http://blog.willow-johnson.net/ en-us Nucleus CMS v3.32 � Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://blog.willow-johnson.net//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://blog.willow-johnson.net/ http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=68
I know it's been forever since I last updated (namely just Willow's birthday but still), but I've been hella busy in the last couple of months that I hadn't really had the chance to update. That being said, let's get to the main point behind this post.

After a much needed vacation and spending time with friends (namely my best friend) here in my happy place, I've had the chance to reflect and think about a lot of things. Seeing as my life has taken a much more serious and committed direction both career and academic-wise, I'm finding less and less time for updating this site on a regular basis than when I first started this site almost six years ago. As much as WJ.net has been a fun practice website to keep my web authoring skills sharp over the years, I'm feeling that the time has come to move on to other things and will only update this website only when I need to update the scripts and other backend stuff, or when Willow does in fact come out with new voicing projects, but I will otherwise not be adding any new pages to this site in the future and will for the most part leave it as is.

I've also had the chance to sit down and catch up with Willow over a drink while I was here in town, and she too has--for the most part--moved on to other things as well. She will continue voicing new projects as soon as new roles come her way, but for the time being has other things going on in her life--job-wise--to keep her pretty occupied. So given the circumstances, I think my decision to update the site with less frequency makes all the more sense.

The good news is I have no intentions of shutting this site down since it's still pretty useful to me whenever I need to learn any new skills for another client's website, or if I just need to update myself on the latest web authoring trends. Also, this site is my baby. As any other webmaster who prides themselves with the work that they do, it's hard for me to let go of some of my best work, or in this case, a website that has taught me so much about what it means to be a web developer and the progress I've made since my earlier web authoring days in high school. It's even been a determining factor in deciding with what I want to do for the rest of my life.

As for future plans for this website,I am planning on revamping the entire website sometime either later this year or next year when I get a new computer and upgrade all of my software. Right now I'll only be updating the overall format of the website, namely the backend stuff such as databases and scripts; I also have a new layout in the works which I will use later on in the revamp. For the most part I'm just going to leave it as a regular fansite that provides information on Willow's voice work, but I will still keep the fanlisting active at least, and I'll keep updating it if more entries come in.

Anyway, this is it for now. When I come around to revamping the site sometime later in the year or early next year, trust me, you'll know!

Take care everyone! And thank you so much for supporting this site for as long as you have. ;)

The Webmaster]]> Updates http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=68 Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:54:56 -0600 http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=66
]]> Willow Johnson http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=66 Sun, 3 Apr 2011 00:03:00 -0600 http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=63
But...April Fools! ;)

Other than that, have a wonderful day!! And if you do manage to prank someone today, feel free to share in the comments below! :)

- The Webmaster]]> April Fools http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=63 Fri, 1 Apr 2011 10:49:24 -0600 http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=59 Inuyasha Kanketsuhen is probably nearing completion at this point, I felt like doing a review of the original series before I go on to review the dub of the final series when it gets released. At least this way we can make note of any changes in delivery, especially considering that it's been years since all of the voice actors last visited these characters (this includes the original Japanese voice actors as well). ;)

Normally I would start at the beginning of the series, but given that Kikyou's story with Inuyasha doesn't begin with episode 1, I felt it was more appropriate to begin with the episode that chronicles her history with him before the main events of the series.

Since Willow's portrayal of the character is considerably less complicated to describe than Noriko's, I'll begin with her first.

Willow Johnson

One thing that is consistent with Willow's portrayal of character is that she depicts Kikyou as an understandably melancholy character. When we are first introduced to this character's backstory in the flashbacks, it is made explicitly clear by the writer that Kikyou was considerably unhappy with the direction her life was taking. In the spring special (Meguriau mae no Sadame no Koiuta), this is further emphasised in the scenes where Kikyou looks yearningly at a group of young girls buying make-up from a merchant while passing through a market place, and again when she colours her lips using the rouge Inuyasha gave her earlier in the episode. In the scene where she complains to Inuyasha about her life's circumstances, Willow delivers these lines using a slow speech pattern with a hint of sadness in her voice. Despite Kikyou being a strong miko with extraordinary spiritual power, she is still a 17-year-old girl with a strong desire to experience the same pleasures in life as other girls her age.

