Last time on Cartoon Vault, the Kung-Fu Dino Posse was the subject thanks to a list of shameless Ninja Turtles knockoffs but there is one show I missed on that list, but there is a good reason which I’ll explain in this Cartoon Vault entry the Chop Socky Chooks
Dr Wasabi is an evil genius fish who has taken over the city and rebuilt it in his image, but three chickens disagree with Wasabi’s rule. Our heroes are Chick P, KO Joe & Chuckie Chan, a team of chickens who know Kung-Fu who oppose Wasabi’s rule and put a stop to every scheme he cooks up to try and grab the attention & control of the populous.
The Chooks are entirely CGI, which seems to work surprisingly well with the British Aardman animation team on board but some of the designs are really creepy such as in one episode with evil ninja babies (don’t ask) who are just plain scary.
The series does a surprisingly good job in both story and characters; Wasabi is clearly incompetent but is shown to still be dangerous, Bubba his Mafia Suited Gorilla bodyguard is clearly stupid but can still dish out decent pain, even the Ninja chimps manage to get in proper hits sometimes showing that they are not entirely useless. Equally the heroes are not always guaranteed a victory and usually have to work twice as hard to succeed and have even been known to struggle against lesser villains. Staying with the lead three characters, the reason why I don’t regard this as a shameless Ninja Turtles knockoff is because it negates the main ingredient needed to be one of those shows, which is near identical designs. Each Chook is very different going as far down to their civilian identities.
Chick P passes as a proper Kung Fu girl reminiscent of modern martial arts films where being a lead female is not so rare and breaks predetermined gender roles by being a maintenance engineer in her civilian identity, she’s even the unofficial leader if the opening theme is any indication.
KO Joe (which is an awesome name) is portrayed as a retro 70s martial artist complete with Afro and even he breaks predetermined roles by being a comic book store owner in his civilian identity.
Only Chuckie Chan keeps his predetermined role by not only being a wise old man with supernatural powers but also being a Martial Arts teacher in civilian attire.
These are great characters and are fun to watch and are even well voiced by Great British talent, if it weren’t for such creepy designs and a few utter bizarre stories, this show could easily be one of the best CGI cartoons ever made, and I never say that lightly.
I’ve been wanting to review this for a while and I think now is the right time for it, especially seeing as it was brought up recently in a top ten list. So now to review the anarchy series that is Needless.
Needless starts off with a Nuclear war that takes out part of Tokyo, leaving just a barren land simply known as the Black Spot which is ruled by a powerful multinational corporation led by its insane director Adam Arclight. A number of rebels want him dead and that’s where the story begins. We cut to a kid named Cruz who manages to escape thanks to his sister playing the noble sacrifice, who then finds a Kamina-esque priest named Adam Blade & his meta-morphing sidekick Eve, who’s entire running joke is coming up with stupid names for people because she can’t be bothered to remember anyone’s name except Adam Blade’s.
Adam & Eve are Needless, beings who have specific superpowers; Eve can meta-morph into anyone and change parts of her body while Adam Blade we find out can learn any Needless power by analyzing his opponent. Cruz can’t do anything and quickly becomes annoying.
We are joined by a scientist named Gido who also can’t do anything and spends most of the series stating the bloody obvious.
Two other characters who join team Blade are Teruyama who names all his attacks after the Hiroshima bomb while the other character Disc is an android built with every technical upgrade possible and knows the Black Spot inside out.
One thing that you will understand very quickly is how much of a mess this series is, poorly structured story, randomly placed gags, shameless fanservice to uncomfortable levels, stupidly long drawn out battles and random shifts in art where you wonder if the artists were ill that week when they made the episode.
That’s a lot of bad things right off the bat, but it’s excused when you consider that Needless is meant to be like that and anything less than a mess would seem out of place.
If there are major flaws in Needless, there are just as many to name.
For one, Cruz is established as the main character fairly quick and in a series where you essentially have a cast of X-Men, Cruz is the most pathetic character ever made which gets worst when he essentially takes up 90% of the screen time and is made so essential to the plot that the stronger better made characters are made worst because of it. They even felt the need to take out Adam Blade & Eve for a few episodes despite the fact they are the main characters, equally villains such as Saten & Arclight don’t even get that much screen time despite the fact that they drive the plot.
