Saving the dub

Not too long ago, 4Kids declared that it was backing out of producing the Pokémon animé series, instead leaving it all to Pokémon USA. At first this was greeted with exuberance because of the changes to the storyboard and dialogue that 4Kids tried to make in order to Americanise the dub — which was partly the reason, when I finally realised it, why my interest in the animé itself dropped away. But if there were to be any improvements to the rendition of the animé outside Japan, it would have come at an arguably great cost: When 4Kids left, it wanted to take Veronica Taylor, Eric Stuart, Addie Blaustein, and some other voice actors with them.

According to Animé News Network, the old actors, save for Erica Schroeder, were wiped off the board. Ikue Ootani, off for maternity leave from what I heard, had to turn the Pikachu voice over to Shinichiro Miki but will probably return for the voice if Pokémon USA allows. Veronica Taylor, the voice of Ash, was replaced with Jamie Peacock. Exit Eric Stuart, the voice of Brock and James, enter Bill Rogers. Rachael Lillis — Misty, Jessie, and May — had to give way to Michelle Knotz. Addie Blaustein (Meowth) had to give up her seat to Jimmy Zoppi. Compared with the original actors, from reports I read, the new actors were wanting, even with attempts to emulate the original actors, but since I haven't seen the movie in which this change was introduced, Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon, I can't really say whether I like them.

So when it became clear that the removal of 4Kids would cost them most of the original voice actors, all of which (except Erica Schroeder and Ikue Ootani) were signed under the 4Kids contract and could not be transferred, the campaign to 'save the dub' started. Now, I admit that when I first saw the topic on PKMN.NET, I put my signature down for a rudimentary petition before I realised why the change was taking place. Since then, I've pretty much regarded the subsequent campaigns on the Pokémon Community, Pokébeach, and Serebii.net with little more than disgust — to put it short, everyone wanted to have the cake and eat it too. Apart from the fact that most of the protests were occuring on the Internet and few responses actually got to the offices of Pokémon USA and 4Kids, I was able to determine that the campaign was both ill-fated and bound to last no more than a few months. Some still have banners in their former signatures, echoing their call of sedition.

Why there was no point in having this whole hootenanny with the voice actors comes down to a few good reasons.

1. As I mentioned before, the protests were conducted over the Internet more than via snail mail. And as for the snail mail, chances were high that such letters, due to paratactical reasons, would never get to the people responsible for the actor changes.
2. The only indicators of progress apart from updates on respectable websites were emails claiming to be from the old and new voice actors, the former sort congratulating everyone for their solidarity against the change and the latter sort discouraging others from going any further. Exceptions to this rule were present, though; in one email Addie Blaustein claimed to have been pleased with Jimmy Zoppi's characterisation of Meowth.
3. The fact that Taylor and company were under a contract that prevented them from defecting to another contract was largely ignored. It was technically impossible to keep the voice actors because there would have been legal reprehension that might have cost both parties more than just adapting to the change.
4. There are other examples that demonstrate how such changes could be beneficial for the franchise. One is Scooby-Doo. The first episodic series, Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, The New Scooby-Doo Movies, and Scooby-Doo (featuring Scooby-Dum, the white-coloured relative of Scooby) had 89 episodes between them all, compared to more than 400 for Pokémon prior to the voice-actor change, when they ran from 1969 to 1979 and still remain popular as the cornerstone of the surviving Scooby-Doo franchise. Then popularity fell when the next seasons gradually omitted Fred, Daphne, and Velma, leaving Shaggy and Scooby with Scooby's cousin Scrappy-Doo, and popularity resumed only when the older episdes containing the original characters were re-aired. Using this as an analogy to the Pokémon voice actors, Pokémon USA will agree to re-broadcast the episodes using the older voice actors once popularity fades enough due to the quality of the new actors, just as the quality of Scooby-Doo episodes diminished when characters were removed. In other words, the voice actor change could turn older episodes into classics and inherently be better for everyone!

Now, I realise that this is bound to touch a major nerve in the world of Pokémon and am publishing this rant in the fear of receiving hate mail in response. However, as James had said about politics, you have to take a side knowing that you're ready to give your all to defend it. Here, though, it was a matter of people being so stubborn that they missed the details altogether and overall refused to take the good with the bad.

