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REVIEW: Only Yesterday (Dub)


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KitKat1721



Joined: 03 Feb 2015
Posts: 954
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 10:51 am Reply with quote
I really enjoyed reading this review because more often than not, most people I know seem to think something akin to, "it's good, well-made, but slow, and I didn't really feel a personal attachment to it. I can appreciate it, and I'm glad I saw it, but there's not much more to say."

I've always really liked this film, and I think it's grown on me more as I've gotten a bit older. Hearing a passionate and personal take on the film was not only refreshing, but made me really want to rewatch it (I haven't seen it in a couple years, so now's a good time).
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AkiraKaneda



Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 61
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 11:42 am Reply with quote
So glad this is finally being released. A number of years I wrote this, and I think it's still true: "If Grave of the Fireflies is Takahata's story of hope lost, Only Yesterday is his tale of hope found. It has resided in my top ten anime list of all time for a great long while. After watching it again, I realize that at #9, it is probably ranked too low."
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Raebo101



Joined: 17 Mar 2010
Posts: 796
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:03 pm Reply with quote
So, the dub basically had to be perfect... and it wasn't. Hmm...

Should've had Mary Elizabeth McGlynn work her ADR magic on it. Or Taliesin Jaffe Razz
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:13 pm Reply with quote
Justin wrote:
That said, Only Yesterday is perhaps the best-made film in the entire Ghibli canon...


I beg your pardon, but there is no "perhaps" about it. Only Yesterday is the best Ghibli film, and I knew it was a breathtaking masterpiece even when I first watched it as a newbie anime fan ten years ago. It didn't affect me on a personal level like it did for you, but I know quality when I see it and this movie is one of the finest works of anime ever made. There's a real humanity about it that anime unfortunately tend to lack.
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GuruBuckaroo



Joined: 18 Feb 2015
Posts: 75
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:28 pm Reply with quote
One of the things that still stands out to me about this film, and I haven't watched it nearly recently enough, is the original voice actor for Toshio. His accent, verbal tics, everything played wonderfully for the character, and the animation they put into him matched it so incredibly well. I'll have to throw this into the player this weekend and re-appreciate it.
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Posts Sometimes



Joined: 27 Jul 2014
Posts: 38
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:47 pm Reply with quote
animenewsnetwork.com/buried-treasure/2009-05-21/only-yesterday

It's a very good review, but it's weird to see a "new" review that's pretty much a copy/paste of an old one (other than the comments about the dub, of course).
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NearEasternerJ1





PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:30 pm Reply with quote
Why do Ghibli films always use celebrities, instead of real VAs? Loads of great VAs in LA. 90% of all LA VAs are A-tier and 50% are S-tier. Far better than Ridley. She wasn't even good in Star Wars.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:53 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Why should a story like this be animated when the medium only alienates the art house crowd that might support it? I would argue that a story like this must be animated. Beyond the usual layer of abstraction provided by animation, that we might cease to wonder about actors and sets and shooting days and more fully lose ourselves in the world and its characters, the film plays with subjective realities in a way that would be perhaps impossible to pull off as well with physical people.

Not that I am accustomed to issuing this sort of praise, but what a striking thing to say! In some respects it is a shame to see such venerating words accompany several warnings and caveats. It is as if, through no fault of the director, viewers are likely to be denied something that is evidently quite profound.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:00 pm Reply with quote
Posts Sometimes wrote:
animenewsnetwork.com/buried-treasure/2009-05-21/only-yesterday

It's a very good review, but it's weird to see a "new" review that's pretty much a copy/paste of an old one (other than the comments about the dub, of course).


Yep, we repurpose old reviews all the time when there's no discernable difference between the releases other than a new dub. The review of Fate/stay night that went up earlier this week was the older review, repurposed to include commentary on the dub, extras, and the bluray release in general.
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LUNI_TUNZ



Joined: 28 Apr 2010
Posts: 809
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:34 pm Reply with quote
NearEasternerJ1 wrote:
Why do Ghibli films always use celebrities, instead of real VAs? Loads of great VAs in LA. 90% of all LA VAs are A-tier and 50% are S-tier. Far better than Ridley. She wasn't even good in Star Wars.


Disney does the dubs, but it goes deeper than that. Essentially they hire well known on-screen actors essentially so they can put their names on the poster/cover, and have them generate "buzz" or whatever. Like, with this they can go "Hey, Daisy Ridley from STAR WARS is in this movie. Pick it up, whydontcha!"

Even Janice Karman, one of the producers of the Alvin and the Chipmunk movies (and current TV series), got muscled out of the role of Theodore so Jesse McCartney could voice him.

It's the reason you've never seen an original animated film from Disney or Pixar (or practically anybody) in theaters starring Billy West or Tara Strong, or any other predominant voice actor - save maybe The Simpson's Movie.

Speaking of Billy West, he hates that shit, and has actively spoken out against it in the past.
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Looneygamemaster



Joined: 21 Jan 2012
Posts: 192
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 3:10 pm Reply with quote
Just putting it out there, but Ghibli doesn't like using professional VAs either. Their 80s movies have them, but most of the time you hear live-action actors, just like Disney.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
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Location: South America
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Only Yesterday is the first movie that made me cry as an adult.

