Best Kinds of Consultants Ever

If I went back and edited posts, these would probably make it into my old "Quotable Transformers" post. Presenting Sixshot, best consultant ever.



(Seriously, that is how the Autobots do things. It's probably why the war is taking so long, since it means they rarely ever harm the Decepticons.)

Cyclonus is not nearly as awesome a consultant.



For those who are wondering, these clips are from the RTM 1/Omni Productions dub of the Japanese Transformers cartoons, which are often affectionately known as the "crackhead" dubs.

As noted on the Transformers Wiki (on the aforelinked page): "Characters seem unable to show even the most basic emotion convincingly."

It actually really, really reminds me of Space Thunder Kids (which I sadly don't have a category for). I swear they've got some of the same voice actors in there.

-Signing off.

Super Robot Profiles: Voltron

Voltron is one of those really odd ducks. It's one of the most famous and popular super robot series that aired in the United States-one of the few I would consider describing as "mainstream." But its history is a rather tangled one.



After its origins as Golion, Voltron was heavily edited and dubbed under the name Voltron, and released here.



Oops! Who was that?

That was Vehicle Voltron. Chances are, even if you're familiar with the other ("Lion") Voltron, you've never or rarely heard of this one. (Darned shame-his toy was half again as tall and a bit more fun, and that was after he lost most of his accessories.) Vehicle Voltron was based on a different series called Dairugger XV. So, here we go, Voltron:



Whoops! That's not Voltron either. That is Lightspeed God Albegas (or something like), who was almost a third Voltron ("Gladiator" Voltron-and there were toys released under that name, by the way). That is a fan-made trailer that was entered in an official contest. So, let's try again:



Man, this is embarrassing. That's Daltanious, who was almost some other Voltron in some stage of development. (Voltron fans rejoice-you dodged a bullet.)

So, here's Voltron.



Anyway, Voltron is quite the odd duck, as I mentioned. Why is it odd? First, it was popular enough that, even though Golion creator Toei had no intention of continuing the series, its dub "owners" were hungry for more material. So they hired a Korean animation team to produce a second, less-well-animated season, and a movie as well (which provided a crossover between the two Voltrons, who were totally unrelated in their respective Japanese incarnations).

Odder still, while Toei has not displayed any interest in Voltron since then, World Event Productions decided more recently that, with the resurgence of popularity of Transformers with the Beast Wars series, it was once again Voltron's time. First, they re-released the Korean-animated series with updated intros (a later one of which used extensive CGI animation). However, this was only to buy time for their true diabolical plan: "3D" Voltron!



(The sad thing is, while the show wasn't bad by the standards of the time in terms of animation quality, it found itself sitting next to another but far superior CGI program, War Planets/Shadow Raiders. This series was produced by Mainframe Entertainment, the same company that created the Beast Wars series-small world.)

There are even plans, no doubt inspired by Transformers' more recent and even greater success, to produce a live-action movie. The sad thing is, and this is something that its producers don't seem to realize, the similarities between Voltron and Transformers are actually superficial ones-they have science-fictional themes, Japanese roots, large robots, and originated in the '80s. While these tie the two together in the minds of many, they are basically the only major features they have in common. (Off the top of my head, I could probably list a few dozen series that these terms described.) So Voltron's owners (Toei no longer seems to have the rights to the series) are dooming it to playing second fiddle to Transformers.

Kinda sad for the Defender of the Universe.

Super Robot Profiles: Grendizer

One of the later robot series created by Go Nagai back in the late '70s, Grendizer had a lot going for him. There was a supporting cast member taken from an earlier series that was extremely popular (in fact, Kouji Kabuto had been the main character of Mazinger Z, a series which not only reinvented the robot-based genre but probably to some extent anime itself, and which commanded something like seventy percent of all television viewers in Japan within its time slot), the fact that it was created by Go Nagai, one of the hot commodities of the time period and the genre, and the fact that the robot was, by the standards of the time, pretty well designed and fairly original.



Not to mention, in the mini-mini-mini-series that was a nice little extra on a DVD set based on all of Go Nagai's robots teaming up and fighting for the thinnest of all possible excu-er, reasons, Grendizer teamed up with a robot fifteen to twenty years his junior to kick giant freaky Japanese mutant samurai demon booty but good.



(Yes, that was the entire series I was talking about.)

So why is Grendizer so bloody obscure by even the standards of the genre?

Here's a hint.



ARGH THE PAIN. While Grendizer's French, Arabic (!), and Italian dubs were very popular, the English dubs were close to as bad as dubs get.



PLEASE HAVE MERCY.

Stupid Video Of The Day: Punches In The Face

There's this really stupid funny DVD out there called Space Thunder Kids. Aside from the hideously funny title, Space Thunder Kids is amusing because it's made up of spliced-together footage from like fifteen different cheap Korean anime and was dubbed so badly it's a crime against humanity. If you find one, like giant robots or space battles, and don't mind getting your brain scrambled, I highly recommend it-it's only a dollar.

Here is a "music video" that someone made from Space Thunder Kids footage.



Because Chris Sims only posts his kicks to the face once a week.

East Vs. West: Why "Dubs Suck"

Lots of people blast dubbed anime for being stupid. No matter the quality of voice acting, rewriting, or whatever, you'll always hear at least one person announce "The Japanese version was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better."

Do you know why the Japanese version always sounds better?

It's because Japanese is an inherently cooler sounding language than English.

Anything and everything sounds cooler in Japanese, or spoken by someone whose first language is Japanese. (Well, almost. I'm sure people would find a million examples that weren't. But that's not the point.) Japanese is one of those languages that is just blessed with a "sounding cool" factor (another language that I particularly like is German).

I'll grant you, part of this is because I don't speak Japanese, and thus don't understand the really stupid parts. For that matter, for some reason, those silly Japanese think English sounds cool. But a Japanese guy shouting GaoGaiGar (actual pronunciation: GAO GAI GAH) is going to sound better than some guy, with perfect English enunciation, saying GowGuyGrr. (The clip of a dorky English-speaking narrator saying GowGuyGrr can be found here. Considering the quality of the rest of the VAs, where did they find such a dope to do the narration?) This particular dub was just really lucky to find possibly the only English speaker in the world who doesn't sound ridiculous shouting anime attack names.

EDIT: Okay, they improved on that really dopey narrator (the previously shown clip was apparently an online preview, and this is from the actual release), but he still doesn't sound as good as the Japanese one:



Seriously.