Drink deep of my sorrow as I entertain you with tales of Japanese Animated debauchery.


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Friday, August 13, 2010

Heroic Legend of Arislan: A Girl Who would be King. Wait, that's a dude?!

So in watching anime there's occasionally moments when a beautifully animated character walks on screen and a brief panning sequence is used to drink in the character's appearance and then one dumb bastard in the room might say something to the television screen, like "Hey baby, that crown looks heavy. Can I hold it up by your boobs?" or something equally idiotic.

For the record, I'm usually THAT bastard.

Pleasure to meet you.

And I should also note that at least 40% of the time in anime that "hot lady" is not a lady and so it was with my first taste of the Heroic Legend of Arislan.

Oops.

And here people wonder why I stopped drinking...






(Opening of the Arislan english dub for episode one. Note the feature film quality and the way everything, including the language track just flow together? That's hot. Stuff like this doesn't happen often.)

Who can blame me though?! He's very pretty. I can't help that anymore than he can. Or... shit, that's not helping. Um. So the first thing you'll notice is that it's VERY pretty. God, it's gorgeous. This was back when people did stuff by hand so you punk kids can't appreciate how fucking amazing anime that looks THIS good for its time really is.

I used to get so drunk watching this.

My extremely vague understanding of Arislan/Arslan is that the story originates within some wacky persian folktale and persistently gets remade not unlike Saiyuki and all its remakes and bastardizations such as Dragonball and Monkey Magic. Apparently, this story is still going strong in Manga form back in Japan. I'm looking for a smartass remark to insert here, but my disappointment with the OAV's horrid fate in the USA and its pathetic conclusion make me an extra sad panda.

Let's talk about the epic beginning to a monumental failure to communicate...

In this particular fashion, Arislan is a young, naive prince who gets left to pick up the pieces when his asshole father falls into a pretty obvious trap and is taken captive as a strange, Darth Vader-ish usurper invades with the assistance of a hateful neighboring country.

The prince is spared because the king, in one of his last acts of stupidity, is so full of piss and fury that he punishes Dariuyuun(SP?!) the one general brave enough to question the judgment of running at full speed into a fog filled field drenched in flammable oils. What a wuss, right? Anyway, Dariyoohoo is urged by his uncle (chief of staff or something) to protect the prince in order to secure his future stature and repair his now destroyed reputation within the Palsian military. Amusingly enough the military is in shambles and Dairyproduct finds his way to Arislan rescuing him from the incoming Lusitanian hordes forming the first of many bonds that the Prince makes with his brilliant, fair and brave cabinet of war.

From a distance, this series looks awesome, because it IS awesome. But it's not perfect and weird enough to readers of mine, it's not the dub that's the problem. Okay that's not entirely true, there is a problem with the dub, but it isn't ME who has a problem with it! Weird, right?!

The problem is with the original producers of the anime, may they rot in hell, as they took offense to the English adaption and certain spellings and pronunciations of character names, most notably the titular Arislan whom they felt was to be referred to as "Arslan" instead. They were super cheesed off about as I recall and legal actions were suggested, to amend their problems with the English dub CPM agreed to apply the new title and the pronunciations with the "Age of Heroes" portion that ended the series.

To say the least, they totally boned the formerly awesome audio that complimented the formerly gorgeous visuals, effectively putting a fork in this bird of prey that became a massive turkey and the whole franchise effectively died in the USA thanks to its own creators. After following the dub that so easy on the ears, it was agony hearing these idiots butcher what sounded so damn good previously basically bastardizing every name you thought you knew because some Japanese asstards got a bug up their butts over something so fucking trivial...

I say it's trivial because I find it a little offensive given their daily bastardization of the "Engrish" language that anyone in that country really has the stones to question pronunciation and spelling over here.

But then I guess that having too many people like it over here might have made it actually sell and present the threat of additional episodes, funding and success.

Fuck that, right?

Really now, Age of heroes is dangerously close to being the worst dub ever made and that's saying something with all the bad dubs out there. With all the fuss about the dub the original cast had to take a hike for guys they paid in M&Ms instead of money and the quality of their performance is almost on par with the dub script, which bloodpuke-inducingly awful.

To add some insult to the injury there's no closure to the anime except that Arislan's father manages to fuck him over in a big, big way AGAIN and he's back to square one on his own. It doesn't help when the stuff they destroy the dub over is crap anyway. The real difference of quality between the first episode and the entirety of Age of Heroes is akin to comparing a world class orchestra performance to a drunk playing a trumpet out of his ass on a street corner respectively.

With the Manga going on so long it's a pity this all went to hell because it might have pierced the veil and been an enduring presence for anime over here for years to come, but then they could have made its end not suck so bad as well so people might look upon it with more affection than nausea.

Since then the franchise limped quietly into obscurity and its dubbers, Central Park Media's US Manga Corps, have gone bankrupt leaving its ultimate fate floating in the wind. Or the toilet since few people remember this otherwise delightful title and even less really care outside of Japan.

When I first watched Arislan, I was spellbound by this fucking thing. I was absolutely enchanted by it as tears steamed down my cheeks in joy and awe when I first watched it.

Admittedly, I was also pretty drunk too, so that may have had something to do with it.

Nonetheless, I still writhe with delight over the initial episodes to this day and the high quality visuals conspire with the audio as they melt together in harmony with a dub that I would happily argue is vastly superior to the original Japanese language track.

That is, until the Japanese had something to say about it.

Thanks Japan!



(The dark closing of the first episode, Silvermask reveals his royal roots to a stunned Andragoras whose weakened body can barely handle this revelation. Meanwhile, Arislan is brimming with hope as he and his mismatched band venture forth to save their kingdom against impossible odds. Roll credits!)

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