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Lord Starfish
Joined: 25 Nov 2014
Posts: 163
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 Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 3:52 am
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| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: | | This might be a controversial hot take, but I actually quite like the Disney soundtrack to Castle In The Sky and I think it's just as beautiful as the original soundtrack. It helps Disney hired Joe Hisaishi to compose it. |
I mean, it's literally the Japanese soundtrack re-recorded and expanded. Out of all the replacement scores out there, it's probably the one that maintains the spirit of the original the best, by virtue of... much of it being the exact same music with better instrumentation and sound quality.
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Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5160
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 12:13 pm
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Regardless I remember a lot of purist fans being very upset that Disney changed the original 80s synth score. And now we have the situation where dub fans of Kiki's Delivery Service are upset that the remastered release of the movie doesn't have the "I'm Gonna Fly" song anymore. As in the case of Castle in the Sky, I think the problem I have with the whole "it goes against the creator's vision" argument is that in most cases, the decision to change a soundtrack is approved by the original Japanese studio. There might be rare cases where cut changes are made without approval like the original Warriors of the Wind, but I think in this day and age of email and social media, it would be harder for an American company to make a change that the original creator was unhappy with without risking losing their rights to the show.
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BadNewsBlues
Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6272
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 4:48 pm
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| JustinTaco wrote: | | Forgive me if this was already said in the preceding 58 posts but,
does this article come off as extremely condescending to anyone else? |
No in what way does it?
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Shiflan
Joined: 29 Jul 2015
Posts: 418
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 4:57 pm
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| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: | | Regardless I remember a lot of purist fans being very upset that Disney changed the original 80s synth score. And now we have the situation where dub fans of Kiki's Delivery Service are upset that the remastered release of the movie doesn't have the "I'm Gonna Fly" song anymore. As in the case of Castle in the Sky, I think the problem I have with the whole "it goes against the creator's vision" argument is that in most cases, the decision to change a soundtrack is approved by the original Japanese studio. There might be rare cases where cut changes are made without approval like the original Warriors of the Wind, but I think in this day and age of email and social media, it would be harder for an American company to make a change that the original creator was unhappy with without risking losing their rights to the show. |
Two thoughts.
First, I think that for a lot of people any sort of change is bad, simply because it is *a* change, not necessarily a good one or a bad one. If you are used to a certain version of a show and suddenly something (a voice, a song, the BGM, etc.) is different from that memory or nostalgia then it isn't quite as appealing.
And second, regarding people concerned about "artistic integrity" or whether or not an edit is "official": A lot of the time an artists vision is not the same thing as the "official" release. Consider how many films have a "theatrical edit" and a "director's cut". Which is the "real one"? We might like one much better than the other. Or for that matter, look at how an artist's work changes with time: we can see painters, musicians, authors, etc, change the style of their work throughout their lives or careers. A given director might approve a new song for a movie they did 20 years ago....but what if you like the original one better, despite the change being official? It's a complicated topic and not one there is an easy answer for.
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Showsni
Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 641
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 6:13 pm
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| Lord Starfish wrote: | | But practically every piece of BGM from the anime that's iconic among the fandom? It's from the Japanese version. |
That might just be because it's so hard to find the 4Kids BGM. For example, I love the background music in episode one, where the Spearow is fighting Pikachu, and then when Ash is riding away on Misty's bike. The closest you can get to finding the first piece is listening to Giovanni's theme and then Bruno's theme back to back from Pokémon Puzzle League on the N64, and then there's nowhere at all to hear the second piece. It's not like the Japanese only music where you can get CDs of orchestral versions.
Honestly, say what you like about 4Kids, but I think they did a good job with early Pokémon. Yes, they filled up pretty much every bit of silence with music, but they kept nearly all the Japanese tracks at one point or another, and where they replaced tracks it was generally to replace the more generic Japanese music (hearing Raid! for the tenth time or whatever) with one of their own pieces in the same style that could match the onscreen visuals better (like the Spearow section I mentioned, where they time the music to what's happening).
