Ultraman TV and Movie Licensed to Mill Creek for North Ameri

[Jinzo Ningen]

[H-Man]

Kain, if you've only ever heard the dub on the previous DVD release keep in mind that very little effort was made to correctly sync the audio and video. The presentation of the dubbed version on those discs was a total disaster.

[Jinzo Ningen]

English dubbing for some languages is easier, to a degree. German for instance is likely the closest. The dub for Das Boot is a great one and the mouth movements are almost identical because of the language similarity; not only the cadence and word themselves, but the general sentence structure as well. Spanish, French Chinese, etc. are much more problematic. Japanese is a real pain because it isn't just the word pronunciation; their entire sentence structure is the reverse of ours. As such, dubs will almost never match mouth movements.

But it isn't just dubs. Transliteration from Japanese to English is in itself a nightmare. Just look at the inconsistencies and variation in the various fansubs of one show. A lot of Japanese is more about ideas and generalizations; it leaves a HUGE amount of what's said open to personal interpretation. Heck, even a show's written episode titles can be interpreted in many different ways. See the Kamen Rider wiki vs. Wikipedia vs. other sites. Similar but almost all slightly (or in some cases, greatly) different. Then you must take into account the fact that some sentences which are a few words in Japanese translate into several sentences or even a whole paragraph in English (with occasional explanations needed with regards to humor, folklore or customs, etc. for the non-Japanese viewer on top of the spoken translations). Therefore subtitles, too, must often be edited or generalized or shortened in order to keep multiple sentences from overlapping each other. Ideally you want to be able to read what the person talking has said before the next person begins talking, otherwise it can be extremely confusing and frustrating. So even the purist's insistence on subtitles only isn't absolute or perfect.

So dubs versus subs is often a case of six of one, a half dozen of the other. It's personal preference and no one person is right or wrong. As such, it's in the best interests to attempt to appeal and placate the largest audience possible - and that means offering BOTH options whenever possible. Which is my point entirely about the Ultraman dubs.

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

I wonder if some of the other English dubs produced over the years (like the dub of Max that was on Toku's TV channel a year ago) or Winckler's movie dubs will be included?

Also, I'm gonna bet that the Zero movie trilogy will be the first 'modern' series release. They really start the modern era of shows and it's entirely dubbed. Just seems likely to me.

[O.Supreme]

^ I never heard the dub for Max, how was it? Any Idea who produced it? I was also curious about Winckler stuff as well. Of course watching animation dubbed as opposed to Live action TV or film dubbed is different, but the Winckler Super Robot series I've seen weren't the best, but certainly not the worst either.

[lhb412]

^ Hardly anyone has their actual TV channel, so I don't know if the Max dub is terrible or great. I'm interested in it, though!

The one thing holding me back from pre-ordering the steelbooks are whether they're stacking the discs for what looks like a thinner case (could just be the mockups, of course). That's making me waffle between the two choices - all the package design is aces.

[Dr Kain]

[O.Supreme]

Although Ultraman stopped airing where I lived around 1982/83, I was surprised recently to find that some syndicated markets kept it airing well into the late 80's. I don't doubt you never saw it as a kid, but it's not like it was an impossibility, you just didn't know when it was on, or know of its existence as a kid. While I consider myself somewhat of an expert on 80's and 90's cartoons, I even admit there were some shows that I missed, certainly not because It was an impossibility for me to see them.

[lhb412]

^ I posted a YouTube clip somewhere on this site that shows some local channels were running Ultraman as late as the early '90s.

[O.Supreme]

Thank you, that's exactly what I was referencing. I just wanted to go a bit conservative in case my memory wasn't exactly right. That is crazy to think.

[Dr Kain]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

I went with the regular releases. I'm not really a fan of steelbooks, I only have a few. Plus the artwork looks better on the standard release.

I was hoping Mothra got a standard release instead of a steelbook release but its not a deal breaker.

[sentaison]

I'm so hyped over this! I've been an Ultraman fan for around half a century now, and I've been hoping Tsuburaya to release more Ultraman here in the U.S. ever since I found the Expressions In Animation VHS of '66's first four episodes back in 1996. I've already pre-ordered '66 and Ultra Q Steelbooks and will impatiently wait for the rest to show up.

And while it would be nice to have the Titra dubs on '66, if I feel nostalgic enough to watch them again I still have the BCI dvd's. I've seen every episode of almost all of the series except for Ace, Taro, and R/B. But it will be great if I can get physical copies of them all.

[Rody]

So I just noticed that the Amazon descriptions of these sets DO mention a 28-page booklet for each show. That should be neat. I think it also looks like the steelbooks will have slipcovers like Mothra does.

[The Shadow]

I gotta question -- in the press release on Sci-Fi Japan, it says Mill Creek's deal with Tsuburaya includes 20 films. Is one of those the animated movie ULTRAMAN: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS that Tsuburaya co-produced with Hanna-Barbera? Or is this a case of to early to tell yet? I know this could be a tricky question to answer with it being unclear where the rights eventually landed.

I just checked the Wikipedia article for U:TAB and it mentions that Bandai Visual released a remastered version on blu-ray September 2018.

[Dr Kain]

[XvGojira]

I'd love the dubs to be included, as I've been finding it harder and harder to just sit down and watch something. I just have this need to multi-task. Maybe it's a form of ADHD or something but if I'm at home, with a bazillion things I have to do, I feel like I'm wasting my time just sitting on the couch and doing only one thing. And I feel like I'd super get into the entire series if they all had dubs too, but that's the pipe-y-est pipe dream that ever piped, so I'm having reservations about getting my feet wet with two series that only *might* get dubs and then feeling less inclined to get the others because they won't ever have them (although not getting hooked into the series would save me some money in the long run ).

I am not crapping on this or future releases of the other Ultra series because they lack a feature I specifically find terribly attractive. This is amazing news and I'm glad that it is happening as i know there are fans that would love to get official releases of the series. I'm just have a slight personal disappointment about an issue that is a total "first world problem" and I totally understand why they might not get the dubs that exist.

[Dr Kain]

One of my friends is like that. He wants to work on video editing while watching stuff. I feel like if I'm not giving something 100% of my attention, it isn't worth doing. When I watch a movie or TV show, my phone goes underneath the table and only comes out if I am super super bored of if we are watching something like The Twilight Zone and I am trying to figure out why an actor on the show looks familiar and I can't think of from what.

[SeaHawk]

[O.Supreme]

[Dai]

[Jinzo Ningen]

[Jinzo Ningen]

[sentaison]