Jayfive wrote:Does anyone recall anyone actually stating that Mari is british? I see on wiki that 'Sadamoto designed her to look British' but i see nothing about her actual nationality. And believe me that accent in the sub is NOT british/english. To these ears it sounds like a Japanese person trying to do a californian/valley girl accent.

True. But remember how German Asuka sounded in the Japanese dubs? Mari sounds more "British" than Asuka ever sounded "German".

Thats something that I was going to come back to this thread and ask actually - is there anything in the sub that mentions ReAsuka is even partially german?

Ive just flicked through the film and the only thing that alludes to this is the 'Deutsche post' logos on the boxes in Misato's apartment. That means shes come from germany, but not that she is actually german. I know she talks about the Japanese as some nationality different from hers but there is diddly-squat that confirms she is from the same background as Soryu.

She could feasibly be as Japanese in terms of actual nationality as Shinji but lived in germany for at least most of her life - certaily long enough to not consider herself Japanese.

But then again ive come to terms with the fact that Shikinami is an entirely new character built from the ground up as it were.

Also, do we know that Mari is around the same age as the original three Children or significiantly older?

The official Evangelion website says Asuka's nationality is still German. And 1.11 through Gendo even states "Eva-02 and its pilot are currently undergoing testing in Germany".

Mari being British is because of her last name: Illustrious, which is another real-life ship.

The official Evangelion website says Asuka's nationality is still German. And 1.11 through Gendo even states "Eva-02 and its pilot are currently undergoing testing in Germany".

Fair enough.

Mari being British is because of her last name: Illustrious, which is another real-life ship.

But nothing else?

A Sadamoto interview also stated that she was going to be given a British Catholic schoolgirl feel. And there are probably some other threads to debate Mari's nationality, but not this one.

Why shouldn't this be the thread to debate her performance? The idea that Mari should have a British accent is a complete fan creation, guys. Vague Sadamoto quotes aren't enough to back that up.

There's nothing wrong with debating her performance, it's just the discussion about nationality is going somewhat off-topic. As long as this thread doesn't result in discussing Mari only, then it's fine. Okay?

Also, whether or not Mari should have a British accent is one thing, but the point stands that she IS meant to be of British-Japanese descent (again, look at her last name and her school uniform) like Soryu being German-American-Japanese (no word yet if Shikinami is German-American-Japanese or just German-Japanese).

You're being kinda anal... its natural that discussion would be limited to Mari at the moment since this clip is all there IS to discuss, really.

The Japanese tend to think of Europe (and even "the West") as one entity (just as Americans tend to think of Japanese/Chinese/Korean etc. culture as being interchangeable). This is a franchise that uses country music to represent its German character, after all. A ship's name and her clothes aren't enough to determine how she should be performed.

(again, look at her last name and her school uniform)

But thats just supposition, not confirmation.

aaaanyway, to save a 'topic bitches' let me just reaffirm what i said earlier - that theres no apparent change to her voice from being on the phone to talking to Shinji seems to sugges Funi have approached the whole 'different language' thing by ignoring it. I suppose the opening scenes will confirm that.

British dub!Mari would have been a fun acknowledgment of her heavily implied heritage. Kind of analogous to Tiff's random insertions of German, only, y'know... British. Mari being vocally set apart from the rest of the dub-cast -- which I'm assuming will all be very, very American -- would also be "thematically appropriate", if you know what I mean.

The British approach would have also enabled them to make Mari's call incomprehensible to Shinji by having her use rhyming slang. (I really want to see a "translation" of that phone call now...)

Warren Peace wrote:You're being kinda anal... its natural that discussion would be limited to Mari at the moment since this clip is all there IS to discuss, really.

Obviously there's nothing wrong with talking about Mari in this thread. I'm simply reminding people to stay on-topic so this doesn't turn into another general Mari thread (which we have several of) instead of a dub-talk thread. This subforum has a very nasty habit of going off-topic, hence the headsup.

JayFive wrote:But thats just supposition, not confirmation.

Sadamoto and others have said she's British, Sadamoto is one of the folks heavily engrossed with New Movie Edition, we might as well take his word.

This thread has some discussion on her nationality, including what Sadamoto said: http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?t=8164

SaltyJoe wrote:Going by this interview with Sadamoto, the intention was to make her look British.

Alternate link: http://eva.onegeek.org/pipermail/evangelion/2010-January/005728.html

For what it's worth, as a Brit, I rather like this voice for Mari. Accent-wise it's what I would term 'neutral American' or 'mid-Atlantic' - I'd rather that than having an American actor mangle British phonetics.

