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Ghost Stories and the legacy of Steven Foster.

Duel Masters never had any heart in it to begin

I don't think you realize that, at least in the case of Ghost Stories, Aniplex wanted it to be a gag dub, because it sold extremely poorly and no one cared about it because it was crap.

This just sounds like a lot of people trying to justify a bad dub, either by saying "Well the original sucks, who cares!" or " Toru Tsunemitsu personally decided to make it this way", neither of which are very convincing, especially without a source to back up said claims.

ThatGuyWhoLikesThings wrote:

I don't think you realize that, at least in the case of Ghost Stories, Aniplex wanted it to be a gag dub, because it sold extremely poorly and no one cared about it because it was crap.

Do you have a source for this claim? Because I find it unlikely a Japanese companiy would actually say something like that and be so disrespectful. Especially in Ghost Stories case where it was actually a big franchise in Japan. The original light-novel series was one of the best-selling ones of the time and it spawned a lot of movie, manga, and even video game adaptions. And of course, the anime.

Considering it was a kids anime, the excuse of "it sold poorly" would be the first clue that that statement is BS. Kids anime is never expected to sell disks, it's made to promote the source material or merchandise. So this sounds like another baseless rumor. "It was approved by the original Japanese creator!" is one of the most overblown statements that gets thrown around on the internet in discussions of controversial dub decisions. At best it usually means the company just signed off control to an American licencor, but people always try to use it in a context like the original creator hand-picked each little decision and oversaw the entire production, like they would take time out of their busy schedule to worry about an American dub of the anime adaption of their work, which is absurd when you think about it.

This just sounds like a lot of people trying to justify a bad dub, either by saying "Well the original sucks, who cares!" or " Toru Tsunemitsu personally decided to make it this way", neither of which are very convincing, especially without a source to back up said claims.

Has that experience changed the way you look at some aspects of localization?

But for a show like Ghost Stories... it was a little show that we had licensed. It was a business decision, it was “it's a little show from a studio, kinda didn't do very well, what if we just give it to Steven and say "knock yourself out, just go crazy". And we hired a brilliant cast, and we made it up as we went along and it was so wonderful; it was great that we got Best Dub of the Year from Anime Insider, which I thought was really… well, you go to bed happy. And then there are shows like Gilgamesh that are not an easy sell, where it's really slow, like it's lost on Quaaludes. But people fell in love with Gilgamesh and went nuts for it, and that one was another one of those direct translations, where we didn't change anything at all. But the Ghost Stories thing was fun, it was a wild experiment. If they ever find another show where they say “go wild with it”, then sure, we'll go ahead. But because I'm a writer, I can respect being faithful to the original source. I mean, I would want someone to be a good steward of my work. But the Ghost Stories studio was like “yeah, do whatever you want to it, we don't care” which is kind of funny.

First and foremost, you really need to stop thinking of the subtitle translation as the "original script." A subtitle script is an approximation of what's being said in Japanese. Japanese and English are very different languages, and the translators and editors who wrote that subtitle script have made all sorts of judgement calls, and thought of all manner of subjective solutions to various puzzles along the way. English is a very pliable language, and there are a boatload of different ways to say the almost anything, sometimes adding nuance or implying things that weren't possible in the original Japanese. Conversely, a lot of nuance can get lost just by transcribing the original Japanese dialogue into text form. There is no absolutely pure way of translating something, much as some of us might like to think otherwise.

Full-out repurposings like Shinchan and Ghost Hunt Stories are few and far between. It's always a tricky judgement call when it's appropriate to completely "throw out the script" and rework a show, but my general criteria are:

The original producer/creator is OK with what you're doing.

The show would make little sense, or be otherwise unappealing, if dubbed "straight".

You have a coherent method to make the show more appealing to more people than it would've been otherwise.

You make the original subtitled version available, even if only online

but people always try to use it in a context like the original creator hand-picked each little decision and oversaw the entire production, like they would take time out of their busy schedule to worry about an American dub of the anime adaption of their work, which is absurd when you think about it.

I just wanted to add that to the excellent information that mdo7 gave.

ThatGuyWhoLikesThings wrote:

I don't think you realize that, at least in the case of Ghost Stories, Aniplex wanted it to be a gag dub, because it sold extremely poorly and no one cared about it because it was crap.

