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Marissa and I Wrote an Anime Dub - (The LoveCom Dub Compilation Video)
🕑 Added 2024-02-11 03:17:01 +0000 UTCHere's a compilation of all my favorite moments from the English dub of Lovely Complex, scripts written by Marissa Lenti and myself with both of us directing the actors as well. This post is FREE because I wanted to talk about our work on this show, but I obviously don't want to paywall it as I don't own it.
The full explanation about this show and the dub's production is below. You may find it interesting to read this before watching the above clips. It's a bit of a long and winding road to get to the compilation above, but I think it's worth it. Or you can just watch the video no-thoughts, head empty and enjoy it. I hope you think these clips are funny, because I do!
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Hey all. At various points over the last two years my best pal Marissa Lenti and I were working on dubbing an old anime called Lovely Complex, aka LoveCom. You might've heard us whispering quietly about some kinda project in old streams. Well, this was it!
Lovely Complex is an old Shoujo romantic comedy from 2007 about a tall girl, Risa, and a short boy, Otani, who don't want to date because of their massive height difference (5 whole inches! Wow!!!). If you think that sounds like the same plot as Netflix's Tall Girl, a thing people relentlessly made fun of for being, quote, "pretty stupid", well, yes, it is the same plot. LoveCom is considered a grandmother of the shoujo genre, mostly because it is old.
Even though it came out nearly two decades ago, LoveCom did not have a dub until Sound Cadence's CEO, Amber Lee Connors, grabbed the rights to dub it from Discotek because it was an old favorite of hers. Discotek did not want to order a dub because dubs are typically very expensive, so Sound Cadence endeavored to make the dub while spending as little money as possible. This production was almost entirely asking people to cash in favors. The leads both played their parts for free, and Marissa was set to write and direct the adaptation, also for free. T'was a labor of Love... Com.
To save money on all the extra voices, most of the voices in this dub were grabbed in an unusual way. Usually, companies that dub anime are working on more than one show at a time. If they have an actor in for Show A and they have extra time in a session, they may bring that actor in to Show B to voice some background extras. Because the actor is already there for another show and they're being paid the same amount of money for the same time slot, it makes sense to utilize them in multiple shows. Funi/Crunchy also does this because this saves a lot of time and money. LoveCom was dubbed almost entirely in this way, which is one of the many reasons this dub took 2+ years to come out in a world of Simuldubs and weekly releases. Because of this, you can go episode by episode and look at the "Additional Voices" credits to tell when it was recorded by comparing what other shows those actors were in at Sound Cadence, kind of like looking at the rings of a tree trunk.
The other reason this dub took so long is that the production was cursed.
I am not at liberty to go into all of the details, but suffice to say that anything that could go wrong, at some point, did. Marissa's spine snapped just before they finished directing and I had to take over directing the leads for the last third of the series because I was the only other person who would do it for free. Nobuko's actor was literally deported at one point mid-production. We often joked about a meteor hitting the distribution warehouse once the blu-rays were printed because the universe clearly did not want this dub to be made.
My involvement started when Marissa told me she was annoyed about having to localize the scripts for this show because she had just watched through the show and didn't really like the characters. I thought this would be a good opportunity to get some experience writing localization scripts in case I ever wanted to write a dub (maybe Bomberman Jetters or something, I dunno), so I volunteered to help out. The two of us spent many, many hours across many, many days slogging through LoveCom episodes, and while Marissa thought she sorta hated LoveCom's original writing, I came to the conclusion that I definitely hated Lovely Complex.
Okay. So.
It is quite unprofessional to openly shit-talk a property you've worked on in this industry. Lenti cannot express any opinions as they have an official relationship with Sound Cadence Studios, Discotek, and Toei animation. I, however, was a freelancing contractor and do not have any of those things! I am not speaking for Lenti anywhere in this post. Who can say what Lenti thinks? I'm sure I don' t know.
But I will tell you what I think. And I think that LoveCom is a bad show about Risa Koizumi, and actual psychopath and all-over useless freak.
