TOKYO —

KAT-TUN member Jin Akanishi, 23, will do the voiceover for American actor Emile Hirsch, 23, in the Japanese-language version of “Speed Racer.” Akanishi said, “This is my first dubbing experience. It’s an honor to work for the creators of the ‘Matrix’ series and for such an entertaining move.”

“Speed Racer,” in both subtitled and dubbed versions, will be released on July 8 in Japan. It opened to lukewarm reviews in the U.S. last week, trailing “Iron Man” at the box office.

7 Comments

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  telecasterplayer at 12:02 PM JST - 13th May

  AWESOME!! Now, it can be a dismal, money-losing failure in TWO languages!

  Akanishi said, “This is my first dubbing experience. It’s an honor to work for the creators of the ‘Matrix’ series and for such an entertaining move.”

  'Guess he hasn't seen it yet.. like most everyone else in the movie-going world.

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  Altria at 12:50 PM JST - 13th May

  Anyone who wanted to see the movie has probably downloaded and watched the 'dubbed' version from the internets already.

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  Hughgarse at 01:19 PM JST - 13th May

  the previews look toilet already without dubbing..

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  Noripinhead at 03:49 PM JST - 13th May

  That's ironic. The original cartoon "Speed Racer" was dubbed from Japanese into English with New York accents. Remember Snake of the Car Acrobatic Team? Probably not. They were speaking super fast to convey all the "compact Japanese ideas" into English fairly accurately. Perhaps it's fitting that a member of KAT-TUN will do the dubbing (KAT-TUN is intoned the same way as the word "cartoon").

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  VoXman at 02:07 AM JST - 14th May

  Unless you're over forty, you really have no clue how incredibly popular that cartoon was in the 1970's US. With todays anime and pixar productions, I doubt they'll get the feel of the original grainy Mach Go GO!!!!

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  WhiteHawk at 02:19 AM JST - 14th May

  Took the kids to see the movie this past weekend (their insistence). It wasn't as bad as I expected, and it was true to the spirit of the original cartoon.

  But that's not exactly a compliment. A few years ago, I ran across an old Speed Racer cartoon on late-night TV. It was the first time I had seen one since I was a kid. What I remembered to be a super-cool cartoon turned out to be horrible. So when I say the movie is faithful to the spirit, brace yourself for a cheese overdose.

  Naturally, the kids loved it.

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  L4dymercury at 11:00 AM JST - 14th May

  To know that Jin Akanishi of KAT-TUN is dubbing this movie makes me laugh so hard.

  Must be good to be a Johnny.

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