continuing on phoebe's post about voicework

[kaigou]

[Edited/consolidated to reduce where I rambled. Wow, those cold meds are something.]

For a little background, read phoebe_zeitgeist's A perhaps-obvious point about shipping and voice work, and don't skip the comments, which are equally insightful.

The TL;DR version is that voicework can completely alter our impression of a work, which is (as Phoebe says), probably completely obvious. I think there's a side-issue at work, though, which is that the voicework can also tell us how the voice-actors, themselves, approached the work—and our impression of the work, therefore, is informed by the actors' interpretation. That is, interpretation as the output (the voice recordings) and interpretation as the input (their own view of a character, a story, the conflict, and so on). I'll refrain from quoting too much of the original post & replies, since you can read it there, but I do want to call out this example, from aquila_black:

...my first introduction to Naruto was one of the movies, dubbed into English and shown once at our local theater... The movie had interviews with several of the American voice actors, the Japanese voice actors, and the manga-ka himself. The middle-aged American lady voicing Naruto was embarrassingly informal and unprofessional, and had nothing interesting to say about her character. The Japanese voice actress gave the camera a serious, well-thought out response about the responsibility she felt, at portraying the emotional complexities of an orphan who projects a relentlessly cheerful exterior, while often feeling desperately alienated and alone. Needless to say, it was a night and day difference. The Japanese actress convinced me that her character was worth my time.

In short, I see the output-interpretation as hampered or stifled by the lack of input-interpretation. Or, in the instance of the Japanese voice actress, the output is significantly enhanced by the amount of input she gave it.

This is not that unusual for Japanese seiyuu, from the interviews I've seen. It's the English-speaking VA who spends considerable time watching the original, thinking about the character, that's the unusual one (and they do exist, but there's plenty more who don't know of the original or seem to care). A similar case in point, for me, was watching the VA interviews that came with the US release of the Cowboy Bebop movie. Spike's VA (from the series) didn't do the movie-Spike [See comments in re this statement.] Faye's VA... well, I recall the question was something about playing Faye, and the answer was mostly about how awesome it was to hang out with the gang, and we all get along well, and blah blah blah.

(Not saying VAs are the only ones who do this; I've seen many actors/actresses asked about their character and answer with how hard the filming was, or doing their own stunts, or how close the entire cast got to be. Okay, some actors/actresses just don't like to analyze a character, and insist it should be left to the audience. Except I'm not asking for the definitive meaning; I just want to know the actor/actress or VA actually gave characterization as much thought as I'm going to give it while ripping it apart.)

The reason the other VA non-responses stood out was because Edward's VA spent no little time explaining how much thought she'd put into trying to communicate Edward's utterly-Japanese wacky dialogue into an English equivalent (IIRC, the VA doesn't know Japanese). She put time and effort not just into understanding Edward, but into crafting the translated dialogue with the director and scriptwriter, to "find" Edward's English voice. That's a lot of extra work, though, for a job where you're probably only making a pittance, anyway. Not everyone can, or will, or even is allowed to, go beyond like that.

But criticisms like mine do put a lot of weight on VA shoulders, and I think we need to shift some of that to where it belongs: the director. If you're in a play, and you don't know or haven't yet seen where the story's going, it's the director who says, "read the line like this," or "the character is actually feeling like ___ but showing an expression of ____ because s/he is thinking ___." There's a reason for the old joke about the actor asking, "what's my motivation!?" When all else fails, the one who can best answer that is the director... and I think we may have a substantial lack of directors in US VA work, from the results I'm seeing. Either that, or the English-speaking VAs are so incredibly bad that no amount of directing would save 'em. Hard to tell from the final product.

Speaking of the final product, in re Kuroshitsuji, let's have a comparison. All three examples from the first episode, with apologies for the quietness of the American dub—I got it from the hulu, so it's squashed for online playing. (I tried to amp it a little but stopped short of risking distortion.) All dialogue is from the Shinsen-subs version, except for an instance or two where the household J-student pointed out a subtle distinction for a better translation.

This first example is from the dinner scene, after Sebastian rips the tablecloth out from under everything, without disturbing even the water in a glass.

http://www.karinoyo.com/media/table_both.mp3

Ciel: There was a small stain on the cloth, so I had it removed. Please pay it no mind.
Sebastian: I am sorry to have disturbed you. Please enjoy your meal at your leisure.
Guest: I am humbled, Earl Phantomhive. He really is talented.
Ciel: He only did what was natural as my servant.
Sebastian: It is as my master says. I am but [hell of] a butler.

Now, re-listen, and this time pay attention to the last little response from Ciel, after Sebastian delivers his favorite pun on akuma, which does translate (somewhat) nicely into English as helluva (butler). You may need to turn it up, because it is a barely-aspirated sound, but it's there.

Did you hear that? To my ears, Eng-Ciel sounds like "hmph"—a kind of flat sound, that comes across a little irritated. Jap-Ciel's clearly more of a snort, the kind of sound you make when you're amused, might risk laughing, but you're keeping it to yourself. There's more nasal-snort aspirated quality to the "hmph", and it gives me the distinct impression (unlike the dub) that Ciel is not only amused, he's in on the joke. It's the true punchline to Sebastian's delivery, whereas the Eng-Ciel sounds like someone who's a little annoyed by Sebastian's words.

