Negima - Funi...What!!??

[Hitokiri]

It has been announced today that Funimation will be dubbing the most recent Ken Akatmasu series Negima (Akamatsu is known for his work, Love Hina).

Ughhh....I do not see how Funi can pull this off. Maybe I just see Funi as DBZ and YuYu Hakusho and never seen them dub uncut series....but...

Ughh. Here's a link: Anime News Network

They released two of the VA's:

Negi Springfield will be voiced by Greg Ayres (voiced amoung others Kaworu Nagisa in the Evangelion Director's Cut, Shinpachi Nakagura in Peace Maker, and Chrono in Chrono Crusade.)

Asuna Kagurazaka will be voiced by Luci Christian (who also voiced Risa Harada in D.N. Angel, Wrath in Full Metal Alchemist, etc).

Should be intresting but I am not sure how this will turn out.

[Arnobius]

NOOOOOOOOOO!

Why did it have to be Funimation? There subs are OK, but I would have preferred ADV... or just about any of the others. If they do the kids only version like so many, I'll just go fansub and oh well

[Hitokiri]

I wanted either Bandai or ADV to do this one. But why Funi? The VA's kinda give it some hope. I have heard alot of good stuff from the known voice actors.

[Rev. Doc]

I'm pretty surprised that folks still see Funi as only the company that did DBZ and YuYu. They have quite a few titles under their belf now including some very good titles with above par dub VA work like Fruits Basket.

[Debitt]

o.O; Funi...interesting...

But as a bit of consolation, Greg Ayres is pretty good at being a little kid. xD; I actually LIKED him as Heimdall in the Matantei Loki Ragnarok dub.

[Hitokiri]

I'm pretty surprised that folks still see Funi as only the company that did DBZ and YuYu. They have quite a few titles under their belf now including some very good titles with above par dub VA work like Fruits Basket.

Yeah but I never did see Fruit Basket and the only Funi dub I have seen besides those two is Kiddy Grade - which I was surprised at.

Maybe thier is hope.

[Arnobius]

YuYu wasn't so bad as a dub... seeing episode 1 was good enough to make me want to see it in Japanese. In my case though, Funimation is kind of shabby with the subs. Though they did at least have the JP text for the OP/ED on the discs i had.

[Wakarimashta!]

Yeah, I'll have to agree that the Funi subs are quite small and not as pleasing to see as ADV's or the Geneon font. But as far as the dubbing, they've certainly shown some pretty good effort in the Gunslinger Girl and Fruits Basket dubs. And you can't beat Greg Ayres, master of the "kid roles!"

So I am definately looking forward to seeing Negima in English.

[samaside]

I wanted either Bandai or ADV to do this one. But why Funi? The VA's kinda give it some hope. I have heard alot of good stuff from the known voice actors.

Considering just about all the ADV folks also work with FUNimation.... it's not that much of a difference.

I'm confident in them doing Negima and they seem to be really ready and they want to do it well so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

[Jeikobu]

I'm always happy when Funi gets the rights to a new anime. I'm actually not a big ADV fan because 1) you can't turn the subs off on the menu (you have to use the remote while the thing's playing), and someday when I know Japanese enough to watch raw, this will matter to me, 2) they do English credits (yes it makes sense since it's America, but I'm a purist and want it all the original way. This is one reason I like Funi. Watch it dubbed you get English credits. Watch it subbed/raw you get Japanese credits. Perfect.), 3) their thinpaks, all except for 3 I think, have no extras at all (in many cases it's not essential but it still sucks. Removing them is cheap), 4) they give English a 5.1 audio track and only give Japanese a 2.0.
Funimation cares about getting anime to us (they went through alot of trouble to license Kodocha), and they do a great job. I own the first 3 FMA DVDs and my only complaints are 1) you can't skip the annoying advertisements before the main menu, and 2) English gets a big 5.1 audio track and Japanese gets jipped with a mono track (but then ADV jips Japanese also). And they're Fruits Basket release appears to be equally great, and you get a big bang for your buck with 6, 6, 7, and 7 eps on the 4 discs. The only other noteable complaint that I can think of with Funi is that they not only changed Detective Conan's name to "Case Closed" (I want to see this anime eventually), but they still haven't announced seasons 2 and 3 and the rest of season 1, and yet they continue on with the rest of the series. Fill in the gaps already. Otherwise, I don't understand why anyone has a problem with Funi.

[Wakarimashta!]

I thought the Japanese track in FMA was in stereo?

The 5.1 issue really isn't my cup of tea, even though I myself have the setup. Personally, there really isn't much of point in watching anime in surround sound unless it was originally made for it. Except if it was a movie that was released theaterically, then I would really care if it had DD or DTS.