At
Sakura Con, the people who run the Bang Zoom dub studio made a rare
convention appearance outside of Anime Expo. Kaeko
Sakamoto (left) and Eric Sherman (right) once had to rent studio space,
but now they've grown to the point that they have four studios of their
own and keep them busy with anime dubs for companies such as Geneon.
The company's leaders spoke openly about their goals and their limits.
Both are very interested in keeping dubs and anime English translations
faithful to the Japanese originals, but they're also aware that it's
hard to achieve that goal and produce a dub that makes sense. "There
was some stuff out there that shows they didn't care about the original
and they needed to make it more palatable for the American market,"
Sherman said about Bang Zoom's competitors. "We don't believe in that."
So
Bang Zoom's goal is to create accurate dubs that also are entertaining.
"It's really one of the most challenging aspects to our jobs," said
Sherman. "We're constantly battling that - we get into fights in the
studio over that. We want to be faithful but sometimes people say they
don't understand." Among the challenges: Bang Zoom wants translated
anime to maintain its exotic, Japanese feeling while making sure the
shows maintain stories that reach English-speaking viewers. That means wrestling with
questions such as how to handle details such as honorifics and personal
titles, Japanese puns and references to Japanese popular culture; if
you leave those details in, will everyone understand? Sherman feels
Bang Zoom's translations should challenge the viewers to learn to
understand Japanese culture. "A lot of people approach anime as being
palatable to as many people as possible. We feel that what makes things
interesting is that they can learn there are things that they don't see
every day, and if they learn more about the culture, the joke may
become funny."
Sakamoto
serves as the casting director, and she often chooses the dub actors with
the original voice performances in mind. "First I'll watch everything in
Japanese so carefully. Maybe I'm trying too much - with the Iapanese
seiyuu's voice, sometimes I try to match the voice with am American
actor. An actor's face and voice comes to my brain - this actor should
do this voice. I don't know how it happens, but it'll come to my
brain." Matching performances means matching the intensity of the
original and not necessarily the pitch of the original voice, she said.
Sakamoto noted that the voices of Japanese actors, especially the
females, are going to have higher pitches than what is expected by
American audiences. If Bang Zoom seems to use the same actors over and
over again, Sakamoto said it's because there's a limited number of
performers who can handle the challenges of giving a convincing reading
of the lines within the limits of the original animation. However, the
Bang Zoom people said they're always hoping to find new talent who can
handle dubbing work. All of this comes as Bang Zoom is ready to finish
one ambitious project, the GPX Moto Grand Prix series with animation
from Production I.G. There also are long-range plans for Bang Zoom to
create their own original animation from scratch; Sherman and Sakamoto
said that could happen in the next couple of years.
At
Sakura Con, the people who run the Bang Zoom dub studio made a rare
convention appearance outside of Anime Expo. Kaeko
Sakamoto (left) and Eric Sherman (right) once had to rent studio space,
but now they've grown to the point that they have four studios of their
own and keep them busy with anime dubs for companies such as Geneon.
The company's leaders spoke openly about their goals and their limits.
Both are very interested in keeping dubs and anime English translations
faithful to the Japanese originals, but they're also aware that it's
hard to achieve that goal and produce a dub that makes sense. "There
was some stuff out there that shows they didn't care about the original
and they needed to make it more palatable for the American market,"
Sherman said about Bang Zoom's competitors. "We don't believe in that."
So
Bang Zoom's goal is to create accurate dubs that also are entertaining.
"It's really one of the most challenging aspects to our jobs," said
Sherman. "We're constantly battling that - we get into fights in the
studio over that. We want to be faithful but sometimes people say they
don't understand." Among the challenges: Bang Zoom wants translated
anime to maintain its exotic, Japanese feeling while making sure the
shows maintain stories that reach English-speaking viewers. That means wrestling with
questions such as how to handle details such as honorifics and personal
titles, Japanese puns and references to Japanese popular culture; if
you leave those details in, will everyone understand? Sherman feels
Bang Zoom's translations should challenge the viewers to learn to
understand Japanese culture. "A lot of people approach anime as being
palatable to as many people as possible. We feel that what makes things
interesting is that they can learn there are things that they don't see
every day, and if they learn more about the culture, the joke may
become funny."
Sakamoto
serves as the casting director, and she often chooses the dub actors with
the original voice performances in mind. "First I'll watch everything in
Japanese so carefully. Maybe I'm trying too much - with the Iapanese
seiyuu's voice, sometimes I try to match the voice with am American
actor. An actor's face and voice comes to my brain - this actor should
do this voice. I don't know how it happens, but it'll come to my
brain." Matching performances means matching the intensity of the
original and not necessarily the pitch of the original voice, she said.
Sakamoto noted that the voices of Japanese actors, especially the
females, are going to have higher pitches than what is expected by
American audiences. If Bang Zoom seems to use the same actors over and
over again, Sakamoto said it's because there's a limited number of
performers who can handle the challenges of giving a convincing reading
of the lines within the limits of the original animation. However, the
Bang Zoom people said they're always hoping to find new talent who can
handle dubbing work. All of this comes as Bang Zoom is ready to finish
one ambitious project, the GPX Moto Grand Prix series with animation
from Production I.G. There also are long-range plans for Bang Zoom to
create their own original animation from scratch; Sherman and Sakamoto
said that could happen in the next couple of years.