This next one might be a little strange, but I divided the lines up (or tried) so it's one line from each, with the original immediately following. Eng-Ciel, followed by Jap-Ciel, followed by Eng-Sebastian, then Jap-Sebastian, and so on. Listen to the vocal range in Ciel, as well as the intonation and implications (or lack thereof). Again, dialogue from Shinsen-subs version.

http://www.karinoyo.com/media/tea_both.mp3

Ciel: What is this? The fragrance is weak.
Sebastian: I brought out an Italian tea to match our guest's tastes.
Ciel: Italian?
Sebastian: In Italy, coffee is the main apertif, so there are not very many good after-dinner teas. Does it not suit you?
Ciel: That's right. I don't like it.
Sebastian: I shall bring the dessert.
Ciel: Yes. Be diligent until the end, as befits the hospitality of the Phantomhive family.
Sebastian: Yes, my Lord.

It's more noticeable to me, in this one, with the two Ciels back-to-back, but when I relisten to the first example (above) and then again to this one, I finally pinpointed the difference: Jap-Ciel has moments where he actually sounds like he's not sure—where he's looking to Sebastian to give him the answer. In contrast, Eng-Ciel sounds distinctly annoyed by almost everything, which may be an aspect of adopting an accent (the Britishism, which I presume isn't native to the VA), or may be the VA's impression of how an aristocrat 'should' sound—somewhat demanding, verging on short-tempered, even uncompromising. Listen to the way each delivers the question, "Italian?" Eng-Ciel sounds quite put-out by this, even irritated. Jap-Ciel sounds a little startled; I'd even say querulous.

The other marked difference is in the actual timbre of the voices. Both English and Japanese versions have a female VA in her mid- to late-twenties, as I understand... but to my ears, the English version doesn't sound like she's pitching her voice any lower than usual. The Japanese version is—like so many of our other adolescent heroes, ie Naruto, Edward Elric, Allen Walker, and so on—working hard to pitch, what's probably a natural-level voice equal to Eng-Ciel, even lower.

Maybe I'm just sensitive to that, and how it changes the sound, because my own voice is pitched lower, and at times I will purposefully pitch it even lower than that. (Somewhere in my pre-teen years, someone made a comment about how my voice was girly on the phone. That's when I started working for a lower pitch, intentionally, because I disliked the idea that I might be seen/heard as girly—giggly, bubbly, etc.) I'm aware that forcing a lower pitch does sort of a similar thing as trying to force a considerably higher pitch—your voice kind of aspirates out. (Not being a trained vocalist or even non-trained, I don't know the proper word.)

Hmm, think of some female pop singers who are probably altos, but who try to force themselves into a soprano note—the voice will go almost breathy, losing all substance. Even Mariah Carey—undoubtedly a soprano of some power—will go breathy when she hits the uppermost range. Similar happens when you try to go really low, and you can hear that in Jap-Ciel's delivery. On the plus side, this kind of breathiness is somewhat akin to how a boy's voice sounds in early adolescence, when his pitch is dropping but his vocal cords aren't entirely there yet.

That, though, is where the director was sleeping. That, to me, is when the director should be saying: push yourself, drop your voice a little more. And also: Ciel is not irritated, Ciel is still (underneath it all) a fourteen-year-old boy with questions, and Sebastian has answers. Ciel can be something other than permanently annoyed; Ciel can have more than one note.

And last, have an example of where range—and having a soundman who is NOT asleep at the board—can really have a major impact. This is from the first minute of the very first episode, when we meet the two main characters. Dialogue again from Shinsen-subs.

http://www.karinoyo.com/media/intro_both.mp3

Sebastian: Once one has rejected faith, it is impossible to pass through the gates of Heaven.
Ciel: God? Would someone who believed in God summon you?
Sebastian: Then, I will ask thee but once: it is thy wish to form a contract?
Ciel: Enough! Form the contract and grant my wish!

First, the subbers used an archaic form of English (which is traditionally meant as an intimate version, not as the formal/distant version, but I'm willing to forgive that since it's archaic enough that most people hear "thy" and think "church" or "Shakespeare" and therefore "fancy"). This formality and/or archaic element is missing in the English translation, and I'm not sure why. That archaic aspect invokes (so to speak) the sense of ritual that's happening here.

Second, Eng-Ciel is putting some effort in pitching her voice lower (more noticeably than any of the other examples, at least), but the intonation is... it's a little off. It sounds flat. And it's only partially the VA, in this; I think it's the soundman lacking, too. Jap-Ciel gets echo, and Eng-Ciel doesn't. In fact, the reverb is much lower on the English version, all around, and that reduces the sense that they're in a vast space occupied by only the two of them.

Third, I put my writer's hat back on and notice some of the nuances. Like, why alter the subtle aspects of Sebastian's lines when we don't even see his mouth (and have no lip movements to match it to)? "I'll ask you once more" is not the same as "I'll ask you only once". In the Japanese, Sebastian clearly doesn't waste his time; he'll ask and it's now-or-never on the reply. The dub-version's stupid lip-flap obsession means they had to find extra syllables and they did it by having Ciel give the line about "stop asking all these tedious questions", which meant they had to alter Sebastian's line to be (re)asking.

Impression: in the original, Sebastian appears out of nowhere and says, "you sure want this?" and Ciel says, "yes! do it already!" and we're into the story. In the English version, Sebastian appears and proceeds to say a lot more, and the camera only turns on as Sebastian's saying, "are you really really sure?" and Ciel's like, "good god, stop boring me to death, yes, I'm really really really sure, alright?"

Yes, I accept that you can't always translate directly or exactly—different languages, different voices—but the English version adds something that didn't exist in the original. And that's that Sebastian offers warnings and additional ways out, rather than stating his case and offering only once. It's radically different dynamic.

The other noticeable deviation is in Ciel's line: "Enough! Form the contract and grant my wish!"—which is very much a order, no two ways around it. The English version—"stop asking these tedious questions and let me know if we have a deal"—may observe the lip-flaps but boy does it rearrange Ciel's character. It sets up his irritation at Sebastian's humor—"tedious questions"—rather than Ciel asserting himself with simply "Enough!". The implied question—"let me know if we have a deal"—turns inside-out Jap-Ciel's demand, hell, his order of "grant my wish!"

