MovieChat Forums > Pâfekuto burû (1999) Discussion > *Spoilers* A few questions...

Spoilers A few questions...

posted 21 years ago by Chibi_Tai
32 replies | jump to latest

1. Assuming that Mima was insane as she was seeing visions of her life as a pop idol, Rumi was insane because she thought she was the real Mima and the fan was insane because he heard the real Mima talking and holding him, how has Mima recovered at the end of the film?

2. Due to the fact that in UK Perfect Blue is rated 18 and so makes me too young to buy the DVD, the only version I have was taped off the Sci Fi Channel, so unfortunately it is the English dub. The Cham songs, were they dubbed into English or were they already in English? (They seemed quite catchy)

[–] Pythra 20 years ago

Dunno about Q1, but I am also in the UK and taped Perfect Blue of the Sci Fi channel :) I'm not in on the whole anime scene so I don't consider the dub unfortunate but yeah, the songs were all originally in Japanese. I managed to get both English and Japanese versions of 'Angel of Love' on Kazaa. The Japanese version sounds a bit more spirited and you are, of course, spared the cheesy translated lyrics. It's worth you getting hold of it if you're into that kind of thing.

I never bothered with any of the other songs but if you ever look up that one, the Japanese title is Ai No Tenshi.

[–] Aeris4ever 20 years ago

Mima did seem to recover pretty well after all those horrible events! I think it's cool that both Mima and Rumi are shown with longer hair, so you can figure at least 6 months have gone by. Still a pretty fast recovery, but we're not sure exactly how well Mima is. But at least she's well enough to know who she is.

[–] lionphish 20 years ago

Why is the english dub considered to be inferior?

"Take Your Time, Leave Mine Alone!"

[–] Pythra 20 years ago

There seems to be some complex hierarchy within Western anime fandom. Apparently, no self-respecting anime fan would enjoy an English dub - you either use English subtitles or you learn Japanese.

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[–] lionphish 20 years ago

But what about the dub makes it inferior?

"Take Your Time, Leave Mine Alone!"

[–] Pythra 20 years ago

Beats me.

I always assumed it was an "I'm embracing Japanese culture more than you!" mentality, and nothing more.

There are probably some really terrible English dubs of anime out there, with bad translations or vapid voice actors or whatever.

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[–] lionphish 20 years ago

Oh well...I thought thzt what would be written in english subtittles would be the same thing as the voice over in the english dubed version....?

"Take Your Time, Leave Mine Alone!"

[–] Projectedlight 20 years ago

"There are probably some really terrible English dubs of anime out there, with bad translations or vapid voice actors or whatever. "

Sure are...

*vomits*

Sometimes, though, dubs can be pulled off really well, like with Cowboy Bebop.

[–] MrCynikal 20 years ago

Cowboy Bebop and Big O, the only two animes that I would dare to say have better English voice acting that the original Japanese. They use a couple of the same voice actors for the main characters as well.

[–] jpatton3 20 years ago

Neon Genesis is another good dub, but Jubei Chan is intolerable when dubbed. Every character just sounds annoying as hell.

[–] marsodyssey2010 19 years ago

Sailor moon was a HORRIBLE dub, especially as they altered ALL of the dialogue to suit American girls. The voice overs for the main character mature women in the US version and not teenage girls.

The US versio of Cardcaptor Sakura was mangled so badly that they removed the first 8 or so episodes to give one character a higher billing, then re introduced those episodes through flashbacks near the end of the series.

It also had voice overs who were much too old for the character and made them sound like older teenagers when they were really only ten years old.

English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it.

[–] danila_1 19 years ago

No, it's just the simple fact that dubbing has much lower production values than genuine sound production (unless it's a major film with big name actors and actresses providing voice talent for the dub). Of course, one may consider voices (and sound in general) less important than the video part, but voices nevertheless ARE important, and so the original version (with subs) remains a better experience. The above is not some idle fandom speculation, it's an empirical observation. Of course, if you don't mind dubs, good for you, but you are still missing something when you watch them.

[–] ComeIntoMyWorld 20 years ago

Most anime fans have no time for dubs, don't know why. Alot of anime fans tend to be very immature, but do have rights to complain because in some cases the translations are horrible. Since in nature, the English and Japanese languages are so different, it's very hard to translate and portray the same ideas as before. A good example of a bad translation is the video game Persona. This game was extremely poorly translated when it was released in 1997. The english version of Sailor Moon is also very poor.