Equally Mr Obvious, Gido gets far too many spoken lines as well, and don’t get me started on how tenacious the girl’s squad is. They were supposed to be a mid-boss battle but fought Adam Blade & co more times than the actual main villains. Finally a few late entry characters get pushed to the back as quickly as they were introduced.
But the worst element of this series is the god awful dub.
I brought this up briefly in my top 10 worst dub voice acting list and the main fact of it is that there was no excuse in getting this wrong on a series with Excel Saga level madness.
At times there were scenes where certain scripts were written poorly, such as when Arclight announced that he was god without even trying to make an effort in his voice and this is the guy who previously played Genjo Sanzo; other times Cruz is over acting to the point of screeching backed up by a few scenes of wasted redundant dialogue, this affects a number of other side characters as well or in the case of Solva, not acting enough.
Only a couple of voices standout; Adam Blade which should be a given, Disc despite sprouting the obvious all the time she’s at least easy on the ears & Kuchinashi who is a mute and only speaks two words. I know for a fact that there are far worst dubs & far worst acting but the thing that made this number one on that list was the fact that all the actors chosen for Needless are veterans within the industry and the ADR Director has equal talent in dubs.
Maybe I should have taken the warnings the DVD gave me. In the UK release of Needless, the disc is defaulted to subtitles and you have to select the dub manually while the episode is running otherwise you get no sound. Comes to something when the DVD is telling me the dub sucks.
Final Verdict: If you want a testosterone heavy show with mindless structure and a lack of care for the rules of the world then watch Gurren Lagann. (Even though Needless predates Gurren Lagann) The only way you can watch this series is to stop thinking and enjoy the madness on screen; the mistake I made was watching this series and questioning why certain things happen.
Madness cannot be appreciated when you question why it’s there.
And now the other side of the double feature the ten best voice acting in dubs.
Honorable Mentions
Fruits Basket: I’ve never heard a bad thing said about the Fruits Basket dub, but I don’t think it’s enough for a top ten entry.
Full Metal Panic: Just as good as Fruits Basket and sounds like the actors were enjoying themselves during recording.
Sengoku Basara: Only for Jonny Yong Bosch’s performance as Sanada Yukimura, it’s probably the most fun he’s had voice acting anyone.
10. King of Bandits Jing
It's on my list of most underrated Anime of all time and is backed up by a really good dub, and this is ADVs older voice actors from when they started. It goes to show that if you choose the right actors in the first place you won't get a bad dub.
9. Gundam Seed
Pure emotion is a good trait to have in voice acting and veterans Matt Hill & Sam Vincent really do a good job in the emotion heavy Gundam Seed series; the defining moment was watching them tear each other apart midway through season 1. The fact that they are best friends in real life made it more believable.
8. Ranma 1/2
For an anime that was dubbed in the 90s it really stood the test of time, if the license comes back under a different group it shouldn't need re-dubbing.
7. Shinesman
The Shinesman voice cast has very limited credits under them but the scripting was a work of genius and what we got was one of the funniest OVAs since Dragon Half. The offbeat comments like "I'm gonna die in a Godzilla suit" still make me laugh.
6. Medabots
The most fun you can have with a dub ever, the way it was dubbed it felt like it was still authentically Japanese, that's rare for an English dub.
5. Tiger & Bunny
Dubs seem to do better if the anime setting is non Japanese and slightly American, that's what makes Tiger & Bunny such a successful dub. The American hero stereotypes are better done in the English Language and feel more authentic than in Japanese.
4. Tenchi Muyo
Another classically dubbed anime this time with Tenchi Muyo. What makes this dub so special is that a good majority of their choices were veterans of American cartoon voice acting; Ellen Gerstell, Matt K.Miller, Debi Derryberry and Jennifer Darling have years of experience between them and they have even done live action film. There are very few anime who have the same treatment that's not a Studio Ghibli.
3. Nerima Daikon Brothers
I remember reading that many of the voice actors in Funimation, were theater actors, and if there is one series that really showcases that talent it's Nerima Daikon Brothers; it's not easy to sing in a dub but they really pull it off and we even see a new range from voice actors that we never expected them to have.
2. Fairy Tail
The most professional voice acting I've ever witnessed, Funimation really looked after this one, I mentioned raw emotion earlier and it's taken to new heights in Fairy Tail. Rage, tears, comedy, everything is on show, the best dub Funimation have ever done.
