mae@aplvax.UUCP (Mary Anne Espenshade) (01/16/85)
This is to second Moriarty's review (F) of Macross #1. I only looked at a friend's copy, fortunately saving myself the money. What makes it worse for me is that I *have* seen the original and it is a beautifully done series. The show is a fine example of the best of current Japanese animation by four of their top studios. >> Moriarty >> The art first: it has amateur written all over it, and it is all the worse >> because it tries to do an imitation of the Japanese form of comic art, and >> fails miserably. The American comic attempts to copy actual frames from the series and comes out looking like they let a small child attempt to trace the cels. Some scenes are exactly recognizable from the first episode in the comic but *very* poorly redrawn. >> Carl Macek shows just how much a poor >> translator can do (however, to be fair, Carl may be writing from the >> English-language version of "Macross", so that is why I am not sure I wish >> to condemn him right off). Apparently there are going to be two English-language versions of the series. The first, a reasonably direct translation, has the first three episodes already available on video tape. A version for tv will be cut from this, removing such unexeptable tv fare as adult relationships and the deaths of major characters. Just looking at the comic turned me off so completely, I didn't bother to actually read it, so I don't know which version Macek used. I have the video tape and they did a pretty good job. The opening music is something newly written (which is a pity because I liked the original theme music) but the background music throughout the episodes is unchanged. Most of the characters seem to have retained their original names and relationships. >> my recommendation is, go out and buy the (rather expensive) "Space Cruiser >> Yamoto" (sp?) if you want to see what good art and a not-poorly translated >> Japanese story are like. Definately buy "Space Cruiser Yamato", so they can make enough money to finish the rest of the volumes. And while reading it remember that it is an example of the best Japanese animation art 12 years ago and the original of Macross in infinitely better. >> I saw the "Galaxy Express" movie and was extremely impressed >> (and somewhat moved). I would also cause mass mayhem if someone would do a >> full translation of "Captain Harlock" for those of us who appreciate great >> animation with a great story and characters and (constant ranting from here >> on out...) -- I happen to have seen one episode from a video anthology that >> was translated, and it was great. Glad as I was to see the English versions of Galaxy Express and Captain Harlock, both were pretty wretched translations if you have seen the original. The voices for Galaxy Express were especially bad. Star Blazers (translated from Space Cruiser Yamato) remains the best job, though even that has some large holes near the end and a few terrible choices for voices. And just when we thought that Battle of the Planets would remain unsurpassed as the totally worst distruction of a Japanese series (Gatchaman) for American tv, along comes Voltron, combining two unrelated series (Go Lion and Dairugger XV) and trying to pass it off as one show. The tape version of Macross may well set a new high for an American version, but the comic was a big mistake and I don't have very high hopes for what will show up on tv. Mary Anne Espenshade ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!mae
jrb@wdl1.UUCP (01/17/85)
Personnally, I would rather see more sub-titled releases of Japanese animation. I like to hear the original voices. As far as the changing of names in the dubbed Macross, most of them don't make a lot of sense, eg: Hikaru Ichijoe --> Rick Yamata Misa --> Lisa Hugo (the captain) --> Henry On the other hand, Minmay stayed the same. Perhaps in the case of Hikaru they thought that Americans wouldn't be able to pronounce it (I know that I haven't had much success). The others don't seem to make any sense at all. John R Blaker UUCP: ...!fortune!wdl1!jrb ARPA: jrb@FORD-WDL1 blaker@FORD-WDL2