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[–] lazy_mushroom 20 years ago

Also, add to the fact that dubbing requires the translations (let's just say English for the sake of argument) translate as much as they can of the original, expressing the emotions, denotations and connotations of what the character is saying, as well as trying to keep in a vaguely similar time limit. This is very hard, and for that reason, it is generally lower quality than subs, which although they need to keep the emotions, denotations and connotations, they can be as long as they want (within reason I suppose, I've never seen a sub go for more than three lines).
Also, my personal preference is fan subs over official subs, because I think they capture more of the emotions and can be as good tranlations in other aspects as official subs.
I would agree though that Cowboy Bebob has superb dubbing. That is practically the only anime I've seen to date with voice acting/dubbing that really adds to the visual experience.

[–] angel_of_halo 20 years ago

What most casual english anime fans realize is that in Japan, voice acting is considered its own seperate career. (as opposed to regular acting)

While casting big American names in films like Princesss Mononoke may have worked to give them bigger box offices here in the US and other places, actors who are used to having their mannerisms and facial expressions displayed on camera often lose something signifigant when they do voice work. Think of it rather akin to acting with both hands, both feet, and your face tied behind your back <~_^>

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, and the first one that comes to my mind is the amazingly talented Tress MacNeille, who, afaik, only does voice over work. Japan has an entire industry full of people skilled in similar ways to MacNeille, who have been studying and practicing their entire careers simply to be voice actors. They have about as much desire to partake in regular acting as a policeman wants to quit and become a fireman. As Japan has more talent of this type to draw from, the overall result is, in general, better. There are some exceptions that I'm sure have already been mentioned, Bebop and Trigun come to mind, and there's a special place in my heart for the americanized versions of both Fruits Basket and FLCL.

Hope this helps you understand why some (most) anime fans get so snobbish about subs over dubs.

[–] chubbykipper 20 years ago

It's far more interesting to hear everything the way it was intended, and i have no problem reading subs so i prefer subbed to dubbed. There seems to be a particular circle of voice actors who do many of the english dubs, and most of them are pretty darn cheesy. Feudal Japanese ninja sounding like American businessmen... Leonardo from the original teenage mutant ninja turtles doing the voice of Kaneda in "Akira"... the same cheesy americanized voices popping up again and again and always sounding out of place... In Akira they spent a lot of time synching the mouth movements to the voices perfectly. When you change the language you lose that... i know it's hardly the end of the world but it's nice too experience it as it was meant to be experienced. Plus, generally, I find the Japanese actors to have a much better range and power and emotion in their voice. Watching an episode of Evangelion then watching it again with the dub makes you realise how much better the original voice cast are.

This is all just my opinion, I know many anime fans do come across as snobbish, elitist and slightly nerdy (they revel in being that way i'm sure) but i like to think that I am not a snob or a colossal ass.

The bonus of dubbing is, it allows you to absorb more of the visuals.

But as was said before, the constraints of expressing the same intent into an exact amount of time, without having the voice talk for longer than the mouth movements or vice versa, means that the integrity of the words can sometimes be comprimised.

But then again, there are many anime dvd's in which the subtitles are merely transcribed from the english voice version, and not the direct and truer written translation of the Japanese words.

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[–] crazyhellboy 20 years ago

OMG. I have that game Persona, graphics look like Nintendo but the storyline is cool. Yes, the tranlation is HORRIBLE..

I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy.

[–] W0m6at 20 years ago

Dubs are generally considered inferior because:
* The Japanese voice-actors tend to be more professional. Particularly for anime (but also for other movies), Western voice-actors have tended not to take the roles seriously (until quite recently), and so are not as emotionally involved.
* Until recently, voice-actors have not been well cast, so often a character's voice will not match their appearance.
* When a movie is dubbed, it is either done out of synch (older movies), or the translation is modified to help synch it with the lip-movements. This will often cause changes to the meaning of the dialogue, and in extreme cases change the storyline.
* Sometimes (not sure exactly how often), the Anlicised scripts will Westernise (OK, generally Americanise) the cultural references.
* Even the best attempts at synching sometimes fail.
* Movies are works of passion, much like a painting or sculpture. Modifying the Mona Lisa or the Statue of Liberty would be seen by most as an outrage. Following this logic, many people (myself included) will always attempt to view a movie in its original language. Dubbing is therefore considered a "dumbing down" to cater for (generally) the lazy.