One of the most crucial characterization elements of Kuroshitsuji—in fact, the characterization I'd argue upon which the entire story hangs—is that the viewer/reader must believe that Sebastian (or anyone) would take orders from Ciel. That in turn hinges on us seeing (via Sebastian) that this kid is someone able to give those orders. The Japanese delivery and meaning, in the very first opening sequence, asserts with absolutely no equivocation that Ciel is ready, willing, and damn well able to give an order—and in their very first interaction, he does just that. He takes the commanding role.

In the English version, Ciel answers Sebastian's question not with an order, but with another question: "You're being bothersome, [I don't know], you tell me". The "let me know if we have a deal" puts the ball back in Sebastian's court. It makes Sebastian be the one to decide, not Ciel, and undermines from the very beginning the crucial aspect of Ciel's ability to order around (let alone fascinate or intrigue) this ancient and powerful demon.

Maybe I should've had that last example first, because it does color (really subtly, but it's there) how the cast may've interpreted their characterizations. At least, listening to the dialogue choices in that segment then in turns inform what I see playing elsewhere, in the English dub. Sebastian is frequently amused, even a little seductive (as also mentioned by some of the commentary on Phoebe's post), but he doesn't sound to me particularly entranced, and he rarely comes across with the softly worried way that Sebastian's Japanese VA sometimes sounds.

Being worried about Ciel's preference or opinion is a sign that Sebastian is not the true decision-maker. He's the tool, one with his own power and motivation, but he's still Ciel's tool, and he even states as much. Frex, he conveys dutiful distress (per usual butlerian standards) when discussing the difficulty of finding a decent Italian post-dinner tea, but his expression shifts into further concern when asking for Ciel's response.





Whether he is truly sincere isn't the issue (and I'll get into the double meanings in a bit). What rules the day with these two characters is how they appear, and they play their roles very well: Sebastian appears to be genuinely sincere, and Ciel gives the concern its due gravity. I didn't see what I liked so much about these kinds of Ciel-Sebastian private moments until I had the English to contrast, and those tones of childishness "no, I don't like it!" Ciel's delivery is a near-whisper. It's like he's talking to himself, and his mind isn't made up—quite yet—but in the course of saying it, he decides.

He begins with the rather non-committal phrase so de na, which is (I'm told by the J-student in the house) the informal, and slightly more masculine, version of desu. It's more a statement than a question, so it could be "that's right" or "you've got it" or "that's how it is". The English Ciel is flatly (and even with a note of disgust) "nope, don't like it at all"; it doesn't open the door to Ciel's thought processes, and in fact, makes him less interesting. The Japanese version is delivered as though Ciel's thoughts are: "You're right [and now that you mention it / now that I've considered it], I find I don't like it, after all."

Like other places in the dub, Eng-Ciel's finality just seems childish, to me. It's because our first introduction to Ciel—when the chips were really down—he threw it back on Sebastian ("you tell me"). That continues to color the rest of my impressions. Sebastian's amusement gets twisted into condescension when set against Ciel's delivery (even if, in isolation, Sebastian's English delivery is relatively decent)—because Ciel, as the characterization plays out, is not in control: his little expressions of self end up being read as a child stomping his foot and insisting, while his butler looks on with patronizing humor cloaked as amusement. Japanese-Ciel's strong-focused resolve becomes narrow-minded obstinacy in English-Ciel.

The same lack of range in the contract-making example is what's lacking here, too. While discussing it with CP, his reaction crystallized for me what's missing: intimacy. Ciel's Japanese voice—like a number of the other low-pitched female-as-boy voices—has a breathy quality, and whispering is what you do in intimate situations. It draws you in; instinctively, you may even lean closer to hear better, and when the voice shifts suddenly to almost a full shout, the contrast is double. Yet the requirement is that first you be drawn in, and I think the extent to which Japanese vocal tracks use the power of whisper is something American vocal tracks (and soundmen) haven't quite mastered or maybe even realized at all.

Eng-Ciel's delivery lacks intimacy, so there's nothing to extrapolate this intimate delivery—between we the audience and the character, or the character speaking to himself—into a deeper intimacy between Ciel and Sebastian. I may be mangling that explanation slightly (sorry, headcold and the benedryl is having fun with me right now), but my logic goes something like this: the way Ciel is voiced—the whispering, half-voiced, low-pitch—is like an aside onstage, or half-talking to himself. We, the audience, are included—and so is Sebastian. In other words, Sebastian is as close to the character as we who could potentially stand inside Ciel's shoes and see through his eyes. That's the power of a well-delivered whisper, to give you those nuances as to who gets such intimacy. (Note, too, that Ciel doesn't deliver his lines in that same half-whispered tone to his other servants, for instance, or when he's speaking to business partners.)

The other aspect of the Japanese delivery is an intonation. I wouldn't call it amusement, nor uncertainty, but it's an underlying something that hints at a double meaning. The English delivery is so flat, it's as though Ciel (and/or the VA) is unaware of any double entendre in his words. That finality closes the door on double meanings, when in fact, the vast majority of Ciel and Sebastian's dialogue is loaded with double meanings.

