Funimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

[Junker Woland]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

It never asked for my billing address, just Country and Zip code. So I shouldn't worry about inputting a shipping address until the Kickstarter is over?

If/once the project is funded, a survey will eventually be emailed, asking you to provide further personal information, like your shipping address.

[bctaris]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

... Also why on earth do they need to redub the movie? The audio syncs up perfectly, Bandai's Blu-ray used the Japanese BD masters. And as NJ_ mentioned, will they even include that dub?

I may have missed it, somewhere, but I don't see any explicit mention of them re-dubbing the movie. But if they were to I suspect it's for the same reason they're going through all this effort and promotion for the TV series, and why any company reuniting an older dub from another company is never a sure thing: branding.

The original fans are nice, but I'm sure they'd like to hook a lot of newer fans/buyers. Newer fans, mind you, who in this day and age generally do not have much of an idea there was a Bandai or that there were more than three locations--and maybe three to four companies--that produced English dubs for two decades--they know "Funimation" and "Funimation Dubs," like "Sentai Dubs" and maybe "NISA/AoA dubs." Particularly for Funi, and lesser extent ADV/Sentai-MJ-S23, but never more so than today, it's about hooking customers for the whole platform--the releases, the streaming, and of course all the synergistic promotion of the in-house Funi dub-factory through streaming, extras, con appearances, etc. Muddying those waters by including dubs with actors their loyal customers may be unfamiliar with, and will never hear again in their catalog, damages the brand, simple as that. (Things like Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail are rare miracle exceptions that prove the rule--outside of Death Note and Inu Yasha it's possibly Ocean's best known dub of the past 10 years.) Look here even at the stretch goals, which include behind the scenes features for the dub to entice those fans of Funi dubs; all part of the Funi Brand.

Companies like Bandai and Geneon and MB never quite operated this way, and maybe that wasn't for the best, but they were not based in a location like r/t/w Texas that makes the scheme easier. But even now I've seen the old Escaflowne dub referred to as the "Bandai dub," even though that once had a 50/50 shot of meaning it came from Animaze or Ocean, if not from several other smaller outfits. Fun for the hardcore cosmopolitan dub fan, bad for the occasional customer looking only for consistency and familiarity. Have to hand that to Funi, even as I find their (dub) product these days less appealing than it once was.

I'm a trite cynical about it; it would be incredible if for some unpredictable reason they just did a second take of the Ocean dub, even giving now post-Death Note Karl Willems the helm again. In any case, I recall the 2002 movie dub being much better received than the TV's. And if it weren't for my worries about that branding it certainly wouldn't be a drawback sounding different, considering it's an alternate retelling, not a sequel.

[JTurner]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

The Escaflowne movie dub IS better, in my opinion, than the series. Although the series has some good performances, I had serious issues with both the script and several of the key roles (Hitomi and Dilandau, for instance). Van, Allen, and Folken were all fine, though, and some of the roles were decent, but I feel that the show really could have used better direction overall. There was a lot of stale-sounding lines and emotional bits that weren't as impactful as they could have been during that dub. I think it might be that since years had passed since the show, the actors had a better understanding of their characters hence why their turns in the movie excel their TV counterparts. Even Kelly Sheridan and Francis both improve dramatically on their inconsistent turns as their key characters in the movie dub.

[Dimension_Tripper]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

Backed "The Lovers" tier. The allure to the Kickstarter exclusive edition was powerful since I love having things that are/going to be rare; but the Collectors Edition just has so many more things that I want for not that much more than "The Moon" tier which was the other I was eyeing. I wish the Collectors Edition tier backers could have something like a Kickstarter exclusive art-box as well. Really looking forward to this one though.

[WTK]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

... Also why on earth do they need to redub the movie? The audio syncs up perfectly, Bandai's Blu-ray used the Japanese BD masters. And as NJ_ mentioned, will they even include that dub?

I may have missed it, somewhere, but I don't see any explicit mention of them re-dubbing the movie. But if they were to I suspect it's for the same reason they're going through all this effort and promotion for the TV series, and why any company reuniting an older dub from another company is never a sure thing: branding.

Under About this project on the Kickstarter page.

