Thanks to the prodding of some blogs, I decided to go sample the wonderful world of Studio Ghibli this week. Having only seen Grave of the Fireflies beforehand, which left me incredibly depressed (until I got someone else to watch it, lol), I’ve never seen anything else.
I helped myself to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind today. It was just as what I expected, and more. By the end of the movie, I was already suppressing girly tears, in which the timely arrival of magical healing tentacle rape cured. Only by Ghibli. Given how many shows I’ve been following this month, Nausicaa left a big impression on me, with a toxic, beautiful post-apocalyptic world. I’m a sucker for anime-created worlds, and it just shows. Is it even wrong that I find ohmu adorable? Because they’re just scared, enraged, and it’s obviously our fault!
The theme of humans being the cancer that is killing planet Earth isn’t new, but Nausicaa manages to stress the point in creative ways. For instance, there’s a large difference in values between Nausicaa’s people and the Tolmekians. The former just want to coexist with the toxic ecosystem, while the latter wants to master it for themselves. The Tolmekians even plan to use ugly beam-spamming biomecha for that end! I was hoping for some giant mecha-esque action, but meh. In the end, it seems that Tolmekian ambitions have all gone for naught, and return home, but at least the valley people are happy again.
My favorite scenes in the movie are everytime Nausicaa’s on her glider. It’s just exhilarating. Flying in the air without complex machinery seems fun, it just reminds me of Eureka Seven and refboarding (more like I’m doing it wrong, I guess, but I really did see E7 way way before this). And that scene of badass old man subduing an entire Tolmekian boarding party.
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Ah, the good old days of Season 1
On another note, it seems that my amazing brother has caught a Philippine TV commercial about Code Geass. And guess what, it’s gonna air tomorrow Monday, 7:30 pm on TV-5! Why am I ecstastic about this?
- There hasn’t been a decent local non-cable TV anime here since Eureka Seven.
- A new generation of kids is gonna grow up on SRSBZNS card games, ugly giant CG insects, Filipino-dubbed Spongebob and Avatar.
- We’ve been on reruns so long that it isn’t funny at all. I’m sick tired of Recca, Yu Yu Hakusho, Slam Dunk, Hajime no Ippo, and even Detective Conan.
- Again, too little amount of quality anime on non-cable channels. STOP DUMPING THE GOODS LIKE PANI PONI DASH ON HERO TV PLZ.
- You’d think GMA-7 would be apt to reair Gundam Wing, Gundam X, or G Gundam. Come on, at this rate, TV-5 is gonna beat both you and ABS-CBN’s SEED-loving ass with Gundam 00. Srsly.
At least TV-5 is finally acquiring some semblance of taste. Shana is mildly appealing, and Yamato Nadeshiko is just plain terrible that I can’t even bear to watch it. They should totally acquire Mai-Hime, too.
Well, as for the dub itself, can’t really say anything much except from what my brother told me. It seems that the dub pronounces Geass as “geese”, and Lelouch is apparently voiced by a girl. Luluko much?
A blog post will be due once I’ve finally watched the pilot ep.
Continuing World 
The last time I watched locally dubbed animu, I was greeted with “Kamusta! Ako si Totoy!” from Kid.
Never again.
Hopefully the dubbed version would at least be decent BUT it doesn’t matter anyway since the target demographic wouldn’t be able to notice the difference anyway
Heh. I don’t really trust Filipino-dubbed Anime anymore, too much bad experience. But TV-5 is new, so maybe there’s still hope.
Congratulations on your new blog! We Remember Love will be turning 1 month old this week and it’s been a very rewarding experience.
I’m also glad you enjoyed Nausicaa. If you can get your hands on the manga, it will blow you away. The anime represents only the first volume of 7 total, so you can count on a lot of goodness to look forward to.
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The trouble with dubs, both local and Animax’s is that I hear the same 12 voice actors in all of their anime. It’s very off-putting, especially since I’m not impressed with their acting in the first place. I don’t feel like the subject matter is taken seriously at all.
When they did Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad I was okay with the level of sincerity put in the projects since the actors are all musicians from local bands. However, the fact remains that they’re not professional actors and that their talents lie elsewhere so the overall experience is a let-down.
@ RJ
I’ve seen that too. I thought it was hilarious.
@ 7
When they start watching the fansubs instead, they’ll mutate into Code Geass otaku. Hopefully that wouldn’t be their last stage of evolution.
@ arkanthiel
Shana’s voice is mangled but it works for people who haven’t heard the JP voices. Can’t say if they’re the same voice talent pool from other dubbed shows because I still haven’t sat down to watch an episode in its entirety.
@ ghostlightning
Congratulations on your upcoming monthsary! I’ll look for the manga some time in the future. As for Animax, I find its choice for voice actors to be atrocious. I haven’t seen Beck, but I did catch a glimpse of the incredibly fruity Initial D dub we had had. That, and GMA-7’s terrible experiment with their Bleach dub. Ugh.
i really love Code Geass especially Lelouch and C.C.. The story is definitely awesome!!
hello…..po tatanong kulang kung saan may nabibiling cd ng code geass dito sa philippines.
The reason the Bleach dub sucked is because the people behind it weren’t fans… if you’d read the manga you’d have a pretty good idea on how to voice a character.
Then again, Ichigo’s VA kicked the bucket, so condolences to the family… and that also contributed to it.
Should have let the cast watch a fansub or two or read the manga before going ahead with this…
Hope they keep trying. Trying and failing horribly is better than not trying at all.
Yes, I hope local TV stations continue to air new anime. It’s good to raise consciousness.