Voice Acting in Berserk Animation

NightCrawler

Aeons gone, vast, mad and deathless
metime00 said:
I prefer the anime's telling of the Golden Age more than the manga's. I think it's more focused because it doesn't have to set up lore and events for the continuing story :schnoz:

I tend to agree with this mainly because i always felt the anime heightened the impact of the eclipse by making it more ominous and less telegraphed like in the manga. Everyone i talk to that followed the same course of reading the manga after watching the anime usually agrees with this. Even though i absolutely love the Black Swordsman arc, i think the first episode of the anime is pretty much perfect (excluding all the nonsensical liberties, like "Griffith became king"). I don't know if it was due to budget constraints, or if it was a storytelling decision, but it came as a blessing.
Of course the anime misses a lot of important character development, and Adon is unwatchable, with Silat being understandably cut. But i couldn't agree more with the removal of the Skullknight and especially Wyald from the anime. The later is the character that people love that baffles me the most. I see how people that read the manga first need another reminder of whats to come after several volumes passed since Zodd's appearance, but in the anime it would be redundant to have Wyald putting the breaks on the narrative.
I also appreciate how they handled the first appearance of the apostles at the camp in the anime. All is done for the sake of the final impact, you can say it's cheap, but in this medium i'm really grateful they went for the less is more approach, and to keep the supernatural as hidden as possible. It almost plays like a classic (lovecraftian) horror story, unknown evil is introduced by a deeply scarred protagonist, with the story then becoming a flashback leading up to the traumatic event that changed it all.
In the manga, you need all the backstory because it does not end at that fateful event. In the anime, there is no after the eclipse, therefore most of the storytelling liberties taken were crucial and overall a good decision by the creators.

This would probably belong in another topic.
 
Aazealh said:
I see. And the pictures move by themselves, too.

Now if only episode 339 had those flipping action pages like in Captain Underpants. http://www.scholastic.com/captainunderpants/popup_click9go.htm

Aazealh said:
That and they're infinitely better in every conceivable way, don't you think? Like, those are badass fights that actively contribute to making the series awesome.

They are definitely better than Adon (no hard feat), but they rank pretty low for me, except the Silat fight, that was pretty awesome. I particularly enjoy the human vs. human duels.

Walter said:
It is completely inconvenient when I can't intuit the intention of a scene without a musical cue. I'm not sure how anyone made it through the Harry Potter books without the mysterious music that lets us know that something magical is about to happen.

That's not it at all, I'm just very picky about music timing, and so I need to know how long a scene will take before I know that music will fit for me. Otherwise, it's distracting to have to start and stop, or to have a song playing past when it fits the tone. I stopped trying to put music as background while I read very early on reading the manga, and I'm pretty sure emotions still happened. :troll:

I didn't think I would have to say that the manga doesn't need music, but if you are going to try to accompany some work (A TV show, or a comic, or a book) with a soundtrack, it either requires you as the reader to know what's going to happen, or a sound designer who does. Reading through the manga for the first time, I did not know if a scene would be of the sort that would have both been improved by music, and long enough to really benefit from its addition.

Is there not enough benefit of the doubt to assume that I would be able to intuit the tone and emotion of a scene without music, and just meant that music is an enhancement to the experience if used effectively?

And as far as Harry Potter is concerned, I'm more of a fan of the music than any other parts of the movie/book franchise, so I won't disagree with that sentiment, even though it was sarcastic.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
metime00 said:
They are definitely better than Adon (no hard feat), but they rank pretty low for me, except the Silat fight, that was pretty awesome. I particularly enjoy the human vs. human duels.

The Bakiraka were human, just for reference. It's also the best scene featuring the members of the Band of the Falcon fighting together. No other scene showcases their skills and their teamwork like this one does, all the while conveying a real sense of danger and urgency. And then there's the fact Wyald is both the first apostle Guts manages to take down, pushing him to his limit in the process, and plays a key role in what happens afterwards: from Griffith's breakdown to Guts not having his sword with him. In fact, the events in the TV series have plot holes because of its removal. As for what it was replaced with? A terrible, nondescript fight that no one remembers.

metime00 said:
I didn't think I would have to say that the manga doesn't need music

I don't mean to pick on you, but you straight-up said that the manga would forever be at a disadvantage because it doesn't have music playing automatically. It's hard to take that kind of comment seriously when discussing why the TV adaptation is not superior to the original material.
 
metime00 said:
I imagine both that the anime will always hold a special place in my heart, but also that when I have the money to complete my set of the dark horse volumes and get volumes 4-9, reading the manga will get me to the point where it will be my favorite telling of the golden age.

I'm pretty sure you'll find that to be the case, too. I found out about Berserk through the older anime series and I still like the anime, although I recognize it's not that great, especially in comparison with the manga. Once I read the manga it just blew the anime out of the water as far as plot, character development, and pretty much anything else you could think of in my opinion. I definitely don't think the anime was terrible by any means and I liked the voice acting (some of the outtakes they did were hilarious, too!). Do yourself a favor and read the manga! :slan:
 
Aazealh said:
The Bakiraka were human, just for reference. It's also the best scene featuring the members of the Band of the Falcon fighting together. No other scene showcases their skills and their teamwork like this one does, all the while conveying a real sense of danger and urgency. And then there's the fact Wyald is both the first apostle Guts manages to take down, pushing him to his limit in the process, and plays a key role in what happens afterwards: from Griffith's breakdown to Guts not having his sword with him. In fact, the events in the TV series have plot holes because of its removal. As for what it was replaced with? A terrible, nondescript fight that no one remembers.

