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Smart Dubs, Foolish Choices

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
Into every life a little rain must fall, right? Every good series has something wrong with it, and the same goes with even the best of dubs.

Note, this is NOT an anti-dub topic. This is about mistakes and quibbles in otherwise good or even exceptional dubs.

First off, I suppose, would have to be the editing out of a gay couple in the TV version of Cowboy Bebop. I mean seriously, what was Cartoon Network's problem? Fortunately, it's untouched on the DVD release.

Then we have Lopmon's gender in Digimon Tamers. If they had dubbed it slower, they might have gotten it right, but as it stands, they had only the voice to go by, and Japanese Lopmon has a female voice and speaks in gender-neutral language. So the dubbers assumed that Lopmon was female. Lo and behold, a later episode has Suzie teaching Lopmon to use more informal speech, including male pronouns. Oops!


What are your favorites?
 

Korobooshi Kojiro

Funnnngaaaaa
This reminds me how despite Naruto keeping the sexy jutsu, and a Shuriken being lodged in the back....

They take away an accidental kiss between two boys...
 

Soul Dew

<----------ualelele
All the stupid dialouge in the Sailor Moon S amd Super S dub.
 

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
But the Sailor Moon dub wasn't a good one. This is for stuff about otherwise good dubs.

And the Naruto thing...isn't that also on Cartoon Network? I swear they're a bunch of homophobes...
 

Solar Crimson

A Crimson Tide
This reminds me how despite Naruto keeping the sexy jutsu, and a Shuriken being lodged in the back....

They take away an accidental kiss between two boys...
Funny thing is that they kept it in during a flashback.

The only one I can think of is the Bo-bobo dub keeping the "Wild Challenger" opening, even though it's outdated. Although, I understand that they probably thought that "Baka Survivor" was too long.
 

MidnightScott

Super Gamer
Pokémon - Keep the story. Changes the music >_>. Editing for pointless reasons (turning a Giant Riceball into a giant cracker on a plate actually made me laugh)

~Scott;229;
 

Rex Kamex

Well-Known Member
I don't think so, alot of their shows seem to have homosexual undertones, and they don't shy away really (see BoBoBo for example, they have no problem with Don Patch/Jelly Jiggler proposing to eahc other)

On the other hand though, you could tell that the dubbers wanted to make Naruto big, so as risque as it would be to unedit the Sexy Jutsu, it would be even "risquer" to leave a scene with two guys kissing. Even though it was an accident, it probably would've still caused lots of controversy, and in the worst case scenario, it would've caused Naruto to be banned in America. I guess the dubbers didn't want to take such risk too early. Again, it still wouldn't really explain why they kept the Sexy Jutst unedited, but...
 

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
Has Naruto been released on DVD yet? If so, was the kiss unedited on there like they did with Cowboy Bebop?
 

.:Tom~Nook:.

Oh noes, toast =O
First off, I suppose, would have to be the editing out of a gay couple in the TV version of Cowboy Bebop. I mean seriously, what was Cartoon Network's problem? Fortunately, it's untouched on the DVD release.

That was still in Cowboy Bebop when it aired in the UK. Then again, it used to show after 9PM, so sex and whatnot is exceptable then.
 

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
Yeah, it aired after 9 pm here too, on something called Adult Swim. You'd think something so geared towards adults would be a bit more open.
 

Ralts Master

Knight of White Eye
Yeah, it aired after 9 pm here too, on something called Adult Swim. You'd think something so geared towards adults would be a bit more open.
Keep in mind that Cowboy Bebop was edited for AS broadcast years ago, at the very dawn of Adult Swim. AS' standards were stricter when they first started than they are now...
 

Sato

YEAH. I AM GHOS!!
Has Naruto been released on DVD yet? If so, was the kiss unedited on there like they did with Cowboy Bebop?

Yep, on the Australian release of volume 1 you see Naruto and Sasuke kiss. It's quite amusing really, their eyes bulge out and they start gagging afterwards. XD

As for something which ruins a little bit of a dub... I'll admit that Dragonball Z's dub was never really stellar, but for the most part it's been decent. Especially the more recent stuff.

In the recent "Ultimate Uncut Special Edition" redub of episodes 1-67, they would often use bits of script from the old 1997 dub...

Now this 1997 dub had just a few errors in it, such as Vegeta claiming that Goku's father was a great scientist when in reality he was a lower class warrior as shown in the first TV special "Bardock - The father of Goku". Things such as this were fixed in the redub. Although there was one line which slipped through...