1. Pokemon
No seriously, I'm not suffering from head trauma, I'm not being paid by 4Kids or Pokemon Group to say this, neither am I drunk; the Pokemon dub is the best dub I've ever seen. When I watch the Japanese version I don't recognize it at all, I'm part of the crowd where I believe Ash Ketchum will always be Ash Ketchum and not Satoshi. It didn't even bother me when they switched actors later in the Ruby & Sapphire series and who can forget the iconic original theme of Pokemon. How many people still sing that song at conventions.
For everything that 4Kids put us through, remember the only thing they did right.
After a small dose of writer’s block I’m back with a really juicy top ten, in fact I have a double feature this time with the top ten best & worst dub voice acting.
Before I begin these top ten lists are a judgement of voice acting & scripting not the full dub itself so I cannot use cuts & edits as an argument for poor dubbing nor can I use the excuse of the anime being bad. One of my dishonorable mentions will sum it up better. So now I start with the list of the ten worst dub voice acting.
Our voices shatter your speakers
Dishonorable Mentions
One Piece (4Kids): As bad as the dub was, most of the criticism aimed at the 4Kids One Piece dub was to do with the horrific cuts & editing, when your left without cuts the actors aren’t that bad at voicing the characters, and I’m probably the only person in the world who thinks a Brooklyn accent suits Sanji.
The Wallflower: This series doesn’t have a volume button, everyone shouts louder than a Dora the Explorer episode, but a great script managed to save it.
Virtua Fighter: Dub acting was pretty bad but then again so was the anime and I cannot use bad anime as an excuse.
10. Wedding Peach
Wedding Peach needed some tender loving care and it never got it, one decent lead voice but the other two leads don’t back it up well, especially Angel Daisy where she is a tough bruiser type girl with the voice of Velma on laughing gas; the script isn’t any better with inserted Americanisms that so plagued early ADV dubs.
9. Yumeria
A series where one word is mentioned so many times that the impact is lost before the series even begins. The trailer for Yumeria never helped them to begin with, it was like Love Hina but Keitaro is being punched every minute of the series rather than every ten minutes.
8. Sister Princess
The voices of the numerous female characters are creepy and in a series where it is such a big plot point to have an extended harem, I don’t feel comfortable watching it.
7. Disgaea
The anime had some of the most irritating voices I’ve ever heard. Now I don’t know how significant the verbal tic “Dood” is supposed to be in the franchise but I do know that I don’t want to hear it ever again.
6. Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal
I only watched two episodes of this series and I wanted to rip out my ears. Was the fallout with 4Kids so bad that they felt the need to punish us with such a horrible dub of Zexal? Seriously I used to give the 4Kids voices free passes because despite working for a company that destroys the integrity of anime, it was never the fault of the voice actors, they were just doing their job but even they must of thought that the acting they were doing in Zexal was terrible.
5. Jubei-Chan
I believe I mentioned this one in my review; Jubei-Chan has some of the most emotionless voice acting I’ve ever heard, the amount of scenes I went through which needed some emotion was many and only once did they get it right. It also felt as though all the actors were exhausting themselves with the long winded explanations they had to give.
4. Goldenboy
This is one of my favorite anime of all time but the dub is one big mistake, a character eager to learn in every job he does, who is also very intelligent, a bit of a pervert as well, but big-hearted and yet they give him the stupidest voice in dubbing history. To further emphasize this, his original voice in the Japanese is brilliant.
3. Street Fighter II Victory
This anime had two dub attempts to get it right and failed them both. The scripting is a mess, both voice casts were two dimensional in their performances and even those who did get it right never stayed any longer than one episode. I’ll say again, two attempts!
2. Any Anime ADR Directed or ADR Written by Gary Dehan
ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement, and it’s up to the ADR Director to make sure the dubbing goes smoothly without any problems. Gary Dehan worked in the early ADV Films era and he lent his talents to a number of their earliest dubs.
But his list of work is the likes of the Tekken Movie, the Sonic Movie, Sakura Wars TV, Sakura Diaries, Legend of Crystania, City Hunter, Shuten Doji, Maps, Variable Geo & Ninja Resurrection and a few low grade anime; all of which are quite bad dubs and some are notoriously bad anime as well but even better shows like Queen Emeraldas & 801 T.T.S Airbats didn’t really do very well either. The problem is the casting wasn’t particularly good, the voice acting in many of them were either two dimensional or emotionless. ADV Films were lucky, they had strong links to Evangelion to keep them afloat but poor runs with low grade anime came back to bite them when they went down.
