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Answerman - What Needs To Be Approved By A Licensor?

I can understand scripting, but I'm very surprised dub casting choices have to be approved by the licensor. I mean how would that even work?

The person doing the approvals is seldom a native English speaker, and might take issue with a turn of phrase in a translation that they don't quite get.

This reminds me of one ANNCast or other podcast episode, where the people who worked on the EVA TV translation said they wanted to change "children" in "First Children", "Second Children", etc. to "child", but the Japanese insisted on keeping it as-is despite the explanation that the original phrasing is grammatically incorrect.

Well that explains why we won't get Precure or Jewelpet on BD/DVD in the US besides the toy deal shenanigans, it's too much work and with those being cash cows, everyone and their grandmother will be breathing down their necks and watching every little thing a licensor does like hawks.

ly000001 wrote:

This reminds me of one ANNCast or other podcast episode, where the people who worked on the EVA TV translation said they wanted to change "children" in "First Children", "Second Children", etc. to "child", but the Japanese insisted on keeping it as-is despite the explanation that the original phrasing is grammatically incorrect.

This is something that always confuses me. If you're not a native speaker or exceptionally fluent in another language, why would you NOT trust a native speaker to correct your grammar?

Arrogance, bigotry, and all the other personality traits that cause people to assume they know better than anyone else.

It seems like many of these anime columns end up mentioning how Japanese licensors are overprotective in some manner. I'd think by now there would be more acceptance to work together with foreign studios, but perhaps the mid-2000s anime crash sullied those relationships.

I'm curious why a picture of Cardcaptors is used for this article's image. O.o Maybe it's referring to it being a heavily altered dub that influenced how future licenses are handled?

But it's not just that the dubs have gotten more accurate, the casting choices are also usually closer to the sound of the Japanese voices. I don't think Sarah Strange would've been cast as Ranma today.

But I'm glad the Japanese are more involved in the production process. It's their show after all, so it just makes things more official.

Most of the miscommunication from both parties would be much alleviated if both bothered to hire proficient English and Japanese mediators. Of course, to some companies it maybe out of reach, but I see this more as a necessity than a luxury.