Another thing that Willow does really well is using her voice to emphasise Kikyou as a mature character for her age. Normally in anime we would expect 17-year-old girls to have really high-pitched or girly voices with an outgoing, extroverted personality, but this isn't the case with Kikyou. Given that she lives a life that's rife with battle to the point that any indication of emotion could be used as a weakness against her, it's only logical that Willow's voice reflect this aspect of her character. Whenever Willow's Kikyou expresses herself, she's always so composed and articulate. She isn't overly expressive (except for when the character is angered), nor is she explosive in her emotions like Kagome tends to be. She instead remains very poised, even in threatening situations. At best, Willow will assert her character's status as a powerful miko by projecting a more forceful voice, but she never explodes with rage and emotion, even someone her character cares about is in danger. (This won't be true until she gets resurrected anyway).

When it comes to portraying sarcasm, Willow is exceptionally good at being mocking without exaggerating her delivery. When Tsubaki teases Kikyou with the possibility of falling in love with a man, Willow's Kikyou mocks her, but does so with subtlety in her voice. Ironically, when Willow's Kikyou realises she has fallen in love in the second half of the special, she sounds warm and affectionate to know that her feelings are fully reciprocated, but again she does this with subtlety.



Noriko Hidaka

In the case of Noriko Hidaka (the original voice of Kikyou), she follows a similar portrayal to that of Willow in that she hits all the key points in the character's development, but she does a lot more in her delivery.

One significant difference I noticed right away between Noriko and Willow when I saw both versions of the series, is that Noriko is considerably more expressive in the role than Willow is. While Willow uses a more consistent voice in her portrayal, Noriko is by contrast more versatile with her voice, which in itself is quite fascinating given the dark nature of this character. Her versatility, however, may in fact be due to the fact Noriko admitted herself that this was a very difficult role for her to play. Contrary to the characters Noriko is known to portray in anime, she admitted that Kikyou was a challenge for the fact that her personality is the polar opposite of her own. As such, she had to remind herself a lot during her recording sessions to "be more emo."

Ironically, her versatility worked really well for fleshing out this character's emotions, even if she did this unintentionally. In the original flashbacks that eventually made up the spring special, Noriko did not use her usual Kikyou voice. For anyone who has heard Noriko Hidaka as Kikyou knows that it's very characteristic of her to depict Kikyou with a mature and aloof sounding voice, a characteristic she very much shares with Willow. However, when we were shown the original flashbacks, she exchanged her "mature Kikyou" voice for one that is more youthful sounding. As a result, Kikyou sounded appropriate for her age and it invoked a feeling of innocence that was lost once Naraku tricked her into thinking Inuyasha had betrayed her trust. Given that Kikyou's past was never explored in greater detail at the time, it felt appropriate for Noriko to depict Kikyou as a somewhat inexperienced young miko.

This changed of course when the spring special was made. After reanimating some key scenes and fleshing out the story more to explore Kikyou's character in greater detail, Noriko reverted back to her mature Kikyou voice. In reciting the same lines she had previously recorded, like Willow, she slowed down her speech pattern considerably. Instead of depicting a young innocent miko who was unhappy with her life, she depicted a mature young woman who was burdened by her life's circumstances. So in changing the pitch and pace of her voice, she created an entirely different feel all together from the first time that she delivered those same lines.

One thing that Noriko is always been particularly good at throughout her career is portraying emotion. For the most part, Noriko's Kikyou has a deadpan and monotonous speech pattern when interacting with others in the series. However, when the role calls for it, Noriko can be quite emotional and passionate in her delivery. When portraying sarcasm for example, Noriko's Kikyou openly mocks Tsubaki for her teasing, almost in a manner that suggests amusement. When portraying love, in contrast with Willow's warm affectionate delivery, Noriko's Kikyou sounds more genuinely enamored when Inuyasha begins to propose to her in the boat dock scene. In the part where she says "mouii, soreijou wa nanimo iuna" (enough, don't say any more), she sounds completely swept off her feet to the point of sounding like she really wants to kiss him. (Maybe that was kinda the point). And lastly, when portraying Kikyou in a state of happiness, Noriko is considerably less deadpan and much more expressive in her voice. Occasionally she will even raise the pitch of her voice to sound more girly (honestly she sounds more like Akane Tendou when she does this) in order to further emphasise Kikyou's newfound feelings. ]]> Inuyasha http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=59 Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:38:30 -0600 http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=57
Although the Animax dub actress is rather flat in her delivery compared to Willow (who's more expressive and uses emotion in her voice), I do think it's interesting that both actresses depict Kikyou using a more melancholy tone of voice. What do you guys think?

