Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English - Episode 7.5: Initial D Filipino Stage

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Animax-Asia... Dubbed in English - Episode 1: The end of Animax-Asia? Too sudden!?
Animax-Asia... Dubbed in English - Episode 2: Cardcaptured.
Animax-Asia... Dubbed in English - Episode 3: Trying to Adjust
Animax-Asia... Dubbed in English - Episode 4: Towards the 1st Anniversary
Animax-Asia... Dubbed in English - Episode 5: I gave up on Animax-Asia
Animax-Asia... Dubbed in English - Episode 6: One year since
Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English - Episode 7: Dubbed in Filipino?!?
Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English - Episode 7.5: Initial D Filipino Stage

December 1, 2005

Since this is a specific topic I'll create it under an episode 7.5

So it did show up, a Filipino dub of the first 14 episodes of Initial D: Fourth Stage. They called it Part 1 because the series is not over yet. And I tell you this, I really wish I could let everyone hear the dubbing… because it's SO BAD, IT'S GOOD!

You know those kinds of stuff which are so corny or so bad, you turn up having fun and laughing at it instead of being disgusted. That's how the Filipino dub is. Actually, it is a very unhealthy kind of Taglish, a mix of Tagalog (Filipino) and English in conversations. It's similar to how you hear English phrases in jpop songs, except that this one doesn't mix pretty well. Usually in real life you can hear the rich spoiled-brat class of people speaking in Taglish (I call them coñotics). Sounds oh too fitting a style since in general the street racing scene in our country would compose only of people who can afford expensive cars and modifications. While we "normal people" resort to NFS:Underground and Most Wanted for the pimp-my-ride fix, spoiled brats do it for REAL and show off their fast and cool rides, despite their inability to drive fast because of metrowide heavy traffic.

Wait a minute, why did I relate our street racing scene to Initial D? Well, mostly because the Filipino dub converted the cool Initial D characters into spoiled brats! Most of them sound like spoiled brats now, really. The Takumi voiced by Matteo Guidicelli doesn't sound innocent anymore, he sounds like a pro. On the other hand, the Kyoko voiced by Angel Locsin sounds oh too soft for my tastes, and she sometimes even whispers the dialogue. It's a no-no in dubbing.

This is in my opinion a bad decision for Animax-Asia. Why fourth stage already? Why not show the previous stages first? A typical local anime fan here who only watches on TV would have never heard of Initial D, because it hasn't aired in any local channel at all. Some may have heard of it over at the video game arcades, but that's just it. Their Initial D Fourth Stage campaign is merely banking on the star power of those two famous people. Oh, and did I tell you already about how they advertised this?

Yes folks! Fast cars, hot babes. This is definitely not the point of Initial D. Sure, it has hot babes, but they don't model in front of cars. And of all the magazines, FHM. Are they talking to the right audience? FHM junkies want hot babes and fast cars, not some anime about street racing ("Anime? What's that?"). I think it isn't even remotely about the anime anymore, it's about drag racing and the hot Angel Locsin.

Amazing. With a totally unrelated marketing campaign, one-of-a-kind dubbing, and weird choice of programming, I'm very, very impressed with Animax-Asia's Initial D: Fourth Stage (sarcasm). Because it's SO BAD, IT'S GOOD!

Yes, Angel Locsin is hot. rawr.