Amazon Prime's English Dub (General)

[FryMeTuhDehMuhn]

Thank you for reopening it! Sorry if I had any part in this thread being locked in the first place. If I do anything that threatens having it locked again, please tell me and I'll do my best to avoid causing problems.

Now that the dubbing cast is out, and having heard a brief sample of their voices, here's my thoughts:

Spike Spencer - Sounds a bit more matured but is also good at keeping that Shinji tone.
Amanda Winn Lee - Hearing her back after 17 years of not being Rei was awesome. I mean, I've not even been alive that long, so for her to come back after all this time, after being replaced twice is pretty darn cool. She also sounds just as she did when she recorded for NGE, so that's great too!
Allison Keith-Shipp - Her voice hasn't changed a bit since when she started as Misato, and it's like she never left the role.
Deneen Melody - She's a pretty good replacement for Trina Nishimura, actually - She even sounds a bit like her too. If a little bit more toned down, but that's not a bad thing. Overall I really like what I have heard.
Daman Mills - Being Kaworu's 5th(?) VA he had a lot to live up to, and he's my 2nd favourite Kaworu behind Jerry Jewell from what I've heard of him.

I didn't hear a lot of these actors at all, so my opinions could change when I've heard everything, but from what I have heard, these are my thoughts

[silvermoonlight]

Deneen Melody - She's a pretty good replacement for Trina Nishimura, actually - She even sounds a bit like her too. If a little bit more toned down, but that's not a bad thing. Overall I really like what I have heard.

Deneen Melody replaced Trina Nishimura, that surprising though I know Trina is now really famous for attack on Titan maybe there was conflict in that she was doing the VA on something else as she was meant to sign the Vshout autographs, but this got moved to late August. Though in the dub trailer I confess I did not hear much difference, which means Deneen nailed it.

Has Tiffany returned as Asuka?

[Hooded_Omar]

Has Tiffany returned as Asuka?

Yep.

[mastafishere]

Personally, I'm waiting on confirmation that the first three movies were completely redubbed or if the new performances were "frankensteined" in with the old performances. If anyone has that information, it'd be much appreciated!

[silvermoonlight]

Personally, I'm waiting on confirmation that the first three movies were completely redubbed or if the new performances were "frankensteined" in with the old performances. If anyone has that information, it'd be much appreciated!

If they have done this, it might be that Amazon will release a new Blu-ray 4 film box set under a new disruptor in the future, so they'd want them to all line up.

[FryMeTuhDehMuhn]

It isn't a Frankensteined dub, it's all new. Heard a bit of the recap at the start of 3.0+1.0 and there is none of the Funimation dub.

[Gendo'sPapa]

Personally, I'm waiting on confirmation that the first three movies were completely redubbed or if the new performances were "frankensteined" in with the old performances. If anyone has that information, it'd be much appreciated!

This would be insanely impractical and ultimately kind of pointless. On a technical level that's easy to do but when ownership comes into play- Funimation made those dubs - it's a whole different story. I mean sure, Amazon is one of the most ungodly wealthy companies on the planet and if they really wanted to they COULD do that but there'd be so many legal hurdles to jump and money exchanged that would have to be made to legally do a FrankenDub of Funimation's work that it's just far cheaper and easier to re-dub the whole thing.

It's a new dub.

[Konja7]

I read Funimation doesn't own the rights for the previous dub (the rights would be from Khara). So, they wouldn't really need to pay.

That said, I think it would be better Amazon re-dub everything.

[mastafishere]

I knew all the logic behind a full redub and I was fully on board with it, but I was still nervous. Glad to know that it was fully re-dubbed though. I can’t wait to listen and contrast and compare!

[The Dragon Mask]

Having watched only some snippets, I'd say the dubs for 1.11, 2.22 and 3.33 are about equal to the Funimation ones in quality, though different enough to be a bit strange feeling at first.

AWL as Rei interestingly is the most surprising, since I hadn't really thought of Brina Palencia's performance as being all that different yet AWL definitely brings more of the classic Rei here. Her whispery delivery, which I feel is closer to Megumi Hayashibara's, is back in style.

Spike, Tiffany and Alison all sound about the same as before, the one thing I'd say for each is that the translation for the snippet of 3.33 I saw definitely made for some slightly awkward phrasing for each but I think in the context of the movie itself it'll be fine.

John Swasey seemed the most improved from before actually. His delivery of "Get in the Eva, or get out" has a lot more bite this time that reminds me more of the original Gendo for ADV. It's like, "damn dude chill out don't be so harsh on your son" but at the same time it hits harder and I think is a better delivery of that line than he gave in the Funimation dub of 1.11.

