The competition for September 2008 in the ADR Awards witnessed the slow but steady return to relative stability juxtaposed against the locomotive rush of a popular old ghost of the contest. Delayed Geneon titles continued to trickle in from FUNimation's new distribution, and combined with FUNimation's own in-house production, created a slim plurality of the titles up for nomination. But it was Hellsing Ultimate Vol. 4, one of those Geneon titles, from old favorite New Generation Pictures, which dominated attention on both sides the contest, even at the expense of recently popular winners, Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage, and Lucky Star. Lucy Star Vol. 3, in voting, was the only stiff challenge to the inevitable Hellsing Ultimate sweep, which ushered in awards for Kari Wahlgren as Rip Van Winkle, Gildart Jackson as The Major, and Taliesin Jaffe and cast and crew for the overall dub.
This is the fourth award for Wahlgren, the first for Jackson, and with the month's dub award, completes six awards for the title.
Thanks!
(To nominate performances and dubs in the current awards for October 2008, please visit this thread. Open through November 30th.)
Best Dub and Performances for September 2008: Hellsing Ultimate Volume IV
New Generation Pictures and director Taliesin Jaffe put together another fantastic dub for the Hellsing Ultimate series and Volume IV is voted the best dub of September 2008. Given the talent on-board a good dub was pretty much expected, but the volume goes beyond good craftsmanship and maintaining a ship on the right course. This time Nazi vampires have all the best lines and Jaffe delivers a full dosage to create a dub that's nothing short of awesome. It's as sweet an experience as watching rounds from Alucard's hand cannon ripping through someone's head.
The fourth installment unleashes the vampire Rip Van Winkle (Kari Wahlgren); and the shadowy Major (Gildart Jackson) of the Millennium Organization steps out of the shadows for his righteous introduction. These are the centerpieces of this volume. Jaffe leads Wahlgren and Jackson to massively entertaining performances that were voted Best Actress and Best Actor--a Hellsing Ultimate sweep of the ADRA's for September 2008.
Wahlgren creates a memorable Rip Van Winkle, that twig limbed, giant musket toting, singing, phrase chanting, glasses wearing Nazi vampire with a Cheshire Cat grin. It's a great two part performance. In the first part, Rip Van Winkle relishes in her killing spree, smiling and singing (sung by Wahlgren in German) through the carnage. Wahlgren's inflections give the vampire a looseness and free-spiritedness that feed into the crescendo of Rip's bravado when she's singing for joy after a kill. The joy abruptly crashes as soon as Alucard makes his presence known. Enter the grueling second part, about ten minutes of despair and agony that Rip Van Winkle experiences at the hands of Alucard. Riveting.
Jackson wins Best Actor on a speech The Major gives professing his love for war. The speech itself is the kind of thing I'd want every warmongering evil bad guy to say about making war. It's cool enough that it gets a karaoke track on the special edition, so now I can practice it for the next big bad evil guy speech I want to use for the tabletop RPG I run. Jackson moves it past a cool thing for bad guys to say into making it The Major's reason for being. When he utters his grand warmongering, it expresses his desire for war as pleasure. Jackson's delivery of the speech pulls The Major out from the shadow of random Nazi boss guy into a figure it would be exhilarating to watch ruin the world.
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