Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - The Rise and Evolution of Old Classic Dubs
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 644 |
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Digimon was one of those weird cases where even with the corny gags and dumb pop culture references, the show still kept in a ton of the drama involving the kids. Izzy and his adopted parents, Matt being a dedicated older brother, Tai being forced to grow ahead of his years in order to take care of his chronically-ill sister... I feel like Digimon was really ahead of the curve as far as kids' shows are concerned with how much of those plots they kept in. And heck, it's still pretty amazing that even as messily they handled Apocalymon, there's still SOME of him holding the Digidestined to task for being partly responsible of the arbitrary decision of who gets to live or die.
It would be nice if dub haters finally got over this era of dubbing because only Saban/Power Rangers still does it. It would be nice if they could handle Power Rangers/Kamen Rider more like how Tsuburaya handles Ultraman. But until then, man, Digimon really did punch above it's weight when it wanted to. |
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2487 Location: United States |
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Man, it really blows my mind how a complete re-dub of the first three Digimon movies wound up being possible. I'm kinda surprised Toei bothered to keep the M&E tracks for the movies, since most of the time preserving those isn't considered a priority. But the fact that Discotek is really investing in bringing in people who genuinely care about the Digimon franchise to create new dubs for the movies and do them justice after 23 years of Frankensteining really makes me happy. We Digimon fans are eating like kings and queens. I am buying those re-dubbed movies the literal nanosecond they come out.
Now if only somebody would do the same for stuff like Tokyo Mew Mew, Ojamajo Doremi, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Pretty Cure. |
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lemurs
Posts: 106 |
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Not only are the classic dub versions of shows released first, but they must outsell the sub-only versions by a decent margin because Discotek has encouraged fans of the shows to pick up those versions if they want them to keep coming. Even something like Ghost Stories featured a separate subtitle track for the comedy dub simply because that's the version most people are interested in. So the company is doing its best to keep classic titles available that might otherwise fall through the cracks, but they're leaning more heavily on classic anime nostalgia in order to get them in front of eyeballs.
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2678 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I do feel like Saban's old Digimon dubs did help set a standard of "kids will be fine if you keep the characters Japanese" for dubs of their ilk. For example, the first Beyblade series initially tried to be vague about where exactly the main characters came from, but when Nelvana moved over to 2002/V-Force & G-Revolution they just decided to fully accept that everyone lives in Japan, even with the changed names, and today modern Beyblade dubs (much like Yu-Gi-Oh!, to my knowledge) just outright keep more or less everyone's names unchanged, no matter how Japanese they might be, which I think is really cool.
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2310 Location: Online Terminal |
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What dub haters don't (or won't) understand is that these are shows for children, and that despite overlap, Japanese children and American children are different groups. I think the shows that stood the test of time (Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Digimon) were ones whose adaptors understood what would appeal to American kids and just flavored what was left to taste. Digimon's nonsense in particular being restricted to mostly doodling in the margins made watching it a fuller experience because without the humor it's a heavier, more dramatic show with blander characters, and that's likely not going to be for everyone. |
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redvelvetdoll
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Just want to set the record straight that the original Japanese version of Ghost Stories is 100% on Crunchyroll (in the US). It's been there since Crunchyroll added the entire series in 2016. You just have to click on an episode and change it to Audio: Japanese (original) and turn on the subtitles. Discotek's bluray has both as well.
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Nyapan
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I'm happy about the Digimon redub and sub releases and I wish Yu-Gi-Oh! got the same treatment. Because no, not all of the series are available subbed on Crunchyroll. Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal (the x is silent in the sub), Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens and the currently airing Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush only have fansubs on pirate sites.
I didn't grow up with the series and I'm French so I have no attachment to the dubs, in fact I hate that they're continuing to dub the franchise like before. It's 2023, dub watchers deserve a faithful dub without jokes every 5 seconds and with the original OST! It's not as bad with Sevens since the original is aimed towards a younger audience but what they did with the end of Vrains was horrible. I also hate the dub names and it's annoying to see them in every discussion because the dub is the only thing legally available. I have nothing against dubs that respect the original work and try their best to convey the original's ideas to a new audience but continuing with these kiddy dubs makes no sense to me. Kids are watching subbed anime! And people that can't watch subbed content deserve better. |
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Southkaio
Posts: 385 |
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In my opinion, it would be important if Discotek Media hires more dubbing studios and not just Sound Cadence. Why Sound Cadence for almost all Discotek Media dubs? That makes no sense! It's like hiring the only one overseas animation studio for all animated works by an American animation company. Come on!
