Dub episode discussion thread

I see. Honestly, I was still shocked when I saw the dub's version of that part.

Where's the episode title of "Alola to New Adventure!" ?

A few things: first off, Sean Schemmel only voiced Alva in the Volcanion movie trailer. In the movie proper, it was Billy Bob Thompson.

Second: still no premiere date for the SM dub, but the first two episodes' true dubbed selves are on the Disney XD app. As a result, I (and anyone else with a cable package with Disney XD included, as that's needed to see the episodes on the app) can confirm that Ed Goldfarb is still on board as the dub composer. His compositional style hasn't changed much; it's just that there's an islander vibe to it rather than a Baroque-y French one. In some spots, it's a bit evocative of the music Michael Tavera made for the Lilo and Stitch TV series (by the way, I was hoping that motif would be matched).

As I'm a rare example of somebody who has legitimately positive feelings for Mr. Goldfarb's dub music, I must say that these two episodes got an excellent score. In fact, some dub music haters on Twitter were even admitting he got better. But anyway, I can also concede that for these two episodes, the dub's music is only barely better overall than the JP music. There were only about three spots in the JP version (and the sneak preview versions) that I felt had unfitting music, said three spots being the Tapu Koko chase scene, and both times between these two episodes the Champion Theme was used. Unfortunately, the true dub kept both instances of the latter, but the Tapu Koko chase scene got a much more fitting track. The "Who's That Pokemon?" segment also keeps its quirk of having a new jingle every time. As for what it retains, well, as said before, both instances of the Champion Theme were kept, but also, so was the title card theme, the SM Trainer Battle Theme, and whatever theme that was where Kiawe's Turtonator used its Z-Move. So, that's my view on the dub music; it's not as drastically better than the JP music as the XY dub's music was, but it was still great.

Speaking of Z-Moves, the dub has no English text for them. To me, that's the dub's one and only disadvantage. I won't pull a Dogasu by screaming "XENOPHOBIA!!!", but I will permit myself a "LAZY!". It doesn't affect the dub's watchability, though, but it still would've been nice if they went that extra mile.

And as usual, the actor performances were great. The usual cast is great as usual, but the new characters' VA performances are off to a strong start, too. The SM-exclusive characters (as far as I know so far):

Kiawe: Marc Swint

Lillie: Laurie Hymes

Sophocles: Alyson Rosenfeld

Professor Kukui: Abe Goldfarb

Mallow's Bounsweet: Alyson Rosenfeld


One final note about the music: the opening:



As you all know, I enjoyed the shit out of "Alola!!". As for this song (titled "Under the Alolan Sun"), I consider it every bit as good as "Alola!!". Even though it's still 30 seconds long for some reason (network time allowance, maybe?), it makes the most of all 30 of them. It's got the same laid-back island vacation and frolic feel to it, and the footage (all from "Alola!!") is very well edited and used.

But though the 30-second opening thing hasn't changed, something very significant did, and it's made dub history:



The ending theme may just be an instrumental of the opening, but clips from "Pose!" were kept, meaning that for the first time ever, a Japanese ending was preserved.

And as we can see in the credits, the song is sung by "Jannel Candrice and The Sad Truth". I guess The Sad Truth gained a new lead singer. Regardless, she sounded great. Plus, it also features Ben Dixon and the Vestigial Horns.

Dub fan that I am, I went ahead and made a review of the XY/XYZ dub soundtrack.

ryusanandsylveon.blogspot.com/2017/03/pokemon-series-xy-and-xyz-western.html

Aside from the first Japanese paragraph (in which I simply state that the Western versions of the show have a new soundtrack, with little bits of the original soundtrack remaining), the Japanese music is not mentioned at all in this review. It simply focuses on the dub soundtrack. It's in both Japanese (as much of it as I know) and English.

(If this would be better placed in the shoutbox, I'll move it there.)

English Rotomdex is best Rotomdex. Though admittedly, it's a close call since his JP voice was itself very good.

The episode is up online (per rules, I'm not disclosing its location), so I saw it. And I'll be seeing it again when it premieres in America so as to truly support the dub. So how's this new episode? Well, surprise, surprise, the dub wins again. But this time, it didn't win by a landslide.

Its dub music is excellent. Ed Goldfarb was the best composer to happen to the XY saga, and his talent is sure carrying over to SM. Of course, it's a tougher call to make, since SM's JP music is good, way better than that sin against the sense of hearing that is the JP XY "music". I can only say that this episode's dub music is equally as good as the JP music.

What ultimately makes me side with this episode's dub, though, is its writing and its acting.

James: "Meowth, what is [Mimikyu] saying?"
Meowth: "This is a family show!"

Funniest part right there.

I already went over Rotomdex's dub voice. The other SM regulars sound great, too.

The only downside is that the motto has no text whatsoever. The motto itself is great, though.

So, overall, this was a neat dub episode, and it's so nice to have a version of this saga I can truly enjoy.

I eagerly anticipate the dub of episode 21, but currently, I have dub episode 4 to talk about.

Once again, superb music. The best themes went to the Pikipek flock and to Rowlet. Here's hoping Rowlet keeps that theme of his should he evolve. It's a possibility, seeing as how Froakie kept remnants of his dub theme as he evolved.

As mentioned last time I posted about a dub episode, Rotomdex has a great English voice. But I have to say that his captain obvious dialogue is annoying. It's undoubtedly for series newcomers, so I can forgive it somewhat, though I wish it wasn't written in a video game tutorial kind of way.

By the way, Pikachu's loss to Grubbin was embarrassing, but it's not the end of the world. Were people really that bent out of shape over it?

I can't say anything about Rowlet's character yet, as this was his intro episode, and his current behavior seems nothing like how he'll behave later (based on discussion I've seen).

Mimikyu is officially part of TR's team now. And I should mention, I like its English voice. I never would've known there was a voice change had Don not mentioned it. Billy Bob Thompson's imitation of the JP voice is just about perfect. Bewear's English voice sounds only mildly like the JP voice, which is fine by me because JP Bewear is the JP version's second-worst sound.

All in all, this was a good one.