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No Nosferatu

As I read the conditions of Mission 49, I wanted to know what were considered classic movie monsters. Of course you have your vampires, mummies and werewolves, but I also considered what we here consider classic monsters; like Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhese and Michael Myers.

With all these characters in mind, I decided to go with an old classic, Frankenstein. And who better to find the persona of Frankenstein than Choji?

Lumbering about the village, groaning and creeping up on unexpecting victims in the middle of the night ready to throttle 'em. Using his partial expansion jutsu, he'd grab his victims fleeing in terror and have his way with them, like his own toy chest of Stretch Armstrong’s'. What he would lack in agility, he'd make up for in sheer uninhibited power; demolishing buildings with a flick of his wrist, and when you thought it couldn't get any worse, to sate his unrelenting hunger, he would devour the remains of his victims bodies, leaving nothing but the bones. He would embody imminent death, something we are allpowerless to stop, and that is something truly frightening.

I was also considering Choji as that dude Jigsaw from the Saw movies, on account of those red swirls on his face, but that'd be more up Shikamaru's alley.

Plus, for any fans of pairings out there, Ino would make a great Bride of Frankenstein.

Posted Oct 1, 2008 by brittlebulletEX | Add a comment | Share It

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Free Roaming Beat 'Em Up

With the way Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm looks and plays, the possibilities of where you could fight would be awesome.

I think it would be awesome to have a fight that involved some IP Crossover action. The one that I think would stand out the most would to have to be a fight in one of the arenas from One Piece Grand Battle/Adventure. One minute the Straw Hat Pirates are all having fun on the Merry Go, and the next thing, Ninjas come in out of no where and start duking it out right on the deck.

You wouldn't have to be limited to just the ship either, what if when you're fighting, you accidentally hit your opponent into the captian's wheel and send the boat on a collision course into Arlong Park or Jaya, even Rouge Town. It wouldn't have to be limited to just fighting either; with all the fighting going on, imagine the back ground action. Luffy and Zoro beating up on Buggy and Crocodile while Naruto and Sasuke are duking it out in the foreground.

In a sense, this wouldn't be the most outrageous place to see two ninjas fight, but the cross over aspect would be awesome fan service to people who like One Piece and Naruto. The world needs more crossovers I say.

Posted Sep 16, 2008 by brittlebulletEX | Add a comment | Share It

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As a Just in Case...

In case we all get sucked into a Black Hole this Wednesday when The Large Hadron Collider is activated, thanks for all the favorites/comments/watches.

Y'all got class. See you on the other side.

Posted Sep 7, 2008 by brittlebulletEX | Add a comment | Share It

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Bullet's Thoughts on English Dubbing

DISCALIMER:
The process one goes through to cover their own ***.

This is opinion, not fact. If you the reader take offense to the following text in any fashion, and express that through a comment, you will be ignored and/or laughed at. The reason for this is because you care enough about the topic at hand to engage in some sort of debate over whom is “right,” which destroys the very concept of opinion.

It shows that you care enough about something to argue about it with me, the writer (whom in this case is “right” ), which by your definition of what is “right,” gives you full reign to ignore and/or laugh at me along with the entitlement to write something of your own.

I don't want to argue with you. Going back and forth over who is "right" in a debate on personal preference is an exercise in fulility.

So play nice. Who knows, maybe you’ll see the topic at hand in a whole new way when this is over.

- Knife’s Thoughts on English Dubbing -

For the lazy bastards out there who don’t have the time to learn another language or can’t be bothered to read, English voice actors for Japanese cartoons is essential. They also provide much needed material for *****ing, I’m sorry, discussion over online message boards by nerds and geeks who want to flaunt their knowledge of the show.

Coming back to the topic at hand, Dubbing… For my example, I’ll be using One Piece, a special case due to its transition from 4Kids Entertainment to Funimation, 2 prominent English dubbing companies for Japanese cartoons. I’ve seen enough material from both versions of the dubs to share my opinion on several levels.

First, lets talk about censorship. There’s no denying that the 4Kids dub of the show received some really deep edits, from the violence, the cussing, the suggestive themes, the original score, even going as far to change Sanji’s cigarette into a fracken lollypop. I’m with my peeps in saying that these changes take away a lot from the show and it sucked that it was cut. Making a show not intended for little kids (at least naïve, chubby American kids) for little kids just doesn’t flow very well.

On that note, I pose this hypothetical to you all, what if they kept all that stuff in?

Let that sink in for a second… Now, would the choice of voice actors really be that bad if they did the show the way it was intended to be? Again, coming back to the purpose of having an English voice cast, they’re there to make it so you can watch the show w/o having to read the dialogue (if you’re like me, I prefer listening to my television, but that’s a preference, and despite how right I am, I’m not going to delve into that… yet). Wouldn’t it be grand if the show was left untouched and had the convenience of being in your native tongue? What am I saying, of course it wouldn’t, because the actors don’t sound identical to the original voice cast, which brings me to my next point.

