Interview with Kaeko Sakamoto
Near the end of the first season of Rurouni Kenshin, directorial duties on the dub passed to Kaeko Sakamoto, the talented ADR director now known not only for her work on this series, but also for Pioneer properties such as Ai Yori Aoshi and Sakura Wars: The Movie. We asked Ms. Sakamoto a few questions about her experience working on Rurouni Kenshin. Thanks to Ms. Sakamoto for her time!
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Dub Review: How did you approach this project initially? As time went on, how did your approach change?
Kaeko Sakamoto: At first, I watched the original Japanese program very carefully, and I tried to stay as close as I could to the Japanese sound and performances. But gradually, our actors got into their characters more, and we started to make our own style very naturally... although I never changed the real meaning of the Japanese translation.
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DR: How long did the casting take for the show? Were there any roles that were particularly difficult, or particularly easy to cast?
Sakamoto: Casting is the most important part of the progress, and it is the key for a show's success. Also, Rurouni Kenshin has a lot of new characters that come and go, and scores of incidental roles. So it took me a quite a long time, each time. Probably it took me two, three days for that for one volume. (A volume was usually four episodes.)
Casting for Misao was quite a challenge. She had so many faces: tomboyish, short-tempered, gentleness, a goofy side, and so on.
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DR: Kenshin has an unusual speech pattern, frequently employing the use of his trademark phrase "de gozaru," or his quirky "oro." How did you determine how to localize this part of his speech?
Sakamoto: Our translator, Rika Takahashi, was very familiar with this show. She came up with "that I did" or "that I am" for Kenshin's very particular style of speaking, and we loved that. We had to fight to keep it. Clark Cheng, the script writer, also fought to keep it in the show. Also, we didn't change Kenshin's trademark "oro". It seemed that somehow I was the one who could imitate the Japanese "oro" the best, so I had to say it many times.
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DR: Originally, Sony developed a dub of the TV series entitled "Samurai X," which was heavily edited and never released in the United States. Did this dub have any influence on Bang Zoom's dub, and if so, what?
Sakamoto: No, it didn't influence us. But before we started our recording, we checked only one episode of "Samurai X" as research. (Actually, (Bang Zoom! Entertainment ADR director Eric Sherman) remembers that it was episode four.) And I'd already noticed that they confused Japanese things and Chinese things a lot. For example, the name of food. "Chow-mein" is Chinese fried noodle, and it's not Japanese food. Rurouni Kenshin is a most traditional drama, so we shouldn't have them eating foods that are not Japanese. So in this way, I'd already known which part we really had to be careful with before we started our recording.
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DR: Recent Bang Zoom dubs, most notably Ai Yori Aoshi, do not translate the names of items which have no English equivalent, such as "obi", "kimono", "takiyaki", etc. Yet in Rurouni Kenshin, "sakaboto" is translated as "reverse-blade sword" throughout the series. What was the rationale behind this decision, and how did it affect lip-flap?
Sakamoto: "Sakabato" is a word that even Japanese people might not know, because it is a specific type of sword. So we wanted to present to the U.S. what the meaning of that is as clearly as possible. We felt that if the audience didn't
understand that, the real meaning of this show would be quite difficult to appreciate. So we decided to
translate this word. About Ai Yori Aoshi, I wanted the audience to learn a few
Japanese words from this show. It was kind of for my own personal enjoyment. Because I
always have to struggle with trying to speaking English every day!
It didn't affect lip flap at all.
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DR: How much influence did the Japanese licensors have over the dub?
Sakamoto: I think they thought that this type of anime is too traditional for Americans at first. But now they know that it's a good fit with an American audience. I think that because of the success of Rurouni Kenshin, the title of Japanese anime for the US has opened more.
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DR: Some people feel that the most important aspect of a dub is an accurate script, while others feel that it's more important for the actors' performances to sound natural; still others have differing opinions. In your opinion, what is most important to a successful dub?
Sakamoto: The most important thing for me is that I should understand the correct meaning for the scene. You can imagine that as you are reading a sentence in English, you should be able to misunderstand the meaning. It's the same as that. I have to understand the meaning, and within that, we make the best performances we can for an American audience. Of course it depends on the situation, but we might do something completely different from the Japanese performance, or we might try very hard to remain as close as possible to the Japanese. It's on a case by case basis, and there are no solid rules we have about it.
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DR: When were you approached about modifying the dub for exhibition on the Cartoon Network? Can you tell us a bit about that?
Sakamoto: When we were recording this show we had no idea at all that it would air on Cartoon Network, so nowadays we are modifying the dialogue for TV a lot. We have been pleased to see that it is gaining so much popularity so quickly.
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DR: Rurouni Kenshin is a show with a large cast, and therefore a good example of a dub that runs into the common problem of re-using actors in multiple roles. It can be tricky to re-use actors without disrupting the viewer's interpretation of the overall cast of characters. How did you approach this situation?
Sakamoto: Thanks to our wonderful actors, I didn't have too much trouble about it. Once I showed the character's voice in Japanese to our actors, and I explained the character, usually they could perfrom the role very naturally, and sometimes I forgot I'd cast them for a different role before.
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DR: Although not as long as some other anime series, Rurouni Kenshin is nevertheless one of the longest-running anime series released in North America thus far. How did working on this project differ from other, briefer (by comparison) shows you have dubbed?
Sakamoto: I prefer longer shows, because the actors get into their characters, and it makes things flow much more smoothly. In other words, it's less work for me! We also begin to feel as if we are a family. But it was a long commitment; I appreciate the actors' very hard work.
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DR: What is your favorite scene or memory from this project?
Sakamoto: The scene when Kenshin decided to go to Kyoto to fight with Shishio. Kaoru and Kenshin's final scene made me cry in Japanese, so I wanted the American audiences to cry, too. And I was very satisfied with our English version, too.