Censorship (beware, what follows is a rant)

[Amethyst]

But the pot leaf thing was the only dub change (that immediately came to mind) in Shaman King that could really count as censorship. Well, aside from the Chocolove to Joco thing, but I think that was a good idea, given the circumstances....

The other name changes like Hao/Zeke, Horokeu/Trey, Manta/Morty, even Ren/Len are just plain stupidity. Ren I don't have much of a problem with, but WTC were they thinking by changing Hao's name??? It's not like it's even hard to pronounce or anything! HAO! It's only one syllable! YOU CAN'T RESPECT SOMEONE AS TOTALLY EVIL AND MESSED UP IF THEIR NAME IS ZEKE!

</rant>

The Miyazaki dubs are okay, though....Still, I bought them on DVD so I could change it to the Japanese language track^^

[DracolordII]

what I meant about the leaf thing, is when they first started showing it they didn't bother with the censoring, then some idiot parent wrote in so now all the episodes have that stupid diamond thing, and Ren was pronounced Len in japan too, though why do they have to call him Lenny, a stupid thing in one piece is changing Zoro to Zolo, his name, and I'm almost positive on this, was in refernce to the Zoro moviies, and i still dont understand the Trey thing, i mean Horohoro is already a nickname!!!

[Moofy]

I hate censorship as well. If it says "Teen" don't buy it and let the teens watch it. O___O as simple as that xP

[TheShootingStar]

With the whole 'r' changed to an 'l' you have to understand that the translation of a name with an L in it in english is an R in japanese (phonetically speaking of course), so a name like lena ends up being rena; so some english dub companies misenterpert this and change names like ren into len because of the phonetics rule but, that rule is only for english into japanese and not the other way around.

Now i agree with some of you on the dub v. sub thing. I started on dubed anime and now that i've seen sub I can't go back. Being a sentimentalist I do have a soft spot for the first season of pretty solider sailor moon in dub format.
I KNOW IT WAS CUT UP HORRIBLY! I KNOW IT WAS BUTCHERED! BUT! I will NEVER EVER watch it again after seeing the sub in the original format of visual and audio (the audio is a bit bad since adv was too lazy to at least update that which can be done with the computer without harming the voice acting and not to mention the qualtiy of sound has changed dramatically since 1992 i mean come on! this is 2005!)
ADV did do a good job with the sailor moon dvds, the japanese to english translation was not perfect but much better than the job pioneer did with it in the past.

And yes Miyazaki's dubs are the best! the only reason for that is that John Lassenter from Pixar supervised all that work himself. He is the only american who knows that when you mess with the words of a story too much the real story you are trying to tell is lost! Those dubs should be the standard on which others are judged.

Now the whole changing the music to be more mainstream hasn't change as the standard when the shows are aimed (well once they are mangled) at children. think about it, the sailor moon dubs came out in 1993 (or 94) and the popular feel of music at that time was grunge and rock so the sailor moon songs were give a rock type edge. And they weren't so bad.

But now the mainsteam sound (for it seems everyone except me) is this god-awful rap music! So chop-shop anime follows suit with some more of this crap music. I be honest with you the dub companies should just leave the shows with out theme music if they are going to replace it with this "flavor of the month" type music.

Now some dubs still convey the right feels and emotions as the originals:
Wolfwood died in the Trigun dub and you still felt sad; Lupin the III is still a womanizer and you could still see that (even if the naked women they showed on CN weren't atomacally correct);Spike and Julia are doomed in Cowboy Bebop; at the end of Wolf's Rain you had a sense of hope and Kaiede is still old in Inuyasha.

[Eluthia]

What's a bit sad about censorship/inaccurate dubs is that it gives a bad impression of the anime. For example, since I'd only seen dubs on TV (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura...maybe a few of the really old ones), I never had much interest in anime and thought it was cheesy and weird until last year when a friend introduced me to fansubs.

In the case of Naruto and One Piece, I truly doubt that anyone except the children will become a fan of those shows unless they've seen the subbed version. And maybe not even the children. Even if I were eight (is that the age 4kids is targeting?), I still think I'd have better taste than to appreciate the sloppy muck of 4kids' version One Piece.

[Amethyst]

Actually, I see horrible dubbing as a sort of marketing device that doesn't work very well. Along with the drooling 8-year-olds, you also get people like me who see the dub and think "Gosh, this sucks!", then go out and buy the manga. Then they turn into dub haters like all the other anime fans. I wrote something about this on my livejournal in February (Link's in my sig under WWW, it's the latest entry.)

Seriously, Sunday morning cartoons with my brother were my first exposure to anime.

