Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are Adapted Dubs Still Being Made?
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Mune
Posts: 376 Location: Minnesota |
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I think many people tend to remember the more popular adaptations by 4kids. Many have forgotten that Yu Yu Hakusho had 3 versions. 1 was the original from Japan, 2 was the Funimation uncut (swearing ensued), and 3 the cut Funimation version where they cut the offensivr laguage, references to alcohol and smoking, and some blood.
Did fans complain when it was #2? Not really. Did they complain about #3? You better believe it! Changing language to cater viewers is acceptable, but changing visual content is not. |
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ryonomiko
 SubscriberPosts: 94 Location: Canada |
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So Justin please explain the mutilated dub jobs Funimation has done and continues to do for various series NOT aimed at kids. WHY?!!!
Initial D Free! Eternal Summer (I will be utterly dishearted to learn Kyoto Animation APPROVED of those dub scripts!) |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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It comes down to WHO OWNS THEM. As does most law in the Western Hemisphere.
If 4Kids licenses the series, they're more interested in syndicating a mainstream kids' show; if Funi licenses the show, they're more interested in pitching a straight dub to core anime streaming/disk fans. Funi could have gotten Smile Precure, but the syndie people thought they smelled a mainstream-marketing deal and got there first. If you want to argue "Why would 4Kids/Saban still want to syndicate a show, syndication is dead!", well, apart from cable, that's true. Glitter had to go to Netflix, like all the other journeyman kids' shows. But anyone who still says "All dubs are cheesy and evil because of 4Kids!", I think we know which decade someone grew up in... 
Last edited by EricJ2 on Tue Nov 10, 2015 1:50 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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everydaygamer
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I don't mind changing the script a bit since some cultural references will obviously go over people's heads but I do mind completely changing the music in a show as well cutting so many scenes that entire episodes wind up disappearing or combined into some kind of patchwork episode.
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Яeverse
 Posts: 1141 Location: Indianapolis |
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Are kids still the main audience buying the stuff for these shows that people got into >10 years ago though, since there is little attrition with PKMN (sales seem stable so I doubt NEW people have even been brought in to games as of late and they continue to cater to hardcores more and more, and age for card tourneys has gone up), I dont think a mom choosing pkmn for her kid to watch is actually happening. PKMN doesnt even come in theaters anymore (in US). Konami has ditched YGO handheld games as well, so YGO seems to have scaled upwards too. I can only imagine its kids of parents who grew up playing pkmn is the only audience showing kids 8yo and younger pkmn while the rest are older teens and young adults.
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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To the contrary, I think it was a brilliant decision. Kids today aren't too interested in watching things from a TV set. They're savvy enough to get all their media from their computers (except movies at the theater, as that experience can't be easily replicated). So by bringing Glitter Force to Netflix, they're taking the show straight to where kids' eyes will be focused on.
That, and Fullmetal Alchemist is full of stuff that 4Kids would not have wanted in their shows and cannot be easily edited out or explained away. The protagonist and deuteragonist are dedicated to bringing their dead mother back to life. The first episode has a corrupt priest as its villain. Not far in, one character fuses his daughter and his dog together in a painful way. And while Brotherhood hadn't yet come out, both directions the series takes becomes about a large conspiracy where authority figures cannot be trusted. The 2003 anime came out at a time when 4Kids was snatching up licenses left and right too, with Viz and FUNimation having to pick up the leftovers.
At least they look like donut holes.
Most countries have had a long history of getting their entertainment imported in from other countries, so they're used to seeing cultural quirks and all that. The United States is one of the few that don't, and Canada gets nearly everything from the United States, is culturally similar to the United States, and whose domestic entertainment is extremely heavily influenced by work from the United States. Because of that, Americans are not used to seeing productions from other cultures, and even the slightest thing could be strange and unfamiliar to them. There's also the paranoia that comes with being a leading world power. People of the United States take a lot of pride living in the United States, and, relatively recently in history, have just come out of the Cold War, where the threat of invasion and takeover was very real. Feared in particular is cultural takeover, whether it be Soviet Russia during much of the 20th century, Japan in the 80's and 90's, China right afterwards, or Islamic extremists to this day. Hence, between that and the "Think of the children!" mentality, there is this fear of children watching something overly foreign and then behaving overly foreign themselves.
Agreed. With Naruto being pushed to the late night blocks and Pokémon banished to early mornings, the anime business needs a good gateway series that can stand up to parental scrutiny. |
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Яeverse
Posts: 1141 Location: Indianapolis |
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What was wrong with the ES dub, I watched it twice and loved it as much as the sub. Their lines made them fit right into most modern RinHaru, NAgiRei fic universes, which I loved immensely. |
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johnnysasaki
Posts: 929 |
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nothing justifies cutting out 8 episodes for streaming.And if they had given us the original subbed version of Smile Precure as an alternative option if you don't want to watch the edited Glitter Force dub(Netflix has both versions of Digimon.A win-win situation for everyone)I wouldn't be complaining now,I wouldn't even remember that Glitter Force will be a thing that exist. But no,we will be only getting the edited dub,and for that,I have no reason to support that.I will watch the first episode and give a 1 star rating to send them the message... |
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sailorsweeper
Posts: 416 |
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The funny thing is there is a dub kids merchandise anime that is faithful correct me if I am wrong on Youtube Bushiroads Cardfight Vangaurd G going on to Gir Crisis currently and before sales for it fell Future Card Buddyfight 100. So faithful shows do exist just on the internet
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Nonaka Machine Gun B
 Posts: 819 |
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The one caveat here is that some companies actively try to keep subtitled versions of these shows from happening/being available. Although 4Kids, somehow, managed to get the entirety of Sonic X subbed on Hulu for streaming, TMS won't allow Discotek to put it on home video (for now). I'm pretty sure similar nonsense goes on with Pokémon, and that doesn't even get subtitled streaming. |
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NearEasternerJ1
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ChibiGoku, you're wrong. I might have said this before, but may I remind you of Europe's attitude towards anime until RECENTLY? It's not just the USA. The French took longer than us to receive a good dub of Dragon Ball. The French dub of DB was actually worse than the US dubs because the French dub influenced almost every DBZ dub in Europe. Only the Italians were spared. Outside of Asia and Italy, there were no good DBZ dubs.