The teamwork during the escape with Griffith is the part I enjoy about the Bakiraka fight, but taken just as a fight, it's fairly low for me. Granted, this is in comparison to other fights in Berserk. Even a fight that's boring for Berserk is still pretty cool in the grand scheme of things.

Aazealh said:
I don't mean to pick on you, but you straight-up said that the manga would forever be at a disadvantage because it doesn't have music playing automatically. It's hard to take that kind of comment seriously when discussing why the TV adaptation is not superior to the original material.

I wouldn't say it's a disadvantage of the manga. It is a strength of the medium of television, I guess is more my point. I mean, there's a reason that people like television, and people make television shows, as opposed to just releasing a script or showing storyboards. I'm not saying that there is anything inherently superior to television over comics, but they are fundamentally different mediums, with unique characteristics to each. I will stand by the placement and use of music in the show as something that improves the anime, and is unique to it.

The manga shouldn't come packaged with little music players like those Christmas cards that play Jingle Bells, the medium of comic books doesn't need a soundtrack, it stands on its own. However, I think that the use of music plays a big part in making the anime a work that stands apart from its source material, so it's not just the manga with worse art and voice acting and some cool fight scenes cut out. A better word than "advantage" would have been "distinguishing".
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
metime00 said:
The teamwork during the escape with Griffith is the part I enjoy about the Bakiraka fight, but taken just as a fight, it's fairly low for me.

To each his own, I guess.

metime00 said:
I wouldn't say it's a disadvantage of the manga. It is a strength of the medium of television, I guess is more my point.

If it's an advantage to one, it's a disadvantage to the other. But I understand what you're trying to say. And I agree that comparing the differences between the media themselves has no merit.
 

Lithrael

Remember, always hold your apple tight
I know you guys are mostly talking about the English cast here but I have to take the opportunity to say that I enjoyed the TV series' Japanese cast just so, so much back when I first saw Berserk. I loved that Casca was Asuka and Chun-Li; I loved that Judeau was Kaworu, Xellos, and Wizardmon; I loved that Griffith was Sephiroth, Mummymon and Oikawa. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence was WAY more fun being all full of Guts' attack yells, and I was very glad he was Guts in the PS2 game as well. I just really liked Canna's Guts and his performance in general.

By contrast, while there are a lot of English voice actors I like in their own shows, there aren't many dub actors that have put in performances that really made me sit up and pay attention. Pretty much just Jamieson Price - who gets a LOT of points for an even more compelling Oikawa than Morikawa's. Though there are a lot of guys that do a good job: David Kaye and Richard Epcar both do a fine Batou, for instance. It seems like dubbing is really kind of a tough and thankless job in that respect - it's 90% just hitting the right cues and even if you can be really good you're still at the mercy of how good your team is, even more than in regular voice acting.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Lithrael said:
I know you guys are mostly talking about the English cast here but I have to take the opportunity to say that I enjoyed the TV series' Japanese cast just so, so much back when I first saw Berserk. I loved that Casca was Asuka and Chun-Li; I loved that Judeau was Kaworu, Xellos, and Wizardmon; I loved that Griffith was Sephiroth, Mummymon and Oikawa. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence was WAY more fun being all full of Guts' attack yells, and I was very glad he was Guts in the PS2 game as well. I just really liked Canna's Guts and his performance in general.

By contrast, while there are a lot of English voice actors I like in their own shows, there aren't many dub actors that have put in performances that really made me sit up and pay attention. Pretty much just Jamieson Price - who gets a LOT of points for an even more compelling Oikawa than Morikawa's. Though there are a lot of guys that do a good job: David Kaye and Richard Epcar both do a fine Batou, for instance. It seems like dubbing is really kind of a tough and thankless job in that respect - it's 90% just hitting the right cues and even if you can be really good you're still at the mercy of how good your team is, even more than in regular voice acting.

Thank you for bringing us back on topic, and I can't agree more. I've always found the Japanese dub for the TV series to be infinitely superior to the US one. To be honest, the US dub is so bad to me that I find it painful to listen to for an extended period of time.
 

Lithrael

Remember, always hold your apple tight
Yeah, I can't really watch it either. Though I agree with the popular sentiment that the out-takes are pretty fun.

On the flip side, though, I cannot begin to fathom the way Hiroyuki Yoshino played Isidro in the PS2 game. It's baffling. To the point that I assume there must be some pop culture trope kind of thing they're doing that I am completely unaware of.
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
After I watched the anime in English a couple of times, I've decided to only watch it in Japanese with the English subtitles. Except when I'm lazy and I don't want to read subtitles I watch it with the voice over. But I definitely enjoy more the Japanese version with sub.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Lithrael said:
I loved that Griffith was Sephiroth, Mummymon and Oikawa. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence was WAY more fun being all full of Guts' attack yells, and I was very glad he was Guts in the PS2 game as well. I just really liked Canna's Guts and his performance in general.

Even though I don't think Canna completely nailed Guts' tonality (he's a bit high-pitched for a 6' dude like Guts), his battle cry was iconic, and I still hear it when revisiting certain scenes in the manga. As for the dub, I don't really have anything positive to say about it. I try to pretend that it doesn't exist.

Lithrael said:
I cannot begin to fathom the way Hiroyuki Yoshino played Isidro in the PS2 game. It's baffling. To the point that I assume there must be some pop culture trope kind of thing they're doing that I am completely unaware of.

Comedy can be a difficult thing to convey to other cultures. I would guess it made sense for its very select audience, and was just fucking baffling to the rest of the world. Or it was just straight up bad all around :isidro:
 
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