English dub material and voice actors

[V]

The original Japanese dub and script is definative.

There are a few notes about the English dub, as well as its airing, which I do not think should be "removed" from here, because on general principle I believe that no fact or tidbit no matter how small, is "too small" to be included. The idea is that the entire encyclopedia is *exhaustive* in its info; that is, if it ain't here it doesn't exist.

That doesn't mean that this information is terribly important.

A separate issue was that some of the notes sections might be getting too long; the answer I'm going with is to split the "Notes" sections into smaller subpages linking from the main episode page. The main episode page will have the more "noteworthy" notes while clicking on a link will take you to the fuller list of truly insane and exhaustive detail.

I'm all for shifting the English-dub info (i.e. "notice this mistake they made"...) to the sub-pages (universally declaring all of it "not fit for the main episode page)

But I do not feel it should be removed, nor should info about things like how Adult Swim edited several episodes (Though, such things should be limited to the more obscure notes sections)

**Meanwhile, I think we should have articles on the English dub voice actors, linked into the Template of character bios so that they appear right below "Seiyu".

Why should we do this?

1 - For very little effort, maybe literally one hour of work, we can write everything we'll ever write about the English dub Voice Actor's for 10 years

2 - This is an English-language website; many fans coming to the site (just to read it as a reference) will be only familiar with the English dub. If this were a French website, I'd have advocated putting the French voice actors in there.

3 - It is hard to maintain the goal of "most informative Eva fansite", if we do not even cover the English voice acting cast.

4 - Simply having an objective, non-judgmental article on "Amanda Winn-Lee" saying "Amanda Winn-Lee is a voice actress who did the English voice of Rei", is not supporting Winn-Lee over the original Japanese seiyuu, nor is it supporting the "Commentary of Doom"

5 - We should....just because we disagree strongly with many ADV Films decisions does not mean we should vilify them, as this would alienate them, and ultimately, we should be mildly ingratiating: by which I mean, eventually when the site is finished, we should e-mail Tiffany Grant & Co and go "hey guys, we wrote a full guide to all things Eva". This isn't because we want their "approval"; it's because it would be like holding up a sign saying "we have made a full guide to what the Facts About Eva REALLY are, i.e. please stop with the "Composite Asuka" theory."....but PHRASED purely as a nice "hey, we have an article written about you" or "hey, want to check out our Eva guide?".....in the hope that our work will ultimately get them to do stuff RIGHT in Rebuild.

6 - Our hopes for contacting the production team should actually be focused on Weta Digital, seeing as they are actually "Producing" something. ADV Films is just making the dub. ....On a production, I do not value the English voice actors any more than I do the Japanese ones; they're just "Actors"; the WRITERS, i.e. Anno & Co. are what really count, and I am fully aware that say, Matt Greenfield is just "some guy" and doesn't know significantly more about Eva than we do.


Regardless, we should 1-include notes about English dub info and AS airing, etc. These will be relegated to lower down on the notes sections, though, not on the main page. 2- we will have articles on the English voice cast. 3-if, as the site grows, a fan from France comes here who really loves the French voice cast, yeah why not let them create articles on the French voice cast:

MediaWiki isn't paper: just because we have an article on "Tiffany Grant" doesn't mean we're "actively supporting Tiffany Grant over the Japanese dub"; it would never be a "Featured Article", it might be fairly buried.

But we cannot take things too far.

It simply makes SENSE to have info on the English language dub.

(notice how I'm bringing this up here, in the forums, instead of everyone waking up to find that in the middle of the night V wrote a complete guide to the English language dub and VA cast )

Quite simply; it's a minimal effort, for the price of saying that we are all-encompassing.

This does not mean we support or cannot be critical of the ADV Films productions; in LOTR fandom, we were quite vocal about "XenArwen" and other problems.

But as the saying goes, "Speak softly, buy carry a big stick"

We do not have to slavishly like the ADV Films English dubbers. We can, in fact, be quite critical of the English dub.

But there's a difference between "guys, dropping you a line to say stop doing this" and "THEY"RE DEAD TO US, DO NOT EVEN NAME THEM"

You think there is the smallest hope of them actively listening to us, if we are so critical of them as to not include even the smallest info on them?

The internets and their system of tubes do not work the same way as they did before 2000. We're now in the age where, theoretically, we can be working alongside the English dub production team to STEER THEM IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

Thoughts?

[UrsusArctos]

Can't say much, but I do agree on having pages for the ADV dub VAs as well as the Seiyuu. And who said we couldn't protest against them?

[V]

Exactly; just because I fought "XenArwen" with every breath in my body, didn't mean we didn't have an article on "Liv Tyler" for LOTR.

Why?