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Spawn29
Joined: 14 Jan 2008
Posts: 556
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Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:08 pm
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| TheAnimeRevolutionizer wrote: | |
Dragon Ball Z - I like how the soundtrack gained a really tense and stimulating edge when it was brought to the US. |
I feel like the dub music changes for the DB series in America missed the point of the original soundtrack. Kuchiki's soundtrack is meant to be old fashion in a similar style to other Kung Fu movies. Bruce Faluconer's music would be fine if it was a kids show like Beast Wars, not Dragon Ball.
You should never alter art in my opinion because I feel like the 1984 re-release of Metropolis is a good example of it. In 1984, they took a sci-fi masterpiece from Fritz Lang that was made in the late 1920's and had it be re-adapted and colored to a modern audience done by Giorgio Moroder. It was awful and most people hated it. What Funimation did to Dragon Ball was not much different what they did with Metropolis in 1984 if you ask me. People today still enjoy the original Metropolis with the music from Gottfried Huppertz that he made in the 1920's.
People in America would still enjoy DBZ with it's original soundtrack in the late 90's and early 2000's. Other parts of the world got the series long before we did with the original music and it was still a smash hit.Even when I was kid when I got into Dragon Ball, I thought the Japanese music sounded fine. I was already into Japanese movies and HK movies like Godzilla and Five Deadly Venoms. So I enjoy the vintage throw back that Kuchiki did.
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Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5160
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2018 2:33 am
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| Shiflan wrote: | |
Two thoughts.
First, I think that for a lot of people any sort of change is bad, simply because it is *a* change, not necessarily a good one or a bad one. If you are used to a certain version of a show and suddenly something (a voice, a song, the BGM, etc.) is different from that memory or nostalgia then it isn't quite as appealing. |
Dubbing an anime is as much a business decision as it is an artistic one and anime studios will make decisions that they think will make them the most profit and the creative staff signs on to that when they sell the license to the dubbing studio. Even when you're watching a subtitled anime, you're still watching someone's interpretation of the artist's vision and it's still not really a "pure" experience of that vision unless you happened to have learned Japanese yourself. And even then you're still being limited by how much knowledge you have in learning a second language. But my overall point is that expect in rare cases like Miyazaki and the Warriors of the Wind controversy, until the original creators speaks out about their opinion about the English dub, we don't really know what their "vision" is and it's a bit of an argument from authority fallacy to cite their artists' vision to support what is really your personal preference.
| Quote: | | And second, regarding people concerned about "artistic integrity" or whether or not an edit is "official": A lot of the time an artists vision is not the same thing as the "official" release. Consider how many films have a "theatrical edit" and a "director's cut". Which is the "real one"? We might like one much better than the other. Or for that matter, look at how an artist's work changes with time: we can see painters, musicians, authors, etc, change the style of their work throughout their lives or careers. A given director might approve a new song for a movie they did 20 years ago....but what if you like the original one better, despite the change being official? It's a complicated topic and not one there is an easy answer for. |
The issue at hand here then is not about "artistic integrity" but about accessibility. I don't think most fans would complain about music changes to dubs if the Japanese versions of the shows were widely available through official means like streaming or DVD. In many cases, I feel like we're in a lot better position nowadays than we were in the 90s when only hip college kids with VHS fansubs ever got to watch the original. Nowadays the uncut Japanese versions of shows like Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Dragon Ball Z are all easily available to watch on either Blu Ray or streaming sites. Even Yugioh while unfortunateley not on DVD you can now watch subtitled and even the latest series you can watch simulcast on Crunchyroll. It's only a few localized anime like Glitter Force and Pokemon and Digmon that still don't have official subtitled releases. But nowadays it's much easier to watch the Japanese versions of most anime and in some cases like Sailor Moon, it's much easier to watch the Japanese version than it is to watch the original localized English dub. And in the case of Sailor Moon, I think the DiC dub has a lot more nostalgic value now because it's harder to find now. But I feel like a lot of these sub vs dub wars over localization changes would have less meaning to the arguments if all the versions were easily available to please all the fans.
