User blog:Lemursrule/BLEACH 234 English Dubbed Review

Sorry I'm late guys, I was studying for a Japanese test this weekend and I was spending most of my time studying and by a ironic twist of fate, there was a major water main break at my university and the test was canceled. Anyway enough of my old sitcom-style real life scenarios, on with the review!

I thought the voice acting was excellent this week, in particular Johnny Yong Bosch's Ichigo and Hollow Ichigo and newcomer (to Bleach) Mary Elizabeth McGlynn as (Baboon) Zabimaru and Michelle Ruff (Snake) Zabimaru.

First Johnny Yong Bosch...is there anything you can't do. I actually had a conversation with Godisme last week and I agree with God's opinion that Johnny Yong Bosch is defentily one of the most under-appreciated voice actors on the show. I know Johnny does not really have much vocal variatations, but that doesn't matter he's a good actor. The key of voice acting is using your voice to compensate what you can't do with your body that you can do in normal stage and on-screen acting, even more so for actors who do foreign language ADR, You have to match lip flaps and body moments from a foreign language show and still deliver a performance. Johnny had to scream (which they keep getting better and better) and do Hollow Ichigo and make weird animal grunts. I mean give the man some credit, even if you don't really like english dubbed anime, you have to admit that what Johnny does is not easy and he really should get more credit than the "power ranger who is in every anime." Plus THANK YOU WHOEVER IS DOING THE SOUND MIXING NOW! I mean not only does the hollow voice effect sound a million times better, the overall mix does not have jumpy audio levels between dialogue as it had been in some episodes in the past. For those who don't already know, I AM A HUGE SOUND NUT, and I am extremely picky about sound mixing, so whoever is doing the mix now, thank you.

I was surprised and happy to see Mary join the cast,her voice fits Baboon perfectly. No offense to anyone who likes the Japanese dub (I do, honestly) but Baboon sounds too masculine in Japanese. When I saw this episode in Japanese, I was like "umm is it a he or a she, I mean she has breasts, is she transexual (see Tedious Everyday Tales Colorful Bleach part 6 for joke reference)? I know Baboon's seiyu Mitsuki Saiga is famous for doing very deep male voices, but Baboon I imagined when I first saw the ad in Weekly Shonen Jump to have a more Harribel-type voice. I mean Megumi Ogata (Harribel's seiyu) is also famous for voicing boys, but she still sounds female. Mary was able to capture that aspect. Michelle also captured the boyish girl voice in Snake that Asami Sanada had in the Japanese version. In my opinion that style of voice is the only one that can really fit Snake.

Overall good episode and I can't wait for the next one.

Episode Rundown

 * Story 7/10
 * Art/Animation 9/10
 * Sound Effects 10/10
 * Script adaptation 10/10
 * Music 10/10
 * Acting 10/10

I give Bleach 234 a 9.3 out of 10. Remember to join me on tomorrow when I review Bleach episode 352, and join me on Saturday when I review Bleach 235 dubbed, the last new dub episode of 2011.

Until Next Time!

--Lemursrule (talk) 19:38, December 12, 2011 (UTC)