I honestly think the Animax dub isn't bad at all, but I do like the quality of the Ocean dub better.





]]> Fun Facts http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=57 Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:45:24 -0600 http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=52
As far back as I can remember, when Inuyasha was starting to pick up here in the West (and this was before Viz even licenced it for official US release), fan translators often romanised Kikyou's name with a 'u' at the end of her name, and this was the spelling most people went with at the time. When Viz acquired the rights to the series and started publishing an official English-translated version of the manga, fans of the Viz release became familiar with their romanisation of Kikyo's name without the 'u.' As a result there has been considerable debate as to which is the actual correct spelling, and not everyone who engages in this conversation is qualified to answer this question.

So which version then, IS the correct spelling? Well, as someone who's been studying Japanese writing and grammar for eight years and excels in the English language, I can safely say BOTH are correct, and here's why:

Kikyo without the 'u' follows the English standard for romanising Japanese words and names, whereas Kikyou with the 'u' is the actual correct transliteration of the kanji spelling of her name.

To help explain this better, I have a more detailed explanation with pictures below:

Kikyou furigana

As most people know, Japan has three writing systems consisting of kanji, hiragana, and katakana. Kanji is derived from the Chinese language and each character forms a single word, whereas hiragana and katakana are strictly syllabary characters designed for phonetic spelling of words.

In the above image, Kikyou's name is a compound kanji which uses the on'youmi ("Chinese") reading instead of the kun'youmi (Japanese) reading. To clarify that the compound kanji is pronounced as "KI-KYOU" and not as anything else, furigana (kanji w/kana) is sometimes used.

Kikyou hiragana

With the hiragana clarifying the pronunciation of Kikyou's name, we are now more able to easily decipher the spelling using the Roman alphabet. Once we've matched up each kana with a letter counterpart, the end result is 'Kikyou.' To someone who is thoroughly knowledgeable of the Japanese language, they will know that the 'u' at the end of Kikyou's name isn't actually pronounced and instead serves as a marker to indicate that the 'o' is a long vowel and not a short one like in 'kikyo.' In Japanese this is especially important as it will make a huge difference in pronunciation, and 'kikyo' and 'kikyou' do have a slightly different pronunciation for this reason. Kikyo in Japanese is written as 起居 meaning behaviour, which is totally different from 桔梗 that means balloon flower.

All this being said, the question now is 'how does the English language then determine how to romanise Japanese words and names?' I honestly wish I knew the answer to this question, but I hypothesise that they romanise Japanese (as well as any other languages) based on how an English speaker would read and pronounce words. For example, to an English speaker completely unfamiliar with the Japanese language, they would see the "you" in "kikyou" and may pronounce it as 'kee-kyuu' which is not correct. To avoid any ambiguities with pronunciation, English translators will typically drop the 'u' from words containing a long vowel of "ou" to get it as close to the original pronunciation as possible. To emphasise that the 'o' is a long vowel, some translators will sometimes spell Kikyou's name with a bar over the 'o' (Kikyō), or even more rarely, may include an 'h' at the end (Kikyoh) to make the 'o' sound more pronounced like it's Japanese counterpart.

So what does this all boil down to? It doesn't matter if you see it romanised as "Kikyo" or "Kikyou," the point is both count as correct spelling based on set standards found in both the Japanese and English languages. Whichever spelling you choose to personally use becomes a matter of preference, and it doesn't make it any more or less correct than someone who uses an alternative spelling. The difference between 'Kikyo' and "Kikyou" in English is about the same as someone who uses the American spelling of "color" instead of the more British "colour." It doesn't mean that "color" is incorrect for not following the British standard, it just simply means that America uses it's own standard for spelling within the country. The same concept sort of applies here with English romanisation.

Hopefully this detailed explanation will put the whole spelling debate to rest, and if anyone tries to say otherwise, link them back to this post. I promise you, they will learn something new by the time they get done reading this! ;)]]> Fun Facts http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=52 Fri, 21 May 2010 13:43:01 -0600 http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=49 Kelly Sheridan confirmed on her facebook that Inuyasha: Kanketsu-hen is in fact being dubbed right now.