Risa is an inconsistently written, awful character who does nothing but miscommunicate and cause problems. She's actively abusive towards Otani the entire series. Every time she does something wrong, the narrative gaslights you by having the entire cast act like its Otani's fault. She will then yell at him until he gives her a gift to "make it up to her". I hate her terribly. This is a Risa Koizumi callout post. I could go on for hours about the stupid things Risa says and does, but I think the best example is probably the following: After 2.5 years of poorly wooing Otani, they finally start dating. Almost immediately afterwards, her co-worker, a 14-year-old boy, tries to kiss her on the mouth while she's asleep. Thaaaat's assault~!
Otani sees this and assumes she's cheating on him, but the misunderstanding is quickly explained and all is well. So then, of course, Risa decides to go on a date with her assaulter out of... pity? And then not tell her boyfriend about it. And then he discovers her doing this. So he breaks up with her. Obviously.
For some reason, the next episode the entire cast turns to Otani and is like "Damn, dude? When are you gonna forgive Risa!" It's so fucking awful.
The show has a myriad of other issues too. The pacing is insane, for one thing. Episodes 1-6 and 19-24 are breakneck with multiple plotlines being resolved in a single episode. But then, the pacing slows to an absolute crawl between Episodes 7-18, where quite literally nothing happens over the course of two years, to the point the characters themselves start complaining about it. Are you tired of generic highschool anime romcoms having stock episodes like "The Valentines Episode", "The Summer Break Episode", and "The Festival Episode"? Well how about having three of each of them???
I was pretty baffled by this after we finished the series. So, of course, I did that thing I always do when I'm baffled by something being terrible. I go looking for an explanation.
I skimmed through other adaptations of this story. I watched the Live Action Movie (actually the best LoveCom thing out there btw), I looked at the sequel manga one-shots, and I looked at the original manga itself.
It turns out, there were quite a few storylines that didn't make it into the anime. So, what was the deal? Was this one of those FullMetal Alchemist situations where the original anime comes out a little too early and they don't want to spoil the manga so they make their own ending?
Nope!
It turns out, the story arcs they left out of the manga... all fucking sucked! And frankly, I respect the Toei staff for deciding to cut those! Like the arc where an adult woman is hired to seduce Otani, a teenage boy. Or the other arc where an adult woman tries to seduce Otani, a teenage boy. Or the two entire arcs and several prominent running gags about fucking transphobia.
Perhaps the thing Lovely Complex is most (in?)famous for is the above character, Seiko, who happens to be played by Oz in our dub!
Seiko is a MTF trans girl who is introduced in a trans panic episode. It is... not great. The original episode has a random extra out her, the rest of the cast making fun of Otani for kissing """a boy""", and gives Nobuko this extremely weird anti-trans radar that makes her dislike Seiko right off the bat.
The original series keeps this going by doing a second and then a third trans panic arc by pairing her with Kazuki, the guy who assaulted Risa! Yay!!! He then also breaks up with Seiko because he is disgusted that she is trans.
In the anime Haruka and Seiko are the best characters and every time they show up, the episode gets better. In the original manga, Haruka has a running joke where he constantly uses a grabber-arm to try and lift Seiko's skirt to expose her privates, which is a fucked up thing to do even when it isn't being done for transphobic reasons. This awful gag is alluded to in the anime's opening (below), but thankfully does not make it into the show itself
I'd like to give Marissa insane props for doing absolutely everything they could to handle this element of the production respectfully.
The Seiko introductory episode is about Seiko's gender identity, so it's not like we could write it out entirely. But we changed a lot of things to take the edge off. Nobuko's initial dislike of Seiko was changed from "Idk I don't like her, my trans radar is going off" to being jealous there's another cute girl on campus and not wanting to lose out to a freshman. In the sub, Otani and Risa's end-of-episode reactions could generously be called "Confused, but they got the spirit" about the whole thing. We rewrote those to be a lot more supportive of Seiko, especially Otani's dialogue, which made it pretty clear he was still kind of disgusted by her. And Oz's performance as Seiko is so good that I cry every time while I watch it now. For good reasons, even!
