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The Mike Toole Show - The Glitter Force Awakens

I can see why Netflix calls them Netflix Originals because they license them and only show them on Netflix. I still say that its bullshit. Especially when they call Knights of Sadonia and The Seven Deadly Sins Netflix Originals. It confuses people and makes them think Netflix created them which is not true. I can totally see why they do it though. Its smart marketing. When the casual fan strolls through the anime category on Netflix they will more likely watch a "Netflix Original" series than one that is not, so its really great thinking on Netflix parts.

All that remains is to see if and/or when Netflix will go ahead and add the second 20-episode “season” of Glitter Force, and to see if the phenomenon as a whole will create a bridge to the west for Precure, or quietly fade into the same historical dustbin that contains the TV dubs of Magical DoReMi and Tokyo Mew Mew.

Adamanto wrote:

Mr. Oshawott wrote: Adamanto wrote: I believe Winx Club got a really bad American hackdub despite an accurate English dub already existing in Europe. I'm completely unaware that Winx Club had an European English version. How was it? I haven't seen either English dub, just the Norwegian one, but my understanding is that RAI produced the English dub themselves for the Canadian and UK markets, and also distributed it to all foreign licensors in place of the Italian original to make it easier to translate into other languages, and that it's a fairly straight translation of the Italian original without any strange rewrites or anything.

That's it, basically.
IIRC, there are/were four english-language dubs:

Rai English (as called by fans; aired outside the US AND CANADA): which covered the first four seasons.


Plus, the European English/ RAI English dub for the first two seasons are currently out on DVD and on Netflix, last I checked. It's not a bad dub, save for some things here and there. As a long time Winx Club fan, one thing I liked more in the 4Kids/Nick dubs was Bloom's (main character) voice.

These are international franchises.

Sorry Mike but unless that viewer is a 7-12 yea old girl

There's a difference between not overloading kids with culture shock and treating them like they're stupid. Even growing up with Pokemon I thought it was weird they had triangle-shaped "jelly doughnuts" with entirely white dough. I think if doled out gently, any child can understand that "oh, these characters are from a different place. They do some different things than I do."

This reminds me of the main thing that bugged me in the K-ON dub, why did they say money amounts in dollars instead of yen but keep everything else as it was?

What really confuses me is the amount of parents that will complain about a cartoon being "too sexy" but let their kid play GTA before taking them to see deadpool. I swear that seems to happen a lot. I chalk it up to this stupid idea that cartoons are pure, wholesome entertainment for children. People just won't let go of that.

Glitter Force's existence is entirely pointless.If you are striking an exclusive deal with a FREAKING STREAMING PLATFORM,what's the point of making all those changes and CUTTING EIGHT FREAKING EPISODES as if you're attending FCC's standards for saturday morning broadcast?

That was probably to keep them easy to remember. They were probably worried kids would have a hard time remembering/pronouncing a bunch of Japanese names. They'd be right too. Even as a young adult, I have difficulty keeping up with the names in certain anime (Bleach especially).

I don't really understand where Mike is coming from; a dub like this seems about as charming as racial segregation. To me, its acceptance seems more rooted in recent backsliding trends towards willful cultural ignorance than any sort of nostalgia.

"The Glitter Force Awakens" Nice shout out to Star Wars "The Force Awakens" however the editing of Anime continues to this day which is not a good thing but considering that it's mainly kids show or what are considered kids shows being edited (most of which isn't really that good anyway) now I don't have that much of a problem with it of course people need to get off the mind set that Anime is only for kids and maybe then we can make some progress in down playing the editing.

I agree. Personally I enjoy the English names of Pokemon far more than the Japanese names- especially in Gen 1. For example: Lizardo and Lizardon becoming Charmeleon and Charizard respectively, and Ghost becoming Haunter.

They stick in children's heads more and are easier to pronounce compared to most of the Japanese names.

NearEasternerJ1 wrote:

These are international franchises.

Could you clarify what you mean by international franchises? Having seen most of the shows listed in this thread I can attest to them being censored in the American broadcast. Generally if something is made with an international audience in mind it takes into account foreign standards during the development process. Case in point a lot of Hollywood movies make sure to not include any material that might get it in trouble in China as pandering to China is a common practice with movies given how large the Chinese movie market. If these shows truly were international franchises I imagine they wouldn't have to be changed so much during the dubbing process.

While I'm sure they would love that international dollar, just like other anime the Japanese market is going to come first and foremost and have priority.

-Stuart Smith

From what I know anyway, little girl shows don't do well anymore internationally anyway. Only Italy got Pretty Cure, the rest of Europe gave up on children anime after Doremi and Cardcaptor Sakura, because the general audience that watches Anime is too old. I thought the same would be for Italy eventually, tough I guess the affinity for girlie shows crosses generational gaps since the 80's there.
I think Glitter Force will be forgotten quickly.

