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Wakfu English Dub Kickstarter (Final amount: $483,524/$80,000)

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I watched the first three episodes.

All of the voices are surprising good fits... except for Ruel. He's terrible. Like a really bad 4Kids voice. :p It is embarrassing every time he speaks.

The biggest problem however is that all of the characters talk really fast with lots of run-on sentences a lot like what classic Speed Racer cartoons sound like. I'm not sure if that's because French is difficult to dub or what but it really hurts the performances. The dubbers seem more interested in trying to make the lips match and it being a 100% literal translation rather than making the characters speak English naturally; a mistake made in a lot of early anime dubs.

Overall, the main cast performances (except for Ruel) all sound like they fit well enough but their acting often comes across very stilted because they almost never speak in a natural cadence.

I hope it improves as I watch more episodes.

I agree with this sentiment everyone seems like they're talking so fast, it's not natural. Aside from that I'm digging the animation and the voices are really growing on me.
 
I watched the first three episodes.

All of the voices are surprising good fits... except for Ruel. He's terrible. Like a really bad 4Kids voice. :p It is embarrassing every time he speaks.

The biggest problem however is that all of the characters talk really fast with lots of run-on sentences a lot like what classic Speed Racer cartoons sound like. I'm not sure if that's because French is difficult to dub or what but it really hurts the performances. The dubbers seem more interested in trying to make the lips match and it being a 100% literal translation rather than making the characters speak English naturally; a mistake made in a lot of early anime dubs.

Overall, the main cast performances (except for Ruel) all sound like they fit well enough but their acting often comes across very stilted because they almost never speak in a natural cadence.

I hope it improves as I watch more episodes.

French has a really fast natural cadence. So dubbing into the much slower American English probably hurt it there.
 
I wonder why they decided to get British voice actors and have them do American accents. Every so often you'll hear their real accents escape because they'll have trouble pronouncing a word. It's mainly Grovy and Amalia.
 
French has a really fast natural cadence. So dubbing into the much slower American English probably hurt it there.

That sounds about right. Even while watching the French dub it seemed like characters were spitting out words faster than I could read the subs. It takes some getting used to and I have to imagine it couldn't have been easy getting the english dub to synch well with the lip flaps.

Still, I've only seen the first two episodes dubbed so far and like everyone else, I feel "Rool" was woefully miscast. And I'm incredibly tolerant towards most dubs. I feel like the rest of the cast could grow into their roles more naturally with time, but Ruel will always be that one sticking point keeping this dub from escaping mediocre status. And I suppose it's way too late to recast, either... even if money wasn't already a sticking factor.

I just... can't believe anyone could have thought that *that* voice was okay. I'm still holding out hope that it could improve into something better. Even the French Ruel sounded "off" in his first appearance but became the Ruel we know and love before long.
 
Honestly though he seems to be the only major fuckup.

I wish it had gotten more Level 5 voices (Christopher Robin Miller as Nox, you want it, admit it. I could live with Maria Darling not being Yugo mind) but that's life.

An Ocean Group dub would have been neat, too.
 
Backer-only update:

Now, as we said in the comments yesterday, we have a few technical updates for Netflix users.

First, Netflix has reached out to us to offer the French audio for Wakfu in all English countries. They have also asked to include English in their list of options for several European countries, so keep a sharp eye out for that. Unfortunately, we cannot give an ETA for when these English and French options will be available. Netflix is controlling these changes, so we're depending on them to get it done!

Second: Many of you have mentioned the audio mix is not satisfactory on the English dub. We are looking into the problem, but we are not yet sure if we will be able to fix this issue for Season 1. When we know more, we'll let you know.

But we're not just here to talk about Netflix. We know that a lot of you are feeling left out because you don't have the service, or it's not available in your area. We do apologize, and we want you to know that Netflix is not the only platform that we are working with. We have an exclusivity agreement with them for right now, but we are also working with several other distributors to make Wakfu available in other countries, and some of them may make it possible for us to give you exclusive access. If we can, we definitely will, and we'll tell you about it here the moment that we can.