A lot of people I know who watch anime tend to judge an English voice actor’s success by how closely they sound to the original Japanese cast member. Personally, I think that’s the dumbest s*** I’ve ever heard in my life. Not only is it stupid considering the fact that there’s no way in * you’re going to find someone who happens to sound exactly the same as some person living in a different country speaking a different language (people have gotten close, but its never been perfected), but it’s also stupid in the fundamental sense that they expect that when these people are cast.

It doesn't take much to notice that things are different between us here in the West and our bosom buddies in the East. One of those things is how we identify someone’s character; it can be their voice, their choice of clothing, and $hit like that. For my example from One Piece, I’m choosing Sanji.

Sanji is kind of a d***. He’s that kind of quick tempered, sarcastic, over confident, womanizing d*** that makes him the pinnacle stereotype of what I call the “Boston Creep.” Keep in mind; this is what I gathered by reading the manga, not tainted by hearing his original Japanese voice (I heard it for the first time after hearing both English dubs).

When his first episode of the 4Kids dub was broadcast, I thought they hit the nail on the head; not just because they had the same vision of his voice that I had, but also because his voice had personality, it had character. Then, when Funimation takes over, it’s completely different; more than likely changed to as closely impersonate the Japanese voice as possible (the only voice change that didn’t bother me much was Zoro, I could see him going either way, but again, the 4Kids voice had personality). Fundamentally, he fulfils the need of an actor, but he lost the character that distinguished him from other characters in the show; it’s plain, it’s average and as far as I’m concerned it’s a downgrade.

I don’t understand this fixation on having voices sound like their originals, outside of appeasing the fans that bother to torrent the original subbed Japanese episodes. I suppose one could argue that because the show is Japanese in origin; that the chosen voice embodies that character’s personality based on the creator’s specifications.

But here’s the thing, and this is coming from a guy who actually preferred the subbed episodes, after listening to so many Japanese people from television, movies and cartoons, I can say that the Japanese… Have no personality. They all sound the fracken same. They have a mid-tone, high-tone and low-tone, ranging from young to old, in possibly 2 dialects, genders and are either nice or a total d***… That’s it. Maybe it’s because I’m American and I don’t speak Japanese, but that’s the way it sounds to me (And I’m sure it’s the same way over in Japan, we all just sound like white people).

Even when it came to Luffy’s voice, I thought Bella Hudson (the 4Kids actor) portrayed Luffy’s fun loving, energetic and rather childish personality really well, while not being obnoxious and annoying. Now, when I listen to whom they chose for the Funimation dub, my ears bleed, and the same goes for Chopper. Chopper sounded cute in the 4Kids dub, now he just screams all the time and is an annoying little s***. When Lisa Ortiz screamed as Chopper, it was tolerable, when whoever they replaced her with screams, like Luffy’s voice, my ears bleed. The only people I didn’t mind so much was Nami, Robin and Ussop; that’s because they sounded a lot like the original 4Kids cast to me.

Moving on from personality, there’s the argument made of the actor’s ability to convey emotion has a say in how good of a job they do. That’s good, I like it when people who are meant to act do a good job, but here’s the thing with the dubs of Japanese cartoons. I have watched a lot of dubbed anime and I’ve only heard 3; yes only 3 voice actors that can convincingly convey the emotion of the character they’re paid to voice in any mainstream Anime (and those people are Vic Mignogna, Mark Gatha and Yuri Lowenthal, those guys are the s***).

To me, it’s all about the convenience of being able to listen to a show rather than read it, if the actors happen do a good job at it, that’s gravy. I’ve come to expect that they’re just going to read off lines in time to lip flaps on a monitor and put it on TV/DVD, but the thing that usually saves those characters for me is that aforementioned personality they project on to the character. To take an example from Naruto, the dude they hired to do Choji’s voice did a kick *** job; he got that fat kid with a heart of gold thing down (something I can relate to personally, being a fat kid with a heart of gold and all). It’s just not about making them sound similar to the original voice it’s about making a character appeal to the audience here in America.

I remember one particular instance when I was a T.A. for my Japanese teacher for his 8th grade Japanese I class. They were watching a DVD of Poke’mon in Japanese, and all they would comment on is how everyone sounded like a girl; one kid even said, “If anime is always like this in Japanese, I’ll take French instead.”

Things are different here and different things are going to work for us here, that’s just how simple it is.

That’s what the original 4Kids dubbing of One Piece did for me, it appealed to me as a young man who grew up and lives in the God Blessed United States of America.

It’s a shame we don’t make good cartoons over here anymore, if only the Looney Toons were as good as they were back in the day, I probably wouldn’t even think twice about watching something from Japan; I’d be too busy watching my kick ***, well animated, more funny than any anime, American made cartoons.

