| "It’s like 4kids wanted kids to think this show was American and not Japanese at all." That's a bingo! Honestly, for the time, I don't think the localization aspects were stupid. One Piece is probably the only exception. 4Kids completely obliterated One Piece's early potential in the west. That's a fact. For the more kiddie series like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, I'd say they did pretty well. They were still massively popular and successful. I loved them as a kid. Cultural changes like those weren't a problem. I think most who grew up watching those shows can agree on that. It's only a problem when you look back at it with a modern mindset of anime. We're talking about late 90s, early 00s. Bringing up cultural washing for that time is what seems dumb. The jelly donut onigiri is good meme material. I think you're looking at it a bit too seriously. |
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| You just want to find problems where there are none They wanted kids to be able to relate to the show |
literally_boba said: Kaiokek said: I don’t agree on all dubs are bad there’s some good ones like cowboy bebop fmab naruto so on but hey your opinionAlthough the pokemom dub is the most famous dub and most highly praised dub of all time, it's just a dub, it is a little lesser bad than any other dub but it is still a dub. Dubs are bad, end of story, all subs are better than their dub counterpart, that's a fact and you can definitely quote me on that Ever hear of the yuyuhakusho dub? That's way better than the original |
| First off, I want to say that I actually like the 4Kids dub. It was my first exposure to Pokemon and what got me into the franchise. It's nostalgic to me of course, but even looking back I think it can be pretty clever and appealing. I also think there's something to be said for not judging everyone and everything's past actions by "current year" standards. But I've been saying things similar to what OP has for years and being dismissed, so I'll take this chance to rant. Skip if you don't care. No, the English dub was not the flawless and perfect definitive version. Some of their changes were pretty questionable, pointless and/or stupid and yes, the original version is often better. Changing the OP to an English theme for an English broadcast version is one thing, plus other issues typical of the time, but I think the Pokemon dubbers are unique in trying very hard to hide the fact that they were adapting something that wasn't their creation. This was their show, totally American, what's Japan? And why would anyone ever want to watch something in the original language with subtitles in a language they understand when they made it so much better? Meh. That "oh, kids will get confused at seeing Japanese cultural things and stop watching" doesn't fly because Pokemon itself is/was a new, foreign world with its own culture and lots of unfamiliar items and concepts. So are kids really more likely to tune out at onigiri than pokeballs? Are they going recoil at an MC called Satoshi while being totally okay with 151 creatures with new and often unfamiliar names, along with the word "pokemon" which they never explained in the English adaptation is short for "pocket monster"? Can't go back and change what was already done decades ago by now and seeped into popular culture since, but no, most of it wasn't necessary and I personally won't make excuses for it. The original version is great and I wish we had better access to it. The problem is not the English dubbed adaptation existing but how the original has been basically hidden. I hate how even in 2021, other, less popular series have long gotten official sub releases in some form, while Pokemon, a juggernaut of that time period that had a major impact on the popularity of anime in the west in general, has not. People will buy/stream original Japanese versions of Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, Monster Rancher and even freaking Samurai Pizza Cats, but not Pokemon, you really think that, licence holders? Though I do like the 4Kids dub, it's also worth noting that after the great VA replacement during the last season of Advanced, it was so bad I stopped watching. Gave it a chance for the rest of Advanced but it didn't get better. I stopped early DP when I had to swap to the original version to get something that made sense. [Note to dubbers: worry about if your script is still consistent and coherent before patting yourselves on the back for how "hilarious" you can make Team Rocket.] I haven't really looked back since, though I did catch one episode on CN a few years ago. Some of the voices of newer characters were good, but Team Rocket is still awful. If they're wreaking my favorite characters, no thanks, I'll stick to the original. Now can we get official subs like pretty much every other anime, please? |
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| I don't mind names changes because localization is important. However 4Kids had a really bad habit of just making shit up for no apparent reason. For instance the whole Brock's mom being dead thing which was never said in the Japanese version of the 5th episode, yet despite 4Kids supposedly being a family friendly company they thought that killing off Brock's mom would be more appropriate than simply saying that she left the family? There's dozens of other examples of them changing the story or simply changing dialogue for the sake of change, as well as their inconsistent paint edits and a bunch of other things that they did. At the very least I praise them for keeping a lot of the original music in the older episodes and for adding humorous dialogue between the cast and TR. |
| It was a different time. Every show aimed at younger audiences was edited in some way; hell even today anime dubbed for kids is edited. Just look at Glitter Force. I sort of look back on it as a relic, like the racism in early animation. It's a product of the time. |
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