[–] marsodyssey2010 19 years ago

Some of the voice acters were a bit wooden, but other than that it's personal preferance.

Some fans find that listening in Japnaese and reading the subtitles gives you a more exotic atmosphere, especially as the subs are often less Americanized.

After all, if they are going to change the dialoge t suit a western audience, why not just watcha western film. Some fans like the move foreign feel to an original langugage version, even if they can't understand all of it.

English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it.

[–] marsodyssey2010 19 years ago

Low quality actors.

Japanese voice actors are specially trained to project everything using only their voices, screen American actors are trained to combine voice, body and face to convey something. Add in to this that dubbing studios don't often have the budget to hire high standing actors.

English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it.

[–] sasamijurai 20 years ago

Personally I don't think dubs per se are inferior to originals. Someone else touched on this but this DUB vs SUB thing probably stems from immaturity of many anime fans. There is no way that someone who is not a native Japanese speaker or
at least has lived there for eons can judge the inherent nuances of a language, what makes the fake squeaks of an adult Japanese voice actress who is pretending to speak like a 6 year old better than similar voice talent done by a Canadian or an American. Neither can such a person discern the differences between these Seiyuu or Japanese voice actors - yes it is a big industry because cartoons and comics are big but to really appreciate such talent you need to be a native speaker - I take that from other languages - I am a native Polish speaker who lives in South Africa and speaks with perfect SA English :) but I will spot withing a mile anyone who has not learned Polish as a child and who claims to speak it well.... and these languages are similar in their relative dispairity as are Japanese and English. If you look at Japanese audiences, they dub stuff into Japanese without any reservations. I wonder if they have these discussions about how bad dubs are, how they prefer to watch Disney subbed etc. If you watch a show like Kare Kano - it has brilliant dubbing, do diminiutive voices of immature sounding original actresses sound better? It's a matter of personal choice. However maybe some anime fans dislike the American/Canadian accents they hear - maybe that is so. I know lots of local anime fans in South Africa dislike anime dubs because "they are so American"
which probably stems from the general jealousy towards North Americans. "The anime must be subbed because that's what the director intended...." but the same director puts in panty shots of 8 year olds (non-hentai) and you get to think, who cares what this closet pervert thought anyway OR the director intended the anime for a Japanese audience (for example Serial Experiments Lain) - who cares whether it is dubbed or subbed..... as long as it translates what is important.
When it comes to art, a trully artistic work, say Miyuki-Chan in Wonderland, Perfect Blue, Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday etc - will do it's wonders in any audio medium - whether sub or dub.
From a technical point of view, many US English DUBS offer better DVD soundtrack options as well, namely 5.1 audio and better, maybe even THX Certified DD 7.1 vs plain Japanese stereo DD2.0. Personally I do not care, yes less money is spent in the west on dubbing, because often small companies bring in the work which was already expensive to acquire anyhow and will have a limited market share.
This may make some dubs sound awful but that's because if you trained your inner ear in the language as a child you can tell the poor acting and kitsch from genuine performances but there is no way that the average anime fan, no matter the size of his anime DVD collection or his Japanese schoolgirl uniform closet, there is no way such a fan is making any sense. :)

I love dubbed anime and usually mostly watch that, unless I have unreleased fansubs from Japan or Region 2 NTSC discs with only SUBtitle support, yes sometimes the dubbing is horrendous, but that hasn't happened for the last couple of years. ^-^ (need one of these) :) [Then again watching a dub of a live action film is really bad and in those cases I agree that watching subbed versions is better - but that's because there is lots more variety in facial expression and intonation of a living person than a 2D doll. :)

[–] 20 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ats02171 18 years ago

i think that the differance is disney is a big company and they can't afford not to put sub for as many languese as possible and they pick out pro-voice actor.

[–] SyberiaWinx 18 years ago

To finally answer Question 1, Mima has Schizophrenia. That is why she saw things, like the glowing images of her pop idol self, and maybe even why Rumi looked exactly like her while wearing the wig. Perhaps the traumatic events and facing such terror head-on and surviving cured her. That seems most likely to me, but she also could be taking medicine. She might not even have realized she had it, in which case, the doctors might have figured it out while taking care of her injuries.