It is unknown at the moment as to whether or not Willow will be returning as Kikyou, but I am on it! I do have a gut feeling she will be since Kikyou only has six episodes total, and this isn't including any of the flashbacks. So she *should* be able to fit it into her schedule. :)

When I do get official word on Willow returning, I will post it on here.

Stay tuned!

[Edit]: I heard back from Willow, and she is returning as Kikyou! She starts her first recording session later today. How very exciting! :)]]> News http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=49 Fri, 14 May 2010 08:27:17 -0600 http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=47
It's been a while since I last updated this. But, after one hell of a stressful four months, I am in dire need of a REAL vacation. So I have decided to join my mates on a road trip to North Carolina to attend Animazement 2010, my first con since 2008. (I'll once again be donning my trademarked union jack shirt for this con, but only because my mates asked me to, lol).

Among the guests that are going to be present there include Richard Ian Cox and Toshifumi Yoshida who have both worked on the dubbing of the original Inuyasha series. So hopefully I'll be coming back with more dub news since I'm sure that's bound to come up at their panels. So far there's been no word from Willow herself on potential future involvement with the project, though she did say a few months back that if the new series does get dubbed she's sure she'll be a part of it.

Speaking of Willow, sadly she will not be attending Animazement, but Noriko Hidaka (Japanese Kikyou) will definitely be there for anyone who's interested. I'm definitely going to be attending her panels since I've always wanted to meet Hidaka-san in person and she's actually the main reason I decided to go to this con. As a voice artist, she's bloody amazing and there are so many questions I'd like to ask her, especially since I feel they'll help me with my compare and contrast essay on both her's and Willow's portrayal of Kikyou.

I very much doubt I'll have the same kind of one-on-one time with her that I was fortunate enough to have with Willow two years ago, but I'm confident I'll have enough material to cover. ^_^

The bonus is that Kappei Yamaguchi (Japanese Inuyasha) is going to be there as well, and he was also at Otakon 2008 when Willow attended a con for the first time since 2001. It'll be interesting to hear what both he and Richard will have to say about the character that they both voice. I'm sure they'll both have a slightly different point of the character, especially given the different reception Inuyasha gets in Japan as opposed to the US.

The rest of the time though, I'll most likely be bouncing off of walls with fangirly joy after meeting Hidaka-san. (Yes I'm a huge fan of Hidaka-san, you can all shut up now). >.>

Either way, roll on end of May! :)]]> Dubbing http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=47 Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:17:31 -0600 http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=45
Happy Birthday Willow!]]> Willow Johnson http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=45 Sat, 3 Apr 2010 00:09:12 -0600 http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=38 here.

One thing I am happy about though, is that Inu/Kag fans can now be satisfied with this, and I don't have to hear the whole "OMG! NO KISS I'M SO MAD!" like I did back when the manga originally ended in 2007. That was quite a riot back then, but fortunately this evens out the score a bit. I think it's only fair at least, especially since Inu/Kik got considerably more snogging scenes in the anime than what was actually given in the manga. :)



So...dub news now!It hasn't been confirmed yet, but Kelly Sheridan (Sango) mentioned to a fan on her facebook a while back that things are looking positive for Kanketsu-hen. She didn't specify what she meant by this, but it could mean we may be seeing a dub soon especially with the success that the series has had in the US thus far. It also looks like the original English cast may be brought back into the recording studio, but again this is not confirmed. I will have more news posted on this though as soon as it becomes available.

As to whether or not Willow ends up coming back as Kikyou will also depend on her schedule, but I'm pretty sure she'll be able to fit that in since Kikyou only lasts for six episodes in the new series, and is only a major character for two. All in all, Willow won't have very much to record with Kikyou's very brief role in the story, which makes me very sad. Kikyou was really the only reason I watched Inuyasha in the first place. :'(

Anyway, this is it for now. Again I'll keep you guys posted as soon as more information becomes available. In the mean time, look forward to my first post on Noriko Hidaka vs Willow Johnson's take on living Kikyou, coming up soon!

Take care now! ;)


]]> Inuyasha http://blog.willow-johnson.net/index.php?itemid=38 Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:27:30 -0600