Going back to the post-dinner conversation, here are the double meanings I read into it. Ciel decries the tea's fragrance as weak; Sebastian says it's Italian to match the guest's tastes—he's highlighting that what the guest is used to (Italian tea) would be weak (stupid, or ineffectual, or just no-good) to Ciel. After all, in England, the host could reasonably assert that the guest abide by local preference and drink English tea, and given there aren't even many good after-dinner teas, it's especially striking that Sebastian delivers one, anyway. The "does it not suit you?" could be expanded to mean, "do Italian things not suit you," which in turn is "does this Italian thing [guest] not suit you", and Ciel decides that in fact, it doesn't suit him. Dessert signals the end of the evening, and Ciel concludes the layered conversation by telling Sebastian to work "until the end", per the Phantomhive hospitality (adding a darker meaning on 'hospitality').

And, as will become apparent if you keep watching the series, Sebastian most certainly gets that he was just given a clear and direct order, and signals that with his "Yes, my Lord"—because there are plenty of other times that he only answers "Yes" or "I understand" or "Right away" or similar. The "yes, my lord" is his direct response to a direct order, really, even though a good half or more of the time, Ciel doesn't preface his orders as such. The intimacy they have allows Sebastian to clue in on what's an order and what's just casual observation.

This is one of the delights of the series, and the reason I rewatch it despite having some annoying filler episodes, and a crazy AU-canon second season: all the dialogue is laced with double meanings, and there's room to argue this way, or that way, all night long. The story won't even be pinned down and pay off, even when it's spent an episode pretending to promise. Frex, in episode 9, "His Butler, a Phantasm", Ciel spends almost all of the 25 minutes trying to secretly catch a picture of Sebastian with a special camera that supposedly shows a (deceased) entity that matters most to the picture's subject. (In a portrait of Finny, his long-dead bird appears in the frame.)

After 20 minutes of machinations and utter failures, Sebastian reveals he's known all along (as the audience suspected). He chides Ciel, saying Ciel could've just ordered him (but where would be the fun in that, Ciel's expression seems to say)—and then Sebastian bribes Pluto the dog-boy into destroying the darkroom and the one picture that might've successfully developed. Next, we see Ciel asleep in his office, the camera unguarded, and Sebastian studying the camera thoughtfully. Cut to exterior, where Pluto has crawled up the manor walls to cling to the window and whine for Sebastian. The final pay-off appears to answer the question of who's most important to the sleeping Ciel, since it's open whether this camera can hold two subjects (Ciel and Sebastian) or only one subject (Ciel) and one object (whatever dead thing he most longs for).

Except the picture as shown is of Ciel, sleeping; Sebastian, next to him; Pluto the dog-boy outside the window. Pluto's inclusion is necessary for the mislead. In the scene where Pluto runs to Sebastian for a reward (after destroying the darkroom), Pluto doesn't run off with his treat, he stays, and is further upset when Sebastian tells him to sleep outside. It's pretty obvious that Pluto the dogboy has puppy-love for Sebastian. Sebastian, then, might be in the picture because he's what's most important to Ciel (as Meiran assumes), or he's in the picture because he's what's most important to Pluto... in which case, nothing is that important to Ciel. The humor and the trick in the pay-off (of Pluto's inclusion) hides the underlying meaning, and distracts from the fact that one might at least expect to see Ciel's parents in the picture with him, or maybe his recently-deceased aunt. Pluto's inclusion adds humor, and it opens the door to multiple interpretations, like Finny's idea that both Pluto and Ciel are fixated on Sebastian... but that humor disguises that Ciel's answer is also right there: not that Ciel's desire was overridden by Pluto's, but that Ciel has no desire/lost-love (for anyone dead), at all.

---

[note: edited down the rambling now that I'm not so fuzzy/loopy on cold meds anymore]

As a [rather long] footnote, I also think Kuroshitsuji is a particularly hard nut to use as an example of English/Japanese dubbing skills or styles: because this particular storyline might have hit some buttons. Short version? Look at all the crap Harry Potter got, and he's a good guy. Ciel is not, by any stretch, the good guy. Sympathetic, undoubtedly (and written to come across that way) but good in the moralizing Western way? Not even close. Oi, his story starts off with him selling his soul to the devil. It's hard to find a bigger button amongst the extremist religiosity currently rampaging the US.

For that matter, Ciel is downright rewarded when he makes ruthless choices (per my discussion with Phoebe about the end of S1 and Sebastian's return)—but to see this as Ciel's active choice, we're back to what the entire story hinges on: that Ciel can make that choice, that he can make that order. If Ciel was not the operative who made the ultimate choice (he stated he wanted the contract, but it's Sebastian's decision whether to grant it), then Ciel loses some of the power he's given in the original storyline. He becomes Sebastian's plaything, instead of the other way around.

That might be your only compromise if you like the story, or were hired to like the story, but (for whatever reason) just cannot stomach the notion of a kid barely into adolescence already making a pact with a demon. Much easier to allay that discomfort by introducing wiggle room: that the demon made the choice, that the child is being a child with no true depth of understanding, that the child is being manipulated. Presenting Ciel as a foot-stomping, petulant, emphatic character just undermines him, however subtly, into Sebastian's tool—instead of the ruthless, cruel, determined man-in-child who freely uses, and commands, an ancient demon. The latter would most definitely be anything but a 'good' guy.

Those of us experienced in any degree of anime fandom are probably familiar with this, at least in the way the Japanese storyline freely adapts and recycles tenets of Western myth/stories, and Xtianity is a hot button for the US, right now. Every culture has its hidden hot buttons. I think it's also why a lot of Japanese mangaka like to play with Xtian elements: It's distanced; it's not their hot buttons. (There's intersectionality and all that jazz, but who-hit-the-button isn't really the point here, so let's save that for another post. Suffice it to say that I don't consider xtianity to be a protected case, so if Japan wants to write fancy costumes and wacky Vatican-ordered gun-carrying nuns in garters, it can do it 'til the Dominicans come home.)

