Doing Dubbing

Voice-Over is a difficult field to break into. It takes lots of motivation, determination, hard work, and ability.
-James Arnold Taylor

He’s one of the reasons why I dream of becoming a voice-actress. In fact I’m quite considering that career but I have no background in such industry. Well I’ve delivered a radio report in Broadcast Journalism for our prelim exam. I wonder if that counts.

In my opinion he did a fantastic job with Tidus from Final Fantasy X. Many gamers complained that he made Tidus sound like a whiny sissy. The Japanese voice-actor Masakazu Morita on the other hand portrayed him to be lighthearted and easygoing.

James Arnold Taylor

Tidus

Masakazu Morita

Speaking in a story-like sense, I think it’s only fitting that Tidus be a typical whiny westerner. It plays a vital part in his character development throughout the story’s progress. His voice when narrating sounds reasonably mature and different from his raw character. Those Tidus-haters are just looking for excuses to bash him.

James Arnold Taylor also did the voices of Johnny Test, Leonardo (TMNT) and Obi-wan Kenobi (Star Wars: Clone Wars) thus he clearly is a professional in his field. The celebrities in the voice-acting field though are Tara Strong who voiced Rikku (Final Fantasy X), Bubbles (The Powerpuff Girls), Raven (Teen Titans) and Timmy Turner (The Fairly Odd Parents) and Tom Kenny who did SpongeBob Squarepants and many other characters that can fill this blog.

Since this third-world country has no cartoon and animation industry, the only open door to such a career is dubbing. I personally believe I can pull it off but the local channels dub only in Tagalog and I’m more comfortable speaking English. Of course I’m also fluent in the former but I’m just more “at home” with English.

Plus the local dubbers suck. It’s obvious that most of the cast are gay, not in a discriminatory sense. It’s either the voices are too deep or too light and the dubbers don’t fit their characters. The cast who did Naruto on ABS-CBN sounds like fingers grinding through a blackboard. The Cartoon Network cast is more aggressive and motivated though but can be overacting. Plus the American accent on the Japanese names sound odd… “My names is Nah-roo-TOE Oo-zoo-MAH-kee! Remember it!”

My sister said that if ever I’m gonna march into Hero (our local animé channel) and apply as a dubber, I’m fit to voice a tomboyish supporting character or a bratty little boy. I’d prefer voicing male characters. Veronica Taylor voices both Ash and May from Pokémon.

Veronica Taylor

In the end maybe voice-acting will just be a hobby for me and not a career. I could start as as a disc jockey for some niche radio station.

Emerald

Born to be a winner
Born to be a champion
Born to be a winner
Born to be the very best
-Pokémon: Johto League Champions opening

I simply believe I’m born to be a winner and the very best, so good that I’ll surpass even the incomparable J. K. Rowling!

Now to quit my state of fantasy and continue my file in Pokémon Emerald Version.

Sonic Delinquent

11:45 am. Right now I should be at school listening to Dr. Sicam’s lecture on feature writing. I chose not to attend classes for now, I’ll just do so at my next class which is Statistics. That’s the syndrome that plagues most students (including myself). The closer you tread to the Final Exams, the more you lose your will for school. At least I’m not likely to fail or get an FDA at anything

I spent this lazy morning toying away with the GameBoy Advance emulator. I was sickly nostalgic when I got to play Sonic Advance 3. It felt so reminiscent to the old-school Sonic games for the Sega Genesis. Now that I think about, I don’t know where my Sega Genesis or Super Famicom (not SNES) is.

I feel sorry for the blue little hedgehog now that SEGA (Service & Games) is now software-exclusive. I can’t feel the same for the Dreamcast though. I never had one and the PlayStation franchise is still tenfolds better.

One feature I like about SA3 is the “Tag Action.” Each character has unique skills of their own depending on who their AI-controlled partner is. For examples, Sonic does a slide tackle when paired with Knuckles and anyone paired with Amy Rose can whack a hammer. I still have no idea what Cream the Rabbit is capable of.

I feel overwhelmed by the many 16-bit legends available for my wanting. I’ve just beaten Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest twice with 34 DK coins, vanished Pete in Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse and decapitated Sigma in Mega Man X.

Currently listening to the OST of Threads of Fate by the coveted Squaresoft, another game I sorely miss.

Fiery Emerald

So Multiply is getting Higher and Higher. Neither sad, bad nor glad news. I’m still satisfied with my Friendster account as long as I don’t have bulletin spams and friend requests from strangers whose faces I don’t even recognize.