Well actually Tyler was a decent actress they just kept making her do silly things (i.e. the flight to the ford in FOTR is probably the worst scene in the entire trilogy, though it was filmed well).....but, there was the whole thing where Arwen was going to fight at Helm's Deep, and fans complained SO MUCH that they eventually cut it out.....well actually, that was back when Miramax was forcing them to make the script only 2 movies (insanity) and much was condensed; when they changed it to 3 movies under New Line, they got rid of many silly things. The moron execs at New Line still wanted Arwen to be "a warrior", and Peter Jackson & Co. were actually as near as we can tell fighting AGAINST this because Jackson himself thought it didn't make sense, and once the movies were expanded to 3, he wrote it out. New Line complained, but Jackson POINTED to the fan backlash at the very idea of it, so they shut up. Of course...there's ALREADY a warrior princess in LOTR, Princess Eowyn, and it was sort of like saying "lets insert a strong, entirely new female warrior character into a movie called "The Tale of Joan of Arc"; insanity. Of course, right now the biggest problem we have faced as Eva fans is "you should cast Asian actors in the live action movie, and not westernize it"

That is to say, just as the "Challenge" facing LOTR was "can we make what is effectively a single 12 hour movie, released in serial, with individual movies that don't really stand on their own because they're meant to be seen back to back.....while trying to convince people that it is both a "Fantasy" movie but also "meant for adults and mature enough to win an Oscar?"

I think one of the challenges facing Eva will be "instead of having "the token black friend", and "the token Asian guy", can a major blockbuster movie survive with a mostly asian main cast?" I think yes, though they could change around a few of the Nerv personell, what with it being an international organization and all, but if at the least, Gendo, Rei, and Shinji are not Asian, I'll raise hell.

Er, but I digress....

[Reichu]

Can't say much, but I do agree on having pages for the ADV dub VAs as well as the Seiyuu.

For some reason, these proposals are making me feel as if my baby is about to be violated...

Can we please, Please, PLEASE dump anything dub-related (except for stuff that causes misconceptions and whatever) into an "unthinkably low priority" box and focus on much more significant things right now?

I also have no intention of drawing the site's existence to the attention of ADV, Mangle, Viz, or any other industrial beings.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

V is certainly correct. It's beyond question that the wiki should contain such information on the english dub. It may be low priority right now, but eventually the "encyclopedia" section of the site should include such information, and perhaps information on other language dubs as well.

We need not be scathing in the wiki, and in fact we should not be. IN the commentary however...?

The subpages seems the best place to put dub specific information on episodes and perhaps even characters? There shoudl also eventually be a few page devoted to information about the dubs and even some dub actor pages, like the seiyu ones.

But this is a job for when the more important information has been dealt with.

[thewayneiac]

I also have no intention of drawing the site's existence to the attention of ADV, Mangle, Viz, or any other industrial beings.

I second that. Why draw the attention of people who might try and put us out of business?

[Reichu]

There shoudl also eventually be a few page devoted to information about the dubs and even some dub actor pages, like the seiyu ones.

Dub-actor pages is going a bit overboard, IMO.

We need not be scathing in the wiki, and in fact we should not be.

But, like, having anything on the dub(s) without putting it over an open fire just doesn't feel right.

It's almost like... the website is my body, and dub-stuffs are an invasive threat that my leukocytes must attack without mercy. In my mind, there should be a couple, at most, of purely informative pages about dubby things, and any other mentions would be to draw attention to the dubs' unfavorable clashing with NGE (TRUE).

Of course, once we run out of better things to do (five years from now), I might care less about more extensive treatment being given. But as I see it, the part bolded above is all we need for the foreseeable future. Any more is counterproductive and threatens Reichu's sense of personal security.

On a related note: I want seiyuu only for the character info boxes. Anyone else can be mentioned in a more appropriate place.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Dub-actor pages is going a bit overboard, IMO.

Best to make a Dub Actors page then and chuck them all there. We have to mention them somewhere, along with the other language dub actors eventually.

It's almost like... the website is my body, and dub-stuffs are an invasive threat that my leukocytes must attack without mercy.

Why don't you think of them instead as disfiguring scars from ancient encounters, which while unsettling and disfiguring, are nonetheless now an inextricable part of the whole.

On a related note: I want seiyuu only for the character info boxes. Anyone else can be mentioned in a more appropriate place.

Reichu, I think it's going to be hard to justify the wiki as an authoritative source of information without including the dub actors on the character infobox. Plus I just spent 40 minutes on that part of the template(don't ask). If we include the seiyu, we simply have to at least give lip service to the fact that there was an english VA. We may not like the english VAs, but they exist and are fairly important and so we have to mention them in the appropriate place. It's a question of encyclopedic integrity.

[Reichu]

Reichu, I think it's going to be hard to justify the wiki as an authoritative source of information without including the dub actors on the character infobox.

I would never be so silly as to call any website under my jurisdictive "authoritative". Unless I suffered from another manic attack, anyway.

Please humor me for now. I can grovel.

[V]

Can we please, Please, PLEASE dump anything dub-related (except for stuff that causes misconceptions and whatever) into an "unthinkably low priority" box and focus on much more significant things right now?

I also have no intention of drawing the site's existence to the attention of ADV, Mangle, Viz, or any other industrial beings.

Eventually I thought we should indeed directly e-mail ADV Films and go "hi guys, like our Eva guide?"