Lenti passed the episode and its script by multiple trans sensitivity readers and not only made sure to cast a trans person as Seiko, but also to cast as many of the trans actors who auditioned for her as possible. I don't have an exact number, but I think the LoveCom dub has something like 20 trans/nb actors in it? It's one of the trans-iest anime dubs in existence, if not THE trans-iest. Trans rights.
In addition to Oz Ryan in his first anime role ever as Seiko (this was recorded before Sarasa in Kageki Shoujo, which is an incredible performance that I absolutely recommend you watch, by the way), this was also the first anime that Tom "Arimnaes" Laflin showed up in. It also features fan favorite Gianni Matragrano as the gross teacher character, Mr Maity. Yes, there is an arc about Risa falling in love with him. Yes, it's awful.
Despite everything about the original incarnation of this anime, this dub turned out... just so funny. We really funneled our frustrations into comedy and wrote a lot of good jokes while also improving as much of the relationship between the leads as possible. There are lots of scenes where Risa yells at Otani and a lot of scenes where Otani reacts to Risa by inappropriately laughing at her. Many of you probably already know this about me, but I am a romantic and love writing Actual Good Romance (tm) because nobody else on earth seems to know how to do it. Improving the relationship between the leads in LoveCom took surgical precision, and I still wouldn't call it a healthy relationship, but I did my absolute best to make sure Risa and Otani had enough positive characteristics that them falling for each other made some kind of sense. I think we especially improved Otani. He starts kinda annoying, but by the end of the series I think I would call him genuinely pretty cute.
Risa's unsalvageable tho.
Fun fact! We canonically wrote and directed Risa as a psychopath who doesn't understand empathy and Otani being in a cycle of abuse without realizing it. Because that's the only way their highly inconsistent actions make any kind of sense! At one point Otani literally tells Risa he, quote, "Bought a gift for her in preparation for the next time she got mad at him", which is what resolves their current tiff. Thaaaat's a trauma response! And it's in the sub! Uh oh, sisters!!!
Frankly, having the dub come out this good in the end is a little frustrating. Anyone who watched this show as a kid and has fond memories of it and revisits the dub will think "Wow! It's just as good as I remembered!"
No it isn't. We made it good. This show SUCKED!!!
The amount of rough edges we shaved off of this are entirely invisible. Unless you buy the blu-ray and turn on the dub while also keeping the Japanese subtitles on, which allows you to listen to our edits in real time.
The dub cast genuinely deserves a lot of praise for this. Amber and Howard really elevate Risa and Otani. Risa is so unlikeable that Amber's natural comedic timing is necessary to make her into something watchable. Howard's performance completely blows the original Japanese seiyuu's out of the water. I don't normally explicitly dunk on an acting performance, but Otani's sub actor just sucks, plain and simple. Seriously one of the most snot-nosed performances I've ever heard. You can't help but wonder why so many girls are interested him. The VA has basically no other acting credits either, so it's not much of a surprise.
Arim and Oz do an incredible job as you can see in the above clips, and Alejandro Saab (Heikichi), Sarah Wiedenheft (Chiharu), and Aaron Dismuke (Ryoji) really shine with what little screentime they're given, but special thanks really need to be given to Hayden Davieu as Nobuko.
Nobuko is probably the best character in the series. She's Risa's best friend who tries to set the main couple up, but she quickly runs out of patience with their antics. Over the course of the localization, Nobuko became our favorite character to write. Her repetitive conversations with Risa quickly get more and more insane and we end up voicing our own frustrations through her more often than not, eventually headcanoning her as "hating Risa terribly, but there's only so many girls to hang out with in high school and it'll be over once we graduate, so what are you gonna do?". Hilariously, the series actually more-or-less confirms this angle by the last few episodes where Nobuko is actively hiding the fact she's moving away from Risa, probably because she knows Risa will freak out about it. Everyone else in the cast knows except Risa and Otani. It's very funny. We just happened to write Nobuko's breaking point a little earlier than the sub did.