A'course, the cast and crew of the English dub might just as much be insistent that their personal beliefs didn't impact them... but even me, who's (a) pretty inured to Japanese fast-and-loose with Christian theological concepts and history and (b) pretty non-religious and/or apathetic about religion anyway, still blinks a little at the notion of adapting this particular story for an American audience. I'm not immune to the USian social pressures, and I'm not even in the position of having to potentially justify to some corporate bigwig about advertisers pulling out because they're being boycotted by some religious group that doesn't like the "sell your soul to the devil" storyline in a kid's cartoon. (And, in the US, pretty much all cartoons remain "kid" cartoons, no matter how much work Adult Swim has put into changing that perception.)

So I can't help but wonder if such hot buttons might be informing some of the subtler changes in the presentation, translation, VA work and direction. It's almost impossible to measure, since I'm talking about a level of "too much" that's well below our conscious radar. ETA: but, as maat_seshat notes in the comments, it may also be that it's not strictly "religious" so much as it is a moralistic kind of discomfort with confidently and unabashedly immoral characters.

This took all day on benedryl, so I think I'll turn the mic over to the rest of you, now.

ETA: forgot to mention this, but at least one member of the English Kuroshitsuji cast does deserve some mention: the VA for Meiran did a remarkable job of matching the Japanese VA's peculiarly hoarse-raspy-funny delivery. It's not a total match-up, but the VA gets points from me for not only mimicking the Japanese Meiran-style, but doing it with a low-class Brit accent as well. Well done, that.

Comments

[starscream]

Are you sure about the Spike thing? I'm looking at multiple sites that are showing Steve Blum was Spike in Knockin' on Heaven's Door, and I remember it being him as well (though I can't remember where my DVD is to verify).

[kaigou]

Was he? It's been a few years -- I just recall the name being not the same name as what was on my DVDs, and wondering who this other guy was. Ahh, that's it: the television dub was done by David Lucas. Steve Blum did the movie-Spike. (Though in Blum's defense, he did a damn good impression of Lucas.)

[starscream]

David Lucas is Steve Blum. :') It was an alias he used.

[qem_chibati]

Many va have two names depending on whether they are doing work as part of a union or not. Perhaps it was deliberate?

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

I love sharing a fandom with you so very much. I'm just saying.

Substantive comments to come (not that you didn't already know that).

[kaigou]

I await them quite gleefully, now that I've learned some VA goes by multiple names (and it's not like I really know more than maybe two or three VA names, and even that, only because several of them are friends with CP for reasons totally unrelated to anime, so I'm like, who? oh, he was VA for what? oh, I dunno, never saw the dub, whatever ...so I don't bring up the topic of anime when I've met them, because I'd probably end up casually insulting someone accidentally given these takedowns of their entire industry BUT ANYWAY hmm it appears the benedryl is not completely out of my system yet and what's rattling in the corner of the living room AAAAHHHH now you know why it took ALL DAY to write this post...) AND ANYWAY.

I had a point. I can't remember what it was now. Other than maybe some hope you'll come back with something brilliant and make this entire post worth the day. And the benedryl. Weeeeeeee. Cold medicine, gooooood.

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

The other noticeable deviation is in Ciel's line: "Enough! Form the contract and grant my wish!"—which is very much a order, no two ways around it.

Just to emphasize this point, in the Atelier-Thryst release Ciel's line is rendered, "Enough! Contractor, now! Grant us our wish!" I don't know whether this is more or less literal a translation than Shinsen's, but I have to say I love that invocation of the royal first person plural, which once again serves to underline Ciel's uncanny authority, from the very beginning of the relationship.

[kaigou]

I had CP re-listen with me, trying to hear (around the reverb, which is just Not Kind to non-native ears) to see if we could parse out what's being said. At the very least, it appears we figured out what makes Sebastian laugh, or at least what I think makes him laugh. His question is "one who does this..." and Ciel has the presence of mind to respond in the same pattern: "god! would one who believes also be one who summons"? -- it's the repetition of mono that made CP suggest that translation. You could do it as "would a believer be a summoner" but the "one who" creates a pattern that's definitely audible even if you don't know the language (ie, to me), but it also echoes the previous line.

I do like the royal 'we' element in there, though. Adds a nice touch, it does.

Either way or any way, all of these are still better than "enough with the tedious questions" (which just makes him sound like a spoiled prat) and "are we doing this deal or not" (which sounds like anything but someone with a will to assert his own power). I mean, one of the reasons I was intrigued by Ciel from the get-go is that at his very first introduction, he's clearly powerless -- he looks beat-up, implied nekkid under the sheet, and for all the world looking like a victim. Yet he has the absolute chutzpah to tell a demon to get ON with it. Ya gotta respect that in a kid.

[lady_ganesh]

For me, not familiar enough with the source to run and check, I wonder -- is it a lip-sync issue, perhaps?

[(Anonymous)]

I had sort of wondered after Trigun if there was something going on specifically in the Japanese reaction to Christianity, but then I started watching Inuyasha.

I mean Miroku pretty much is your miko, with the exception of the pachinko parlor and the fact that he doesn't actually succeed with the ladies very often.

[kaigou]

...except that Miroku's creator is named Rumiko Takahashi, and she's Japanese. In which case, she stands inside the boundary and can mess with internal hot buttons as she pleases, just as much as say, Joss Whedon can stand inside the USian cultural boundary and mess with USian hot buttons. My example of a warping a miko from positive to sheer negative was if it were created by a non-Japanese and then someone attempted to import this wildly popular (in someplace that's not Japan) character into Japan.

I'm sure it's happened, on some level. I just can't think of any real-world examples.