There is still an opportunity for Discotek Media to co-operate with Vancouver/Edmonton/Calgary, Toronto and Montreal dubbing studios. It would be great if Discotek Media outsources their dubs to Canada and/or does the cross-regional dubs featuring Los Angeles and Vancouver voice talent like ''Yashahime''. At this moment, I am wondering. Even after the success of the Viz Media's dub of ''Sailor Moon'', why Discotek Media didn't redub ''Saint Tail'' in its entirety or at least dubbed the last 28 episodes? Speaking of the redub of the Powerpuff Girls anime, DIscotek Media should at least use the original voice cast of the 1998 show. That would fix what I call the mistake from years ago (using the Ocean Group voice actors for the dub of PPGZ). Almost all the Powerpuff Girls media feature e.g. Roger L. Jackson as Mojo Jojo, Jennifer Hale as Miss Keane/Princess Morbucks/Sedusa, Tom Kenny as the Narrator/Mayor of Townsville et cetera. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6308 |
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It says something that having not watched the first season of Digimon in years. I was never by some of the kids wearing Goggles that they never used, Cowboy hats just cause, & Leather gloves.
But Kari wearing a whistle around her neck weirds me out for some reason.
While that is true that doesn’t mean that the English versions of these shows needed to be so damn cringey or blatant in how badly they wanted to whitewash the Japanese elements present in some of these series out because god forbid the characters eat rice balls or go by a Japanese sounding name that apparently can’t work even in a made up American setting. |
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Davy Sprocket
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A nostalgia cash-grab American dub is not what I would consider 'eating good', especially since most people in Japan and in other countries won't care about the American dub . The only new Digimon media currently is a text-only book series and the upcoming 02 movie, which you can also claim is nostalgia-bait. Ghost Game was the last push for anything new for Digimon. The franchise is going back to being dormant again and on the decline.
Most names in Yu-Gi-Oh were changed, and they explicitly state the dub takes place in America. "Welcome to America, Ishizu".
Even Digimon did this. "It's written in Digicode!" as a character looks at katakana.writing. They even changed Taichi's last name to ANOTHER Japanese name because "Yagami" is "Im a Gay" spelled backwards. They did the same for Takato and Ruki in Tamers, but for other reasons. Last edited by Davy Sprocket on Tue Aug 08, 2023 5:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Hagaren Viper
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The Glitter Force dub always sticks with me because of the absolutely bonkers mental gymnastics they did to justify a school trip to (if I remember correctly) Kyoto - since the cast is presumably in America they adapt Kyoto into the 'Asia Pacific Cultural Festival' which transforms a whole town into a replica of Japan (Or, er, 'Asia'?). It might actually be one of the biggest stretches I've seen in an edited dub.
Shame the whole thing came out like it did (And weird to me that it was edited far more than Digimon, which was dubbed years before by the same company), because the cast genuinely felt like they were having a blast with it.
That... doesn't have anything to do with anything that was mentioned?
Re: Digicode, they did that exactly once before the show committed to leaving the setting in Japan, after which they either left text intact or translated it. The 'Yagami' thing is just a rumor and is honestly easier explained by every aspect of the English translation of the entire franchise being historically rough of not outright bad at times - here's looking at you, Cyber Sleuth. |
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Los Nido
Posts: 132 |
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I don't think modern American dub discourse has anything to do with this era of anime. Most modern complaints about American dubs are just general critiques about over-localization/mistranslation, or weird political ad-libs being thrown in. Or just bad acting Speaking of which, while re-dubs like this are probably interesting for those who grew up with the dubs and want that ping of nostalgia, I'm a bit confused who these dubs are for, exactly. People who want the original story will be watching them subbed, but fans of the dub will probably find them 'boring' if the script is written faithfully and there's no jokes or edits or changes. I always felt the English cast for these shows were horribly matched and don't work as a straight dub. I think Sailor Moon did the right idea of just wiping the slate clean and hiring new voice actors. Shows like Shaman King, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Digimon trying to use the old voice actors but reading a 'real' script don't really work since the original voices were intentionally cast to be silly, over-the-top, and unfitting. Jounouchi and Bakura should not have Brooklyn and British accents if you're trying to do a real dub for Duel Monsters, for example. It's hard for me to picture the English voice of Taichi being serious and not cracking jokes every few seconds. But maybe it's because I associate these voices with the original awful script so much.
