We’re flipping the switch on the bat signal during South by Southwest with a spectacular gallery show featuring the Caped Crusader with limited edition screen prints from Phantom City Creative’s Justin Erickson.
The show will highlight Batman: The Animated Series, one of the most celebrated incarnations of Gotham’s Dark Knight. The opening reception will be at Friday, March 9 from 6 – 10pm and will be on display until March 12. The Mondo Gallery is located at 4115 Guadalupe St, Austin, TX.
I harldy ever watch the dub version and therefore had never heard Agni and Soma speaking English, that’s why I didn’t really get your point at first, but now that I know they have an Indian accent in the dub version, I can understand why’d you feel annoyed by it, and honestly, I’m annoyed, too! :/
What annoyes me though is not the fact that Soma and Agni were not voiced by actual Indian VAs, but rather the fact that Funimationobviously didn’t read the manga and thus changed CANON:
“And their English was without a trace of an accent.”
*Note: The literal translation is “Their pronunciation is beautiful/flawless.”
In chapter 15 Lau explicitly and literally says that both Soma and Agni have no trace of an accent. They aren’t random Indians, but are from very high social classes (Soma is a prince and Agni is a Brahmin, i.e. the highest caste), so it’s not impossible for them to speak flawless British-English (maybe they’ve been taught English by actual British tutors).
I don’t know why Funimation decided to add an Indian accent in the English dub - maybe they wanted to be more realistic™
or historically/culturally accurate™
or whatever - but honestly, I rather suspect that there was some kind of shallow assumption that all Indian characters must have a stereotypical
accent. If at least one of the staff had read the original manga properly, they would have known that there NEVER was any indication that Soma and Agni have an accent or dialect, quite the contrary,
they actually speak perfect English just like Ciel and Sebastian.
Yang and Reinhard looks about the same age =(. There’s 9 years gap between them.
Also, dat new ship design probably to sell more toy (I personally prefer the simple feel to the old design) but please don’t phase out the old ship model and restock them already. Fleet File Collection Vol.3 has been out of stock/back order for ages.
So the venue was at space TORICO in Iidabashi. The place itself wasn’t very big, maybe about 20 feet wide. Most of the people checking the place out were girls but there were some men here and there. Around 2:30 the asked everyone to leave so they could set up for the autograph part and around 2:45 they started asking for people to line up numerically. I was number 54 so right in the middle. Within the the autograph audience, there were actually some middle aged women and a Korean girl and a guy or two. I was the only non-asian foreigner in the group. The event was two hours and about an hour in, it was my turn to line up to see her. The staff was really friendly and asked me the usual questions about where I was from. There was a partition in between the audience and where Sensei was so everything in there was mostly private but since its part of the room, you could also hear conversation. As I walked into her side of the partition, she still had her face down and when she looked up, she had just about the best look of surprise I’ve ever seen, and the first words out of her mouth was confirming that I wasn’t Japanese. Kii Kanna Sensei was wearing all black and she had a thin built and her black hair was cut right around her jawline and her bangs were slightly covering her eyes. I handed her my paper with my name on it so she could sign the book and the staff plus sensei asked me some questions about where I was from and I told them that I came from Kyushu earlier that day just to see her and she looked very flattered and they asked me which character was my favorite and of course I couldn’t choose and they made remarks about how I was cute. It seemed like she forgot what to do when she saw me bc suddenly she also asked to do a handshake and I quickly obliged. Sensei was a very nice person although she looked a little shy. Even though I knew I was going to be turned down, I asked for a picture with her and she looked at the person who was probably her editor and she said she couldn’t because sensei is shy. I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask her but my went half blank and I couldn’t remember what I wanted to say. I did give her a souvenir from Kyushu and a letter with my address on it so I’m hoping she’ll write back.
Thanks for sharing the exp, it must’ve been really cool.