[aldanise]

a) You just managed to convince me to give Kuroshitsuji a try, because that kind of strength of will in a character is really damn attractive.

b) I'm not sure I would hop to the religious explanation so much as the fandom is uncomfortable with characters who are steadily, confidently immoral without figuring out some way to sanitize them. lightgetsin said it really well in the commentary to her Dresden/Marcone fic Cross, that fandom often tends "to white-wash characters of fannish interest for personal comfort." Which is not just a trait of fandom but frequently of storytelling in general. It shows up in the handling of Roy Mustang plus war crimes in FMA fandom (and the first anime). It's the impulse to rationalize, rationalize, rationalize why characters we love are consciously choosing(/have consciously chosen) to do horrible things. Possibly the easiest rationalization was "he doesn't/didn't have a choice!", which sounds something like your Eng!Ciel, who is a child backed into a corner rather than an adult-in-child's-body making choices. (Of course, I am working entirely off of this post and your descriptions of Kuroshitsuji fandom because I don't hang out in it, so I could be entirely wrong.)

[kaigou]

I think you're right, that it's only "religious" insofar as "morals" intersect with "culture", that what we estimate as requiring sanitization also reflects culture.

Frex, I never saw much made (if any) of Roy's wartime actions, by the English-speaking fandom. Other than as a cause for angst, but very very rarely as something that would have him tried as a war criminal. (And the one or two times I can recall, the goal was clearly to vindicate him, at the end.) Yet in the manga/original version, Arakawa comes very close to -- and then pulls back from -- a significant hot button for her primary audience. For the USian secondary audience, though, I think it's a button that doesn't even much exist. We don't have the same historical reference. Well, the button might now exist, post-Bush years, but that's for another post. Remind me later about mentioning this and I'll start the post that goes into what I mean, there.

Anyway, yes: you're right, there is a distinct discomfort with characters who are staunchly immoral. Thing is, xtianity itself -- at least in the US, from what I've seen -- is wrapped up in a moralistic flag as the most morally moral of all moral ways of being -- that you can't be one without the other, basically -- so it's kind of hard to tease out. That's kind of what I meant by the notion that such discomforts are buried really deep, and often unconscious.

There's the urge to sanitize, and part of that stems from the insistence that moral=good, but more than that, that "immoral" is that line that absolutely cannot be reversed and could never be positive. So it has to be cadged, hedged about, tempered in some way, like by interpreting the main character as somehow not entirely at fault. Creating wiggle room.

As for Kuroshitsuji, the anime is passable, with a bit too much filler, but it does at least hold to the emotional context of the story relatively well. Watch enough to get some idea, and then go right into the manga, which is where the real substance is.

[majoline]

The end of all your rambling makes me cringe thinking about my favorite fan sub - Kyo Kara Maou! because having just seen the English script made me never want to hear it.

Also in something interesting to think about, Rental Magica is a short series that got a lot of RL magic ideas mostly right, which is interesting to me because usually, as you say, hot button topics, especially far removed (which I think manifest in the US as monster stories and hard sci-fi) get played around a bit, but no - Rental Magica played it straight the whole way.

Maybe that was playing with a hot topic, considering Pagan portrayals in the States?

[kaigou]

The end of all your rambling

I went back and edited, because that admission made me cringe! heh. I know, I know, I ramble! apparently much worse when on cold meds, too. (And here you thought it couldn't GET any worse.)

I tried watching RM, but never managed to get past the first episode -- when the girl in the black dress and witches hat showed up. Hrm, I think that was RM. It had an interesting premise, but I just don't think I was in the mood at the time. But I'm not sure how much it may've triggered -- was it ever released on CartoonNetwork or similar? or did it got straight to dub-dvd?

[leorising]

I'm sorry I'm having my usual attention span problems, because you're once again writing about something I care about.

Without having read every single sentence you and the commenters have written (sorry), I will say that I'm something of a Japanese VA snob, because Japanese voice actors are (as you say) committed to delivering a serious performance. They do not think of themselves as auditioning for Scooby Doo every time they try out for a part in a "cartoon".

I will also note that hearing Vic Mignogna doing Edward Elric makes me want to take a melon baller to my eardrums.

Now if only I could find English captions that don't translate kisama as "Why, you -- !", etc. :P

That is all.

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

Okay, can't resist the lure of potential knowledge here: I've wondered how kisama is properly translated. I hear it a lot, obviously, and I can kind of tell (as best someone who knows none of a given language can) that the translations I see in the subs are generally off in some way. But I've had no idea at all what would be right, and I would only love to know.

[kaigou]

Kisama is a strange one, because it's layered. (Explanation originally from discussions with branchandroot and added onto further by CP.)

It's really simply a very, very formal version of "you" + the honorific-ending of -sama. In situations where the use is straight-up, non-sarcastic, or simply historic, "kisama" is properly translated as a very formal, respectful "you". In English, we tend to use monikers rather than indicate formality/respect by "you", so it might be translated as "my lady" or "your highness" or "your excellency" or similar.

In more contemporary settings, or just angry settings, "kisama" becomes a kind of inverse. It's so formal it's sarcastic. It's taking what would normally be a simple "you" and making it so over-the-top that it becomes an insult. The equivalent in English might be (again with monikers) calling someone "Princess" as an insult, or saying, "why, of course, your highness" where the traditionally positive-respectful term is turned into an offensive phrase.

For that reason, I think some sub groups aren't always certain which nuance to go with (especially when the setting is historical or historical-influenced). And sometimes translating it as "you bastard" or simply "bastard" or some other similar offense doesn't work with the flow of the character's words. "Why, you--" is sort of the same kind of sense that you'd get from "kisama", after all: it has the "you" in there, but also a tinge of anger/insult that comes from the English colloquial of "why..." or even "look here..."

