----------
Sound: 0
I have several problems with this dub. The first being Andrew Love, a voice actor that specializes in deep voices is the voice of Tadashi. Oh, hell no. There's plenty of other voice actors in the Houston area that could fit the bill. Like Adam/Scott Gibbs, for instance.
The second is the sheer fact that Brittney Karbowski and Shelley Calene-Black are used for practically every single female extra. You should never cast two voice actresses with highly distinct voices to play as extras. It's extremely grating to hear the same voice over and over again. There's no variety, texture or taste in that at all.
Thirdly, Clint Bickham is cast as Sui, Hajime AND Satoru. Multicasting is not a problem if the voice actor could differentiate their performances to make them sound distinct, but this? God no. Clint barely sounded different with these three roles; it's even worse with Sui and Satoru because they're father and son.
Fourthly, going back to Brittney, not only is she practically cast as every female extra, but her performance of Chitose was absolutely HORRENDOUS! It is, quite honestly, the WORST attempt at a male kid voice performed by a female. Hell, Brittney's male roles in other dubs (Black Star in Soul Eater, for instance) are kind of bad, too. The thing is, Brittney's voice just isn't suited for male roles, kid or teen. Doesn't help that one of the male teen extras (He's one of Hajime's lackeys, if I recall correctly) was voiced by Britteny as well, and honestly? It sounds like a female trying too hard to sound like a male. If anything, it sounded like an older woman more than anything else.
-----------------
Story: 7
Art: 7
Character: 7
Enjoyment: 1
Overall: 4
-------------------
Conclusion: Special A is a good anime if it had better voice acting; something it obviously doesn't have. While the acting is fine, the horrendous casting choices mentioned above makes it impossible for me to rate it higher than a 0. Special A is one of Sentai Filmworks's worst dubs. Only reason why I finished the dub is because I'd rather understand the context by ear than read subtitles. That, and I don't like the Japanese language. Either way, I won't recommend the dub to anyone that's new to the show. If you're ok with subs, it's better to just watch it subbed.
