I agree. Petrea Burchard will always be the voice of Ryoko to me. While I do like Ai Orikasa (especially the way she says Teennchiii! when she wants attention) Petrea Burchard's voice just seems to fit the character better.

And I agree with your friend, zxr. I love the English dub of Tenchi. All the voices are great. I even like Ayeka's voice a lot, even though many people complain about it. And I definitely prefer Mihoshi's English voice. Maybe it's because I watched it in English first, but the Japanese voices just seem off to me.

First Mihoshi definitely surpasses the second. Tenchi in Tokyo's sub-par character wasn't helped by a new ditzier VA - though to be fair, I'm sure that's how the voice director told her to act.

I love both casts, but I think my primary is English.

You know even though Mihoshi's VA was different for TiT and OVA3, she did a much better job in TiT at not sounding like she was completely retarded and on helium, i mean i knew she was different, but you could tell she was trying, lol

and by worse you mean *DUN DUN DUN* OVA 3, lol

Well, on the subject of a replacement Ryoko - I still believe funimation could have tried a little harder to get Ms. Burchard to return as the blue-haired psycho we all know and love. Texas IS far from Los Angeles, you know... and anime dubbing isn't paid too well. Their replacement, Mona Marshall? Horrid in GXP - however, once she learned she was to play the part in OVA 3, she demanded resources for references. I don't know whether she studied the Japanese version or Ms. Burchard's original english performance, but she much improved - and boy does she know how to go crazy! Still not my primary choice, but definitely a suitable replacement.

I wonder how many episodes they would get through each time at the studio? Funimation should have paid for her flights or something.

While I agree Mona Marshall couldn't touch Petrea, I admired her effort as it progressed as well.

I posted something like that on ANB's blog, except that FUNI can find good replacements, case and point, DBZ, now while i know your thinking it cant be that hard to find those guys replacements, i'm a huge fan of DBZ, The only thing that let me on AT ALL, to notice different VA's to Vegeta and Nappa was the "over 9000" line, so i looked it up and low and behold, Mr. Sabat replaced Vegeta, but he was soo good that even a veteran fan such as myself thought he was the original, i think FUNI didnt anticipate Petrea not making it and kinda freaking (They had the material for english all ready and dates set and BAM petrea's not here) so they went to the only person that they knew had done the roll and that was Mona Marshall, while she did a D average job on the character, i know if they wanted a replacement for Petrea, they could find one that could shock us (or get the original, lol)

I like Mona Marshall on other series. I really liked the voice she gave Lucciola on Last Exile. But she's horrid as Ryoko. Though I do admit that she did improve since GXP. On GXP she sounded like a valley girl. When I heard her on the OVA I thought it was Washu's VA doing her too. So I guess that's an improvement? She still doesn't sound like Ryoko. I don't bother with the English dub of OVA 3.

Like i said, if (and when) they get the rights to the first 2 OVA's, we will either hear a redub of everything (and it will be good, as stated above) OR they will re-dub OVA3 for "correctness"

i'm leaning more towards the first just because thats what they usually do, however, i'm hopeful it will be really good, not as good as the original, but better then OVA3

Mona Marshall is a good VA, dont get me wrong, but shes no Ryoko, GXP ep 17 was a joke, Ryoko was Izzy, Aeka was a either a brit or Australian, Sasami turned into Mihoshi, and Washu sounded like she had the nasal cold from HELL, suffice to say even though Tenchi's va was much deeper it was at the very least acceptable