[DracolordII]

Amethyst, i completely agree with you about the marketing thing, and shootingstar that isn't always true sometimes in japan the pronounciation is phonetic, case in point Zoro of one piece, we just srewed that up when we brought it over. and i realized there is one other anime with a decent dub, the original megan when bass was pronounced correctly(like the fish not the guitar, and i konw it's ;ike the fish because his japanese name is forte which is a type of bass found in japan)

[Fishblade_Bluestream]

If companies like 4kids want to import anime for a young audience, they should choose anime that were made for children! Like Bomberman Jetters or Fushigi Boshi no Futago Hime, for example.

Being a fan of Kirby, I know that even the anime that was aimed at a younger audience in Japan is unneseccarily butchered and cut by 4Kids.

Hm... fans of One Piece, why don't you go to the 4Kids Message Boards and properly educate these people! ^^;

[Runevalkyrie]

Being a fan of Kirby, I know that even the anime that was aimed at a younger audience in Japan is unneseccarily butchered and cut by 4Kids.

Devil's advocate time here, but the standards on content aimed at younger auidences is in general completely different between the US and Japan so yes it is mostly the case that they will have to censor those types of shows. Some things that could be shown on broadcast TV to younger kids in Japan might be considered completely wrong on US broacast TV. With blocks on cable such as Toonami and Adult Swim, they are able to have less censoring because of looser cable standards. However they have to comply with other standards.

[AFI_Sorrow]

And now 4kids wants to bring over Bleach, if they sensor that there is nothing left.

Noooo!

I've stopped watching anime on regular tv all together. (Except for on adult swim because it isn't butchered to death too bad.)
I remember the first time I saw One Piece's dub, the moment the rap song or whatever came on, I cringed and turned it off. I just couldn't watch it. Dubs and censorship like this gives a bad name to anime. And the moment they ruin my beloved Naruto series (which you know they will!) I'll cry. And I see it already, I will cry. *sigh*

I understand that certain things have to be censorshipped for the age audience, but if the show is that bad to begin with, find a show with a better age rating. If the anime is meant for teens, it shouldn't be censored to be made for smaller children. That's like taking a rated R movie and cutting out all the bad scenes and giving it a new rating of G. You just...you just can't do it.

4Kids is evil. Evil, evil, evil. They ruined Shaman King. They killed Tokyo Mew Mew. They chopped up One Piece and left it to rot.

Quick question, 4Kids isn't dubbing Naruto right? Please, I hope not. *whimpers*

[Amethyst]

Quick question, 4Kids isn't dubbing Naruto right? Please, I hope not. *whimpers*

I don't think so....At least, I'm not going to be able to watch it because I don't have cable, so it's probably not a 4kids dub....

[DracolordII]

I'm not sure but I believe Naruto is being brought over by Pioneer or one of their sister companies, so if the dub is bad they'll do what they did with dbz and go back and fix the problem

[Runevalkyrie]

A few things to note about Naruto

- Viz Media is handling the dub and distrobution, Animaze is the studio related to the dub.
- Two versions of DVD are going to be released, TV edit and uncut sub/dub (both have the same cast)
- Cartoon Network is likely the one doing the edits to the uncut dub that's already finished for the first 52 episodes for broadcast.

[pennysaver007]

if you think that is bad watch japanese Rurouni Kenshin then watch the American one. It makes you sick with all the censors.

[Thundercat2]

Preach, girl! ^^

I'm a rabid One Piece fan, so most of my friends (like Chris) have already suffered/are still suffering from my rants on the censored One Piece. Besides the points you brought up, I really really really despise the new "rap" opening song for the English One Piece. Why couldn't they have kept the original song? Inuyasha got to keep its songs, didn't it? I guess that's a booboo on 4Kids's part.

I've watched up to episode 150 now, and the more I watch the more scenes I find that just cannot be censored, no matter what. Seeing how they've drawn the line at blood, cigs, and beer... I'm very curious to see what anyone can do with some of the later One Piece episodes that contain extremely violent scenes that go way beyond what has been censored so far. My friends and I have concluded that hopefully 4Kids will never go that far in the One Piece storyline... hopefully.

(and c'mon. Pirates that don't drink ale, but drink juice??? These people are one step away from photoshopping all the skulls and crossbones in the series and say that all the pirates aren't pirates but actually just sailors. Yeesh)

Aaand this only adds to the debut of Naruto on CN in September, and all the crazy censoring jobs they're going to do to that.

*sigh* ._.

I read the manga in Shonen Jump. I can't stand to see this dub. I think I've watched it 3 times and I just got sick. The voices are HORRIBLE! And I hate the opening theme!