…

God… The world needs another Mel Blanc. I think that's something we can all agree on.

Posted Sep 6, 2008 by brittlebulletEX | 1 Comment | Share It

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Bullet's Thoughts on Heroes/Villians

Joe said it best.

Everybody loves a hero. Look at all of the people we look up to in our lives, whether they provide a standard you wish to live up to, a way of thinking you admire and apply to yourself; whatever the cause people love heroes.

Granted, most of these heroes are found in comics, television programs, radio, video games, manga, anime, etc... But, at the end of the day, it's what you take away from their characters that make the whole thing worth while.

Think about some of your animated heroes readers. Do you read manga like Naruto? Inuyasha? Bleach? Dragon Ball? One Piece? Do you watch movies like 300? The Matrix? Kill Bill? Even licensed movies based on characters like Superman and Batman?

When I was growing up, even now, I was always seem to gravitate to the main characters, the heroes. Being a fan of the heroic archetype even since I was little, I always enjoyed watching the good triumph over evil.

Hell, if I could relate more to any other character in a movie, video game, manga or cartoon (despite all that I see myself in other, possibly more popular characters) it'd be none other than Joe; a fan. An average movie going, toy collecting, fan boy. A fan whose soul has been so touched by the good nature of the heroic archetype (his Capt. Blue), who believes so much in the power of good that he even manages to rejuvenate the soul of Justice in his fallen hero.

It's infectious really. Infectious as it is beautiful.

It's not a recent thing that more and more people seem to gravitate towards darker and more nefarious characters; much like Sonic's Shadow, Naruto's Sasuke (Hell, even Anpan Man's Baikin Man).

That's cool. In a world of Vanilla, it's good to go for Chocolate. And much like that Vanilla and Chocolate, it's all about taste.

Personally, I think it kind of sad that heroes aren't usually as well liked as some of the other "cooler" characters. Some people say darker characters are more interesting because of what keeps them from being the usual hero and that's fine too. I'm in no place to judge what people think, 'cos I know at the end of the day, good always wins.

Everyone can relate to the hero. That is to say it's not because of lack of depth in their character, it can be little stuff like, "I like cheeseburgers and ramen" or "I enjoy doing this like this guy". I think that's where most of the (for lack of a better word) confusion stems from. Identifying with a character doesn't mean they lack personality or depth, seeing certain traits in the main character you can relate to is normal (the same as in a secondary character or even a villain).

However, the people who are constantly saying how much the hero sucks and other shit like that... That's not cool.

If both characters weren't there for each other, what would galvanize them further in life?

Coming back to Viewtiful Joe, in the anime there's the dialogue between Joe and the evil Capt. Blue. They're going back and forth over the how being a hero is worthless (Blue's argument) and how being a Hero is worthwhile (Joe's argument).

Blue talks about how the audience today likes to think they're too smart for hope. How tragic heroes are the only heroes that matter to people anymore. He goes on to say "If they want misery and despair, let 'em have it, bury 'em in it. Force it down their throats until only the cynics remain".

It's true. Misery and despair are quite popular these days. It sells records (ha ha!).

Joe replies with an articulate monologue about the heroic spirit and that heroes are always outnumbered except in the only place it really matters. A hero is the personification of the peoples' hopes and dreams, that part of the human soul that can never die, that one glimmer of hope piercing through the darkness.

Needless to say, Joe kicks his ass and brings Blue back to his senses.

Feel free to follow this link to see the subbed episode (I can't find a dubbed version that I originally saw online, so somethings may be lost in translation)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odrxDPvSIcU

Despite the growing popularity of less heroic figures in entertainment today, I'll always stay true to the heroes.

I'll be there to defend them if everyone else leaves. Every victory that goes to the villain is just the precursor to the heroes' glorious return. It's up to us to provide these figures for generations to come. May there always be a Sonic, a Naruto, a Goku, a SuperMan, a Leonidas, a Neo and possibly most of all a Joe.

The Heroic Soul still burns. Henshin-a-go-go, Baby.

Posted Jul 10, 2008 by brittlebulletEX | Add a comment | Share It

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Back in the Day...

I used to hang around on the Altimit forums back in the day. I ran a short series about my opinions about certain things, like Heroism, Video Game Violence and crap like that.

So, I'll be posting new ones on new topics every once in a while, so to my watchers/readers, be prepared.

Posted Jul 6, 2008 by brittlebulletEX | Add a comment | Share It

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Just to say Hello

Yeah, I'm the guy. I am sooooooo the guy.

Check it, here's some fan-art for y'all...

 

Yeah, you know you love som' o' dat right thur. See more ov'r here..

The Bullet's dA 

Posted Apr 16, 2008 by brittlebulletEX | 3 Comments | Share It

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