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This Week in Anime - The Rise and Evolution of Old Classic Dubs

There are no new Pretty Cure dubs because Glitter Force flopped and it may still be too soon to think another kid-focused push would do any better. Truthfully, there's no real reason to believe Toei would be able to get it in front of kids either. Look at how much they've struggled with just getting the dubs for Digimon Adventure 2020, Dragon Quest Dai, and World Trigger out there. It's tough to reach kids. Just dubbing a 50-episode show, dumping it onto streaming, and hoping they find it isn't a good strategy. How many kids do you think are aware things like Anpanman, The Journey Home, Sushi Sumo, and Zoids Wild even exist?

Yeah, there are adult Pretty Cure fans, but I feel like that audience is overstated. If you look at the episode review counts on Crunchyroll, the shows don't really seem to garner that much engagement. ANN's own data suggests a pretty grim picture.

The 50-episode count and annual reboot cycle of Pretty Cure make it even harder to justify. Individual entries kind of become disposable. People will be checking out DQ and World Trigger for years to come, but how many people are going to be watching the current Pretty Cure season four years later?

mgree0032 wrote:

It’s amazingly astounding that 4kids actually managed to get these top tier A-list musical artists in order to make this look and sound like a Disney/Nickelodeon styled tv show/original movie.

I think that was more Warner Bros than 4Kids.

PurpleWarrior13 wrote:

mgree0032 wrote: It’s amazingly astounding that 4kids actually managed to get these top tier A-list musical artists in order to make this look and sound like a Disney/Nickelodeon styled tv show/original movie. I think that was more Warner Bros than 4Kids.

But at the same time, the idea of adding A to B-list music artists was common during the 90s and 2000s, so why not try to make the first two Pokemon movies’ dubs look and sound like a Disney Channel /Nickelodeon tv show/original movie.

mgree0032 wrote:

PurpleWarrior13 wrote: mgree0032 wrote: It’s amazingly astounding that 4kids actually managed to get these top tier A-list musical artists in order to make this look and sound like a Disney/Nickelodeon styled tv show/original movie. I think that was more Warner Bros than 4Kids. But at the same time, the idea of adding A to B-list music artists was common during the 90s and 2000s, so why not try to make the first two Pokemon movies’ dubs look and sound like a Disney Channel /Nickelodeon tv show/original movie.

Um... no one say they couldnt or shouldnt. I wish an Uncut dub of the first Pokemon Movie was made though.

mgree0032 wrote:

Cardcaptor Takato wrote: I think there should be reasonable expectations of what Discotek is able to do as they've said many times before they don't have the money and resources to do dubs of anything longer than a movie or short OVA and that's why they'll never dub the rest of classic Lupin TV. So I would not expect Discotek to ever redub any of these old shows beyond maybe a movie or OVA special or something. That's why Discotek can only redub the Digimon movies but they don't have the resources to say redub all of Digimon Adventure. Maybe it because there’s no need to redub all of the Digimon Adventure because it wasn’t as heavily censored and it was treated with a lot of care and passion by Saban.

No, it IS because they cant dub a 50+ episode series. And Digimon Adventure 02 DEFINITELY needs it.

YagamiBlackstone255 wrote:

mgree0032 wrote: Cardcaptor Takato wrote: I think there should be reasonable expectations of what Discotek is able to do as they've said many times before they don't have the money and resources to do dubs of anything longer than a movie or short OVA and that's why they'll never dub the rest of classic Lupin TV. So I would not expect Discotek to ever redub any of these old shows beyond maybe a movie or OVA special or something. That's why Discotek can only redub the Digimon movies but they don't have the resources to say redub all of Digimon Adventure. Maybe it because there’s no need to redub all of the Digimon Adventure because it wasn’t as heavily censored and it was treated with a lot of care and passion by Saban. No, it IS because they cant dub a 50+ episode series. And Digimon Adventure 02 DEFINITELY needs it.

There's a lot of things Adventure 02 definitely needs before another dub. Ba dum tssssshh...I'mnotreallyjokingthough...

They hate them because their dubs are REALLY mediocre outside of Pokemon, Yugioh and Shaman King.

My guess with Toei, it's because of the lack of full rights.

I recall reading some complaints over sub translations on fan sites but I think it was due to using what Japan gave them for sub scripts which considering one of them was TMS (Monster Farm), wasn't surprising since there had been similar issues with the old Lupin sub streams unlike the Discotek sets which updated them.

I remember Crunchyroll started putting up subbed Yu-Gi-Oh eventually and even simulcasted VRAINs, but it seems like they stopped with Sevens. Apparently Disney+ has it, but I have no idea if they offer it subbed or its just a dub only..

I understand why Toei is hesitant to dub Pretty Cure again. They attempted a largely faithful, uncut dub with Futari wa, and it bombed. So then they tried the Glitter Force approach, thinking a more heavily reworked effort would be more successful with kids. But it also underperformed. So they're probably out of ideas on how to make an English dub of it work.

YagamiBlackstone255 wrote:

They hate them because their dubs are REALLY mediocre outside of Pokemon, Yugioh and Shaman King.

I honestly think Yugioh's dub is overrated. Don't get me wrong, it has some great VAs and one of 4Kids strongest rescores. But in terms of localization, it's easily their most poorly localized title outside of One Piece. I think the only reason more people don't realize this is because for the longest time, all we had to compare the dub to was the hilarious yet awful Hong Kong bootleg subs.

NJ_ wrote:

My guess with Toei, it's because of the lack of full rights.

Huh, I would've figured the rights folded back to Toei after that. Who else might have rights to it?

Well, some fans of Digimon claimed that Digimon the movie wouldn’t have work unless they got Smash Mouth to sing “All Star” during the end of the movie back then.

I don't really understand why the Ghost Stories dub was getting dragged in here, given how different its situation was than most of the other shows that were discussed. I mean, the original series was essentially Japanese Scooby-Doo, a low-budget "spooky" show aimed at elementary school kids. It's not the sort of thing that had any sort of widespread appeal among anime fans then or now, and almost no one would have known or cared about its existence if not for ADV's dub of it.

No Sevens subs on Hulu or Disney+ sadly, and even the Switch game was released dub-only. I think the reason Sevens has yet to be subbed is due to the studio swap that happened in Japan. I'm hoping that Sevens World coming to Duel Links will change that. That game is dual-audio, so the English side of things is going to have to work something out with the Japanese VAs. (And hopefully that'll lead to Crunchyroll finally subbing Sevens)

Sailor Moon and Pokemon being worldwide phenomena are solely because of the quality of the IPs themselves, not whatever changes or styles the American dub used.

Let’s imagine if those IPs weren’t censored for TV back then, would it still be a hit success if the show-runners left them as they were? The changes that we Americans made still made the IPs the success that they were back then.

I understand why Toei is hesitant to dub Pretty Cure again. They attempted a largely faithful, uncut dub with Futari wa, and it bombed. So then they tried the Glitter Force approach, thinking a more heavily reworked effort would be more successful with kids. But it also underperformed. So they're probably out of ideas on how to make an English dub of it work.

Why can't they just make another uncut dub? The most recent seasons have gotten subbed releases, so I don't see why Toei can't crack out another uncut dub---especially one that keeps the Japanese names and cultural references. The series is currently being aimed at older audiences, so surely Toei shouldn't think another edited dub will work.