With Kino no Tabi out on DVD by ADV films comes the English dubbed version. Personally, I enjoy watching both dubs and subs - preferably both. I really like hearing how different people interpret their roles and express it with their voices, inflections, and attitudes. So when I received my DVD, the first thing I did was sit down and watch it in English with English subtitles (to see how the dub and sub scripts compared.)
In general, I enjoyed the dub. All the acting sounded fairly natural and the dialogue was fluid and kept true to the original. In this story, there are only two recurring characters, and the only thing that kept me from rating this dub as excellent was Hermes' voice.
First off, I must say I really enjoyed Kino's English voice actor. She portrays Kino as a quiet and mature person, and very non-judgemental. Very little gets Kino riled up - although at one point at the end of episode 2, the lack of strong emotion seemed to hurt her character. The voice actor (whose name I will look up) also plays younger Kino nicely, using just a little more energy and spunk to portray a more innocent girl.
When I first heard Hermes' voice I instantly recognized her voice actor as the woman who played Mikako in Hoshi no Koe - Voices of a Distant Star - it has the familiar rough edge and rasp. Cynthia Martinez portrays Hermes as a down-to-earth, straightforward individual, who tends to ramble and give Kino semi-lectures, although occasionally mixing up metaphors. However, my personal image of Hermes (built from watching the series in Japanese and rebuilt/reinforced after reading the novels) is of an extremely naive personality. Who whines, moans, and complains. A lot. (My opinion of Hermes degenerated somewhat after reading the novels as a result.) I saw Hermes as a young, sort of tag-a-long kid who, while offering some sound advice every so often and being a great help, also tends to get annoying at times. Moss' acting is quite the opposite, and while it's a good performance (and fits the idea of a 'talking motorcycle') it was not the voice I expected (or perhaps hoped for).
Otherwise, the incidental characters are fine, and while I can't think of any performances that were stellar, none were bad, either. I liked the little girl from Tricksters though.
One minor gripe was how they changed the tune for Kino's little ditty in episode 4. It's from Pachelbel's Canon... but not anymore. Perhaps I've listened to that song too many times, considering how short my Kino playlist is so the songs repeat often, when working on this site and got too attached to the Japanese version. It was a bit trippy, though.
I can't wait to hear Shizu and Riku. Riku! I'll expand this opinion piece later when I get to hear them. Aaaah, Riku...
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