Why are people so selective? It's not just the US. Look at the history of anime from the 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s in Europe. It's worse than us. Also, instead of making solid dubs, all they did was take our dubs and make the language different. |
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Amara Tenoh
 Posts: 333 |
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If the Japanese owners really cared about such things, wouldn't you think they would mandate TPCi to only use the original soundtrack? |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 666 |
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I think a big problem has more to do with what is considered a "kids" show and what isn't. Dragon Ball, Attack on Titan, and Pokemon are three entirely different target age groups and content groups altogether. And, as stated in the write-up, They are series on entirely different levels of appeal and ubiquity. Frankly speaking, AoT may be an otaku favorite, but the rest of the world could really care less. As such, a lot less effort is taken to make it amenable to other audiences.
Can young children learn about the nuances and intricacies of a story like AoT? Sure. You can't underestimate the intelligence of youngsters nowadays. But their patience is another thing entirely. Some changes really are superfluous and unnecessary, but most are aimed at making the show simpler and more familiar to an audience that yes can learn to understand the unedited content, but more often than not has no patience to spend the time to learn it. So if a show is full of stuff that they don't understand, rather than stick around to hope to make sense of it, or spending time researching it all, They'll drop it and move on to something else. They could care less about dub edit and not dub edit or any such stuff the more seasoned fans do. Heck, most of those outside Japan who now account themselves as anime fans got in because they were hooked by what was an edited show and only cared about the question of edit or unedited long after being immersed into the anime sphere. Yes, some edits are pointless and unnecessary, but is it really that bad that a 10 year old or younger kid isn't seeing a screen constantly splattered with blood or people screaming curse words every other minute? |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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Actually, we just spent the last thread explaining why not only syndication is dead, but why corporate cable won't let anybody else in the sandbox. (Disney was generous enough to license Doraemon, but the chances of getting on at least one of their channels don't look good if you're not Marvel, Lucas or Phineas & Ferb.) Nowadays, nearly ALL syndicated or import kids shows--if they don't get a deal with some struggling schedule-desperate mid-tier cable channel like Discovery Kids or Al-Jazeera US (will some other channel please get the English import of The Little Giant? I feel like I'm committing an act of terrorism by Tivo'ing it)--have to go to Netflix, Hulu or Amazon, because...nobody else will show them. Jim Henson used to take his kids' series to HBO because he didn't trust the networks, nowadays "Doozers: the Series" plays as a Hulu exclusive because it doesn't have any choice. 
Oh, please. No, this thread tangent stops here. Fear of Foreign more likely comes from the days of Sandy Frank and Carl Macek, when the animation quality of Voltron or Robotech was not....quite up to the level being shown by Hasbro or Disney Afternoon, so any space-action show dubbed (badly) into English in the mid-80's was considered a cheapo blight on our afternoon channels, except for the geeky fringe that actually sat down long enough to watch them. Bad dubbing, especially Japanese, still had the kitschy image of Godzilla movies, the shows' apparent lack of a sense of humor didn't help, and the 80's mentality was to whitewash it at all costs. It became sort of a "tradition" by the time Pokemon and Sailor Moon showed up, even though we already started to suspect where it was coming from and didn't mind.
Which brings us back to the get-out-of-the-90's question: Yes, we grew up wanting a broadcast deal as "validation" that a show was about to be taken seriously in the US, but Netflix aside, who even depends on "the airwaves" anymore for their anime?--People who watch One Piece and Bleach on Cartoon Network?? If people want to watch anime, it's now as close as a keyboard click or a game console, with subs as well as accurate dubs. If Saban wants to pretend it's 1994, hey, at least we get the show, but it's time for them to start packing up the party, as it's been over for a while. |
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checarlos87
 Posts: 31 |
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It's not profitable. In a capitalistic system, that is reason enough for anything.
The amount of sales may be "stable", but the people that form part of that amount are not the same as 20 years ago. Many people drop interests throughout their lives, so the fact that Pokémon sales have kept "stable" is definitive proof that new, younger people have been consistently entering the Pokémon world throughout the years. I write "stable" in quotes because I actually believe Pokémon sales have grown dramatically throughout its almost 20 year history. Pokémon XY was a particularly high point for Pokémon sales. If anything, the sudden recent explosion of Pokémon-themed spinoffs (Pokémon Shuffle, Pokémon GO, Pokkén Tournament, Pokémon Rumble World, Pokémon Art Academy) should be evidence of both how much Pokémon continues to grow and how much it is expected to keep growing. Not only has Pokémon invaded mobile devices and arcades, but in the console world, Pokémon has now adopted a yearly release schedule much like Call of Duty or Madden. Especially since XY, every year we get a major Pokémon console release: - 2013: XY - 2014: ORAS - 2015: Super Mystery Dungeon - 2016: Z and also Pokkén Tournament for Wii U That's a sign of a thriving business right there. |
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