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Answerman - Why Don't Anime DVDs Have Other Languages?


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Pepperidge



Joined: 13 Sep 2003
Posts: 1104
Location: British Columbia, Canada
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 12:09 pm Reply with quote
I've pointed this out before, but Nozomi is now including French subtitles on their latest upcoming releases.
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Triltaison



Joined: 03 Jul 2011
Posts: 717
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 12:46 pm Reply with quote
Bandai's release of Saber Marionette J was one of those rare birds that had a Spanish audio track, but I don't believe it had Spanish subtitles. I also have a DVD of a couple of episodes of Kimba put out by Genius that had a Spanish dub.
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Nodz



Joined: 29 Dec 2013
Posts: 523
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 1:19 pm Reply with quote
Does Answerman really has facts on the answer he is giving or is it just some guessing? Because all what he answered could have been answered by anybody who doesn"t have a clear answer but who wants to pretend that he knows exactly what he says.
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PurpleWarrior13



Joined: 05 Sep 2009
Posts: 2024
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 1:31 pm Reply with quote
FUNimation included Spanish audio for their short-lived Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Uncut releases, and even released Spanish-language DVDs for the Latin American market. They didn't last too long though. Their Slayers Season 1 DVD had a bonus feature where you could watch select scenes from Episode 1 in various languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, etc), but that's not really the same thing.
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WingKing



Joined: 27 Apr 2015
Posts: 617
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 1:35 pm Reply with quote
Browsing through Rightstuf also shows several Aniplex releases with Spanish subs, like Durarara and SAO. And Viz's recent Death Note Blu-Ray releases have both subs and dubs in Spanish, French, and Portuguese (I assume those are existing localizations from other regions that Viz acquired).

Good question, though. That was something I'd been kind of curious about myself.
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Shenl742



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1524
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 1:56 pm Reply with quote
Nodz wrote:
Does Answerman really has facts on the answer he is giving or is it just some guessing? Because all what he answered could have been answered by anybody who doesn"t have a clear answer but who wants to pretend that he knows exactly what he says.


As the blurb at the bottom of column says, Justin's actually worked in the anime industry for about 20 years (I think his first industry job was in Central Park Media if I remember?), actually founded this very site, and even today does disc-authoring contract work. I think it's safe to say that he has a lot of actual first-hand experience.


Last edited by Shenl742 on Mon Aug 08, 2016 3:40 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 2:15 pm Reply with quote
This practice contrasts notably with many of the R2 releases available over here. French and German subtitles and menu translations are quite commonplace, given that licensing arrangements occasionally make DVD masters for multiple countries a convenience.
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Silver4000



Joined: 07 Aug 2015
Posts: 181
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 3:01 pm Reply with quote
With me being from Portugal. Animated movies, normal movies, videogames, all have the option of more languages and subtitles. But lets say, if I bought a game from the UK (which happens every time I buy a game), most of the time that option won't exist, because everyone there speaks english, and while in Portugal we don't dub regular movies like in every other country, or games (only sony exclusives, or kids games are dubbed) we end up then having a lot of other options in terms of audio (and subtitles).

So if you ever saw something like PAL6 PAL7 PAL12 or more, that means that there's 6/7/12/etc languages available. But in countries that tend to dub their own stuff, you rarely will get that option.

So yeah, I would say that its more of a country thing, and since that there are more languages in Europe than America, the probability of finding anime with any other language than English/Japanese is pretty low. Although I really doubt that anime would have multiple options like movies and games.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5294
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 3:32 pm Reply with quote
Sometimes releases in the UK have a French audio language. Some even have French and no English.
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peno



Joined: 06 Jul 2016
Posts: 349
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 3:38 pm Reply with quote
I live in small European country and getting any anime here is actually pretty hard and the few who got it here usually only have Japanese and our language option, though there were some releases which has English option as well or instead of Japanese (the first Spirited Away DVD release in my country was infamous by only including English and our dub and subs (ironically done for Japanese version, so they did not fit with what was said in English dub) and the company who released them got a lot of backlash for that and were forced to make re-release with Japanese audio track). The only exceptions to this rule I remember were Sony anime DVDs and Blu-Rays, which included lots of audio and subtitle options. Still, most of the anime were limited to only one language. And as I looked at neighbouring countries, the same is usually true there as well.
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SquadmemberRitsu



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1391
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 3:43 pm Reply with quote
The Sony Universal release of Seraph of the End in Australia, not affiliated with Funimation's release and obviously made for a wide number of international audiences, includes the French and German dub as well as subtitles in a wide number of languages.

Spoiler: The French and German dub suck. Both Japanese and English are much better.
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Polycell



Joined: 16 Jan 2012
Posts: 4623
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 6:38 pm Reply with quote
Pepperidge wrote:
I've pointed this out before, but Nozomi is now including French subtitles on their latest upcoming releases.
Do you have any idea why? Unless they're borrowing from a French publisher that happens to be putting out the same titles, I can't see the Quebec market being large enough to bother, so my first guess is that Canada's done something with their bilingual requirements again. After all, as Justin mentioned, there's no attempt to pander the the United States's far larger Spanish market.
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mangamuscle



Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 2658
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 7:39 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
But it's not clear (to company executives) that doing so is worth the trouble


I think that is the main problem which is to limited to anime only, i.e., I bought the justice league TV series in dvd, which had spanish dubs on most episodes and subtitles in all of them. The very same tv series is divided into three boxsets in bluray, but has no dubs and only the second (wtf!?) has subtitles. Me thinks they are getting lazy or just don't care. There are some discs that I will not buy because they did not bother to include subtitles or an existing spanish dub, but sometimes I will buy it nevertheless since most people that buy region 1 already know english.

Also, at least for spanish dubs, I think is unheard in an anime (or otherwise) for a USA disc distributor to hire a studio to make a dub which is not in english, if any disc has a spanish soundtrack is because some TV broadcaster in latinamerica has already paid for such work and the contract said the owner of the ip would get the rights to said dub.

Also, about the part of not trusting in an external unit doing a good work, there is always a link in the chain of command that no longer knows a foreign language (be it japanese, english, spanish or french), so it is really a about trust, but if no one starts hiring for spanish subtitles, they will never know who is good or not for anime translation.
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Desa



Joined: 07 Mar 2015
Posts: 285
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 7:44 pm Reply with quote
On a mostly unrelated note, this question reminds me of the Legend of Korra disc release, particularly because the foreign language dubs were so amazing. Somehow, they managed to find French, Spanish, and German dub counterparts that fit their roles so perfectly that I wouldn't at all mind rewatching the series in any of the different languages (with subtitles).

It's seriously a voice-casting miracle and I don't know if I'll ever see something like that again.
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Sakurie



Joined: 23 Mar 2016
Posts: 19
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 8:25 pm Reply with quote
I think a lot of newer releases do have more language options - the last few Mobile Suit Gundam blu rays I've bought (The Origin I-III and Thunderbolt: December Sky) have multiple subtitle options such as French and not just English and Japanese. I bought those direct from Japan however so that might make a difference.
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