Also, it made me an animation fan (together with Miyazaki's films). Truly an astounding work of art and a powerful example of the power of animation as an art form.

By the way, why ask if such a movie should be animated? We are anime fans which means we like animation. We like everything animated. And, I personally find that live action film looks amateurish with its excessive amount of detail that is imprinted into the film unconsciously, animation is clean and crisp. And as it was demonstrated in World War 2, pilots learned better how to do maintenance in their planes from animated instructional films compared to live action videos or books.
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Jayhosh



Joined: 24 May 2013
Posts: 972
Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 6:17 pm Reply with quote
LUNI_TUNZ wrote:
Disney does the dubs, but it goes deeper than that. Essentially they hire well known on-screen actors essentially so they can put their names on the poster/cover, and have them generate "buzz" or whatever. Like, with this they can go "Hey, Daisy Ridley from STAR WARS is in this movie. Pick it up, whydontcha!"


There is a lot that's irritating in your comment, but the one specific laughable moment is this:

"Even Janice Karman, one of the producers of the Alvin and the Chipmunk movies (and current TV series), got muscled out of the role of Theodore so Jesse McCartney could voice him."

I highly doubt anyone's watching the new Alvin and the Chipmunks cartoon (or movies for that matter) because of Jesse McCartney.

"It's the reason you've never seen an original animated film from Disney or Pixar (or practically anybody) in theaters starring Billy West or Tara Strong, or any other predominant voice actor - save maybe The Simpson's Movie."

Regardless, Pixar often picks very appropriate actors for their films, and so do Ghibli Int. with their dubs (disregarding Ponyo I'd say). Why should it even matter who the people are as long as they give a good performance? You could go into the semantics over wage and earnings but all I'm talking about is the final product and how well made it is, and they often put out serviceable dubs for the Ghibli films. And Spirited Away actually did have a lot of voice actors in its dub, no big names that I can recall. Tara Strong even played the role of Yubaba's baby.

Also, just one last thing, since you seem to be so dead set on attacking the dubs for using popular actors for many of the films: Ghibli does it too in their Japanese dubs. They often get actors/actresses instead of prominent anime VA's like most Japanese cartoons receive. Hell, freaking Hideaki Anno played the main role in The Wind Rises mainly because he's just good friends with Miyazaki.

Also this film is great. If it's apparently popular to make fun of it because of the slow pace I was not aware. But if that's the case then those people can just get outta here with that crap.
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LUNI_TUNZ



Joined: 28 Apr 2010
Posts: 809
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 6:48 pm Reply with quote
[quote="Jayhosh"]
Jayhosh wrote:
There is a lot that's irritating in your comment, but the one specific laughable moment is this:

"Even Janice Karman, one of the producers of the Alvin and the Chipmunk movies (and current TV series), got muscled out of the role of Theodore so Jesse McCartney could voice him."

I highly doubt anyone's watching the new Alvin and the Chipmunks cartoon (or movies for that matter) because of Jesse McCartney.


You'd think that, but Karman and Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. had been voicing the Chipmunks since the 80's, and the only Chipmunk media they don't do their voices is the Live-action movies, instead losing the roles to on-screen actors Justin Long, Mathew Gray Gubler and the aforementioned Jesse McCartney.

Quote:
"It's the reason you've never seen an original animated film from Disney or Pixar (or practically anybody) in theaters starring Billy West or Tara Strong, or any other predominant voice actor - save maybe The Simpson's Movie."

Regardless, Pixar often picks very appropriate actors for their films, and so do Ghibli Int. with their dubs (disregarding Ponyo I'd say). Why should it even matter who the people are as long as they give a good performance? You could go into the semantics over wage and earnings but all I'm talking about is the final product and how well made it is, and they often put out serviceable dubs for the Ghibli films. And Spirited Away actually did have a lot of voice actors in its dub, no big names that I can recall. Tara Strong even played the role of Yubaba's baby.


More often than not, again, they're casting them for their names, you think prominent VA's like Billy West are like "I'll pass". You think Ponyo was a fluke? Sure it shouldn't matter, but in that case, why don't more VA's get the starring roles? I'm not saying every movie is some horribly miscast nightmare, but to ignore what actually happens is silly on it's face. Hell, Inside Out didn't even audition it's cast.
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TurnerJ



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 481
Location: Highland Park, NJ
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 8:10 pm Reply with quote
The argument that a dub has to be perfect in order to be watchable seems to be stretching it to me. For me it doesn't matter whether the dub "matches" the Japanese version or not. What matters to me is whether it's done well in its own right, at least to my ears.

I'm hoping this one will be fine. Yes, there may be subtleties that MIGHT be lost in the translation, but that's just how it is sometimes in dubbing. In the end, as long as the end result plays smoothly, it doesn't matter how it compares to the Japanese version or not, at least to me as a viewer.
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