Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
With the launch of HBO Max, several of the most acclaimed works of anime filmmaking are finally available to stream as part of the Studio Ghibli collection—along with HBO Max’s TV anime catalogue, cribbed from streaming service Crunchyroll. It’s an opportunity to re-engage in one of the most persistent, annoying debates that has plagued Western anime fandom: subs versus dubs. Is it better to watch with translated dialogue and the original Japanese voice acting, or the imported English audio?
Unlike some other streaming platforms, HBO Max’s user interface makes it incredibly easy to switch between the English and Japanese versions of a work, so you’ll have the opportunity to test it out for yourself. In this case, it might be worth starting with the dubs.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, several Studio Ghibli films received incredibly expensive dubs filled with American movie stars by way of Disney. Claire Danes voiced San in Princess Mononoke, Kirsten Dunst played the title character in Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Billy Crystal voiced fire demon Calcifer in Howl’s Moving Castle. These dubs are controversial for some anime fans, largely because movie stars are often not trained voice actors, relying primarily on their previously established screen persona rather than their line readings.
But Ghibli’s primary creative force Hayao Miyazaki himself notably prefers dubbed versions of his movies, largely because removing subtitles allows viewers to focus on the art. In a rare interview with The Guardian, Miyazaki noted, “When you watch the subtitled version you are probably missing just as many things. There is a layer and a nuance you’re not going to get. Film crosses so many borders these days. Of course it is going to be distorted.” There’s no way to have a “pure” experience of any art, even if it’s in your native language.
If you want to watch with subtitles, go ahead! They’re great, and the translations often preserve the spirit of the original writing. But if you want to understand the appeal of the Ghibli Disney dubs, check out Porco Rosso.
Porco Rosso is one of the weirder Studio Ghibli films. There is a young, female protagonist along the lines of Kiki or Chihiro from Spirited Away, but she’s in a firmly secondary relation to the title character, a jaded World War I flying ace who’s trying his best to avoid forming connections with other people. The movie floats along with Porco as he travels to Italy, does mechanical repairs on his plane, and has a series of run-ins with pirates, the Italian government, and American fighter pilot and aspiring actor Donald Curtis.
Like the other Disney dubs, Porco Rosso features a household name: in this case Michael Keaton. Anime fans often criticize English voice acting in dubs for having a resolutely flat affect, giving off the impression of actors reading words off a page they had just been handed. Keaton, advertently or no, weaponizes this tendency—he puts emotional weight behind, at most, 15 words of the entire movie. And it rules—Porco Rosso is a misshapen pig man, frequently bullied by a teen girl, and inarguably the coolest dude in the world.
Porco is a fundamentally passive character, literally flying above the rest of humanity in his beloved plane. Though he seems forcibly removed from other people by virtue of being a pig, the English version makes it clear that Porco, at least, thinks of himself as being cursed precisely because he has “given up” on being human. It makes sense, then, that Keaton rarely leaves what you might charitably describe as his vocal comfort zone, and primarily emotes in scenes where Porco is talking to his plane.
More than anything, Keaton evokes classic noir heroes, unable to express themselves outside of highly specific situations. That’s appropriate for the setting of the movie: Much of Miyazaki’s work is set in mythical versions of Japan or similarly abstract landscapes, but Porco Rosso is set in the Adriatic Sea in the 1920s, as Italy is in the process of being taken over by what would eventually become Mussolini’s fascist government. (This is the source of what is perhaps Porco Rosso‘s best-known line, “I’d rather be a pig than a fascist.”)
Everything about Porco Rosso plays with that setting, whether it’s Keaton, Susan Egan’s sultry performance as Porco’s friend and potential love interest Gina, or Brad Garrett’s performance as a buffoonish sky pirate. Porco Rosso finds Miyazaki taking Western tropes, running them through the filter of his own values and culture, and then turning them into something new. Why shouldn’t the dub do the same thing?
Eric Thurm’s writing also appears in GQ, Esquire, Real Life, and eventually in a book about board games he is writing for the NYU Press and Los Angeles Review of Books. He is also the founder, producer, and host of Drunk Education, a comedic-academic event series that has absolutely nothing to do with TED.