It'll take a while to get used to the new voices for Kaworu, Mari, Kaji and Fuyutsuki but they seem pretty good so far (notably Fuyutsuki is actually the End of Evangelion Fuyu who was notably very monotone so I hope they gave him some more inspired direction this time, hard to tell from the small sample I heard).

Also I thought of something funny with Kaworu, since he now has had like 6 English voice actors.

"It's my destiny to be recast, however, there is still the possibility my next voice will be good, and in the end it makes no great difference!"

(taking off of his speech at the end of Episode 24)

"It's my destiny to destroy humanity, however, there is still the possibility I can be killed, and in the end it makes no great difference whether I live or die."

Just kind of funny his legacy in English is partially defined by switching voices 6 times lol.

[Jayfive]

Just flicking through the English dub of 3.0+1.0. All the returning cast are as good as you might expect - Tiff's got all her snark and rage, Spike's doing his thing, Alison's got that bitter edge to her post-3.0 Misato, Swasey is tearing it right up, if there's any criticism it's that AWL is a little too whispery. Quality swings a bit more wildly with new cast and a couple of cases where the voice is completely out of kilter with the character - in one case we're possibly taking EoE Hyuga levels of dissonance.

And there's that over-exact translation that plagues the second dub of 3.0 and Netflix dub. Extremely close to the subtitles. Asuka calls Mari "4 eyed crony" again for example (guys, it doesn't *work* in English - can't you think of anything else?). Everyone sounds better when they seem to be giving their own spins on the lines and delivering them like a native English speaking would rather than the times where it sounds like someone from Khara stood next to them with a clipboard making sure it's done THEIR way.

Oh and not particularly impressed with Mari's new VA. She's decent enough, just not a patch on Nishimura. In the battle scenes she sounds like she's holding back in case the neighbours complain about the noise from the studio.

[JupiterCallisto]

All the key voice actors nailed it as expected. I missed how alien AWL Rei sounded.

I'm so glad they got back the OG actors wherever possible rewatching the rebuilds with my favorite actors was a lot of fun. I hope we get a Show redub next.

[Gendo's Glasses]

Just flicking through the English dub of 3.0+1.0. All the returning cast are as good as you might expect - Tiff's got all her snark and rage, Spike's doing his thing, Alison's got that bitter edge to her post-3.0 Misato, Swasey is tearing it right up, if there's any criticism it's that AWL is a little too whispery. Quality swings a bit more wildly with new cast and a couple of cases where the voice is completely out of kilter with the character - in one case we're possibly taking EoE Hyuga levels of dissonance.

And there's that over-exact translation that plagues the second dub of 3.0 and Netflix dub. Extremely close to the subtitles. Asuka calls Mari "4 eyed crony" again for example (guys, it doesn't *work* in English - can't you think of anything else?). Everyone sounds better when they seem to be giving their own spins on the lines and delivering them like a native English speaking would rather than the times where it sounds like someone from Khara stood next to them with a clipboard making sure it's done THEIR way.

Oh and not particularly impressed with Mari's new VA. She's decent enough, just not a patch on Nishimura. In the battle scenes she sounds like she's holding back in case the neighbours complain about the noise from the studio.

I just skimmed through the English dubs of the first three before going onto the final one in a few hours and the best thing I think I can say about the Amazon dub is that it's not Netflix terrible but it's also rather uneven. You've got some of the weirder lines (ANITA ROSE) and some rather literal ones right next to ones where they've obviously been able to localize and play with. Mari, I think, is the greatest causality in comparison because she's kind of boring now because of her personality is gone -- but then she has a line where she calls the Tenth Angel a 'real ballbuster.' I personally love the return of EOE!Fuyutsuki but it feels like he was cast for the last two films and sort of 'backdated' into the first two and has some very... interesting line deliveries in those two. The cast are all fine, beyond the few you've mentioned.

I agree with the 'holding back' comment but it's not just for Mari. There were a few scenes where it felt like they'd either artificially reduced the volume of the screaming and so on, or instructed the VA to hold back. On the other hand, Spike Spencer delivers some great screams and anger and such. I feel that Alison was finding it hard to get into her Misato voice at times, especially in the first film. I'm not sure how Tiffany Grant so easily slips into her Asuka voice, though, because she's still a stand-out. The new Kaworu and Mari are pretty close to their previous Rebuild versions, but Mari doesn't have the quasi-psychotic energy she had when piloting. Likewise, Asuka's bestial WHOTHEHELLAREYOOOOU is way subdued now.

The script for the first two films is better in some ways than the first releases, but worse in others. 3.33 seems basically identical with maybe only a few lines changed, and a lot of the annoying ambiguity is still there.