Tangentially, Korean seems to have a similar you-form, but I've noticed kdrama translators tend to translate that as "you little..." and sometimes "you punk". For whatever reason, "punk" seems to be the preferred word to show that the you-form is meant as insultingly. But again, this is character-driven, like "kisama", such that for some characters, "you punk" or "you bastard" just won't be appropriate. In those cases, you'll see "you little..." or "why, you..."

Generally speaking, just think of "kisama" in modern terms as being a kind of sarcastic inverse and thus incredibly offensive/brash. In historical terms, it's probably more of its original meaning, as respectfully formal.

As for Vic -- he's a good VA, and a great showman for a series he loves -- but I just don't think he was right for Edward Elric. For Greed, or Havoc, or similar, possibly. But for Edward, no. Then again, I'd have a tough time coming up with an English-speaking VA who has chops that could even remotely rival Romi Paku.

[soukup]

so if Japan wants to write fancy costumes and wacky Vatican-ordered gun-carrying nuns in garters, it can do it 'til the Dominicans come home.)

Oh, I missed you while you were away.

I know nothing about the people who created either version, apart from their nationalities. And I haven't read the comments yet, either here or in Phoebe's post, so it's possible that others have suggested this. But have you considered that maybe the English-speaking voice team was actively trying to downplay the gay vibe? As Phoebe points out, a bratty teenager and his patronizing, indulgent butler don't look that gay. But -- well, it takes less imagination to infer gay into a demon who's fascinated by an unusual mortal, and a kid with flexible morals and a surprising air of authority. If Ciel seems like an adult, or like something close to one, the sexual subtext is much more obvious, and I can imagine Westerners being uncomfortable with that in an animated production (ie, in media which most Westerners will think of as being marketed to children and teens).

I really hope you feel better soon. I wish you were here so I could feed you good things with ginger in them.

[kaigou]

I think the gay subtext... maybe, but really, at least in terms of the US, I'd think the upfront text of "boy sells soul to devil" would be far more threatening, because it's not subtext. You can't pretend it's not there. Altering the characterizations doesn't remove the subtext, because it's still young man in power-dynamic with older/seductive man. Altering the characterizations does, however, make the younger man less culpable, and while that doesn't reduce the power dynamic (only changes it), it does change it for the better if you have a hangup about young boys who sell their souls to the devil.

it takes less imagination to infer gay into a demon who's fascinated by an unusual mortal, and a kid with flexible morals and a surprising air of authority

Judging from what I've heard of the USian fandom reaction to the show... apparently not. From Phoebe's reports, it sounds like the dub-watching crowd wasn't willing to use their imagination on any part of it. The difficulty is that we have nothing to compare: we've got an A (show warped, fans not like) and we don't have a B (show not-warped, fans ??) ... so it's really hard to say whether it's that the show was dumbed down to prevent xtian upset and the result is that it also lost its gay subtext, or if it intended to lose the gay subtext and undermined its main character as a result.

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

I don't know anything about the official intent, but I do know from my brief time on YouTube that the principals in the English version were more than willing to play up the gay on the publicity/convention circuit. There's a clip up of a panel where Michael Tatum, who voices Sebastian, goes into character and asks Ciel to marry him. (Ciel's voice actor plays up nicely, demanding to know whether this will mean losing a butler and saying yes when assured it will not.) Maybe this is simply an artifact of being out on the convention circuit, and having more freedom to play to the fans. But I'd have thought that if any conscious effort was being made to de-gay it, the actors would have gotten some kind of hint not to encourage the fans to see the gay after all.

Which doesn't change the fact that their actual performances in the anime really do cut against that relationship vibe. At least, when compared to the original.

[lady_ganesh]

This is fantastic!

In Judeo-Christian thought, of course, there's the 'age of majority,' begun by the bar/bat mitzvah in Jewish culture, where (originally) a boy becomes a man and custodian of his soul -- owning his moral choices and decisions. So I do think you're onto something with the dub (possibly completely unconsciously) diminishing Ciel's responsibility. He was, what, eleven? You can't sell your soul if it isn't yours to sell, and in the Western setting of Kuro, the temptation to look through Western eyes becomes even greater, I think.

[kaigou]

When is bar mitzvah... isn't that 11, for boys? (And bat mitzvah is 13 for girls, am I remembering that right?)

Curiously, I remember snarking several years ago about the fact that Gundam pilots were all 15, and (slightly more seriously) wondering if this was a permanent riff on the last stage of the war, when the age-level kept dropping, and kids as young as 15 were beginning training for eventual kamikaze pilot status. (As I recall, the youngest pilot who actually saw flight time was, hrm, 17?) Anyway, there was something traditionally about how 16 was the age at which one becomes an 'adult' -- not in the legal/responsibility sense, but in the ethical/responsibility sense. It's the age at which one was expected to finally understand, and be able to bear the burden of, choosing between right and wrong.

For several series, Gundam has posited its child-heroes on that threshold. The logic sounds a little tortured to me, but I can go with it: if a child does not truly comprehend right and wrong, then a child cannot be held morally responsible for having committed murder. (Then again, this is also the reason we try children in different courts and with different punishments, in the US.) So Gundam-pilots, before the age of 16, could not be held morally liable for their actions; they could enter adulthood free of the taint of their crimes or acts because they hadn't been true adults. This meant the child-pilots could be viewed as heroes, without having to face such sticky wickets as peacetime war tribunals.

