New idolm@ster anime

[zeda12123]

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but has it occurred to anyone that the Idolm@ster anime actually has a decent chance at having an English release of some kind? I can understand releasing a game like Idolm@ster in America would be far-fetched, but an anime of it isn't so crazy. There have been animes with crazier concepts and premises than Idolm@ster released in English (Hetalia and FLCL come to mind). Heck, even K-ON!, another musical-ish anime, is being localized.

So what do you guys think? Considering most anime are fair game for localization these days (at least from what I've observed), do you think the Idolm@ster anime, at the very least, will be released in English?

Before anyone brings it up, I know English dubbing and linguistic liberties are an issue to some (the quality of voices, quality of acting, how the songs are handled, translation, etc.), but that's not what I'm asking here.

I totally agree. The anime getting localized isn't such a big jump like the game getting localized so theres always a chance of it to be dubbed. And who knows, if it gets popular here, it could open the path for a bunch of other stuf. Please god, please.

[Rihsa]

^ Ha ha, yeah, that was another thought I pondered. XD If the Idolm@ster anime is localized/released in America, that definitely increases the chances for the games to be released. Is the increased chance dramatic? Ehhh, probably not, but it's much much much better than before at least!

Now I'm really getting ahead of myself here, but, hypothetically, if they were to release an Idolm@ster game, I imagine it'd be IM@S 2 with the 2 dropped from the name, as it'd be most relevant to the anime and it's the most recent and polished Idolm@ster game. It wouldn't be too bad if that were the case, right? All the Idolm@ster games are disconnected story wise, correct? And one Idolm@ster game would be better than none (on top of that, IM@S 2 isn't a bad choice out of all the games, imo).

[animagic4u]

So what do you guys think? Considering most anime are fair game for localization these days (at least from what I've observed), do you think the Idolm@ster anime, at the very least, will be released in English?

Well heck even Doujin Work got subbed in America...and it's so obscure I seem to be the only fan on the planet!
The trend I've noticed with anime now is that it comes to America pretty fast but with subs only.

[Clear Blue]

Well heck even Doujin Work got subbed in America...and it's so obscure I seem to be the only fan on the planet!
The trend I've noticed with anime now is that it comes to America pretty fast but with subs only.

I only want subs. I don't want to hear horrible voice acting or crap translations coming from their mouths. >.<

[animagic4u]

I only want subs. I don't want to hear horrible voice acting or crap translations coming from their mouths. >.<

To be honest though, the translation is crap. I mean the subs allow you to make sense of it...but they don't even give you footnotes for super confusing parts like puns and stuff so unless you know Japanese (which I only know a little bit which helps) most of the funny parts go over your head.

Hopefully if this happens to idolm@ster the translators are good. I want to know exactly what they're saying!

[Rihsa]

I love dubs.

As long as the dubbing never gets as bad Chaos Wars or old school dubbing, then I'm fine. Or whatever company does the dubbing for Kaleido Star.

The dubs for the Tales series, Catherine, Persona, Code Geass, etc. etc. Basically any recenty dub for an anime game or anime I LOVE.

Whatever the case, Namco's games released in English usually have fine dubs to me. I dunno about translations since I don't speak Japanese, nor do I read fansubs.

[Ch@osM@ster]

I love dubs.

As long as the dubbing never gets as bad Chaos Wars or old school dubbing, then I'm fine. Or whatever company does the dubbing for Kaleido Star.

The dubs for the Tales series, Catherine, Persona, Code Geass, etc. etc. Basically any recenty dub for an anime game or anime I LOVE.

Whatever the case, Namco's games released in English usually have fine dubs to me.

^ This. This right here.

Not all dubs are bad. Maybe they'll get GOOD voice actresses for the characters. (Final Fantasy 10 anyone?) Why not give them a chance rather than assume it's going to be bad?

And, maybe they'll let you change the option to Japanese if you don't want to hear the English Dub.

To be honest, I want to hear a dub of this game.

[SalemJeanette]

http://news.dengeki.com/elem/000/000/380/380094/
Nishigori interview and 4 more screenshots

[animagic4u]

^ This. This right here.

Not all dubs are bad. Maybe they'll get GOOD voice actresses for the characters. (Final Fantasy 10 anyone?) Why not give them a chance rather than assume it's going to be bad?

And, maybe they'll let you change the option to Japanese if you don't want to hear the English Dub.

To be honest, I want to hear a dub of this game.

But I don't want to hear...the songs dubbed.
For example, Haruhi Suzumiya is a great dub. The translators put some thought into it. But the concert scene in Live Alive sounded awful to me....bad song translations, bad singing. If they keep the songs it would be okay.

http://news.dengeki.com/elem/000/000/380/380094/
Nishigori interview and 4 more screenshots

Good to see all of our fave characters being themselves...especially Miki...