It's good to know that they're looking into some of the things that people were upset about. Hopefully Season 2 will be better off for it.


And, in almost no time, you will all have access to the OVA episodes online! In fact, just to prove that we still love you and we want you to have all the special access possible, we have some screenshots from the OVAs that we haven't published anywhere else for your eyes only! Enjoy!

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JUST HOOK IT INTO MY VEEEEINS
 
Gah, I'm a bit bummed that they changed the voice actors for Percidal and Evangelyne. The actors in the Kickstarter video sounded great. Not really digging the new ones they got (especially since it's super obvious that Evangelyne and Yugo are now the same person).
 
When they say "access to the OVA episodes online" do they mean they already dubbed those and they'll be on Netflix soon?

Cool that they are addressing the sound issues but I just finished the season earlier today.
 
Is it just me or is there something just a bit off about those screenshots? Amalia, ignoring the hair, especially.
We've known this since they released the teaser trailer months ago: they're using the Dofus: Treasures of Kerub animation style, so it looks... um, flatter? A little more like cel-animation than the old style, anyway.


When they say "access to the OVA episodes online" do they mean they already dubbed those and they'll be on Netflix soon?
The OVA is set to air on French television soon and will be made available on DVD over there in October. I assume then that the 3 episodes are already complete and should be dubbing soon, if not already. I can see them offering them up on Netflix eventually, some time after Season 2.


Has Wakfu always been on Steam?
It's been in (Steam) beta for about a month, AFAIK.
 
I saw this on Netflix and decided to give it a watch. 3 days later I watched all of season 1. I really enjoyed it. The voice acting is a mixed bag with some characters but the show is excellent.

I can't wait to see season 2 and all the other stuff they have for us.


I also started playing the mmo which is different but it's pretty challenge
 
I saw this on Netflix and decided to give it a watch. 3 days later I watched all of season 1. I really enjoyed it. The voice acting is a mixed bag with some characters but the show is excellent.

I can't wait to see season 2 and all the other stuff they have for us.


I also started playing the mmo which is different but it's pretty challenge

The second season is really good. It's a tad weaker than the first season and the main antagonist isn't as good as Nox, but it's still great.

Only watched a little bit of the dub and thought it was okayish with the exception of Ruel. Can't wait for the blu-rays to arrive.
 
The second season is really good. It's a tad weaker than the first season and the main antagonist isn't as good as Nox, but it's still great.

Only watched a little bit of the dub and thought it was okayish with the exception of Ruel. Can't wait for the blu-rays to arrive.

When are those being released?

So there's 2 seasons and 3 short films? What else do we get in English?
 
When are those being released?

So there's 2 seasons and 3 short films? What else do we get in English?

The BDs are being sent to Kickstarter backers in January IIRC. I don't think there's any plans to sell them besides that unfortunately.

They are also releasing some of the comics digitally through Comixology.
 
Seasons 1 and 2, the Nox Special, and the Ogrest Special. I don't remember if the OVAs were included or if they were only on streaming services. The Kickstarter page should have some more information.

Cool, I guess I'll have to search eBay for the BD, I'm sure someone will sell it.

If not, I hope Nextflix gets season 2, I don't see why not. If not I'll watch the French with English dubs.
 
Oh yeah, Netflix updated w/ the French dub a couple of days ago. Still no ETA when we'll see Season 2 and/or any of the specials.
 
Did they fix the sound mixing?

The French dub could be said to be "fixed" since that's the original mix and there was nothing wrong with it. Doubtful the eng dub is though since they said in the update they'd let us know if it was... but they also said they weren't even sure Season 1's mixing *could* be fixed. Presuming that in order to fix it, a re-dub would need to be done and that's probably out of the question at this time. Hopefully that won't be the case.
 
Backer Only Update is up with OVA Episode 1 trailer
Also w/ news of Wakfu Season 2 being up on Netflix.