GOTZFAUST wrote:

From what I know anyway, little girl shows don't do well anymore internationally anyway. Only Italy got Pretty Cure, the rest of Europe gave up on children anime after Doremi and Cardcaptor Sakura, because the general audience that watches Anime is too old. I thought the same would be for Italy eventually, tough I guess the affinity for girlie shows crosses generational gaps since the 80's there. I think Glitter Force will be forgotten quickly.

Pretty Cure exists here in Spain, and Germany got the first season.

The most nostalgic memories for many German anime fans has to be Captain Future from the 80's. Re-scored, broadcast out of order, with 4-episode story arcs edited down to 3 to cut all the violence and plot which would confuse children. Needless to say, taking out huge chunks of plot does not help kids follow the story. Nor will references to episodes that hadn't aired yet. Not that anyone cared. And parents still went up the wall. Fun times.

Big shonen titles like Naruto were always heavily censored when shown on German TV. Violence on TV is a no-go in the afternoon, where all of this is airing, obviously. Often starting out with the already censored US version, networks feel very free to change anything and cut more violence as they please. Less so today than in the past.

^I can't follow. If the censoring of Naruto is beyond anything that was before, how does a bloody and uncut Dragon Ball fight support that argument? Wouldn't it rather support my argument of censoring being more relaxed nowadays?

Both Naruto and One Piece, to name just two of the big titles, were heavily censored on German TV, a tradition going back to the 80's. Things have changed and are still in the process of changing by the diversification of networks and streaming outlets and a shift in public perception. But let's stop arguing about a niche market of little interest to most people here.

They could still make something for international audiences without fully understanding what might be offensive or unsuitable for children in another region. An example is the Game Corners in the Pokémon video games. The fact that Pokémon games are released so close to each other in different languages shows that the production is done with collaboration from the other branches of Nintendo, but it seems that they didn't realize these Game Corners struck a nerve with some concerned parents in Europe, such that they were replaced with Voltorb Flip in Generation IV (though I love Voltorb Flip) and then done away with in later generations, to where the one in Hoenn was removed from the remakes altogether.

Which just so happens to be Glitter Force's target demographic. Even in Japan, Precure is aired in a programming block with Power Rangers. The instant you think people like you or I are the target audience of things like this or Shonen Jump or what have you, whatever argument you are trying to make becomes near worthless.

Something else that seems to often come up is fanservice. For many people in the United States, sexual content has no place whatsoever in family TV (and never has). Even more so if the sex appeal character looks young due to the paedo-hunt. In Japan, having a young female character in a kids' show as eye candy is pretty typical, and I can see how the production team in Japan might be confused as to why these Americans make such a fuss over these middle school girls showing a lot of leg. I do wonder if Japanese audiences, on the rare chance they watch American animation, are bewildered as to why there are no such characters at all..

Both Naruto and One Piece, to name just two of the big titles, were heavily censored on German TV, a tradition going back to the 80's. Things have changed and are still in the process of changing by the diversification of networks and streaming outlets and a shift in public perception. But let's stop arguing about a niche market of little interest to most people here.

It had nothing to do with "concerned parents" and everything to do with the fact that the updated game ratings regulations (initially in Germany, then this spread throughout the entire west due to the growing popularity of the idea that letting children gamble, even as a game, can be potentially harmful) no longer allowed simulated gambling in video games with the lowest possible rating.

Well, you gotta wonder why a junior high girls uniform is that short to begin with. The skirt's are damn near on their hips! One wrong move and you'll see their underwear. When I was younger, my school uniforms skirt wasn't that short. Just above the knee.

Not exactly. Pretty Cure's main demographics are girls ages 4-12 and males ages 16-35 according to the parent company. Japanese television in general casts a wide net over it's target demographic. Whether it's Pretty Cure, Shounen Jump adaptions, or tokusatsu, to say it's just limited it to one demographic is a misconception. Super Sentai as well targets adult demographics not only in the show itself but with merchandise. Premium Bandai routinely produces merchandise for the collectors of those franchises, and the guys and gals of Super Sentai and Kamen Rider generally put out gravure idol DVDs to tie into their roles to attract the older fans. Most dubs generally ignore the older demographics though. Companies like Saban and 4Kids only care about the kid audience, and generally ignore the adult audiences by not providing an uncut release or appropriate merchandise.

I'm sure the original companies are aware of the standards Yu-Gi-Oh's been broadcast in English for over a decade now. As for the fans, they're aware of our dubbing practices at least. Blogs I generally go to will make a comment every now and then about something in the American dub when it's so absurd it's worth commenting on, like One Piece's hammer gun, Zatchbell's dildo gun, or the photoshopped skirts in Yu-Gi-Oh. I've also seen Japanese fan mention how Uranus and Neptune were cousins in the Sailor Moon dub. I think American dubs are fairly infamous among some people in Japan to those who are aware of them.

-Stuart Smith