Why the Only Yesterday Dub Sucks

The dub for Takahata's classic Only Yesterday sucks. And here's why. Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy this dub exists. Or more specifically, I'm happy this film was even localized for the American market. For 20 years, yes 20 years, this film was impossible to see legally in the US. Except for a single showing on Turner Classic Movies way back in 2006. Which, I mean I didn't see, did you? Disney in their infinite child focused mindset decided this film was not one they wished to localize. Something about a young woman reminiscing about her childhood at a cross point in her life was either way too adult oriented or didn't fit their assumptions about the wide scope audience films like this had the ability to attract. It was the slap right? I mean god forbid a child see an animated child get slapped. Now the straight up murder of a parent, that's fine. At least Mufasa didn't get that 5 finger kablam. This was also an issue with the admittedly pretty bloody but undisputed masterpiece Princess Mononoke, which dub was actually handed off to Miramax, a subdivision of Disney known for their much more adult independent films. After a bit of research, I found out the reason this film was never localized was because of menstruation? You mean that short scene when the girls start getting their periods? That was the problem. Just to reaffirm, Disney, who's killed off more characters than Freddy freaking Krueger, had a problem with showing off an aspect of growing up that nearly every girl will go through in their lives. Come on now, the slap theory made more damn sense than that. Now I did end up seeing only yesterday through investigative means, but let's just say the quality wasn't great and the subtitles occasionally looked like puked up alphabet soup. So like many fans I waited for the day this film would finally get the respect it deserved. And then it finally happened. And to tell you I was excited is an understatement. I could finally watch this film properly with A-list celebrities like Daisy Ridley and Dev Patel providing the voices for these great characters. I pre-ordered the film immediately and watched it as soon as it arrived. And it wasn't good for two pretty distracting reasons. Now with Daisy who plays the main character Tycho, it's easier to understand. She's an English actress putting on a not so great American accent. Think Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins, but like the opposite. Okay, here then, let me give you an example. One of my friends was just average in school, but she could flip a numerator like that. I think people who understood that saw life more clearly. So because of that her dialogue comes off as stilted a lot of the time. She has this unnatural cadence that totally throws off the believability of her performance. I just saw someone like it was only yesterday. Abbe, he was the new kid at school. Looks the same. Especially when compared to young Tycho who sounds naturally like a young city girl. She gives an exceptional voice performance. Probably the best in the film. Me and a grown-up play? Not with those amateur kids. I'll be with real grown-ups. I'll be a star. Which makes it really hard to connect these two characters together. They just don't match up. When it comes to Dev Patel who plays love interest Toshio, it gets a little more confusing. Tell me if you notice anything. Yeah, he, unlike Daisy, kept his English accent for the film. Now that's pretty strange voice direction. Everyone in this film speaks in an American accent, except for this one character. Everyone, including Toshio's family. Yeah, even within his own blood, the voice makes no sense. I mean what happened? Did they ask him to attempt an American accent and he just said no? Like tough ----, I'm Dev Patel, deal with it. His performance isn't even bad. It just makes no sense within the context of the film. City people see forests and woods and streams and they're happy because they think what they're seeing is nature. Now to add even more confusion to the already messy production, Taiko visits Toshio and his family on the countryside, wanting to get away from the city and reconnect to nature. Experiencing a simpler life, one that sadly eluded her in childhood. Now when she talks to her before she leaves for the countryside, she talks about her farm family and puts on some hokey southern accent. Which I guess makes sense. Similar to the US, Japan has different dialects, so someone from Tokyo wouldn't sound like someone from the countryside. When we think of farmland in the US, we tend to think of the south. Although there are farmlands everywhere across the US. But still, to put an end to the tangent, it would make sense when adapting for the dub that they would speak differently. Except no one speaks in a southern accent. They all speak perfect American English. Except of course for Toshio, who speaks like a good British lad. You can see where I'm coming from when I say this dub has issues. I mean come on, the voice director had to know a lot of this wouldn't add up. Now I understand in the world of anime dubbing, celebrity voices put asses in seats. Love it or hate it, marquee value tends to trump most everything else. I really don't even have a problem with this. Dubs of Ghibli films for the most part have been excellent, with amazing actors lending their voices to dynamic characters, giving us English speaking fans another layer of intrigue, especially in repeat viewings. Don't get me wrong, both actors are very talented, obviously, but the direction given just didn't work. Also, one last question that maybe could have solved all these problems, if your two main actors are both English, why not just cast the entire film with English actors? It probably would have worked a lot better than what they ended up doing. Then again, when making this dub, Ghibli's localization teams collected the budget from both the American and English distribution companies. So maybe this was all intentional, with a mixture of English and American actors. I really don't know. Now does any of this actually matter? No, I guess not. The dub is what it is, and the average viewer probably won't even care that not everything fits together exactly right. Plus apparently this dub was a passion project from Ghibli Internal. I think it's still relevant, I think it's still beautiful, and I, it's kind of my baby. Well, thank you for never giving up. Thank you, thank you very much. It's commendable that the team fought diligently to give us something that the fans had wanted for years. It's just as someone who loved this film, I wish a little more care was given to something I had waited for for so long. Even as the dub the way it is, I'm telling you to watch this film. It stands as a pillar of Takahata's legacy and taps into the melancholy nostalgia of childhood, showing all we inherit from the memories which shaped us into the people we are today.