In terms of the performance, I think it's a nice subversion. Mari herself is a play-up of the 'naughty-schoolgirl' trope in her design, and a 'Mari-Sue' to boot - the way she goes from cutesy-cutesy while looking for her glasses, then to vampishly creepy while going off on her LCL-gasm seem a good match for that.

And I love how they translated 'puppy of Nerv' to 'Nervling' - it's affectionate/playful and contempuous/derisive at the same, perfect.

I was hoping Mari's voice actor, as the new addition to the team, would actually be a professional voice actor or screen actor or theatre actor, as opposed to a professional Funimation actor. But from that one Amazon video she sounds just as inhuman as the rest of the cast. The only reason Spencer and Grant are back is because they were there in the beginning (i.e. the whole reason they're in the industry: they were there in the beginning) not because they are... ugh, it just pains me. The U.S. anime industry really needs to dump all their rosters and hire random starving artists from any theatre district in any major city. I don't know where they find them.

Or maybe the problem would be the dub directors.

Just listen to any of Disney's Ghibli dubs and then listen to the English voicework for the Evangelion franchise. Or look at the English dub for Final Fantasy XII, which was all theatre people.

Not bad for someone who's more hyperactive for a character like this. I'll give her props, she nailed one aspect of who Mari is: the part of her who is a little more emotionally stable compared to the other characters. But right now, I think that's the problem; she's only nailed one part perhaps a little too well, and I have no idea if the actress going to take care of the others aspects just as well for the character, so unfortunately, I can't comment further. I'll just have to wait and see, but right now, no complaints with Mari. I'll reserve the Brtish comments until I see the dub in the future.

As for Spike, well, it's Spike. He had to do those screamers sooner or later.

It's worth pointing out that this scene is atypical for Mari's character... in the rest of the film, she's hyper, violent, and confident. Here, she's confused more than anything else. I think we'd have to see the entire performance before drawing any conclusions.

What's that word she uses to describe Shinji? "Nerv-ling"? In my copy's fan sub, it's translated as "Nerv's puppy". My (completely uneducated) guess is that the Japanese term implies condescension, like Shinji is an oblivious pawn of Nerv. Is that right?

Warren Peace wrote:What's that word she uses to describe Shinji? "Nerv-ling"? In my copy's fan sub, it's translated as "Nerv's puppy". My (completely uneducated) guess is that the Japanese term implies condescension, like Shinji is an oblivious pawn of Nerv. Is that right?

I could be wrong, but I believe she literally calls him a puppy.

oOoOoOo wrote:I was hoping Mari's voice actor, as the new addition to the team, would actually be a professional voice actor or screen actor or theatre actor, as opposed to a professional Funimation actor. But from that one Amazon video she sounds just as inhuman as the rest of the cast. The only reason Spencer and Grant are back is because they were there in the beginning (i.e. the whole reason they're in the industry: they were there in the beginning) not because they are... ugh, it just pains me. The U.S. anime industry really needs to dump all their rosters and hire random starving artists from any theatre district in any major city. I don't know where they find them.

Or maybe the problem would be the dub directors.

Just listen to any of Disney's Ghibli dubs and then listen to the English voicework for the Evangelion franchise. Or look at the English dub for Final Fantasy XII, which was all theatre people.

You speak the truth. Guys like Patrick Stewart should do more dubs.

I hope she can pull of the scenes where Mari is sinister and deranged

DevRei17 wrote:You speak the truth. Guys like Patrick Stewart should do more dubs.

I would add Sam Jackson and Ron Perlman to that list. But, yes. I've no idea why the actors they hire get hired. Maybe they're cheaper and Funi can't afford to dish out animes at the pace they have been going and have actual actors do the voices.

Warren Peace wrote:What's that word she uses to describe Shinji? "Nerv-ling"? In my copy's fan sub, it's translated as "Nerv's puppy". My (completely uneducated) guess is that the Japanese term implies condescension, like Shinji is an oblivious pawn of Nerv. Is that right?

My ears heard "Nerv-boy" for the dub, but I guess she was saying "Nerv-ling".

Yes, in Japanese, Mari calls Shinji "Nerv's puppy" (literally "Nerv no wanko-kun" -kun: Japanese honorific), implying that he's a bitch, a pawn, etc. Mari's meant to be speaking cutesy yet condescending at the same time. Hope that helps. :)