[Rihsa]

K-ON's dubbed songs sounded fine (from what I heard from the K-ON panel with Sheh and Vee). And yeah, I do have to admit Wendee Lee's God Knows was iffy. Her Lost My Music was fine though. And that's only one example. I'm sure good singers for the songs can be found (Cristina Vee and Laura Bailey come to mind~). Who knows how many liberties they'll take with the songs though. :/ Even I'm slightly worried about that. Either way, nothing's happened yet though so. XD

[Cael K.]

But I don't want to hear...the songs dubbed.
But the concert scene in Live Alive sounded awful to me....bad song translations, bad singing. If they keep the songs it would be okay.

My (brief) personal experience with translation is that it involves rewriting a scene as if the characters were native speakers in whatever language you're translating to... and even then it's colored by your own interpretation of the characters and what they would say.

Then, for a dub, you've got mouth motions to match, which kinda aren't made for your language... but they're still a bit transferable and you can make do...

And finally you've got a song, the lyrics specifically made for one language and thus the entire song built around that (or vice versa) or in concert with that (meaning one matches line-for-line with the other). If the song were made in English to start with, would it have even kept the same melody? Probably not. If the melody changed, would the harmony change to match? Probably so.

Thus do I believe that songs can't really be translated well in a way that makes them singable. Really, you'd have to make the song again, or at least modify it, but let's not even get into that...

[nowano]

iM@S Anime advertisement in Yomiuri Shimbun (Daily Yomiuri) from different regions in Japan!

Kyūshū (Hibiki, Takane)


Kansai, Chūgoku, Shikoku (Ami, Mami, Miki)


Chūbu (Iori, Yayoi)


Chūgoku, Shikoku (Makoto, Yukiho)


Kantō, Tōhoku, Shizuoka (Haruka, Chihaya)


Hokuriku (Ritsuko, Azusa)


Ad locations info referring to this twitter post:
http://twitter.com/#!/TOWER_Anime/status/88779547318820864

[Rihsa]

Thus do I believe that songs can't really be translated well in a way that makes them singable. Really, you'd have to make the song again, or at least modify it, but let's not even get into that...

I disagree. I know I'm just a random chick doing fandubs on the internet, but a way around that is simply by taking the translation and rewriting/adapting it to the syllables and melody to the song.

For example, in the song HELLO!! the first lyric is: "Ima Mezashiteku watashi dake no SUTOORII." This translates to "Today we aim for our very own Story!" and the Japanese line has 15 syllables total (despite how "story" is written as SUTOORII, in the song they pronounce correctly with just two syllables). In my fandub lyrics, I rewrote it as "Today We will aim to make what we can call our own Story!" The fandub line is basically true to the original meaning and it's singable because it has the same number of syllables.

Matching the mouth flaps is certainly another issue. It's only REALLY a problem if the mouth flaps were already tailored to the words being sung. In the game the songs were lip synced to the Japanese words, but that can be fixed if the developers or whatever bother to change the mouthing. As for the anime, I dunno if they'll lip sync the animation for the songs or simply have their mouths move up in down in typical anime speaking fashion. If that's the case, as long as the "syllable" rule is followed, it shouldn't be a problem. This is why God Knows English lyrics in Haruhi may have had issues, because they had to account for the lip sync (which followed the Japanese words).

And wow, those ads are nifty. Region specific? Very unique ha ha.

[Cael K.]

Come to think of it, can anyone confirm if either Atsushi Nishigori, Youzou Sakagami, or Akihiro Ishihara have ever made it to Otakon? The latter two I doubt, but...

... For that matter, Toshiyuki Kubooka, but I don't think that's very applicable here...

I disagree. I know I'm just a random chick doing fandubs on the internet, but a way around that is simply by taking the translation and rewriting/adapting it to the syllables and melody to the song.

But even then, it's an up-hill battle I think, but this might come for the fact that I've never heard a singable translation that wasn't awkward to me, or the fact that I'm not good at it myself. Syllables ain't even the most of it, there's song flow to consider as well.

The deck's stacked against you, really... though maybe I was exaggerating a bit when I said it's never possible... just that it's such a hard task, and that I've never really seen it pulled off well.

[Rihsa]

A singable translation isn't technically possible. You have to adapt the translation to the song if you want to preserve its exact melody and syllables. You can't have a song adapted into another language AND have lyrics that are an exact word for word translation.

And care to elaborate on what you mean by song flow? As long as the lyrics fit the syllables or progression of notes in the song, I always felt songs written with that goal in mind flowed well. The only thing that ruined that was awkward wording or clumsy placement of specific words/lyrics in my experiences.