• Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.

    However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.

    We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure.
  • Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

So why have the English dub of the anime and English translation of the manga never evolved?

WaterTypeStarter

Well-Known Member
Most anime and manga dubs and translations today tend to differ than decades ago. Changing names, and for anime cutting off or altering segments, no previews, replacing the Japanese openings and credits with English (often generic) ones, changing background music among other things have fallen out of favor with most modern dubs and translations. And the original Japanese version of anime is usually availble subtitled as an option. Why has the Pokemon English versions never evolved?
 
Last edited:

Tabasco Boshi

★★★★★
Because TPCi doesn't wanna lose that extra cash they get from the countries that are forced to use their crappy version of the show. And the main audience doesn't even know they get a watered-down/censored/not the creators vision of the show because they're too young and the Japanese version isn't available in West because that would expose TPCi's outdated crappy practices. And since no big names in the community who could get at least a bit of attention from TPCi ever talk about this situation either (the creator of this site comes to mind for example, among many others) it will stay like this forever.
 
Last edited:

Lord Starfish

Fond of owls
English translation of the manga? Now, for the anime I get what you mean but I was led to believe that outside of some occasional censorship owing to the fact that the content of the Japanese version just would not fly in the US without bumping up the age rating which they don't want to do, the English translation of the manga was faithful to the JP? Of course they still change the names but... brand recognition. TPCi is far from the only company that dictates that their names be used everywhere, and honestly for Pokémon it makes more sense than for most things. Lizardon has only ever been known as Charizard in English-released Pokémon media. It is called Charizard in everything. Them calling it Lizardon would just confuse and potentially alienate the target audience while only pleasing a small minority who are quite frankly unlikely to buy the manga anyway.
 

lolipiece

Pictured: what browsing Serebii does to a person
Staff member
Moderator
I'm not sure why bring up manga considering it actually has evolved from the jokey reference-filled versions from the 90s.
 

SerenaRulez

Well-Known Member
I think the English dub has changed a little over time. The old 4Kids produced episodes had more jokes and removed alot of dialogue and replaced it with localized references that western audiences would understand.

The newer dubbed episodes seem more straight forward and not as spontaneous as the 4Kids ones. It would be cool if the newer episodes kept the Japanese opening songs but I think there might be a problem with getting ahold of licensing rights for those songs?
 

Lord Starfish

Fond of owls
I think the English dub has changed a little over time. The old 4Kids produced episodes had more jokes and removed alot of dialogue and replaced it with localized references that western audiences would understand.

The newer dubbed episodes seem more straight forward and not as spontaneous as the 4Kids ones. It would be cool if the newer episodes kept the Japanese opening songs but I think there might be a problem with getting ahold of licensing rights for those songs?
Practically every other anime these days can keep the original songs. Even TPCi themselves have shown that they are entirely capable of keeping the original BGM if they so choose to, as seen in the last two movies and also mini-series like Twilight Wings. It's not an issue of being unable to get the music. Yeah there are a few instances where a dub will be forced to cut a song (like how strangely enough the 14th ending theme to One Piece is missing on the US DVDs... despite the eighth opening, by the same artists, being kept) but this is rare.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
I don't care about the dubbed anime much, so it's never really been a concern of mine whether or not TPCi keeps the original soundtrack. What I do think is odd is that there isn't a readily-available official subtitled version of the Japanese anime for English-speaking fans on English streaming sites like Netflix, at least not as far as I'm aware. Every other anime series that I can think of has an official sub.
 

Applecorp

Well-Known Member
Complacency from viewers and TPCi? Lots of dub watchers from what I've seen don't mind how the show is dubbed as long as they can hear English voices because I guess reading subtitles is too hard?
 

Tabasco Boshi

★★★★★
It's completely understandable to not like subs. I'm not the biggest fan either and my country's dub was always my first choice until TPCi started damaging more and more the product. Between solid voice acting and good music / solid voice acting and low quality music, I have to go with the first.

It's a good time to mention that the dub of episode 45 of Journeys kept 7 tracks, almost 60% of the original music. This is the first time since 2013 that an episode keeps such a "high" %. Just adds salt to the wound, since, once again, prove that they could keep anything they wanted and have a decent product by 2021 standards (or 2005 lol), they just choose not to. And no, this isn't a sign of change, the following episodes go back to their usual bs, and S24 will suffer the same fate.
 
Last edited:

LuxerWap

The Green Husky with a Broken Tail
Keep in mind that this show is aimed for children. I know I’m gonna get the whole “well, kids deserve better”, but that’s really the answer. Do you think the episode of Ash dressing up as Passimian would fly in the west? Hell no, it was banned cause it was seen as “blackface” and would not want to deal with parents being upset about it and call Pokémon racists.”

Back in the 90s and early 2000’s, there were a lot of adult themes in the show and they decided to drop them because fear of controversy. It’s silly, put with stuff like this and how popular the franchise and the show still it, it’s better to not risk it. That’s why you don’t see a lot of stuff edited or cut after Season 8 once TPCi took over.

The only things I remember TPCi only cut are the episode of Team Rocket imagining Giovanni half-naked as bug Pokémon crawls up and licks his honey covered body in DP. And the other episode of Mimikyu cursed Meowth and the shot of him looking as if he’s dead on the river.
 

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
Only a *complete idiot* would see a kid dressing up as an actual monkey and think "ah yes this is clearly a mockery of certain humans". They had no real reason to bend to the perception of fools other than wildly underestimating their audience.

Wasn't the shot of Gio covered in honey a time cut that was restored in later airings?
 

Ryu Taylor

Unwavering beliefs. Richter Taylor is my name now.
Some people don't like subtitles. Nothing wrong with that.
It's completely understandable to not like subs.

Glad you both brought this up.

Personally, not only do I not like subs (and for the record, while I do watch Journeys in Japanese and English, I watch the JP version raw), I've reached the point where I don't even like Japanese cartoons anymore. I've only enjoyed about 4% of Japan's entire catalogue of animated works, and frankly, Pokémon is the only currently-running one I even still watch. In fact, I even changed my name to Richter Taylor just to distance myself from anime altogether (and yes that's also the reason my icon no longer has dumb anime hair) as well as the otaku/weeb culture that jaded my view on anime in the first place.

I bring this up because it factors into my answer to this thread's question: it did evolve, but not as much as anime fans wanted it to. And as I'm not an anime fan, I couldn't care less what happens in the dubbing process.
 
Last edited:

mehmeh1

Not thinking twice!
I mean when it comes to names, the games change the names anyways, so the translations have to accomodate
 

Lord Starfish

Fond of owls
I mean when it comes to names, the games change the names anyways, so the translations have to accomodate
Aye. Though a lot of the name changes are entirely arbitrary both in the name and the show. I particularly scratch my head at "Sophocles." They changed a Hawaiian character's Hawaiian name to the Latin equivalent of the same name. (Not to mention them changing Ohana Town to Paniola Town, aka, changing a Hawaiian name to a different Hawaiian name.) But yeah. Since those names were in the game, they kinda had to also be in the show.
 
Top