Tales from the Arcade II: More Stalking and Smoking (and a few more rounds of OutRun in between)

Further to the post I made about the arcade and the activity there yesterday, I was today told that Christian had been apprehended by a prominent cop and hauled off the island, prohibited from re-entering.

Again, though, that was a lesser worry and more of a relief, but now it was left to me to see that the two that came out of the truck were not the only smokers. Anthony (with whom I shared a room at the Elks conference!) came out of the arcade once and accepted a drag from one of my OutRun opponents, aged 15 or so, who also smoked. In all, that meant there were about six boys (if Byron, a friend of mine, and the girls I was eavesdropping on didn't light any up themselves) under the age puffing in the courtyard in plain view of motorists.

I remember saying before that an older arcade had been on the northern end of the island before the owner was convicted on association and drug charges and the facility condemned. Notwithstanding that the owners of this new arcade seem like solid citizens, are we headed for a repeat of the situation, but with the patrons on the wet end of it?

Tales from the Arcade I: Stalking and Smoking

Far be it of me to disclose anything that goes on in a menial day, I think it's time I lived up to the promise of more regular updates for once.

I apologise if I haven't said before that the reason why I've been working the morning shifts is due to the abscence of juvenile activity at that time. Sometimes it can be at the beach, although this is beleaguered by the requirement of beach badges between 10.00am and 5.00pm, so what I do is troll the middle section of the island instead, where there's always an arcade and a line of pizza, Italian ice, ice cream, and fizz shops. The former had been opened shortly before Memorial Day and didn't have a large selection then — perhaps only ten games against the current 30 or so — and I tended to stay awa from it out of the doubt that anyone I knew from the old school would have the audacity to appear there.

The arcade, it transpired, was the complete opposite. The first day there, I realised that my friend Mike worked there, so he was always up for a game iof air hockey or OutRun 2 at his expense. The second day, Dave, his close friend, appeared there amid the crowd I knew from the old days, but it was then that Mike managed to tell a blonde about my maps and, when I neared her, who I was. I was shocked to see that she was so happy to see me although we had never met before!

But as time went on, Dave's crowd only proved to be part of the sporadic clientele. A few days in, I noticed a group of girls that aged about 14 or 15 that hanged around the sister of the girl who always takes a shot at me in the store. The girls instantly recognised me when we first saw each other — I wasn't surprised since the people at the doctor's office also recognised me for that. It was only today, though, that the lot would actually show signals that they wanted me to be part of the group, even as they knew I was sometimes hovering over their closed discussions and competitions at the Dance Dance Revolution machine (this, like my school's version, required you to move your feet to register arrows). This acceptance, though, proved to be at the expense of a boy named Christian, who would pretend to be established with one of the girls; after the acceptance phase of the day, he summoned me and pointed out the girl he was following:

Christian: Are you following her?
Me: As in stalking or overseeing their discussions?
Christian: Overseeing.
Me: Yes. But they actually have accepted me, if you must know.
Christian: I don't care for that. Stay away from her.
Me: Why? What is your point? What is your objective? It's not as if you're the pimp of the group yourself.
Christian: Forget that. Just stay away from them. They're my bitches.

Which, of course, the girls refuted. As I continued to surround them, he kept going to the girl he pointed out and pointing at me, evidently reprimanding her for talking to me. Even so, when I inquired, they assured me that he'd do that in any case; after all, he wasn't the only other boy involved in the lot.

However, that was a lesser worry. Soon after I confronted Christian, a truck pulled up, another girl and the sister of the girl that terrorised me in tow. They had left amid the possible penalty of being punished by parents so as to drop someone off at a marina, but when they came back I smelled something awful: When I next glanced at the two, they had stowed in the mouths a half-worn Newport cigarette. Having attended two Youth to Youth conferences and an Elks conference, I began to back away slowly, only looking sceptically on as the two finished the last of the drags amid arguments from the rest of the lot. The younger girl was 18, a year below the age to purchase tobacco in New Jersey, but even if my prior assumption that she was 15 was not correct, I was still disgusted. Afraid that I would get dragged into the mess surrounding it, as the girls that weren't smoking were nonchalant about the presence of Lorillard tobacco, I excused myself ten minutes after the girls popped up amid hugs from the nonsmokers.