I have no idea of the usual age of confirmation in the Anglican church, however. It doesn't have a set timing, as I recall, although it's usually done somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14, I think. I think the Catholic church might be more specific as to the earliest age one can be confirmed, since both Anglican and Catholic accept adults as well. So it's just a matter of earliest age... but I don't know if that would've been a consideration for the mangaka. Then again, given how much else she's dropped, here and there, it just might be why she chose 11 as the age of the original deal (between Ciel and Sebastian), and why the story opens when he's 13 going on 14, I think it is.

[ivoryandhorn]

This was the first time I'd heard the Kuroshitsuji dub and my immediate thought was that Sebastian's VA must've been the VA for Ronnie in Baccano! -- there's that same sense of sly amusement and the same inflection of self-satisfaction and self-indulgence.

Turns out I was wrong. Whoops.

But in response to your footnote and last example, I think the shift in Ciel's last line during the contract-making exchange is really important, simply because it not just shifts the entire tone of Ciel's relationship with Sebastian but also messes with Ciel's character arc, which (at the time I stopped reading the manga, whoops) was that, given his relationship with Sebastian, he was slipping down a darker and darker path. It's not just that he sold his soul for unimaginable power, it's what he's choosing to use that power (i.e. Sebastian) for, as well as all the other forms of power he has as a member of the British aristocracy and wealthy businessman. Like Faust, Kuroshitsuji's ancestor, what's important is that Ciel wasn't only capable of giving a command to Sebastian while in a situation of desperation, it's that he gave the command in the first place -- he chose, as consciously as possible, knowing the consequences, to accept Sebastian's offer.

If you'll excuse the jump in topic, it's kind of like ancient Greek tragedy. Sure, Oedipus was fated to kill his dad and sleep with him mom -- but his actions still dictated how that fate came to pass, and it was his lack of self-awareness that meant the revelation of what he did is drawn out in as long and painful a process as possible. Powers that be put him in the corner, so to speak, but Oedipus still built the fence that trapped him there. He's still culpable for the crimes he committed. It's the same with Japanese-Ciel -- the nobles trying to summon Sebastian put Ciel in a situation of abuse and desperation where Sebastian was his only way out, but. Ciel also showed no hesitation whatsoever in commanding, demanding that Sebastian cede to him the power he craved. And that's a really important part of Ciel's character, so to obviate that by giving him even the slightest bit of uncertainty when confronted with Sebastian's offer is, well, I think it's a pretty huge distortion of the original manga and anime.

My last thought is that Sebastian's "one hell of a butler" line is one that just doesn't work for me in translation. Aside from the lost puns, it's one of those lines that, to me, has an inflection that just doesn't work in translation, not if you translate it literally. There's only one other line that I'd think of that way, and it's Kusuri-uri's response whenever someone asks him who he is (I'm thinking of an episode in particular, actually, but I can't remember which one.). It's not just the VA's inflection, which could be replicated, but the cadence of the Japanese itself. I think of Sebastian's "one hell of a butler/demon and a butler" line like that, it just doesn't really work, even if technically the words do.

[kaigou]

Like I'm pretty sure I said in the post, Sebastian's VA is relatively decent, all things being equal. He's not patently bad, nor terribly unsuited (unlike, frex, Finny's VA, whose voice is just way too deep for the eternally young and ditzy Finny)... I think the falling-down is mostly in Ciel's court, and I think a lot of that could be laid at the director's feet, for not tracking better Ciel's characterization (or doing a better job of explaining/helping the VA). The problem is that the show really is a partnership; one character can't carry it all by himself. Ciel's VA's inadequate job renders Sebastian just as unwatchable, if only because he's talking to a childish, foot-stomping, wall.

That said... yes. I do think the intention is a Faustian deal, but Faust was definitely (at least, as I've always understood the play) meant to be seen as... someone whose greed did undo him. That he was, like Oedipus, doomed from the start, and audiences weren't intended to root for him, so much as learn from his lesson. Ciel's story doesn't work quite so well as that, because he begins from a position where (a) who the hell wouldn't grab at the nearest straw, given that situation, and (b) he has too many other qualities that make it really hard not to root for him. Or maybe, it's that given the devil's deal he's made, we actually want to see him winning the day. Otherwise, it's just a character who was defeated from the start, and I don't think modern audiences are quite so much into those moralizing lessons as our predecessors.

Well, if you discount the share of fandom that likes to sanitize characters (as mentioned in the comments above) ... although even that might be considered a bulwark against the (possibly) inevitable downfall thanks to the done deal. That is, if Ciel can be seen/written/read as a character manipulated or somehow hoodwinked ("he didn't know what he was doing"), then he's less culpable, and somehow that makes it more palatable.

In a way, I think part of what I like about the original contract, and the setup around it, is that Ciel really is cornered. Literally, emotionally, physically. It really is -- and the story makes that pretty clear, over the chapters -- a place of life-and-death. And what better than the imagination of a writer to remind us, again, in a new way, just how far even a child will go, when it's the one last chance at life? I'm sure some people might hesitate, but frankly, I don't think I'd be one of them.

...As for the "helluva butler" ... it's one of those untranslatable puns. I can't think of any way to imply the meaning you get from the Japanese, not in so many words and not nearly as precisely nor as efficiently as the original. However, "hell of a butler" works in this instance because the audience is already in on the joke (of Sebastian's demonhood), so it at least makes a decent reference, and the audience is expected to meet it halfway. Sometimes, I don't think you can do much better than that.

Still, that kind of compromise isn't at all the same as instances (like in what I quoted at lady_ganesh) where the line has been changed outright, if not completely reversed from its original intent. That bugs me, and it makes me wonder about fandom, if this was supposed to be a dub where the spoken script is better done than the subtitle/translation. What the hell do the official subtitles look like, then? Were they translated with crayons and an incomplete Scrabble set?