If the project meets the goal of $150,000, we’ll be releasing The Vision of Escaflowne television series on Blu-ray and DVD with both the original uncut Japanese HD with English subtitles, and a brand-new English dub matching those materials. This release will also include an exclusive interview with Kazuki Akane and Shoji Kawamori specifically recorded for English-speaking fans, and the Escaflowne movie will receive a new matching dub. Certain tiers of this Kickstarter include Escaflowne Blu-ray/DVD releases as rewards, including a special pre-order of a one-of-a-kind version of Part 1 that includes a beautiful chipboard housing box and art cards featuring illustrations from the series. This Kickstarter Edition of Part 1 is ONLY available to Kickstarter backers.

[bctaris]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

Besides realizing I'm repeating stuff some of us talked about a little over two years ago in this thread (sorry about that; forgot how long it's been since the re-license), reading back here reminds me that nothing in the KS campaign mentions those pesky Tarot Cards! Unless it's the special exclusive item for the $175 tier.

(Also, though not a perfect silver bullet, "We’ll fly you out to the Funimation office where you’ll get a tour, a bag of Funimation goodies, and you’ll even get to do voice work that will appear in the new Escaflowne dub!" in the $5K tier kind of settles the dub provenance question.)

[Razzamatazz Buckshank]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

The original fans are nice, but I'm sure they'd like to hook a lot of newer fans/buyers. Newer fans, mind you, who in this day and age generally do not have much of an idea there was a Bandai or that there were more than three locations--and maybe three to four companies--that produced English dubs for two decades--they know "Funimation" and "Funimation Dubs," like "Sentai Dubs" and maybe "NISA/AoA dubs." Particularly for Funi, and lesser extent ADV/Sentai-MJ-S23, but never more so than today, it's about hooking customers for the whole platform--the releases, the streaming, and of course all the synergistic promotion of the in-house Funi dub-factory through streaming, extras, con appearances, etc. Muddying those waters by including dubs with actors their loyal customers may be unfamiliar with, and will never hear again in their catalog, damages the brand, simple as that.

Look here even at the stretch goals, which include behind the scenes features for the dub to entice those fans of Funi dubs; all part of the Funi Brand.

what kind of business practice is that? if that's the case then they may as well redub a bunch of license rescues they have gotten over the years (Love Hina does need a redub though because the existing one is horrible), all in the name of protecting a brand.

Companies like Bandai and Geneon and MB never quite operated this way, and maybe that wasn't for the best, but they were not based in a location like r/t/w Texas that makes the scheme easier.

makes what easier?

I'm a trite cynical about it; it would be incredible if for some unpredictable reason they just did a second take of the Ocean dub, even giving now post-Death Note Karl Willems the helm again. In any case, I recall the 2002 movie dub being much better received than the TV's. And if it weren't for my worries about that branding it certainly wouldn't be a drawback sounding different, considering it's an alternate retelling, not a sequel.

it actually would be cheaper to just give the episodes with the extra footage (which is 6 episodes, really; episodes 1-4, 6, 7) to the original cast, dub them, and release them as "Director's cut" episodes like what ADV did with Evangelion, as opposed to redubbing the whole thing with a new cast from scratch.

[bctaris]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

... Also why on earth do they need to redub the movie? The audio syncs up perfectly, Bandai's Blu-ray used the Japanese BD masters. And as NJ_ mentioned, will they even include that dub?

I may have missed it, somewhere, but I don't see any explicit mention of them re-dubbing the movie. But if they were to I suspect it's for the same reason they're going through all this effort and promotion for the TV series, and why any company reuniting an older dub from another company is never a sure thing: branding.

Under About this project on the Kickstarter page.

If the project meets the goal of $150,000, we’ll be releasing The Vision of Escaflowne television series on Blu-ray and DVD with both the original uncut Japanese HD with English subtitles, and a brand-new English dub matching those materials. This release will also include an exclusive interview with Kazuki Akane and Shoji Kawamori specifically recorded for English-speaking fans, and the Escaflowne movie will receive a new matching dub. Certain tiers of this Kickstarter include Escaflowne Blu-ray/DVD releases as rewards, including a special pre-order of a one-of-a-kind version of Part 1 that includes a beautiful chipboard housing box and art cards featuring illustrations from the series. This Kickstarter Edition of Part 1 is ONLY available to Kickstarter backers.