[–] andoryuu81 20 years ago

I have been studying Japanese for about 9 years now, so I take every opportunity I get to listen to actual spoken Japanese, even if I need subtitles on to catch an occasional sentance or two I missed. However, I must warn people that the english dub of Perfect Blue mangled something pretty important. If you watch the scene where they show Mima acting in the psychiatrist office in Double Bind, and they rewind the scene and play it back and she's saying different things- in the dub, the second time through they change some of the names in the script. I don't remember how they changed it, but it was pretty significant. Try watching that scene with the english dub and english subtitles both.

[–] ats02171 18 years ago

it owuld be the same if there was a japanese dub of an english show. to be great lie say cowboy bebop they have to act and kinda translate, the rough transtion and make it fit with the mouth flaps. there are very few really great english dubbers other there right now. take a look at inyasha. plus their are words that only have meaning in part of japan, so they translate what is being said and in some cases what a word mean; ie in .hack//.

[–] CanusShamus 20 years ago

Okay, I realize this board has gone WAY off on a different tangent, but I'd like to address the original question, which is: how did Mima make such a speedy recovery?

One possible explanation (which I believe is most likely) is that Rumi was slipping Mima hallucinogenic drugs, because that's the kind of thing a crazy person would do. If this is the case, it seems natural that Mima would return to her normal state of mind once Rumi is locked up in the asylum.

[–] King_Otomo 20 years ago

Mima was unhappy. She was succesful with Cham, had a lot of fun but she had to leave because it would be better for her carreer. People were making choices for her that she didn't agree with, but she felt bad to say no. So she did everything to please the people that supported her, even going as far as posing nude.
But she couldn't take that, it made her misserable, she lived her life for others. Losing sight of herself. And to make it even worse, she was getting death threats and people around her were being killed. It was too much for a young,naive little girl who knew nothing about the real world.

In the ending, it becomes clear that she has found herself ("yes, it's the real me"), she is happy. Living the life she wants, not being forced by anyone and she also matured alot after what happened.

And about the dubbing, the voice of Mima isn't that great, she often comes of as annoying, sounding like she is trying to hard to be happy. Rumi on the other hand (voiced by the talented Wendee Lee) sounds a lot more realistic and "everyday".
I think you can compare it with regular acting. When it comes to voice actors there are the Al Pacino's and DeNiro's who draw you in with their acting. There are the Tony Leung's that make it all look so realistic that you forget he's just "acting". And there are the less talented ones, the Ben Affleck's who just try too hard (or not) and make it seem unrealistic because of that.
BTW for some amazing voice acting, check out the Japanese version of Now and Then, Here and There. The guy who voices King Hamdo is incredible.

[–] sinki 20 years ago

Because Me-Mania finally died. Because Mima finally found that Rumi was "Mima the pop idol" and also Rumi was put into an asylum. The two "troublemakers'" disappearence woke Mima up from her "dreams".

The thing i cant figure out is that how Me-Mania died? why he died with the other guy together? did they kill by Rumi??

[–] whiteraven100 20 years ago

I assumed that what happened was Mima DID kill Me-Mania... If you recall, Rumi finds her in the corridor, standing there, pretty out of it. Rumi went looking to see what happened to Mima, so it's entirely possible that she found Me-Mania before she found Mima and moved his body. Then, for whatever reason, she killed Mima's other agent... And then she went and found Mima. Mima was pretty out of it; we can tell that by this point in the movie her perception of time is altered, so she wouldn't have noticed the interval. Plus, she was in shock.

When Mima took Rumi back to where she had killed Me-Mania, there was nothing there, which wigged Mima out even more... Didn't she faint? (Perhaps Rumi killed the other agent after Mima had fainted because he saw her carrying Mima out or something.)

But I'd definitely say that Mima killed Me-Mania, and then Rumi moved him and at some point soon after, killed the other guy, leaving him in the same spot. Or maybe she killed him there because he found Me-Mania. There are plenty of possibilities, but Mima's attempted rape and murder by Me-Mania was real, which we know because Rumi mentions that he failed at his task. So it follows Mima did kill him to escape him, otherwise it's hard to see how she got away.

[–] marsodyssey2010 19 years ago

Not to disagree, but I don't think that Mima made a speedy recovery at all. Look at her hair, that is more than six months growth. I grew my hair to that length and it took about a year.

English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it.

[–] Psycho_Ste 19 years ago

Hey. Never posted here before... :S

Anyway, I have the region 2 DVD of Perfect Blue and I think both the English and Japanese versions of the movie are good, which is a rarity as previously stated. The Japanese version is probably better of course but I think as a whole this is one of the better dubs.