Odin Fandub 2.0 FAQ

"This hurts like a bastard."
Question: Why are there only three actors? / You guys could use some more diverse voices.

Answer: It would have been great to have a huge cast, but unfortunately not possible for a project of this size. Most other fandubs (the few there are) dub much shorter lengths of animation. Many profess to do an entire series, but often only end up dubbing a few episodes, if any at all. The Odin Fandub has 140 minutes of animation. It's one of the longest anime movies in existence. It would have been virtually impossible for a large volunteer cast to dub. Getting all the actors together for long enough to dub all the scenes would have been a ludicrous endeavor. Instead, our team was very lucky to have three brothers who were currently living under the same roof at all the times of dubbing, making it possible to undertake such a huge project. The three of us are very good at warping our voices to create different characters, and therefore were able to make all the character voices distinguishable. If you can find three guys who can make a better fandub, then we'd like to see it.

Question: Why didn't you do the dubbing over the Internet, with many different actors in different locations?

Answer: We felt that the quality of the fandub would be better if all of the actors were together in one place. We were all able to see the video of the movie while we were dubbing, in order to get the expression right, and make sure the voices fit. We were also able to hear each other and play off each other's lines. Organizing a Net-dub is a lot of work for the person who has to edit the whole thing together, and creates consistency problems with people using different sound cards, etc. In short, while there may be something to be said about Net-made fandubs, it just isn't our style, and we prefer the way we chose to do it.

Question: When was Odin Fandub 2.0 made and how long did it take?

Answer: Odin Fandub 2.0 was made during 1999-2001. There were many long periods during that time where we stopped working on it and wondered if we would ever finish it at all, but then it was finally completed in summer of 2001. However, Odin Fandub 2.0 was never made available for distribution to the public until late 2002. The original Odin Comedy Fandub was made during 1997-1998.

Question: Do you guys have any future projects planned?

Answer: We often joke about dubbing other things. We used to have other projects planned in the past, but they never came into being. No, we're sorry, we don't have any plans for future projects. This one movie was work enough. But if we do make any new projects, we'll be sure to let you know on this site.

"Everyone stop drop and roll."
Question: Why are there still a few mistakes left in the final cut?

Answer: As with the previous fandub, we decided to edit Odin Fandub 2.0 fully using VCRs, rather than doing the editing on computers, recording the voices for the movie in separate sections, or "scenes". If you watch the fandub closely, you may be able to see the places where scenes were spliced together. We felt that this was still our favorite way to make the fandub, as it gives us the most chance to play off the movie and perfect the lines. We also wanted to do our best using our traditional method, rather than opting for something more complicated. However, since all of the lines for each scene have to be done as perfectly as possible in one take, we were sometimes forced to pick the best takes, which sometimes still had a few mistakes in them, which we did our best to edit out. This also makes for the possibility of lines that weren't timed perfectly in the final version of a scene, but we still feel that the lines in the fandub match the lips overall as well as the original Japanese voices did (the original voices for the movie weren't that well-timed either). For example, in the scene where the crew speculates about whether the Odinians are robots or not and the Captain comes to make sure they follow through with the decision they've made, the captain's lines were completely improvised, and our favorite take of that scene had lots of mistakes left in it. Despite the mistakes, we loved it so much, that we used it for the final cut of the movie.

Question: Does your parody of Odin alter the original plot of the movie or render the plot irrelevant?

Answer: Abosolutely not! Of course the plot is a little different from the original version of the movie, since we have changed lines, and in some cases absolutely changed the characters' intentions. However we, being the Odin connoisseurs we have inevitably become over the years, have made it our priority to keep the plot intact. We respect the original story of the movie. The Odin Fandub not only follows the plot with consistency, but it makes the plot more interesting.

Question: I thought the extra scenes were cut from US Manga's dub because Odin is such a boring movie. Since Odin Fandub 2.0 is so much longer than the original fandub, doesn't it get boring in places?

Answer: The short answer is no. We worked really long and hard on the new script, and our biggest objective was to make the movie less boring. We filled in all the gaps so that there are no long intervals where no lines are spoken, which was a problem with the original version of Odin. Nearly every line we wrote for the movie had a comical intent, so we put a lot of thought into the script. The original movie was also far too complicated with its 'space jargon' for the uninitiated viewer, so it was our goal to make the plot more accessible to everyone without bogging the viewer down with too much unnecessary information. We achieved this successfully by adding lines to help clarify the plot and taking out the completely unnecessary information. All of our test audiences say they followed the plot easily. Odin Fandub 2.0 makes the movie accessible to the masses.

Question: What is the soundtrack of Odin Fandub 2.0?

Answer: Fortunately this time around we were able to preserve three tracks from the original movie (we would keep all the original music if we could). They are the three songs off of Loudness's "Odin" single. The soundtrack also features music from Jpop and J-Rock groups, including Janne Da Arc, Every Little Thing, Favorite Blue, Rina Chinen, and TRF. The rest of the music is from video game soundtracks, just like on the first version of the fandub. Some of the better music selections from the original fandub were kept in the new version, while some others were switched to deliver what we felt would be a better experience, based on feedback we received the first time around. A list of the songs and video games that were used is in the credits sequence for Odin Fandub 2.0. The sound effects are a mixture of video game and computer sound effects, as well as some stuff we recorded ourselves.

"Would it kill Belgel to put in some smaller stairs?"