I thought I'd bring up a relevant topic while we're in the midst of the Olympics. Turns out that a gymnast representing Japan got inspiration from a manga about gymnastics. It also helped that his parents ran a gymnasium. Watch this video to learn more.
If you've ever read a book with dialogue, you've probably imagined the speaker's voice. Well, at least I can say that's true for me. The same goes with manga. I look at a character, read the speech bubble, and I can "hear" the character's voice.
Then I watch the anime that the manga is based on.
Sometimes, I'm thrown off by the voice actors. I tend to think "that character isn't supposed to sound like that!" Although, in other cases, a character's voice can be so close to what I imagined that it's freaky.
I haven't read many manga series. In fact, I can name all the ones I read before watching the anime. They are Fushigi Yugi, Fullmetal Alchemist, The Seven Deadly Sins, and Blue Exorcist. I'll give a (hopefully) quick rundown of the first three, since I haven't seen any clips of Blue Exorcist yet. Also, please note that I'm referring to characters' Japanese voice actors, not the English dub ones.
If my memory serves me correctly, I read the entirety of Fushigi Yugi before ever watching the anime. Since the series is 18 volumes, I had a pretty solid idea of what the main characters sounded like. Once I saw the anime, I was actually pretty disappointed by the actors who voiced the main couple, Miaka and Tamahome. They sounded outright annoying compared to what I had imagined. As more characters were introduced, I realized that my perceptions were very different from the vision of the people who were making this anime. Until they introduced Chichiri. From the moment he spoke his first verbal tic, my eyes opened wide in amazement. His voice was exactly what I thought it would be.
I know that in the two anime continuities of Fullmetal Alchemist, the voice cast is, like 90% different. I've only seen FMA-1, but I know which characters retained their actors for the second series. I'll focus on a few of those, such as main characters Edward and Alphonse. I wasn't really sure what to imagine for Ed's voice. I knew that in the dub, he was voiced by a man, but I thought that Ed should sound more... prepubescent. When I saw the anime, I didn't know what to think. Ed was voiced by a woman who could deepen her voice enough to sound like a teenage boy. Nothing like I had perceived, but it still worked. Al's voice was perfectly spot-on though. The one that bothered me was Bradley. His voice was completely different than what I thought it would be. It sounded too familiar... like I had heard it before. Then it hit me: the actor had also played the third Hokage from Naruto.
When I saw clips for The Seven Deadly Sins, my ideas for the characters' voices were shattered. Meliodas's voice was a bit too low for me. Diane's was too high. Hawk sounded too girly. Ban's voice sounded too... I don't even know. The only one that sounded remotely similar to what I had pictures was Elizabeth. Well, maybe I'd get used to the voice-acting choices if I actually saw the anime. Until then I'll still hear the voices I had imagined whenever I read the manga.
Conversely, when I watch an anime first, and if the characters' voices are distinct, I can hear those voices while reading the manga. This was most unfortunate in the case of Sailor Moon. Whenever Luna spoke, I could hear that Julie Andrews impersonator from the original English dub. Sure, Luna still has a distinct voice in the original Japanese version, but somehow, even after a decade or so, I can still here that English voice actress say, "Serena, you must transform!" like a distressed grandmother.
So, who here has read a manga and then seen an anime that was inspired by it? Which did you experience first-- the manga or the anime? How did that affect your listening experience? Are there characters whose voices sound exactly like you imagined? What about ones that were completely off? Just let me know if you heard the original vocal track or a dub.
I guess I haven't really updated much lately. Let me change that.
I've been on a manga/light novel kick recently. I took advantage of Barnes and Noble's "buy two get one" sale on manga, and I finally got down to reading the one I got for free. It's the first volume of Blue Exorcist. It wasn't as hooking as I'd hoped. Then again, it was only three chapters long, so I haven't got enough of a feel for it.
Today I was selling some old magazines at Half Price Books. When they were looking the magazines over, I found five volumes of the FMA light novels (which are all of the ones translated into English). Needless to say, I'm roughly $26 poorer. The magazines, if you're wondering, only fetched me a buck-- and there were 241 of them! Hey, at least I'm not $27 poorer.
Hmm... not sure what else to say. I was going to finish watching that Yu Yu Hakusho DVD set that I borrowed from the library, but the third disc is badly messed up. Oh well. But I'll find a way to finish the series. A legal way.
If you managed to get through all my ramblings, I have a little tip: if you subscribe to Crunchyroll's email newsletter, they give out free premium trials. That's how I got to watch Cardcaptor Sakura in its entirety. Subtitled. I burned through that like nobody's business. If you didn't know, I'm kind of in love with Crunchyroll now.
So has anyone seen/read any of these aforementioned series? Better still, do you have a Crunchyroll account? Don't you just love my lame attempts at starting conversation?
Barnes and Noble is having a "buy two get one" sale on manga soon. I think it's on the 19th. I have the last two volumes of a series that I intend to buy, but I might as well get a freebie while I'm at it.
So, now I turn to you, my fellow Otakuites. Got any recommendations for a good manga? Suggest anything you want, and I'll check if my local B&N has it.
Just FYI, Viz Media is taking a fan survey. There are even prizes involved.
Actually I don't even care if I get the prizes. There's a part at the end of the survey that lets you add titles you'd like to see from Viz. And you guys already know that I want those FMA guidebooks. Yep, it always comes back to FMA. But that's how I roll. And it's pretty convenient that Viz licensed the manga, so I didn't really have a reason not to suggest they publish the guidebooks. So, if they actually publish them, that would be just as good a prize as a bunch o' free DVDs.
I'm just kicking myself for not mentioning T7DS. D'oh! But I'm sure they're competing for it. Heck, I don't care if Viz gets it or not. Just somebody better get it soon because they just aired an episode with one of my favorite scenes from the manga and I'm going crazy because I can't watch it! I know I could watch a fan sub, but the people who make those are trolls.
Click here to take the survey.
