Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Frumple]

Honestly, protagonist-centered media in general seems to be pretty slim on the prominent parental figure, especially actual biological or adopted parents. Something always seems to happen to them, or they get regulated to the background (at best). There's definitely exceptions, but that's always seemed to be the trend of things...

[Leafsnail]

Conan's mother is an actress and his father is a crime writer who solves mysteries

[Neonivek]

Honestly, protagonist-centered media in general seems to be pretty slim on the prominent parental figure, especially actual biological or adopted parents. Something always seems to happen to them, or they get regulated to the background (at best). There's definitely exceptions, but that's always seemed to be the trend of things...

And when they are prominent they are almost always comedic relief (Heck even Conan's parents are basically that)

And when they aren't... They tend to be malicious

[Solifuge]

That's a commonality in a lot of media that's ostensibly written for younger people, whatever the country. When you have a story where younger protagonists are going to be going on dangerous adventures or getting up to risky heroics, parents present a bit of a narrative problem. In a real-world situation, you'd expect parents and other adults to want to protect their kids, hold them back or forbid them from dangerous things, or even fight for them so they don't have to, keeping the kids from being the heroes themselves.

I think writers frequently fall back on two solutions to remove parents from the picture, and give young protagonists maximum room to have adventures:

1) The parents are mostly out of the picture; they're well-meaning and supportive when they appear, but tend to be shown as goofy, incompetent, and out of touch. They are often blissfully unaware of their children's secret lives or heroics, and may even be physically separated from their kids by distance or circumstances. Their children may also have heroic alter egos, or may be whisked away by the story's framing device to an alternate world or on a special quest that separates them from their parents while they're questing. Basically, it's a modern stand-in for the old fairytale device of "And thus So-And-So said farewell to their parents, and set out to make their way in the world". This is common in more upbeat or cheerful stories, or those aimed toward younger children, though it happens in more serious stories as well. Anime: Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Escaflowne, Inuyasha. Cartoons: Fairly Oddparents, Scooby Doo, Inspector Gadget. Stories: Ender's Game, Paranatural, Harry Potter.

2) Their parents are absent from their children's lives because they're always working, are deadbeats, abandoned the family, mysteriously disappeared, need rescuing, died, or are even antagonists or villains in the story. Sometimes their absence is some part of the protagonist's call to adventure; they set off to discover their parents, rescue them, or defeat them. The children may also run away from home, or be separated from them in the wake of tragedy or disaster. Common to more gritty or serious stories, or those aimed at older kids or teens, though comedy and upbeat themes work fine with it too. Anime: Record of Lodoss War, NGE, YuYu Hakusho, Dragon Ball, Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto. Cartoons: Adventure Time, Thundercats. Stories: Harry Potter again, Eragon, Lord of the Rings (Sorta? Hobbits are kinda symbolic of children).

[Neonivek]

Ehhh I'd say Western Cartoons are quite a bit more common in including parents of characters.

Rugrats, Danny Phantom, The replacements, the Weekenders.

Just off the top of my head.

It is probably because Western Cartoons are more often about a family dynamic.

[i2amroy]

So my mom got interested in just what exactly I enjoy in anime but she's not one for subtitles, so I've been going through and watching a lot of the dubbed versions of shows to find one I can recommend to her. I gotta say, the fact that voice actors in the dubs usually sound younger than the original ones definitely has some interesting effects. It kinda takes some of the punch from some things, but boy does it make some of the others hit you harder. (The Sister Project arc from Toaru Kagaku no Railgun with the younger voices, for example, definitely hits you harder with the younger sounding voices.)

[Neonivek]

The only issue with Western acting versus say... Japanese acting

Is that DANG do the western voice actors just flat out refuse to lose their ****

Ok I am exaggerating but usually when someone dies and an American needs to do the "Nooooooo!" it is like a Hollywood no... and when the Japanese needs to do the "Nooo!" it is like a loud yell, like a real bellow.

[Lord Shonus]

Ok I am exaggerating but usually when someone dies and an American needs to do the "Nooooooo!" it is like a Hollywood no... and when the Japanese needs to do the "Nooo!" it is like a loud yell, like a real bellow.

Are you sure that doesn't just seem that way because it's foreign? Tonal differences can greatly change the way something sounds (such as German sounding angry, French sounding sexy, or Latin sounding majestic) to a non-native speaker.

[Neonivek]

No...

It is because the difference in the philosophies in how someone should respond to a death.

Western it is the typical "NOOOoooOoooo!"

Eastern it is to give a death shriek and just freak out! (well just Japanese)

It is more that when they dub it they replace the "death shriek" with "Noooooooo!"

In all honesty though... I kind of wanted to see a single dub attempt the death shriek...

[Furtuka]

I hereby submit a counterpoint.  <--not the dub


...okay to be honest I just really wanted an excuse to post it, before you call me out on being irrelevant :V

[Andres]

That was awful.

[Neonivek]

That was awful.

In all fairness I am sure that was awful in Japanese too.

Stuff gets props for having a guy basically break down in tears instead of manly yelling or stoic sorrow.

[Frumple]

Tonal differences do make a difference, but the eastern VAs are definitely pretty consistently significantly more expressive than english ones, especially on stuff like Neo's talking about. Just in regards to pitch shifting and tonal changes, there's very close to unilaterally a very significant advantage to the originals, at least in everything I've seen. Near as I can tell they've just straight up got the better VA industry (at the moment,* anyway).

*E: Though by "moment", I mean the last time I actually watched dubbed anime to any extent worth noting, which was, uh. Probably at least three or four years ago at a minimum >_>

[Furtuka]

That was awful.

In all fairness I am sure that was awful in Japanese too.

Stuff gets props for having a guy basically break down in tears instead of manly yelling or stoic sorrow.

That was the japanese version.

[i2amroy]

I hereby submit a counterpoint.  <--not the dub

Okay that was hilarious. XD

On the note of screams though, I am finding that often the dub actors are in general doing much better jobs at their screams of rage and terror than the originals (though I'd definitely agree that the original VA death screams and "whooooaaaaa" charge up bellows are generally much better).

Edit: Also the Fate/Zero dub is killing me. I understand it's a direct translation instead of a rewrite, but at this point it would honestly have been better for them to just say the whole line and then pause for the remainder of the time the Japanese line took instead of putting huge... pauses... in the middle of their... sentences. (Hopefully when UBW gets a dub it'll do a better job. )