Anyways, all of that is to say, Lenti and I spent a long time on this dub. I'm very, very proud of the work we did. I think we turned an unremarkable and frustrating 3/10 show into a pretty funny and mostly watchable 7/10. I want to show off what we did! However, I don't really want to recommend that people watch LoveCom in order to see it.
Listen, I'm not telling you not to get the blu-ray. There's a lot of good bits in this show that aren't in the above compilation. There's also a sizeable blooper reel on there made by Piph that's blu-ray exclusive, and I'm a snob for blooper reels and I think it's actually good. But! Hopefully after reading this explanation you can tell why I'm so :/ hmmmm about this franchise, if you know what I mean.
This is one of those series that was written by a very strange person, kinda like 50 Shades of Grey, and it just gets stranger and stranger the longer you look into it. The way all the characters talk and interact is wrong. The way Risa is painted as the good guy despite makes exclusively bad decisions makes everything feel like it's written by a woman with "I HATE drama!!!" in her Twitter bio and then five separate callout tweets right below it. You get the sense the author sees the world the same way Risa Koizumi does, and Risa Koizumi as a character only makes sense if she is a psychopath who does not understand human empathy.
Of note: The mangaka also makes a cameo in the final episode of the anime. She shows up as a fashion designer and everybody praises how pretty and talented she is. She then tells Risa "It's my job to make you look good!"
I think you failed, ma'am.
Lenti was the head writer on this and all their decisions were final, but I did tell them that if we didn't cut the characters praising the mangaka out of that episode in our dub, I would quit the co-writing position on the spot.
Just for fun, I've also got a little compilation of screenshots from when I was digging into the other versions of LoveCom and messaging Marissa about it. I think some of these are funny. Maybe you will too!
Oh, and before I forget, I also wrote the english lyrics for Shoganeze, the Umibozu song that appears a few times throughout the series.
That "Sea Monk" joke near the end of the compilation is probably the most obtuse gag in the entire dub, and I hope some long-time LoveCom fans appreciated it.
In the original subtitles, the rapper that Risa and Otani obsess over is called "Sea Monk" instead of Umibozu, probably because it was translated in 2007 and keeping the name of a mythological Japanese creature might've confused US viewers back then. We reverted this change and kept "Umibozu" as the rapper's name, so this is a meta gag where Otani hears "Sea Monkey" and asks if Risa is referring to "Sea Monk." This joke is so stupid. I'm so happy they let us put it in there.
My favorite line in the dub will always be "Good line, no notes."
Nobuko had a nonstop slew of absolutely insane lines in the sub that were terrible and made no sense (see that bonkers constipation line from the live action in the imgur linked above. They were like that). 99% of the time we changed these, but by that writing session we were absolutely exhausted and tired of fixing them. I think one of us saw that in the subtitles, said "Good line, no notes," sarcastically, and then we both said "Fuck it, that's what Chiharu is saying now."
Similarly, Otani talks about slapping Risa nonstop in the sub. We removed almost all of those except maybe one or two instances because having your leading man's catch phrase be "I am going to physically assault you" is not great.
I tried to put in my favorite line deliveries and my favorite gags we wrote into the show in the above compilation. What was your favorite line? Do you have any questions about the production? I'd be happy to answer them, if I can. Leave a question below!
Comments
The Lemonade Guy
Happy Lunar New Year
Daniel
So I have to ask because I'm curious. What kind of conflicting thoughts, if any, do you have about making the show better? Cause like you said, old LC fans will come in and be tricked, but on the off chance the dub hits like crazy it might make new LC fans. As maybe the most critical person I've ever seen in my entire life, how does the fact that theres a chance that you've courted people to this series make you feel? Also, I wonder how long it'll take for all the "its not true to the original" fuckers to come out of the wood work to be like "woke translators ruining my anime."