Why would they "put it out of business"? If they LIKE the Eva Guide ("oh cool there's an entry on me, which refrains from use of the words "frelling" and "HARPOODA!" (we DARE call them Harpooda?...") they won't try to shut it down or compete with it.

****Reichu, the internet is not the same as it was even 5 years ago. We can go from griping about those morons at ADV Films, to actively steering them in the right direction.

Nonetheless, Reichu, you make the valid point that this should be of extremely low priority compared to the rest, and the absolutely LAST thing on my "to do" list that I get around to. Thus, I am putting this issue on the "Back burner", and will only resume it once the rest of the information on the site is up to an adequate level.

[Reichu]

Eventually I thought we should indeed directly e-mail ADV Films and go "hi guys, like our Eva guide?"

I'm 100% serious about wanting to stay off the industrial radar. The only people who need to know about our existence are other fan-geeks. My goal is to keep things as relatively low-key as they were before. But if ADV or whomever eventually find out about us, so be it.

Let's just focus on getting a Fully Operational site right now (with the full compliment of polished articles on the Basic Shit, and various other things that need tackling in the Switchover), and worry about advertising our presence later...

BTW, apologies about going batshit crazy over dub-stuffs. It's almost a guarantee I'll be considerably less neurotic about it later on down the road. You'll get your cue in due time. ;)

[Dr. Nick]

Why would they "put it out of business"?

We're illegally hosting and distributing their subtitle translations.

[LuigiHann]

What if there's just one page (combined) for all the dub actors? All it would need is a micro-paragraph about each one (basically noting who they played, what else they did for the show, and how they're related to Amanda ) and a link to their IMDB pages. And I'm assuming we'd only be dealing with the main cast, here.

[V]

No, they would need full articles. But that's for later.

I'm 100% serious about wanting to stay off the industrial radar. The only people who need to know about our existence are other fan-geeks. My goal is to keep things as relatively low-key as they were before. But if ADV or whomever eventually find out about us, so be it.

Again this is for later, but Reichu you cannot stay off the radar forever if Eva hits it big again.

Yes, hosting the translations might be something of a problem. We could just host our own translation, and as for the official subtitles.....well if we kept it and just didn't advertise it, they'd find it eventually. We could just keep it as a reference which we private message around to everyone.

....ok we'll get back to this later, but my position is: it's impossible to stay "off the radar" forever, Reichu's EvaCommentary could be the next TheOneRing.net, and creating it then making it a secret only known to a select few defeats its own purpose. I think it would be better not to hose their subtitle transcript, if it meant this site could continue as something more than just 12 people actually read. If its the definative, authoritative, frelling best Eva Guide ever...they'll find it eventually. It is better to work with them than against them. That said, I would drop ADV Films in a heartbeat compared to WetaDigital. But this is for later.

[Reichu]

We could just keep it as a reference which we private message around to everyone.

That's what will end up happening. The current situation is a provisional one.

It is better to work with them than against them.

I'm not working "against them", considering the site is a completely noncommercial entity that doesn't have consistently bad things to say about them. I don't see why I need to "work with them" on anything, unless I want adverts for ADV products paying for my hosting fees... (But I think I'd sooner die than see ads anywhere on a site I'm involved with.)

Like I said, if they find out about the site, so be it. But I'm not going to encourage them. They're not exactly the target audience.

[Ornette]

We could just host our own translation, and as for the official subtitles.....

Technically, ADV's license gives them the sole right to translate the script for the TV episodes in R1. As does Manga Entertainment with the script for Death & EoE.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Reichu makes a really good point about this site not needing to be ADV's/Mangle's business, since it's meant for other fans, NOT THEM. (Though I wonders how Gainax and Khara would feel about this site??)

Plus, there's that stupid technicality of possible legal trouble due to images/translations use... (Perhaps if we get their permission, or would they not give a shit and try to shut this site down anyway?? Again, would we run into the same problem with Gainax/Khara?)

V makes yet another good point that their should be a page for the dub VA, BUT I think that should be at some later point, and only be a brief bio of some roles they've done, perhaps all on one page and nothing opinionated either way since our focus is on the original Japanese version of Eva.

Thoughts on my thoughts?

[V]

don't ask for permission formally


due what TheOneRing.net did; befriend those involved in the production, that way they consider your site a promotional tool and don't bother shutting you down

[The Eva Monkey]

For some reason, these proposals are making me feel as if my baby is about to be violated...

I haven't read over this thread with a fine toothed comb, but I'd like to chip in here.

Concerning dub materials, and other derivitive material:

We should focus on the show's canon and primary materials before we branch off. We should detail stuff like Characters, episodes, and various theories before we start bios for Spike Spencer and Tiffany Grant.

Please note that I am not denying the need to cater to dub fans, I'm simply stating that it's of secondary or even tertiary importance.

[V]

we already decided EM that until the primary sections and articles of the site are up to specs, we should put off discussion of even doing dub information or not (which I am actually in favor of) ; long story short: we have things requiring more urgent attention.....