shots Ok and Koi Kaze not? What kind of twisted standards do we have?

Damaramu

01-10-2006, 04:53 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Arrex said:
See? There is something wrong with that! Kid Slaughtering Violence and Upskirt Panties shots Ok and Koi Kaze not? What kind of twisted standards do we have?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily OK, but i guess the discomfort you experience from these situations is proportional to your attachment to the characters in them. And 'gore' and 'panties' pretty much seem to have their own genres in anime now, so events like that just fall into a more 'established' (or well worn) standard for some viewers.
As rare as a show like Koi Kaze is, it's a wonderful thing it was handled so well.

On another note, I'm still unsure from the first viewing, but does anyone know who voiced young Koshiro?