This month, I'm going to take a break from my usual practice of devoting an entire column to a single dub. Instead, I'd like to offer my opinion on several dubs, none of which are timely enough to merit an entire column of their own. This gives me a chance to catch up with the dubbing world, and it gives you, the reader, an opportunity to see just how well my tastes align with your own.

Ready? Let's begin!

Let's start with a classic. This is one of the most polarizing dubs in fandom - you either love it or hate it. I love it, even though it has flaws and can't hold a candle to the Japanese version. The core cast of Petrea Burchard's Ryoko, Jennifer Darling's Aeka, and Katie Ashley's Sasami have an undeniable chemistry. Matt K. Miller's Tenchi was a bit whiny in the beginning, but quickly settled down. The original dub also had one of the first characters whose English voice I felt outdid the Japanese - the villain Kagato.

Though my three-star rating applies only to the "classic cast" that was in place through the end of the TV series and "Tenchi Muyo in Love," the dub survived the cast changes that followed as well. Wendee Lee took over Kiyone from Katie Ashley (it's said that performing the character was hurting Ashley's voice) and Rebecca Forstadt took over Mihoshi from Ellen Gerstell. In both cases, the transition is barely noticable - I was halfway through "Tenchi in Tokyo" before I finally became suspicious about Mihoshi. Only Tenchi's father came out worse for the change. As in the Japanese, a single actor plays both Tenchi's father and grandfather. Jay Hopper was great in both roles, but his successor had trouble pulling off the goofy, lecherous father.

The biggest flaw in this dub is the scriptwriting. In the very first episode, they took some liberties with the script that angered some fans. In response to this, they seemed to overreact a bit. Later episodes, as well as the TV series, have the occasional awkward line as the scriptwriters tried to be as exact as possible. When the Japanese sentence had more syllables than the English, padding was added to the end of the sentence in the form of throwaway phrases.

The "Tenchi" cast is responsible for one of the most underrated dubs ever recorded: "Pretty Sammy 2: Revenge of the Electronic Brain." If you've never seen this hilarious spoof, featuring Sasami as a magical girl taking on a super powered Bill Gates character, you owe it to yourself to track down someone who has it. It's one of the funniest dubs I've ever seen.

After seeing this dub, I've coined a new phrase: "Ocean lag." "Ocean lag" is the number of episodes it takes an Ocean Studios dub to become good. For "Escaflowne," the Ocean lag is about eight episodes, give or take a few. After that, it starts to improve at a geometric rate, approaching four-star brilliance near the end. If the ending made you cry when you saw it in Japanese, you'll cry with the dub as well.

So why the two-star rating? Simple. I don't believe in making people sit through poor quality material to get to the good stuff. But the early episodes weren't so bad that I couldn't sit through them. Plus, I'd watched the "Gundam Wing" dub improve as it went along, so I felt certain this dub would improve as well.

As always, I blame the director. Given how good the acting is at the end, it can't be the actors. It's as if Ocean gives their actors no assistance in finding their characters, as if the entirety of the direction is "here, read this." This argument is supported when Dryden makes his appearance in the middle of the series. At that point, most of the other actors had a dozen episodes to fine-tune their voices, but Dryden's actor is just starting out. The difference between Dryden and the other characters is striking. He begins with a generic playboy voice as his actor tries to work out what makes him tick. By the end of the series, Dryden has reached the same level of quality as everyone else.

(Note: Ocean doesn't provide individual credits, so I have to rely on online sources. The IMDB credits Dryden to Ward Perry, but I swear he sounds like Duo Maxwell from "Gundam Wing," who was played by Scott McNeil.)

I understand this dub has its fans, but I stand by this rating. In my opinion, the portrayal of Tylor, the single most important character, is awful. I will admit that I did not watch enough of this dub to hear the other crewmembers of the Soyokaze. However, even if those actors turned in Oscar-worthy performances, it wouldn't change a thing in my book. If the star of the dub stinks, the dub itself stinks, plain and simple.

Tylor is a very difficult character to get right, but that characterization is utterly essential to the plot. Tylor is an enigma. You are never certain whether he is a genius or an idiot. For that reason, the voice needs to walk a very fine line (the dub actor walks no such fine line). He just bubbles over with enthusiasm, as if Tylor knows exactly what he's doing. By comparison, the Japanese actor often sounds distracted, almost half-asleep.

My annoyance didn't end there, though. Take the opening song. Please. I'm one who likes to hear anime music dubbed. I loved Pioneer's English theme songs so much, I bought the CD. But in order to have a good song dub, the result has to be a good song. The Tylor theme is translated too literally. It sounds awful in English. There's no rhythm to the lyrics, and it doesn't rhyme where the structure implies it should. Making matters worse, the woman they chose to sing it seems to have trouble carrying a tune.

There's more I could rant about, like the stereotypical voices of the supporting characters, or Azalyn, the 16-year-old princess who sounds 25, but I've already spent more time than I wanted to on this dub.