Episode 14, "Those Who Dwell Underground"
*****SPOILERS*****
Synopsis: While Roy arrives at his new post in Central, Fuhrer King Bradley and Alex Louis Armstrong lead a charge on the Devil's Nest in Dublith. Most of Greed's chimeras allies are gunned down, with his closest allies killed by the Fuhrer himself. Greed is surprised that Bradley is also a homunculi, and is disabled by him. Bradley kills Martel while she hides in Alphonse's armor, and shocked, Al remembers his experiences during the human transmutation. Bradley takes Greed to the homuculi's hideout, where their leader, Father, condemns him to death, and reabsorbs his essence.
Comments:
The dub takes another step down in this episode, where, while the voices themselves felt fine, a lot of the acting itself was pretty mediocre.
First of all, while Chris Patton's Greed improved from the last series to this one, and there were some good bits with him in this episode, when he was talking to Bradley, I was very disappointed with his overall performance, especially compared to the colorful Japanese version of him. What really miffed me was his completely embarrassing delivery in the scene with the other homunculi. When he's being lowered into the vat, he sounds like Billy West doing his best Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling impression (I guess you have to be an old Stern fan to get this reference). It sounded like the Jackie Puppet. On the Japanese track, Yuuichi Nakamura still sounds strong and spiteful in his dying words, even jaunty. Patton sounds really patehtic.
Speaking of that scene, why did they give the homunculi their own subtitles, like "Greed the Avericious" and "Wrath the Angry"? They don't need further subtitles. Greed is already "The Ultimate Shield". These aren't the fucking Gung-Ho-Guns, Funimation. They already have names that represent something. Stop fucking doing this. You were doing so well with the script, don't fuck up now.
Apparently he has a lot of fans, but I can't get into Ed Blaylock's Bradley. He just doesn't have that deep command his Japanese voice has. I guess Blaylock has the quality of sounding very kindly one moment and intimidating the next, but it doesn't have that presence that Hidekatsu Shibata has that almost makes you shit your pants in fear. Bradley instead sounds like an angry Sean Connery impersonator.
We got a few new voices in this episode. The most noteworthy was Father's. He's voiced by the same guy who does the narration, like in the Japanese version. I had to watch the episode a couple of times before I got used to it, but to be fair, it was the same way for the Japanese version. Actually, it's probably just as good as the Japanese voice. Another new voice is Mrs. Bradley and Selim. Mrs. Bradley sounds completely robotic, whoever voices her needs to take some acting lessons. Selim sounds okay, but I wonder how he'll handle later material.
Also, why do they pronounce his name "SAY-LEEM"? Have I been pronouncing that name wrong?
Next week, some of my least favorite characters arrive!
Overall Dub Score: 3 out of 5