1. Needless
But Needless is the worst dub I’ve ever had the displeasure of listening to, the script writing was awful, the dialogue was vomit inducing and these are well known professional dub actors as well, with a full list of decent credits among them, a lot of them were also ADVFilm veterans around at their prime and many of the others are current first choice Funimation employees. There are only three decent voices in the whole series. Adam Blade was good, Disc was very well done & Kuchinashi who is a mute and only says two words in the entire series. It comes to something when a mute is the best character in the dub; the rest are either lazy, try too hard, don’t try enough, utterly irritating or plagued by a horrible script.
Not even some of the worst anime in existence can claim to have a worst dub than Needless.
Today it was announced that Tokyo will host the Olympic Summer games in 2020, but as with any host of these games, you need a mascot to promote it, so here are ten of the most popular characters in anime culture, we'll be seeing their pros, cons & odds and at the end you can either give your opinion on which one you would like to see or recommend one I haven't mentioned, so let us begin.
This is not a top 10 rather just a pick from 10 characters.
1. Doraemon
The time traveling robot cat is Japan's national cartoon and has more images in Japan than any other character and was already Tokyo's Olympic ambassador for the bid.
While he does have appeal in some countries it may shock you that Doraemon has never ever been translated into English and likely never will, taking away a sizable chuck out of it's international appeal.
Odds: 5-1
2. Totoro
Of all of Miyazaki's creations, Totoro is the most well known, with plenty of heritage behind the story, and a very appealing design.
But how do you adapt Totoro to sport? I can't see it personally.
Odds: 20-1
3. Anpanman
Another long running character in Japanese anime, Anpanman translates as Breadman, a superhero designed to fight off evil bacteria and always there to feed people his head when they need it the most.
While he promotes healthy eating and the importance of staying healthy he has practically no international appeal having gone no further than the Arab nations, India and the other oriental nations in it's international release.
Odds: 20-1
4. Pretty Cure
The long running magical girl series could easily adapt the colorful Olympic rings for a new series and give us a sports theme for it's series.
As much as people would disagree, Pretty Cure is still a girls anime and there's no guarantee that it will still be running in 2020.
Odds: 70-1
5. Son Goku
Son Goku of Dragonballz fame is no stranger to being in the spotlight and has been an ambassador for other things in Japan, and being a physically active hero has appeal.
But you have to wonder how much longer Akira Toriyama will be persuaded to keep lending out Goku for more adventures and in my opinion using him is a massive cliche.
Odds: 40-1
6. Monkey D Luffy
Vast becoming Goku's replacement as the head honcho of Shonen Jump, Monkey D Luffy has already got theme parks and restaurants in his anime's name and will likely still be around in 2020.
But there is a 100% guarantee you'll never hear the end of the flame wars if he gets in especially with Naruto & Goku as other Shonen Jump characters.
Odds: 70-1
7. Sazae-San
Sazae-San just recently became the world record holder for longest running animated series spanning a massive 45 years with the character itself being around for nearly 60 years, old enough to be around for Tokyo's last Olympic games.
Sazae-San is a Japan only product with no international appeal and while it does promote great family values, it has no other appeal to speak of and certainly not for an Olympic games, besides the mid 20s Sazae-San character looks like a Japanese Olive Oil from Popeye.
Odds: 45-1
8. Konata Izumi
Lucky Star's favorite Otaku Konata Izumi is a natural athlete in Lucky Star, making her the most qualified and with portable shrines to Lucky Star in Japan, there's no worry of not having enough appeal.
But is it really enough? With no new series of Lucky Star to work with and other candidates on this list having better heritage, it maybe too much of an outside bet.
Odds: 100-1
9. Pikachu
The electric yellow mouse has been a staple of the Pokemon universe since day one and has massive international appeal, more so than Japan's most popular animated characters.
But the big question remains, do we only use Pikachu or do we bring in the other Pokemon as well?
Odds: 10-1
10. Hatsune Miku
Olympic Miku has a nice ring to it, having already promoted motor racing teams, it would be the easiest transition to make for the virtual idol and is already fast gaining international appeal.
But Miku has never had her own show, whether that will change in the seven years between now and the games we'll just have to see.
Odds: 10-1
Bonus: Original character designed for the games.
It's the easiest thing to do for the creative Japanese, but with so many well made characters it would be a waste not to use them.
Odds: 2-1
