Gurren Lagann 17-18

Gurren Lagann 17-18

Sorry I didn't post the day of the initial airing, but to tell the truth I kind of lost my interest in it. That's not to say I'm uninterested in the show or in analyzing the dub, but rather my apathy for this show's dub has slightly decreased. I know that sounds strange, that a lack of apathy would be a bad thing, but I just don't feel as much need to complain about it.

Yes, the time jump has arrived, and with it each character sounds a million times better than they did before. While some lines may seem a little forced, the person with whom I had the most problem was Yoko, and she was hardly present in these episodes so I didn't have much chance to pick on her.

Gimmy and Darry have both grown up the most (from children to teenagers), and it is indeed noticeable both in their design and their voices. Their voices are fitting to their characters and, because the team has used the same actors for both the young and teenage versions, their voices sound like they would had the characters really grown up. It's silly when different voice actors are hired, and later you realize the character doesn't sound anything like they used to when they were children. While this isn't the only case in which a show has used the same voices for adults as well as children, it is something worth praise.

The only person whose voice I wasn't too appreciative of was Nia. The voice is the same sort of bubbly, and it's still cute, but... Well, it just doesn't fit her image as well anymore. The sudden pitch change disturbed me and made any mistakes she made all the more obvious. Her whole existence before was pretty played up and adorable, but now that she's mellowed out her voice has as well and she kind of lost her cuteness. I wanted that high-pitched, innocent refusal of Simon's ring. She kind of sounded like a bitch in the English version, but that's not her fault. I think it's the fact that her simple 'iya da' (no) in Japanese turned into 'no way' in English. It just sounds so much crueler that way.

But it isn't like she did a bad job or anything of the sort. It's mostly an image problem. And anyway, we won't be seeing too much of Nia for a while. And when we do, she'll be the antispiral. And her voice fits that character perfectly.

But the highlight of the whole night was definitely Yuri Lowenthal's battle cries. How can you resist the charm of a man screaming 'Oriyaaaaa!' when he attacks? Really, it's nigh on impossible I tell you! It's dorky and it's cute and at the same time it really, really makes me happy.

Oh! I know I promised to steer clear of talking about the station, but I'm pretty angry so I'll rant here. Sci-Fi Network, in a show of sheer stupidity, went and cut out the most important part of episode 17--Nia's transformation. After Simon's battle, Nia randomly appeared as an evil entity in the sky. Even worse is that the scene was played just a few minutes later, when they aired episode 18, as a part of the recap. Seriously, Sci-Fi, a little continuity would be nice. Stop inserting commercials left and right and play the episode in a way that makes sense! If you have to cut something out, cut out some of Rossiu's self-righteous crap or something! He spends a lot of time walking and talking and praising the young people. Nia's transformation is far more important than much of his bull.

Rant over.

So the dub is getting better over time and the voices better fit their grown personas. But really, we're seventeen episodes into the series already. It's a bit late.

Which isn't to say I'm not going to be a little marketing whore and buy the multilingual DVDs. I'm weak like that.