Now I'm thinking the same thing James did, although his ideas weren't forged by youth summits and he even looked in retrospect on possible enhancement of comedy by such. Why would they do this to themselves? Why would their families (the older girl's mother would invariably order three or four Newport packs at my register) do so? It did run in the family, and cigarettes were evidently having a gradual effect on their countenances. The girl Christian pointed out had optic orifices that flapped on the top and bottom, a warning sign that she would probably trip over into smoking, the older girl emerging from the car had a lot of fat between the breasts and pelvis and had a flat face, and the 18-year-old had a splotchy red face. Even worse, though, will be the bill when they have to have the throat or lungs repaired. Of course, they could also do what my father's father did: Ignore the fact that his aorta was blocked from smoking three packs a day, downing two beers a day, and driving one block to the beach to hunt for clams — and, a month after notification of the blockage, lapse into a coma and die.

I've got a story to tell on 18 July.

New look

Rejoice, for Cross Stinging Reality has developed a new orangey look!

Well, so much for the jovial side of me. I decided that since I had started up this thing with 'News on the 40' to advertise the blog I might as well upgrade the blog to reflect what people expect to see from that.

So, here I'm welcoming any criticism you may have on the new look. Go on!

Crash

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5140884.stm

Two weeks ago, my father had me taken to a motor vehicle department outpost to vouch for my permit, a time when I had become (and I still am) dependent on my feet to get anywhere I wanted and refused to stray from that property. Although I really didn't feel like getting the permit then, even though my parents insisted that I would drive to complete internships at a college near to my school, I now have to say it was a good thing: as of Saturday, it would have been impossible, as all motor vehicle agencies and roadworks were shut down then.

Today, store customers were distraught at the fact that they couldn't buy any lottery tickets, some having come from outside the states and willing to indulge in state gambling. The very moment motor licences ceased to be handed out, ticket sales were stopped. And the day following, horse racing was stopped, depriving holidaymakers of more gambling. And on Wednesday morning the source of the bulk of New Jersey's revenue, the casions in Atlantic City, are scheduled to stop gambling operations since all casino inspectors, required to remain on site at all times, would be furloughed.

Here's how the Garden State turned, over the course of three days, into the Sorry State: The state's Constitution requires that a balanced budget be submitted by 1 July. However, governor Jon Corzine's move would be to reject increases of other taxes and elevate the sales tax by 1 percent, a move met with fervent opposition from his Legislature. Because the Legislature wanted to slash federal funding for most projects and increase subordinate taxes rather than hike the sales tax, the deadline came and no report was even close to complete. Frantic, Corzine declared that all nonessential employees and services would be suspended — this meant the DMV would become inactive and road construction would stop, and the lottery would be suspended at 7.55pm Saturday.

However, the key problem behind this measure was the fact that there was a city in the south whose revenue weighed mainly upon the operation of twelve casinos. In New Jersey, a casino needs an on-site team of inspectors in order to run. According to the shutdown measure, these inspectors would be found to be unessential, which would mean that the casinos would not be able to operate. The debate over this alone floundered for some time until this morning, when it was declared that the inspectors would be removed at 8.00am Wednesday — granting a reprieve for the 4 July weekend that otherwise would have resulted in massive income losses for the city — and the casinos would close then.

Gambing notwithstanding, the budget impassé would mean no welfare and medical assistance checks could be mailed out. July's checks have been mailed, thank you, but there will be no August check until the budget is balanced. In turn, stores, which receive money from the government in response to purchases made with food stamps, would lose money due to overstock. And for a cashier like me....I just hope I'm significant enough as my employers say.

Benefits for the poor and the loss of income that could potentially overturn the deficit is not the solution, and everyone that I've rung up today says the same. I just hope that somehow we'll either see the positive effect of Corzine's mind of a Wall Street broker or a mutual consent of tax modifications and see the balanced budget we need to keep going. Yet, as a customer said, 'those casinos won't be closed for long!'