The Bleach Dub Thread

[Canadian]

Personally I found "Soul Reaper" to make perfect sense.

Anyways, the pronounciation of names and such was well done. I definitely hated Rukia's voice-over. I'd say Ichigo's is the most well-suited voice-over. Compared to Naruto - and many other dub jobs for that matter - this English dub is pretty good.

[darkmetal505]

Bleach episodes 1 & 2 eng dub:

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=koneko00

I liked it

[nests]

I actually enjoyed this dub is pretty good so far, better than Naruto's anyway I quickly got used to Ichigo's voice in english so that means is actually pretty good

[samsonlonghair]

They actually did a decent job dubbing this. As long as they don't make up a catch phrase for Ichigo I'll be happy, believe it.

[Church]

I have to agree... much better than Naruto's dub, Bleach's dubbing is very well done, very natural.

[saman]

sigh. tonight's episode made me cry against my will. twice. don't tell anyone though. but yeah, very well done episode.

[nests]

Ahhh! yes re-waching this episodes is making me remeber why I stared to like tha anime in the first place now the last ones left hear is Ishida and Byakuya if those voices are fine that I wont mind any of the others

[masamuneehs]

yes, super late on this, but better late than never, right?

wow, well i watched an episode of the Bleach dub today, and man did it remind how much I prefer fansubs... The Japanese VAs.... just levels better, more fitting of the animation style, the behavior, the characters...

I think it was Episode 15. The one where Kon runs away and Rukia decides to leave. It's the first episode with Yorouichi and Renji (at the very end), plus the minor characters at the school have tons of lines, as almost all the scenes are typical conversations between classes.

some of the dubbed voices sounded alright. Ichigo's was fine, Ishida's was pretty good too. Kon's.... I'm willing to accept it, Raiden (that's forever who this guy is to me) is obviously trying hard at it, and he's pretty zany, not a bad match. The one line of Yoro's cat voice didn't sound awful, but not quite distinctive or gravely enough.

echo what Xan said about Lindsey as Urahara, not a good match at all.

watching this episode was real tough, because it's so dialogue driven, and the english VA cast for the side-characters was less than stellar. For the girls I kept on thinking, "They sound so much alike!" and that was weird, since the Japanese VA's I can't actually understand their speech!, but the Jap. voices are all so different and unique... But every time the girls spoke, it was like listening to the same VA trying to pitch a slightly different character... Orihime, Tatsuki and Rukia obviously stood out as exceptions to this... Keigo's voice sucked particularly hard.

but what ruined it for me was Rukia's voice. This episode was the one where I really decided I liked Bleach, because I could watch a whole episode and just care about the characters! I found all the little conversations and hintings/foreshadowing in this not-action packed episode to be really entertaining still! Rukia is at center stage in this episode, hers is the plot movement. The Japanese VA did an absolutely fabulous job putting emotion into this episode.

the english Rukia just sucked. The whole episode I just shook my head everytime she tried to intone something. Half the time she just had a dull, level tone of voice, and that was probably the best part! Cuz every time she made an attempt to convey any sort of feeling or emotion she failed miserably.

and I'm not just a dub hater... I do like dubs and think they have a really difficult task to do, and expecting them to surpass the original production, which was the element the show was originally forged in, is ludicrous. But I was pretty disappointed with my first impression of the Bleach dub.

[XanBcoo]

Oh dang, am I behind on the Bleach dub. I've only just now caught up with watching up to episode 20 on Youtube.

Before I say anything, I wanna say how hopeful I was when I saw episode #1. I loved it. Michelle Ruff has the perfect voice for Rukia, and Bosch's Ichigo is just so natural. Now though, I am gonna have to agree with Masa. As all the characters have had time to show what they can do, it's just become so mediocre, with only a few high points to note.

The dub has now ruined 2 voices for me: Urahara and Renji (played by Wally Wingert, of Family Guy fame - yeah, I said "Family Guy fame" so what? Wanna fight about it??). Renji's voice is just so terrible I can't stand it. He can't even pronounce his name OR his Zanpakuto's properly. Listening to him speak is like watching some shitty fan-dub. What were they thinking? Why does he sound so obnoxious? Based on the sound of his voice alone, I can't bring myself to listen to him for more than a minute. Like Urahara, he was completely miscast. Wingert should stick to American cartoons, 'cause he just sounds goofy as Renji.

God...Urahara. Y'know, I've ranted on several message boards about this on several different occasions, but I don't think it's quite out of my system yet: Urahara sucks. He has completely lost all the fancy in his voice, all his suave style, and just about everything else Shinichiro Miki brought to the role. Every funny scene is now devoid of humor, and he's got 0 energy. In particular, both of my favorite Urahara scenes were utterly butchered. They're just not funny anymore, and that's a real downer. .

There have also been several really strange changes made to the script that I can't get my head around. Why did they not fuzz out Zangetsu's name when he first introduced himself, like they did in Japanese? Why do they call Ishida "Uryuu", when everyone should refer to him as "Ishida"? Kon's "nice angle" line was also taken out completely earlier on. The scene when Orihime summoned her fairies, only to be attacked by them was just dead. These are minor quibbles, but they all are pretty jarring after having watched it in Japanese first. There have been other awkward script changes that I can't bring to mind at the moment, and they are few and far between, but each one just makes me scratch my head.

Anyway, here's episode 20:
Episode 20 part 1
Episode 20 part 2
Episode 20 part 3

Wow. All my complaints aside, there are still several saving graces from this episode alone. Zaraki Kenpachi's voice is made of growls and win. I love it. He sounds just like a hulking tough guy should. Spot-freaking-on. Cat-Yoroichi is a great actor, destined to play the "sensei" character. I particularly liked his lines in part 3 at the 2:10 mark. It just flowed so damn nicely, like he was some sort of motivational speaker. I sat there, nodding my head, saying "yes sir, yes sir". The dude's got talent. Richard Epcar's rich voice was a great pick for Zangetsu. He's deep, forceful, and commanding. He lets his naturally powerful voice do all the work and I love it.

The best voices, in my opinion, all come from the Ichigo-gang. I've found I MUCH prefer Ishida's English voice to his Japanese one. He's had some moments of sincere depth in his readings thus far, and overall just has a fitting voice. Chad and Orihime are great. They work well of each other, and are decent actors too. Chad in particular is just hilarious every time he opens his mouth. Perfect voice for the role.

So yeah. A combination of the "pretty awesome" with the "exceedingly terrible" makes for a mediocre dub in my opinion. I like it, but I don't love it...

[Mizuchi]

omg...

Everytime time i watch the dub, my ears bleed uncontrollably. It's like watching a parody of the show, everything is pronounced wrong, people talk like idiots. only ichigo, gin, and zaraki's voices are decent. Byakuya, renji, and urahara (the most dissapointing of all) sound like they are short half a brain.

[DarthEnderX]

I was watching tonight, and when Ichigo was talking to Zangetsu, there was a song playing that I hear all the time in the series, but there were these soft english lyrics over it that I never noticed before. Was that always there, and they just don't play that version very often, or is that new to the dub?

Every funny scene is now devoid of humor, and he's got 0 energy. In particular, both of my favorite Urahara scenes were utterly butchered. They're just not funny anymore, and that's a real downer.

Really? I can't recall a situation where Urahara was anything but completely deadpan with maybe a half-a-smirk on his face.