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Chester McCool
Joined: 06 Jan 2016
Posts: 322
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2018 3:27 am
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| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: | | . But my overall point is that expect in rare cases like Miyazaki and the Warriors of the Wind controversy, until the original creators speaks out about their opinion about the English dub, we don't really know what their "vision" is and it's a bit of an argument from authority fallacy to cite their artists' vision to support what is really your personal preference. |
Most mangaka work with anime studios when their work is being adapted pretty closely, so I think it's safe to assert that the elements of the original version of the anime are pretty close to their artisic vision. But to my knowledge, they've never worked with dubbing companies, especially the kind that make those kinds of monumental changes, so comparing huge edits and changes in music to "subtitles are also an interpretation of the script" is a very questionable argument in my mind.
| Spawn29 wrote: | | People in America would still enjoy DBZ with it's original soundtrack in the late 90's and early 2000's. Other parts of the world got the series long before we did with the original music and it was still a smash hit.Even when I was kid when I got into Dragon Ball, I thought the Japanese music sounded fine. I was already into Japanese movies and HK movies like Godzilla and Five Deadly Venoms. So I enjoy the vintage throw back that Kuchiki did. |
Part of the reason I disliked Dragonball Kai was the music changes. The removal of Unmei no Hi was an unforgivable crime.
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Shiflan
Joined: 29 Jul 2015
Posts: 418
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2018 9:32 am
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| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: | | Dubbing an anime is as much a business decision as it is an artistic one and anime studios will make decisions that they think will make them the most profit and the creative staff signs on to that when they sell the license to the dubbing studio. Even when you're watching a subtitled anime, you're still watching someone's interpretation of the artist's vision and it's still not really a "pure" experience of that vision unless you happened to have learned Japanese yourself. And even then you're still being limited by how much knowledge you have in learning a second language. But my overall point is that expect in rare cases like Miyazaki and the Warriors of the Wind controversy, until the original creators speaks out about their opinion about the English dub, we don't really know what their "vision" is and it's a bit of an argument from authority fallacy to cite their artists' vision to support what is really your personal preference. |
In that paragraph I wasn't talking about "artistic vision" or artistic integrity whatsoever. I talked about that in the paragraph below, which is why I was careful to differentiate them with "first" and "second". In this paragraph I was talking about 100% nostalgia and habit. A lot of people have favorite movies or shows they've either grown up watching, or they've watched as fans dozens upon dozens of times. They know that movie/TV show/whatever like the back of their hand. When a person like that encounters a new release of that show which has a change made to the music (or the dub actors, or the translation, or anything else, really) it sticks out like a sore thumb because it doesn't match the viewer's memory. The change bothers people simply because it is a change. It doesn't matter if the change is for the better or is the work of the original creator or not--people get annoyed simply because the new version is "different" from what they expected.
| Quote: | | The issue at hand here then is not about "artistic integrity" but about accessibility. |
I think you may have misunderstood me there, or perhaps I wasn't clear. Let me give you an example:
Suppose I don't know any Japanese and I prefer Dubs. I watch my favorite show dubbed and I like it. Fast forward a few years and that show gets re-released by a different domestic distributor and they make a new dub. They even go so far as to talk with the original Japanese staff to make sure the new dub is done to their standards so this new dub is, in fact, "official" since it was approved by the artist. That's all well and good, but what if I like the earlier dub better? In that case it doesn't matter that the latter one is "official".
In other words, just because something is "official" doesn't mean it's the most pleasing to fans. And of course there are probably some people who feel the exact opposite, hence why it's "complicated". Some people only care about what's "official".
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