Guess whose back?! Now with 200% more English!
Part I – Shockingly Good English…
Considering that I have spoken English for most of my life, it was the only language I understood until I started self-studying Japanese. In the United States, we kind of take English for granted since we retrieved it our childhoods. Therefore, we might find learning another language difficult in the beginning. For us, learning any Asian language such as Chinese, Korean and Japanese difficult since we aren’t used to it. However, we don’t realize that English is the most difficult second language for others from its grammar rules, pronunciation and vocabulary. Despite this, it’s viewed as one of the most important language because of the global economy.
Aside from that, Eiko’s inability to understand English was hilarious. At one point, Eiko unintentionally insults Cindy by saying “binbou” (びんぼう, lit. poor), which gets misinterpreted as “bimbo” and hilarity ensues. Of course, it happens again when she tells a foreigner that she’s going to kill him when she meant that the station is in walking distance. I guess Eiko still has lots to learn until she becomes proficient in English.
Aside from that, the English from everyone else was shockingly good. I guess the voice actors were proficient enough to speak those lines clearly enough. The only exception was Cindy as a different voice actor acted her parts to make it sound more “American.” For the most part, it worked!
Part II – Ika’s Near Death Laughter
I have to admit that I’m pretty ticklish myself and haven’t grown out of it. Apparently, Ika discovers it by accident. Afterwards, she goes around and does it to everyone except Sanae, causing chaos. She even dared to try it on Chizuru and it failed. I knew it wouldn’t work since Chizuru is a superhuman and doing so is like a death wish. Sadly, Ika didn’t heed the warning and got tickled to death, causing the hiccups. Chizuru scaring the crap out of her again was the only way to cure it. Yep, this experience should teach her a lesson never to mess with her… ever!
Even so, I wish they could have revealed her tickleish laugh since it would sound interesting… maybe next time.
Part III – The Return of Mini Ika
The children decides to have a river race and long behold… Mini Ika makes a return and it was adorable. Too bad it ends with heartbreak and Ika ending up on a different beach! I wonder how she’s going to find her way back? She will figure it out!
Note: Episode 5 airs on October 31, 2011… so, farewell for now. ¶
I kinda wonder if Ika Musume forking out to hire a different voice actor for Cindy’s English mode is evidence that anime makers are becoming much more sensitive to their overseas audience. We all know how cringe-worthy some seiyuu attempts to speak English are. So, expecting much of the same when Cindy was getting ready to give English lessons, this was a real pleasant surprise.
It’s a very interesting observation considering that the international audience for Japanese media like Anime as grown considerably after the 2000s. Since Ika Musume is also simulcasted on Crunchyroll, they probably don’t want to offend the viewers and want to depict Cindy like an actual American, which she is designed to be with the usual stereotypes, blond hair and blue eyes.
If you are curious, the voice actor stand in for Cindy was Emma Kirkby (国分絵麻/こくぶえま) and has no relation to the singer .
Yeah the english voice overs for the first part of this episode, the actors are from the english dubbed Ika musume season one! Which is out now and sounds hilarious to me! Because they have a lot of squid/ocean puns in the dub and that makes me laugh. Sure most people would rather go deaf before listening to Ika in 100% English…but ya.
Mini Ika! I am waiting for more 😉
I’m not that sure if we can confirm this since I haven’t heard anything in the blogosphere that the actual English voice actors were used in this segment nor I haven’t watched the English dub of the first season… But I’m still interested on how they managed to pull it off just like that.