I've heard this a few times in the past but PPGZ is just so different and dethatched that I don't think the original American cartoon voices would fit at all for that. The Japanese version did not use the seiyuu from the Japanese dub of PPG either. |
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redvelvetdoll
Posts: 65 |
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Thanks for mentioning this. I actually really like the VA choices for Smile Precure/DokiDoki Precure, ESPECIALLY Cherami Leigh as Regina. She really slayed. I would honestly shell out for a faithful uncut dub of those seasons (although I would buy a regular subbed set anyway too). |
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oilers2007
Posts: 125 |
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That would only make sense if you ignore that countries outside of America exist. Sailor Moon and Pokemon being worldwide phenomena are solely because of the quality of the IPs themselves, not whatever changes or styles the American dub used. It's ironic because both those shows went through different dubbing periods and handlers throughout their runs and people will debate which one is better, even though they were all pretty bad. The debate of 4Kids VS TCPI for Pokemon never made sense to me because they're both inferior products. Digimon shouldn't be with them, though. The franchise has never been huge or comparable. Appmon and Ghost Game were sub only and the last attempt at an English TV dub was the disasterous Xros Wars dub. Thankfully anime dubs in this vein seem to have gone the way of the dodo outside of a few random titles and failed attempts. I don't think those old dubs 'stand the test of time' due to anything special, it's just times have changed. Kids are watching anime online now and don't have to rely on Saturday morning dubs. When you got kids getting into anime through Demon Slayer and Attack on Titan then those kinds of dubs for Americanizing things are obsolete Anti-Japanese xenophobia is a lot less of an issue now (but still not gone, obviously) |
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Silver Kirin
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I grew up watching Digimon Adventure's Latin American Spanish dub, which was a pretty faithfu to the original Japanese version, though the main character's names were the same as in Saban's version, but that was probably done for marketing purposes since all of Bandai's toys were imported from the U.S. As I was saying, the Spanish dub had a Spanish version of Butterfly and I Wish, the BGM was the same as in the Japanese, including the insert songs, things like Gotsumon and Pumpkinmon's deaths were shown, as well as the alcohol references and the main characters were called the Chosen Children. That brings me to Digimon the Movie, which did received a LatAm Spanish dub with almost all of the series cast reprising their roles, but since it was a dub of the Saban movie the script was more in line with the Enlgish version and even as a kid I was confused that now the kids were referred as the Digi-Destined, that it had jokes every few seconds and all the licensed music. I can understand people in the U.S. being nostalgic about that version, here in Latin America we got dubbed versions of the anime 4Kids licensed like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!, while others like Shaman King and Cardcaptor Sakura were dubbed from the Japanese version. Despite having learned about the changes anime got in the U.S. I'm still amazed by the changes in shows like Sailor Moon, while in other regions it seemed like they had no problems keepeing the Japanese cultural references intact.
Here in Latin America almost all of the actors from the cartoon reprised their roles in the PPGZ anime, with the only exception being Rossy Aguirre as Buttercup, but that was due to differences between her and the recording studio, as she has voiced anime characters like Akane Tendo and Ami Mizuno. In fact, It's quite common in LatAm for dub actors to work in cartoons and anime, for example, Blossom's VA is known for vocing Sakura Kinomoto, Kari Kamiya and Gatomon, while Bubble's VA voiced Erza Scarlet and Nobita, she also performed the third opening for Inuyasha. |
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