Do you have a source for this claim? Because I find it unlikely a Japanese companiy would actually say something like that and be so disrespectful. Especially in Ghost Stories case where it was actually a big franchise in Japan. The original light-novel series was one of the best-selling ones of the time and it spawned a lot of movie, manga, and even video game adaptions. And of course, the anime.

Considering it was a kids anime, the excuse of "it sold poorly" would be the first clue that that statement is BS. Kids anime is never expected to sell disks, it's made to promote the source material or merchandise. So this sounds like another baseless rumor. "It was approved by the original Japanese creator!" is one of the most overblown statements that gets thrown around on the internet in discussions of controversial dub decisions. At best it usually means the company just signed off control to an American licencor, but people always try to use it in a context like the original creator hand-picked each little decision and oversaw the entire production, like they would take time out of their busy schedule to worry about an American dub of the anime adaption of their work, which is absurd when you think about it.

This just sounds like a lot of people trying to justify a bad dub, either by saying "Well the original sucks, who cares!" or " Toru Tsunemitsu personally decided to make it this way", neither of which are very convincing, especially without a source to back up said claims.

I couldn't find any confirmation from Aniplex themselves, though I doubt it's possible nowadays, as it was so long ago, so I went with the next best thing: vocal confirmation from one of the voice actors who worked on the show, from a con back in 2007.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZfhrhM09zI

And I never said that the Japanese overlooked the actual process of the dub, because that doesn't really make any sense. Just that the Japanese more or less said, "Do whatever you want, as long as it sells, and if that means making a gag dub then w/e".

And the Ghost Stories novels might've been popular, but that doesn't mean the anime was. If it was, the dub probably would've been a lot more faithful, to say the least.


EDIT: And I see mdo7 came up with something else.

Renaisance Otaku wrote:

Ialso love the constant defense that "Ghost Stories was an insignificant kids show, so that makes it okay". Suuuuure it does. Yeah we hae the subs, but would'e been too hard to put a faithful dub on it as well when you know it'll be controversal, no matter how minor the show.

Maybe it doesn't, but the fact that the Japanese company said it was okay to do whatever is a good enough excuse in my book. In fact, I've heard rumors that the Japanese producers liked the English version better when ADV showed it to them. ADV might've pleased some demographic sliver of purist fans who wanted a faithful Ghost Stories dub, but if they had done a faithful dub, they wouldn't have gotten as much attention and sales as they did for the series. I for one wouldn't have rushed out to buy the individual discs of GS as they came out if not for the comedic dub.

And I never said that the Japanese overlooked the actual process of the dub, because that doesn't really make any sense. Just that the Japanese more or less said, "Do whatever you want, as long as it sells, and if that means making a gag dub then w/e".

And the Ghost Stories novels might've been popular, but that doesn't mean the anime was. If it was, the dub probably would've been a lot more faithful, to say the least.

@Fedora-San: Didn't you even bother reading my posts or watch the video at all??

You sound like you're denying the evidence I put and people putting additional evidence to back up my support and ThatGuyWhoLikesThings have said. We backed it up with evidence, and you denied it.

What evidence? You're hung up on what some forum moderator "may have heard a rumor of perhaps, maybe". Outside of that the only evidence your side has posted I addressed. A voice actor, assuming we believe what they say as truth and not just a lie, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt which is more than one probably should, saying "do whatever you want". Again, that is in no way credible evidence to support the original claim of "wanted it to be a gag dub, because it no one cared about it because it was crap"

Given what I get when I look up the series on Japansese sites and databases, to say "no one cared" would be a bit hard to prove with all the merchandise, doujinshi/fanart, and positive comments for it I see. Call me skeptical if you must, I just find the statement with no proof behind it suspect.

What evidence? ...

Given what I get when I look up the series on Japansese sites and databases, to say "no one cared" would be a bit hard to prove with all the merchandise, doujinshi/fanart, and positive comments for it I see. Call me skeptical if you must, I just find the statement with no proof behind it suspect.

That's a highly, highly subjective decision, and when Todd Haberkorn was trying to defend Funi's Sgt. Frog dub on one of the other anime boards, the argument came up of whether dubbing is the "Artistic expression" of the company, or whether the company's job is to shut up and convert the language, with as reasonable and in-character a context as possible.
Some fans thought, "Just converting it?...Man, that's boring!", and others pointed out, yes, if you put it like that, translation dubbing is a "boring" job of just rewriting other people's words into the equivalent context, but anything OUTSIDE of that isn't in the job description.