Radditz: "Three years ago our planet was detroyed by a comet" (Or something along those lines... ^^;;)

However, Planet Vegeta was destroyed right after Goku was born and sent off the planet, Goku was about 23 at this point of the series. Meaning that Planet Vegeta was destoyed twenty three years ago, not three. =/
 

spacefissure

Deoxys rulez all!
Speaking of the Naruto/Sasuke kiss, did anyone notice that in episode 16 when Naruto was having that whole collage of flashbacks with Sasuke after he thought that he was dead, the kiss was still there? I found that weird.
 

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
Another thing I notice about a lot of shows, not just dubs, is that the captioning really stinks. Ever try to watch Digimon captioned? They spelled Susanoomon as "Suicidalmon", for instance.

And then there's the dubs that leave in the Japanese opening and ending themes, but don't bother to subtitle them. I know it's supposed to be more "pure" or something, but I'd really like to know what they're singing about!
 

WheelerTheViper

Procrastinate Today!
I can understand it with 4Kids, Viz kids, and Bandai (They did Digimon, correct?) shows, but.......

Why does Viz change the opening themes when the show is targeted at a teen/child audience? Naruto, Prince of Tennis, and MAR have cruddy dub themes (Which is odd, since the latter two are only online anyway). I thought Viz would have the sence to keep the opening themes, but no. At least Bleach is saved.
 

Soul Dew

<----------ualelele
Naruto's newest season has a Japanese opening actually.

But it uses different footage and Haruka Kanata stopoped being used a while back.
 

MugenKeiji

THERE'S NO $50 HERE!
Battle Athletes: Oh, many, many things.

1. Screwing up a bit of dialog during a flashback

2. Messing up Lahrri's name and by association nationality, but this was adhered to.

3. Missing ending sequence from episode 26; the "Where are they now?" stuff.

Digimon Adventure 01

Good actors, very bad punch-up. I blame Saban, why? Because when Frontier was dubbed, it took itself more seriously. Didn't ANYONE notice that? Also, despite not keeping the original Japanese score, there were still bits of silence.

Again, horrible scripting in the Saban years. Even moreso for the VenomVande... I mean Myotismon "releasing the beast within", although parts like "the hour of the Beast" were very envelope pushing... the core translation was handled well because Grace Anderson like Steve Simmons, Clyde Mandelin and Trish Ledoux only translate, they don't punch up...don't shoot the messenger.

Bobobo Bobobobo

What can I say? It looks like most of the work on the dub is simply the best of both worlds. One, whoever dubbed it gets to cut loose with as many off the wall jokes as possible and two whoever want to complain about the dub is just blowing hot air because the Japanese version was just as silly (only with some wordplay jokes here and there).

I suppose some bad choices would be made in not keeping enough of the opening and close sequences for broadcast, also Denbo's song could have used more rhymes...though they were smart not to translate the sign she put on J...let's just say if you can read katakana you'll know why the show gets a PG rating.

Lupin III

I love Pioneer...now called Geneon, I really do. In fact, I prefer their Lupin cast to FUNimation's for a number of reasons, they just sound better. Even if Meredith McCoy beats Michelle Ruff in the VAILF (Voice Actresses I'd Like to ...TOS VIOLATION WORD) scale, Ruff is the better "Fuji-cakes" because clearly the woman knows how to make Fujiko sound both sexy and crafty at the same time. Also it goes without saying that for whatever God-forsaken reason, the FUNi actors still struggle with Japanese words and names, Phuuz actually prepares for this type of contingency.

The problem I have with Geneon's dub is the same that plagues Digimon: THE MOTHER-SCROOGE-MCDUCKING PUNCH-UP SCRIPT. I suppose Phuuz, also responsible for Bobobo really likes to mess around with the scripts too much. I understand that simply "giving it to us straight" all the time gets boring, but do we really need 16 pop culture references and lame jokes in one scene? I suppose more to this tale would be that I hate licensing because it doesn't look as though Geneon will get any of the Lupin III movies or TV Specials to dub.

Evangelion

Okay, I'll be honest. I don't like the Eva dub. I have tried continously to tolerate it but there's one thing I can't get over. It annoys the crap out of me and that is Spike Spencer voicing Shinji. Holy freaking crap, it's the emo Doug Funnie. Everyone else is okay, plus Kaji sounds younger.

That's about my $0.02 for now.
 
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