The Azumanga Dub...

billy_wires · Post by **billy_wires** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 11:25 am

In the book they justify it quite well, I thought. They say that the Osakan area is mostly buisness oriented, so by using a Texan accent from around the Houston area they give the American equivilent. So at least they have a reason.

Juicy J · Post by **Juicy J** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:09 pm

Houston is a business area? wow....and here i was thinking that LA and New York were the biggest business area's of the US. (oh wait they are) =/ So no, using a texan accent makes no sense in THAT sense....i understand that americans only really have 2 different accents....normal and hick so they had to take hick...but its such an extreme difference when its in english, not subtle at all.

Juicy J · Post by **Juicy J** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:11 pm

um yeah...i read over that and it seems...atleast on my computer, that things changed on their own and now it makes a lot less sense then it did before.....if this is true for you ...just forget it

Joykiller · Post by **Joykiller** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:13 pm

Juicy J wrote:Houston is a business area? wow....and here i was thinking that LA and New York were the biggest business area's of the US. (oh wait they are) =/ So no, using a texan accent makes no sense in THAT sense....i understand that americans only really have 2 different accents....normal and hick so they had to take hick...but its such an extreme difference when its in english, not subtle at all.

We have 4 if you include creole, and 'g fresh supafly gangsta pimp illiterate' as being accents

6 if you include Mass. and NJ accents as well. The list goes on and on....

Akai Rurouni · Post by **Akai Rurouni** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:23 pm

Joykiller wrote:
Juicy J wrote:Houston is a business area? wow....and here i was thinking that LA and New York were the biggest business area's of the US. (oh wait they are) =/ So no, using a texan accent makes no sense in THAT sense....i understand that americans only really have 2 different accents....normal and hick so they had to take hick...but its such an extreme difference when its in english, not subtle at all.
We have 4 if you include creole, and 'g fresh supafly gangsta pimp illiterate' as being accents 6 if you include Mass. and NJ accents as well. The list goes on and on....

NJ is kinda odd actually, 'cause people in North Jersey (NY suburbs) talk a little differently from people in South Jersey (Philly suburbs). Then there's the little space between North and South that consists mainly of Princeton and tomatos...

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:26 pm

Joykiller wrote:
Juicy J wrote:Houston is a business area? wow....and here i was thinking that LA and New York were the biggest business area's of the US. (oh wait they are) =/ So no, using a texan accent makes no sense in THAT sense....i understand that americans only really have 2 different accents....normal and hick so they had to take hick...but its such an extreme difference when its in english, not subtle at all.
We have 4 if you include creole, and 'g fresh supafly gangsta pimp illiterate' as being accents 6 if you include Mass. and NJ accents as well. The list goes on and on....

I'll say it again:

I have lived in New Jersey all my life, and I have never met a New Jerseyan who ever said "Joisey", except in mocking the people who think we say it that way.

I know Touji got a Brooklyn accent in the NGE manga (from Viz), which I thought was quite reasonable and worked well with his personality. I'm pretty sure Osaka's accent is not southern in the Azumanga manga (also from ADV), but I don't remember it well enough to know what it actually is.

Akai Rurouni · Post by **Akai Rurouni** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:29 pm

Scintilla wrote: I have lived in New Jersey all my life, and I have never met a New Jerseyan who ever said "Joisey", except in mocking the people who think we say it that way.

I lived there from ages 2 to 18, and I can verify that fact. =)
I think "Joisey" might be how people from "Bawston" say it though. New Jersanians do say "walk", "talk", and "water" (just to think of a few) a little differently than here in the midwest (where I am now).

Kai Stromler · Post by **Kai Stromler** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:33 pm

Joykiller wrote:
Juicy J wrote:Houston is a business area? wow....and here i was thinking that LA and New York were the biggest business area's of the US. (oh wait they are) =/ So no, using a texan accent makes no sense in THAT sense....i understand that americans only really have 2 different accents....normal and hick so they had to take hick...but its such an extreme difference when its in english, not subtle at all.
We have 4 if you include creole, and 'g fresh supafly gangsta pimp illiterate' as being accents 6 if you include Mass. and NJ accents as well. The list goes on and on....

In the manga version of AzuDai (also translated by ADV) Osaka's accent is somewhere between Brooklyn and Newark. Half of my family is from the Garden State, and I cannot agree more with this matching to 'kansaijin'.

Unfortunately America is not prepared to accept a cute Jersey girl*, and so the fanboys would be up in arms if this was preserved in the dub. Enter Texas.

AkR: Up here in Bahstin we pronounce 'New Jersey' at Noo Je'hsey.

*which was actually the m-f- point of the Osaka character, but what the hell

--K

SarahtheBoring · Post by **SarahtheBoring** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:37 pm

Accents - trust me, it's better than making an accent up. One of the characters in Yami no Matsuei has an accent (which one escapes me, they only mention it once), and in the dub they made up an imaginary accent which sounds like Fake Pseudo-British Goofy Professor 1.0. The results are um... yeah. Not good. We're tuned to identify accents out of habit, I think, and a made-up accent comes across as bad acting even if it's not meant to be. It sounds jarring because it doesn't fit a pattern that we're familiar with. (Not that I'm bashing the dub, because I don't mind the rest of it.)

So if they're going to dub something, and need to note that a character has a different accent than everyone else - which is important in a case like Osaka's, because several jokes revolve around her accent - it sounds more "natural" to the audience to borrow an already existing accent than to make something up.

Language is complicated; that's why I have to give translators more credit than most people give them. Like the pun situation, there's no ideal way out of it.

Juicy J · Post by **Juicy J** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 9:16 pm

the way out of the pun situation...leave the original puns and jokes and put those stupid ass ADV-notes into the show like they did with Excel Saga...it worked with ES so why not AD? Then they could have kept the puns...i mean half the dubs out now have everyone speaking in english then say one random japanese word outta nowhere...so they could have done that with azu and just put the notes to say what the joke was/why and what the words meant. Even fansubs do a perfect job of keeping puns funny by doing that so i know its not impossible for a GIANT COMPANY to explain a joke and keep it funny, when those fansubbers can do it easily.