I think it should be noted that while the French television broadcast of the Wakfu Special Episodes will begin, starting with Episode 1 "Throne of Ice", on February 15 as stated in the update (hopefully in HD): all three episodes have already been released on DVD about two weeks ago. As you can imagine, the OVA has already been subbed by zealous "wakfans" and so, naturally, there are spoilers in the wild.

Wonderous, magnificent spoilers.
 
Is season 3 in the works?
Last I heard was that they had trouble selling the idea to someone, since apparently no one wants a cartoon that is not a kids show with kids as protagonists. They want to do a timeskip with every grown up (except Ruel of course). But they try, they try.

I hope Netflix chips in to finance a third season or something.
 
Last I heard was that they had trouble selling the idea to someone, since apparently no one wants a cartoon that is not a kids show with kids as protagonists. They want to do a timeskip with every grown up (except Ruel of course). But they try, they try.

I hope Netflix chips in to finance a third season or something.

Yea, it doesn't seem like a 'kids show'. I could see them skip like 5 years ahead for season 3. It's a great show, it would be a shame if they didn't continue it.
 
Ah, there's that I guess. Still... calling them special episodes is a bit much. They're just the mid-season filler before the show's plot starts to really rev up.

Tell them. I'm only the messenger.

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Speaking of messages:

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Free board game thing coming with shipments as a compensation for the delays. Neat.
 
i hope they let me redo the survey.

I filled out the survey in march when they said they were gonna ship the blu rays in April....

then they never did.

I moved from that address since march and now they are saying they are gonna finally ship the blu rays
 
i hope they let me redo the survey.

I filled out the survey in march when they said they were gonna ship the blu rays in April....

then they never did.

I moved from that address since march and now they are saying they are gonna finally ship the blu rays

If you go to Backer History and click on Wakfu's snippet, there is a tab called "Survey", they seem to allow you to change your address from there.
 
That's really cool of them. Even with the delays (their schedule always seemed ambitious to me, so I wasn't expecting them this year. Especially knowing Ankama's history with deadlines), they didn't have to do anything about it.
 
Are they going to put the entire thing up on VHX? Looks like they only have 3 episodes up starting at ep 10. Probably still going to wait for the blurays, but it'd be a nice option.
 
Looks like they're going to use this VHX.tv site to distribute the digital rewards from the kickstarter. Along with the 3 Boufbowl Gobbowl episodes from Season 1 I also got digital versions of the first two artbooks, the "Digital Fan Pack" (basically production sketches) and a "Wakfu Symphonic" digital OST (in .wav format) for my pledge.

Wakfu Symphonic is about 10 tracks of music from the TV show. It's about what I expected, since I didn't pledge enough to get the full OST. The TV episodes were probably just a freebie, since I don't remember those being part of the digital rewards unless they were added later.
 
Finally! I hope I get mine soon. Did you get tracking? I don't know where I'd find that.
 
Finally! I hope I get mine soon. Did you get tracking? I don't know where I'd find that.

Yeah, they sent me an email Tuesday morning. Seems others were getting them around the same time, but not everyone. They might be going in tiers or batches, so if you haven't received one yet I say just be patient.

Actually, it just arrived but I won't have time to go over it since I have to run to work now.
 
It's been so long since I checked on this. How do I check the address they're going to ship to? I'd rather not a delay by it going to the wrong city before coming my way...
 
So was that Netflix S3 deal on /co/ a troll or not?

Not a troll, just one of Ankama's more popular artists jumping the gun I think:

The DOFUS english community manager actively checks out Wakfu threads on /co/ for Ankama regularly, hence Xa's comment on his deviantart later being edited after the original screengrab was posted. They're not ready to announce anything yet, but I think it's pretty clear something's being worked on. Izmar's tumblr also had this:

http://izmarvelous.tumblr.com/post/98971724812/i-heard-dofus-is-out-on-netflix-in-france-do-you

The good news is that Wakfu is doing better than they expected, so we’re hoping they’ll stay thirsty for more Ankama animation. ;)

Granted this is several months old now.
 
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