With North American distribution coming up for Hayao Miyazaki’s latest, Ponyo on the Cliff, inevitably we were going to get word of American voice talent for the dub track.
GhibliWorld is reporting that Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin, Betty White, Fankie Jonas, Noah Cyrys and Cloris Leachman will all be part of the English dub. Pretty amazing cast, really, and certainly one of the most star-studded voice tracks even among the well-cast dubs of past Miyazaki films. Like any good cinema elitist I detest the dub, but I’ve listened more attentively to the Miyazaki dubs than I have with any others, simply because of the caliber of involved talent.
Fortunately, Disney has been good about releasing both the dub and subtitled Japanese versions of Miyazaki’s films, so you’ve got a good chance of seeing the real thing without having to wait for DVD.