Oh, SEELE's voices feel way, way off -- way closer to the original series take on them than the more alien version in the Rebuilds. And the fact that the cast seem to have three different pronunciations of SEELE and none of them are as of any other release (except maybe Netflix? I don't know) feels very odd.

But all in all, I'm very glad it's not like the Netflix release, and it only seems like the issues with it come from having seen the previous English releases of 1.11 and 2.22. 3.33 felt basically exactly the same to me, and I imagine 3.0+1.0 will be completely fine.

[GentlemanX]

Now that folks have seen the movies officially, the NDAs are up and the cast are confirming their participation in the dubs. Tiffany Grant has a post in her facebook group about it. Nothing spoilery there, but she confirmed that they dubbed 3.0+1.0 first back in December 2020 and January 2021, and then redubbed 1.11, 2.22, and 3.33 in order after that.

[Swami]

I’m already feeling conflicted about it.

I like the 4th one since there’s really nothing to compare it to, but once you get into the other films, you definitely start to notice how different they are from the Funimation dubs.

Just watching the Amazon dub of 2.0, I noticed how tired some of the voice actors sounded especially Allison Keith. Also some character voices don’t fit their character models (I.e Toji).

The dub script is my biggest issue. There are some awkward lines these characters say that make me cringe a little (one of them being Asuka saying coattails over and over). It doesn’t sound as natural as the Funimation dub. Maybe, it’s nostalgia, but I think I prefer the Funimation dub.

What do you all think?

[Pluto]

I thought Toji missed the mark too but the main cast and those who came back did a good job. Certainly, with the dub there will be a little nuance lost.

[ManureTruck]

Certainly, with the dub there will be a little nuance lost.

A lot more than a little in most cases of most dubs. In Eva's case I've never watched the series or Rebuilds dubbed (I've seen youtube clips comparing the original and netflix subs of the TV series, just so I could be educated on them enough to at least superficially participate in conversations about them) but from the sounds of it the new dubs on the first three films are even worse on translating meaning and are more aggressively localized than the terrible dubtitling on 3.0+1.01.

I'm pretty eager for a proper fansub of it 3.0+1.01.

[Jayfive]

"NDAs were in place. In fact, I had to sign FOUR over the course of dubbing the Rebuild films. The "Pentagon level security" of the project meant the film had THREE water marks, so I could barely see any of it!"

Jesus, Khara and/or Amazon were not screwing around.

From her replies:
" If there are odd scripting choices, please look at the credits and compare to Netflix dub and the second dub of 3.33."
The sass!

[CoolJosh2002]

So I just saw a couple clips of the redub on YouTube. The car ride between Shinji and Misato, before getting to NERV in 1.11 and the Elevator Scene in 2.22 (So nothing spoilerish). My thoughts are below:

The 1.11 video was specifically a comparison, comparing the same scene between both Funimation and Amazon, it was interesting hearing the same scene done with the same actors between two dubs back to back, so my thoughts were very clear. Funimation's scripting was for this scene, better and flowed better as well, that being said, the more stilted dialogue on the Amazon side wasn't as bad to hear because this was just a scene between two characters, simply talking to each other after having first met. But some lines on Amazon flowed just fine, so it was interesting to see. It was also really obvious that this was recorded remotely, as while Spike's dialogue sounded fine, Allison's had a bit of I guess crackle behind it? Not the end of the world but considering the script changes the scene plays out the same way, just with different dialogue in places. Performances were also reasonably energetic for the scene, so despie the sometimes weird dialogue everything is much easier to take in.

The Elevator Scene I got to hear Amanda as Rei again, and it was joy to my ears. Tiffany is still fantastic as Asuka, and it was a joy hearing their Rei and Asuka interact again. In terms of the scene itself, this was only the Amazon Dub, so no comparison this time. The scripting this time was much cleaner in my opinion, and flowed really as well. Both Amanda and Tiffany have been doing voice work over the pandemic, so this was great on both ends as well. So its looking to be about a 60/40 or 70/30 ratio of dialogue that flows versus stilted, slightly awkward etc. Overall though I'm happy with what I heard, and I can't wait to do an extensive comparison down the line. The overall script of the Amazon Dub is definitely better than the Netflix Dub, and I'm curious to see how some of my favourite lines stack up, especially in 2.22. (Eg. "Point Blank Shithead!" "I want Rei! GIVE HER BACK!" etc.)

[Jayfive]

The overall script of the Amazon Dub is definitely better than the Netflix Dub

I'll take "Damning with faint praise" for 400....

Edit about an hour later - someone's put the Amazon Dub 2.0 elevator scene on Youtube and again it sounds like Tiffany is holding back at the "Be honest with yourself for once!" line - Asuka's face is all scrunched up with rage and Tiff's just raising her voice slightly.