The failure of "Dub Night"

I tried to do a pure "dub night" tonight.

I started off with disc 2 of "Avenger", while I prepared a pasta dinner.

Yeah, the "pasta dinner" was for that reason...

I only got through 3 episodes before dinner was ready. But I really, really cringed a lot during the presentation. As little a role as the narrative and dialog play in "Avenger", the dub just makes it all the more painful.

But that's no match to the "MADLAX" dub. I've been in a cranky mood lately, so I thought I'd at least let myself watch the most recent disc (4) while indulging in a bit of a pasta dinner. And I thought, for experiment's sake, that I'd watch the dub this time, in hopes of being able to report on any insight or other relevation that it might help with.

That lasted exactly 5 minutes and 23 seconds before I switched it back to the Japanese track with subtitles.

I mean, really: the dub sucked. It sucked like no other suck. It makes the "Avenger" dub look like A-grade Hollywood actors coming together for a labor of love.

*Sigh*. There's a lot of people who actually like this dub. And from all anecdotal evidence, the talent involved are really into it and trying really hard. But I honestly, truly, sincerely can't get into it. In the slightest. I wanted to try and give the English V.A. talent some credit, but I just can't.

All that said, watching it naturally with the Japanese track made me very happy. It was such a pleasure. I wish that I went back to disc 3 to try this experiment instead of just settling for the scant few episodes of disc 4. But I'm glad to be reminded, at least, that there really are series out there that can make me fall in love with them.

"Noir" is set up to make you fall in love with the characters. "Madlax" has me falling in love with the whole freakin' series!