Anime Boston - Day 2 - Part 1 - Negima Dub Review
So my day starts off with going to the FUNimation panel “Breakfast at Negima’s”
So they said,
“What about
Breakfast at Negima’s?”
I said, “I
Think I
Remember that show, I
Yes, I recall actually
It was disappointing.”
And they said,
“Well that’s
The license we got.”
Okay, all jokes aside, this was the world premiere of the English dub. They screen for us the first and fifth episodes of the series, so that we could get a taste for the Ermine character. The dub was fantastic. They took many liberties with adapting the script, but what they wrote worked so well with the animation that it brought a new sense of humor to the series. Fans of the manga might be really confused at to why the anime seems even more isolated from the manga, but as a huge Akamatsu fan, I feel that this dub actually does more justice then the original Japanese script did.
Gripes did some with the voices, though. Ayres was casted for the lead with this one, but I would really doubt you could tell it’s him. He seriously changes his voice for this role, and not in a good way. When Negi is speaking in a normal voice, Ayres weak British accent is decent. But then Negi becomes timid, which happens very often, Ayres squeaks way too much, and often becomes inaudible. I also felt that Nodoka’s English voice wasn’t timid enough for her role.
But the ermine character steals the show.. They make him a very hard, tough, and perverted individual. This brings back some of the edge and raunchiness that went missing when the anime was originally made.
So you heard it here, folks, not only did I find this dub to be pretty good, I think it might actually be better then the original Japanese version! It still seems very different then the manga, but when you try to turn shit into gold, you gotta make those kinds of sacrifices. Great job, FUNimation!
