Speical Edition: Deja Vu

Welcome to a special edition of LOST IN TRANSLATION! With the first of Funimation’s Simuldubs coming out this week, I thought it best to take time and analyze how they compare to their subbed counterparts. As such this won’t be a retread of the first episodes, just a quick look at how the dubs hold up.

Let’s get started!

ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM

The first of the dubs to premiere, AC is shaping to be a fairly competent dub if the first episode is any indication. Sonny Strait voices Korosensei and has a great first outing. He captures the craziness needed and even the serious moments he shines. Lindsey Siedel does a good job of portraying Nagisa’s more low key nature and the rest of the cast seems to be having fun with the material despite a few hiccups here and there.

DEATH PARADE

While one of the more diverse dubs in terms of casting, Death Parade still captures the creepy and menacing overtones in it’s first episode. Alex Organ, while not as deep as his Japanese counterpart, still does a fairly good job as Decim; keeping the spirit of the character but not making him too expressive. Eric Vale and Trina Nishimura do pretty well as Takeshi and Machiko respectively, more so Nishimura when it comes to the more emotional scenes. We also meet Nona and Onna this episode  who are voiced by Jad Saxton and Jamie Marchi respectively. FOr the few lines they have this episode they do fairly well, but we’ll get to hear more of them in episode two.

TOKYO GHOUL ROOT A

Easily the best out of the three premieres, Tokyo Ghoul Root A first episode boasts a cast who seem to already be familiar with the show and it’s characters. I admit that Austin Tindle was not my first choice as Kaneki, but I was pleasant surprised by his performance as the morose half-ghoul. Seeing as how this happens just after season one, Tindle does a good job of portraying Knaeki in his newly tortured state. Brina Palencia portrays Touka very well for the few lines and reactions she has and Todd Haberkorn also does well as Ayato. Both of them already seeming to show familiarity with their characters. J. Michael Tatum also had a great first showing as Tsukiyama, and to the dubs credit Tsukiyama’s occasional french sounds much better here than in the original Japanese track.

So far so good with the broadcast dub premieres, but what did you guys think? Let us know in the comments below!