Ah, thanks. (See, thought I'd missed something.) Well, that seals my argument then. Yay?

[bctaris]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

The original fans are nice, but I'm sure they'd like to hook a lot of newer fans/buyers. Newer fans, mind you, who in this day and age generally do not have much of an idea there was a Bandai or that there were more than three locations--and maybe three to four companies--that produced English dubs for two decades--they know "Funimation" and "Funimation Dubs," like "Sentai Dubs" and maybe "NISA/AoA dubs." Particularly for Funi, and lesser extent ADV/Sentai-MJ-S23, but never more so than today, it's about hooking customers for the whole platform--the releases, the streaming, and of course all the synergistic promotion of the in-house Funi dub-factory through streaming, extras, con appearances, etc. Muddying those waters by including dubs with actors their loyal customers may be unfamiliar with, and will never hear again in their catalog, damages the brand, simple as that.

Look here even at the stretch goals, which include behind the scenes features for the dub to entice those fans of Funi dubs; all part of the Funi Brand.

what kind of business practice is that? if that's the case then they may as well redub a bunch of license rescues they have gotten over the years (Love Hina does need a redub though because the existing one is horrible), all in the name of protecting a brand.

Not all their re-licenses are as high profile (they hope). And it's pretty common corporate business behavior in any number of industries.

Companies like Bandai and Geneon and MB never quite operated this way, and maybe that wasn't for the best, but they were not based in a location like r/t/w Texas that makes the scheme easier.

makes what easier?

We're not getting more into this since it's moving OT (as you have contributed to before, in fact, in past discussions on the topic), but it's simply more cost-effective in a right-to-work state like Texas for a company to set up shop in-house than it would be in, say, California due to union rules. It's more complicated than that, but again, this isn't the place.

I'm a trite cynical about it; it would be incredible if for some unpredictable reason they just did a second take of the Ocean dub, even giving now post-Death Note Karl Willems the helm again. In any case, I recall the 2002 movie dub being much better received than the TV's. And if it weren't for my worries about that branding it certainly wouldn't be a drawback sounding different, considering it's an alternate retelling, not a sequel.

it actually would be cheaper to just give the episodes with the extra footage (which is 6 episodes, really; episodes 1-4, 6, 7) to the original cast, dub them, and release them as "Director's cut" episodes like what ADV did with Evangelion, as opposed to redubbing the whole thing with a new cast from scratch.

It may be cheaper, we don't know exactly, but it probably would be (as I and others like Sensuifu pointed out, the resources necessary for remixing and syncing everything is not as simple and cheap as it seems, especially with the audio quality differences between the material). But the new dub may be worth the cost if the "NEW dub from Funimation! (With all the Funimation actors you love!)" tagline, plus everything else in the potential release, greatly expands sales past the older existing fans into a younger/newer demographic, as I suspect Funi's expects. That's kind of the whole point.

[Library-chan]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

1/3 of the way there.

[Art-chan]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

Oh, my poor credit card! This, Riding Bean, and Skip Beat are OUT TO GET ME!!

[Library-chan]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

The KS is now half way there.

[bluesilo]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

I love Escaflowne TV and consider it one of my favorite shows ever. On one hand I just want the show in HD and on the other I'd like the best release possible. I think that this is an incredibly popular series and perhaps the new dub could even air on Adult Swim. It is crazy to think Funimation needs to do a Kickstarter for this series. I don't think I will contribute, but once it is actually released, new dub or not, it will be mind.

[EmperorBrandon]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

But even now I've seen the old Escaflowne dub referred to as the "Bandai dub," even though that once had a 50/50 shot of meaning it came from Aniplex or Ocean, if not from several other smaller outfits.

I assume you mean Animaze?

[Buckeye]

Re: FUNimation licenses Escaflowne (TV & Movie)

I have decisions to make here seeing that there's so much great stuff coming out, but my wallet has been torn to shreds lately. If I am going to pledge for this show, I won't go over the $65 mark seeing that the only things I would like exclusively from this campaign are those art cards and the artbox.