Aria the Natural: Episode 3 Commentary
The Night of the Meteor Shower
I enjoyed the opening theme even more this time around. It has a good feel to it.
To add to language used, Akari’s computer and her e-mails are all in English. I still say this series would have been perfect for an English dub. I’d be interesting in knowing the reason behind using English rather than Italian for the language of Neo-Venezia.
I tended to suggest in a prior commentary, but may have forgotten to, that English may be a world language on Manhome. This would explain Ai knowing the language spoken in Neo-Venezia, which I determine to be English, when her family likely is Japanese (going on the name “Ai” alone).
Learning that Al is older that Aika and Akari (even if just within a year old) brought me back to wondering about his height, and if it’s because he works underground. The scene showing the Gnomes at work shows that being short isn’t something common to those who work at the center of gravity controls for the planet (unless those a recent hires shown), so it must be genetics for him.
Removing Alice from the event made it easier for Aika and Al to be alone. It’s a shame, though, as she’s the one who started on the topic of gravity. Akari is kind of necessary to be there, being the main character and all. Not only that, but with her personality, it would be hard to exclude her from such an event, whereas it’s simple enough to do with Alice. I like that it’s that personality of Akari’s that specifically allowed her to be away during the meteor shower, allowing Aika and Al to be alone together.
So, I say this series would be nice with an English dub. Let’s see, how would those puns work out…
Al says, “I want (hoshii) that star (hoshi)!”
Perhaps this could be…okay, I’ve got nothing. Maybe the other one will be easier.
Akari says, “I wanted to see it from lots of different angles, so we went to the other roofs (yane).”
Al replies, “Well, that’s good (ya ne)!”
Hm, nope, that’s even more difficult. The closest I can think of would be working “awesome” into Akari’s line, and having Al reply with “awe-full”, but I just can’t make it work.
This is why I don’t work in dubbing. The worst part is that I’m all about lame puns. In some parts, I’m infamous for being “very punny”.
Observation: In the subtitles, when putting a Japanese word in parenthesis (to show the play on Japanese words), the word in parenthesis was subtitled before a period, but after an exclamation point. I wonder if this was a design decision, or a lack of paying attention to consistency.
