Added in the Translation

One thing I've noticed with both Voltron and Robotech: the American voice directors and writers liked a lot more dialogue and narration than the Japanese creators.  Sometimes it seems to be because the American producers thought the kids needed more explanation; other times it's clear that they wanted to explain, that, well, yes, the characters are looking at grave markers, but, really, the people the commemorate aren't dead, they're safe in another dimension.

And sometimes, the silence of the Japanese original just seems to make Americans uncomfortable.

I've noticed this to a major degree in Southern Cross and Dairugger XV.  During battle scenes in the originals, long sequences of fighting go by with just sound effects and music (and the occasional "UWAAAAA!" death screams--is there an anime seiyu school of screaming out there?!).  But in the American versions, there's suddenly voiceovers from involved characters filling every last open space.  Sometimes they're just ensuring the episode will not be censored--"There goes another robot shipped manned by robots in which no one was actually killed because they were all robots and if they weren't robots they made it to their escape ships and made it to exile in another galazy."  The rest of the time . . .  I don't know.  Big gun on space station fires.  "Fire the Magna Laser."  Enemy ship explodes.  "Only a few more ships to go."

One of the things about anime--they know how to do destruction.  At the risk of getting poetic and sounding a little looney, there's a certain elegance--especially in the Studio Nue "Itano's Flying Circus" stuff--to battles accompanied only by music.  The same sort of scenes play in live action Japanese television and cinema.  If you've ever seen some of the Jidai Geki (period films--most of the ones I've seen involve Samurai) with long scenes of soldiers on both sides dying. . .   There's a cultural significance that Westerners might be missing, maybe.

Once, I was at a friend's and a group of us were watching YuYu Hakusho.  Some of us watched anime regularly, some of us were new.  There was a moment after a tournament particulalrly important to the plot and all of our heroes are standing in front of a tree and the cherry blossoms suddenly start blowing down.  One of the anime virgins said "Oh, that's manly, posing in front of the pink flowers."  When, well, sakura petals have certain significance--being representative of the fleetingness of life, and all.  To a native Japanese viewer, my guess is it looks pretty macho.

Here's another example--an American viewer sees a character dress all in white.  He's a good guy and all, right?  70 years of Westersn can be wrong.  A Japanese viewer might immediately associate him with death.