A fan of “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid” known as “Prompt Pirate” has utilized artificial intelligence to modify a contentious scene in Crunchyroll’s English dubbed version that had been criticized for deviating entirely off script to impose the voice lines featuring “patriarchal societal demands.”
Recent weeks have seen heightened scrutiny of the dubbing for the series, despite it having aired several years ago at this point, particularly in light of concerns raised by western localizers regarding The Ancient Magus Bride’s reliance on AI translations for simulpub releases.
This approach has led to the exclusion of western publishers and localizers who have expressed dissatisfaction with inaccurate translations and perceived censorship.
The particular scene in question involves a conversation between Lucoa and Tohru. In the original version, Lucoa attempts to address criticism she has faced since arriving in the world, but the portrayal is comedically exaggerated.
Though this isn’t the first or last instance of western localization affecting anime with maliciously botched translations imposing political / sexist rhetoric, with FUNimation tarnishing the English script for Parison School with the infamous “GamerGate” line.
One of the script writers for the localized dubbing of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid was none other than Jamie Marchi who actually voices the character of Lucoa in the English dub but I’m sure that’s a coincidence.
When confronted regarding the purposefully botched localized script for the anime, Jamie Marchi defended the imposed sexist lines because “she is a woman” who “has a vagina” and that fans of actual accuracy of translations should “deal with it”.
Sounds like a lovely lady, and just like every other lolcow-izor of Japanese media she attempts to gaslight anime fans and audiences regarding the senseless inclusion of political matters artificially injected into the script.
And soon enough she among many other parasitic individuals will be out a job due to the surgency of artificial intelligence of which these people are especially afraid of as their power struggle over localization is nearing its end as even the Japanese are beginning to take notice what these malicious fucks are doing to their franchises abroad.
Regardless, the individual known as Prompt Pirate essentially used the power of AI to artificially use the voice of Lucoa in the English dub for Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, who once again is Jamie Marchi, one of the individuals responsible for the fanfiction laced English script to dub the accurate lines in the first place.
It’s not perfect, if I were being honest the ideal way to watch anime will always be the original Japanese audio, but it’s a start. It’s truly impressive to see just how far technology has come over the years to the point where actual fans can train an AI to sympathize Jamie Marchi‘s voice with the finalized product that is genuinely convincing and isn’t as flat as Jamie’s actual voiceover work.
The only negative I have for the redub would be the jarring difference between Sarah Wiedenheft’s actual voicing versus the AI implementation, apart from the actual desync. But this is certainly a stepping stone to what will likely become fan-made anime dubbing orchestrated entirely by artificial intelligence.
With one of the major benefits being AI dubbing isn’t limited to the mundane and permanently obscure political failures amongst the voice acting sector, but rather fans can expand their horizons and leverage AI training to prolific and higher profile voice actors who can actually ACT in the first place.
