Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Did US Anime Publishers Experiment With Western Cartoons?
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2540 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Probably the most successful of them all was Media Blasters' Invader Zim, which did so well that, as admitted on ANNCast once years ago, Nickelodeon got jealous & simply took the license back from MB so that Nick could release it on its own & not have to share the profits.
Discotek kind of dips its toes into this market on occasion, like with the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon, Street Fighter, & CyberSix, but those are obviously done for people who were fans of those shows back in the day, or at least remember them. Still, a lot of these releases are going to pretty much wind up forgotten & never re-released, especially the edited anime releases. Sure, FUNimation put out the Rock the Dragon Edition for Dragon Ball Z's old Ocean dub, but could you see FUNi put out a "Gotta Go! Edition" for 4Kids' One Piece dub? If you really are curious about that, then you better hunt down the DVDs Viz put out for it, just like how I had to hunt down the ADV Kids DVDs for DiC's Knights of the Zodiac. |
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addiemon
Posts: 93 |
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Funimation also put out some straight up not-anime stuff, right? Like that succubus show. Lost Girl?
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peno
Posts: 349 |
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@Lord Geo
You know, there are some differences between Ocean's DBZ and 4Kids' One Piece. DBZ came in time, when no one knew better, so people didn't care about censorship, changes to music and script etc. They simply loved the story as it was presented to them and didn't think much about anything else. And for many, it was their childhood and first contact with anime, so nostalgia also plays big role here. One Piece, on the other hand, came in times when people already knew about, and most also hated, censorship in anime, significant script changes, music changes etc. And on top of that, it was from company infamous for doing all of that. With that in mind, many people simply didn't bother with 4Kids' One Piece at all and either watched fansubs or didn't watch it at all. Hence there is not that many people for whom 4Kids' One Piece is nostalgia. Plus there is the issue of rights. I am pretty sure Funimation still has rights to the old DBZ dub, so it's easy for them to release it without any issues. On the other hand, who, if anyone at all, has rights to 4Kids' One Piece dub, is a big question. Don't forget that when Konami bought 4Kids, they get rid of anything not related to Yu-Gi-Oh and some of these things may now be lost permanently. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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Funimation had the DVD rights to some Western cartoons I'd like to own but have fallen out-of-print/to ridiculous prices, such as Code Lyoko and Redwall.
One thing I find humorous is that their volume 3 DVD of Braceface has the Disney Channel logo on the bottom left of the cover, and right next to it advertising the banned episode you can't see on Disney Channel. 
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2540 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I don't know about that. I've played the infamous "One Piece Rap" at my panels at anime cons numerous times, & every single time it received cheers & joy. Sure, it might just be ironic enjoyment (i.e. "so bad it's good"), but I think that the sheer infamy regarding that One Piece dub might result in it actually being semi-viable to put out. Let's be clear, however, that I'm not saying that FUNimation should re-release the 4Kids dub. I'm just saying that it could happen, in theory, but even I doubt it will.
4Kids dubs have seen re-releases already, as proven by Discotek's release of the Sonic X dub. I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, of the old 4Kids dubs simply became the property of the original licensors once 4Kids itself went out of business. This isn't the days when the original Japanese companies didn't care about what went into English dubs or didn't bother to hold onto them, like it was during the 90s. |
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LostTL
Posts: 15 |
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Over in Australia, Madman have been putting out Cartoon Network & Adult Swim stuff, but with anime-level pricing; Seems like a successful version of what's described here. I could see Manga Entertainment heading this way, too, what with their recent kind-friendly output like Power Rangers and re-released 4Kids dubs.
As someone who was introduced to the show post-4Kids and owns the uncut versions of those episodes, I have been hunting down the old Viz discs (and the Pioneer DBZ ones); The weird edits and overall direction are entertaining (in a "so bad it's good" way) and interesting in their own right. Plus, they're generally cheap. According to the disc's subs, it's "Ya-yo, Ya-yo", not "Gotta Go, Gotta Go", so... that's a piece of information you know now and will never need to use.
It sounds like you're suggesting that 4Kids One Piece would have been well received if fansubs weren't accessible, and vice-versa for DBZ. FWIW, you can find contemporary English to Japanese comparisons for DBZ, written by fans who hated what Funimation was doing to a series they'd seen fansubbed; albeit, this would have been early days for the web.
Funi were behind the '94-'98 Ocean dub in the first place. I would have thought that Toei has the rights and copies of the 4Kids One Piece episodes, similar to how the uncut OP dub has been released internationally, apparently without Funi's direct involvement. |
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loveliver
Posts: 154 |
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Viz Media did release Hero: 108 at one point. It now belongs to Moonscoop US' Splash Entertainment.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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And since very few companies in the late-90's/early-00's boom of DVD had an interest in kiddy and cult properties that weren't attached to a major corporate studio, ADV had a "Cult TV" and US cartoon side-label, best known for releasing "Farscape". It was the anime half of ADV that released the uncut subtitled Sailor Moon, but it was the cult-US-cartoon half that released the dubbed DiC version, which led to a bit of confusion among fans. (As well as the confusion about whether ADV's "Monster Rancher" was being sold as a US or Japanese toon.) |
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IanC
Posts: 685 Location: Essex, England |
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Manga Entertainment's Yu-Gi-Oh, Power Rangers and Digimon releases are also tapping into the nostalgia market too, I had to get Digimon season 1 and 2, and will be getting Timers, purely because I remember watching it in TV back in the day and enjoying it.
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ninjamitsuki
 Posts: 590 Location: Anywhere (Thanks, technology) |
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I asked a similar question a while back about what the heck ADV Kidz was, but while that part was answered it didn't explain why they had Super Duper Sumos of all things. This helped clear things up.
Also, ADV straight up made their own cartoon, too. That godawful Lady Death movie. I remember being confused as to why it was on Anime Network back in the day. |
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Zendervai
 Posts: 197 |
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There's a specific Canadian production company (Prodigy Pictures) that Funimation does the home video releases for. They've only done Lost Girl and Dark Matter so far, but the guy who runs the company was a producer on Andromeda...which ADV released on home video at first. And ADV also released three seasons of another Canadian sci-fi show, Earth: Final Conflict. There's a history of anime distributors releasing Canadian sci-fi/fantasy on home video, is what I'm saying. I think it might have started with Alliance Communications not having a network in the US, but wanting to release their shows there anyway. |
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loveliver
Posts: 154 |
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Funimation made their own show as well, in a CGI "anime" called Mr. Stain on Junk Alley. |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 720 |
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Of the various experiments, I found it amusing that ADV released some live action sci fi series like Andromeda and Farscape. I always wondered how well those sold for them.
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Shar Aznabull
 Posts: 236 |
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It was always weird to watch Manga's promo reel with KDMFM's Ultra set to all this hyperviolent action anime... then having the incredibly surreal and dark The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb put in there too.
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belvadeer
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I miss Code Lyoko (never finished it) and Hero: 108.
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