Now that I’ve earned quite a handful in my ATM, I think I should treat myself to a brand new GBAdvance cartridge. I’ve finished Blue version over and over again and over and over again I picked Charmander as my starting Pokémon. So I might as well purchase Pokémon FireRed version. It feels both new and nostalgic to see the original 151 Pokémon in technicolor. I’ve had enough of monochrome.

I was considering the Emerald version but now that I find Ruby version quite tastless having beaten it twice in a row. Might as well save up for Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories or wait for its PlayStation 2 remake. Now I can’t stop my mouth from drooling over Kingdom Hearts 3 for the PlayStation 3. Now I’m drooling of owning a PlayStation 3! God help me…

As for the gaming aspect of my life, I can simply just rely on my Nokia 6030’s Bounce. Simple yet time-consuming. The perfect tool to breeze through a boring lecture in Broadcast Media. Little did I know those major subjects will be just as tedious as those insignificant minors.

Visual Tales

Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.
-Eminem, “Backstabber”

At long last! This darned PC has finally been repaired! Even though its capacity is a pathetic 6gig, at least I now have a medium to use the Internet, write documents on MSWord and chat with Mom who’s still in Vancouver via YM.

Now that it’s safely back on our bedroom desk, it has now been reduced to an abysmal 2gig. At least Pops is considering buying us a new HDD the size of 80gig. I think I want to have a spin on MMORPG’s again. I’d like to try Perfect World and FlyFF (Fly For Fun).

To date the only MMORPG I’ve stayed quite a lifetime in is Ragnarok Online (pRO). After all it was the first released here in the Philippines. My last active character was a Hybrid Triwielder Knight. She just reached Lv98 though and never even transcended to a Lord Knight. At least Carlo still became a Biochemist.

I’ve also tried my hand at RF Online but it was far too evil for my budget. Php 500 monthly my butt! But I’ve heard RF and ROSE are free-for-life now like Pangya and FlyFF.

Speaking of Poké-tales, I’ve just beaten Pokémon Ruby Version the second time around. This time I chose the male trainer and named him ZXUN (Carlo’s alter-ego). I chose Torchic who eventually evolved to Blaziken (Fire/Fighting) as my starting Pokémon and eventually enhanced my roster with Swellow (Normal/Flying), Gyarados (Water/Flying), Raichu (Electric) and Absol (Dark).

Again I had a hard time wiping out the Elite Four. It really boils up your temper if they heal their Pokémon just when you can simply make them faint with one blow. But still no one can ever defeat the almighty ZXUN!

Might as well stop there. I still have school to get ready for. Damn midterms…

Slither

A horse doesn’t know its face is long. A monkey doesn’t know its butt is red.
-Chinese Saying

In other words, you don’t know your own shortcomings.

Two weeks ago when Pops came here, I bought a Chinese phrasebook called Making Out in Chinese. It features Mandarin as it is spoken by everyday locals. It was a good buy even if it was a thin bundle of paper worth almost Php 500. Who would want to sound like a textbook? I did back in elementary when Lao Shi (Mandarin for “Teacher”) would let us read sentences aloud then have us memorize it.

If not for that phrasebook then I would have rotted from boredom at home. The PC’s busted thus no Internet or blogging, I’ve read and reread all Harry Potter books (except Deathly Hallows which I’ve read only once), I’m tired of reading Paulo Coelho over and over again and for some unknown reason, I’ve lost a whole heart in playing video games particularly my PlayStation 2.

I talked to Pops about it. He simply told me that there comes a time when our interests begin to cease. Even when Carlo lent me his copy of Valkyrie Profile II: Silmeria two months ago, I still haven’t gotten past the first area. Maybe I could blame it on my not having played Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth for the PlayStation.

Now he lent me his Star Ocean III: Till the End of Time. I just played past the opening scene when I just turned the PS2 off and shook my head. Now that is surprising since I’ve waited like an impatient kid when I first heard its release. I played and replayed Star Ocean: The Second Story years ago. I’ve beaten it when I was a wee 11-year old tyke.

I don’t know if I’m supposed to make predictions about myself but maybe my interests just tilted heavily back on writing. Now that I’ve made a completely fresh and raw start here in WordPress, I feel my creativity surging back in. Now it feels like four years ago when I’d write an average of ten scraps a day, one poem a week and one or two chapters of fan fiction a month.

Now I finally I’ve just drafted the prologue of my first ever novel attempt. And I’m seriously considering to have it published, probably be the local version of Nicholas Sparks and even J.K. Rowling! Weee!! And I’m seriously dreaming of becoming a New York Times bestseller. Haha!