Forum - View topicAnime marketted toward Spanish-speakers in the US?
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MrVince
Posts: 67 |
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Hispanics/Latinos are the fastest growing demographic in the US right now (I'd imagine it's probably not as fast in Canada, but noticeable). Anime is popular there, so for those who recently immigrated to the US, I'd imagine there are many who have already been exposed to anime in their previous home country. So here are some questions that have been formulating in my mind:
Do the regional distribution rights domestic (relative to the US) distributors cover all major languages in the region? Is the US anime industry addressing the North American Spanish-speaking demographic? Is there a need for Spanish dubs and/or subs to be included in North American releases of anime? Is the only legit way to get Spanish dubbed/subbed anime is to buy imported from latin America? |
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Labbes
 Posts: 890 |
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I'll give my best to answer
I believe most distribution rights cover countries, probably languages as well. While R1 is limited to the US and Canada, R2 is Europe and Japan, where there are a lot of languages spoken. However, most anime DVDs in Germany have a German and a Japanese audio track - not more. So basically, this depends from deal to deal, I guess.
I don't think any of my DVDs have a Spanish audio track, so I would say no. Producing a dub for a minority would be very costly, and it doesn't pay off.
I think DVD releases with many languages are a great thing, but in such a niche industry, I don't think it makes a lot of sense, unless you got the dubs anyway: Beez distributes Eureka 7 in France, the UK and Germany, for example, so at least the German DVD includes French, English and German dubs - but that didn't cost them "more". And Latinos living in the US should be able to speak English, so why produce a dub for them if you can save money otherwise?
Last time I looked it up, rightstuf had Dragonball Z and Robotech in Spanish. |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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This would not be a good idea. Better they just learn English asap.
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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AFAIK, Spanish subs/dubs are a relative rarity with anime. Because anime in the US is marketed to primarily English-speaking citizens, that's the language the subtitles and dub tracks will be in. According to a review I read on Anime Jump of Burn Up...Excess, I think it was, it had a Spanish dub, but that's an incredible rarity. It costs time and money, not to mention compression issues (it's usually enough to have TWO audio tracks, 3 or 4 and you start overstuffing).
The only other thing you can do is import anime from Europe (and that's IF it got a Spanish sub/dub), or look for Spanish fan subs (but that raises questions of legality if it's licensed and distributed here already). |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18421 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I have upwards of 800 R1 anime DVDs, and only around 1% of them have Spanish dubs - and nearly all of those are from the same series, the original DVD release of Neon Genesis Evangelion (which, curiously, doesn't have Spanish subs, so an announcer has to read all the on-screen text). I have a couple of unrelated movies that have Spanish language options, but I think that's it.
Given the tightened anime market in the States right now, that's unlikely to change unless native Spanish speakers, as a group in the U.S., demonstrate that it'd be worth the extra cost to add on a Spanish translation and subtitles. So far they haven't. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I'm no expert on this, but I believe external Spanish .stl files (and similar) exist out there for some theatrically released anime. Series or multi-episode OAVs I'm not too sure about however. |
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Ta-kun The Black Kitty
 Posts: 132 Location: Where the truth isn't hated. |
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As a Latin American, I'm sorry to say this, but there aren't many original anime DVDs with Spanish subs or dubs in it. In fact, I think there aren't any, except in Argentina or Spain (up to where I know).
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nhat
Posts: 922 |
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Just curious but could you tell us how popular anime is where you live? |
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Ta-kun The Black Kitty
Posts: 132 Location: Where the truth isn't hated. |
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Not too much, I'm afraid. People here are pretty ignorant and think manga/anime is "a weok of the devil." Then again, they spend the day watching telenovelas.
But yeah, it's not popular. Sadly. |
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einhorn303
 Posts: 1180 |
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I think the only anime DVD I've seen was Avatar: the Last Airbender. It even had an actual Spanish dub...terrible compared to the English, of course. (God, Toph's voice...)
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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Avatar isn't even technically anime, it's more along the lines of Amerime. But yeah, it seems ADV did a few Spanish dubs. Other than Evangelion, apparently (I wouldn't know as I never looked at the DVDs' language menus, and I have the Platinum collection so I don't know if it has the same dub tracks), there's that one Burn Up show I think I mentioned above.
But yeah, again, there's compression issues. Having dual audio tracks is one of the main reasons they have to limit the other stuff on the DVDs, and having THREE tracks would probably be pushing storage space to the stretching point. |
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EricDent
 Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
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They are starting to release some of the Dragon Ball Z movies in Spanish, so I guess it is a start.
I realize that English is a pretty tricky language (especially with all the odd slang & spelling we do), but it can be learned. I don't really mind the fact that there are a lot of Hispanic people in the USA. But it is getting pretty silly when even signs in Best Buy are in English & Spanish now... |
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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Eva has French too if I remember correctly. The other DVD w/ Spanish audio that comes to mind is the Fighting Spirit DVDs. The special edition of Ghost in the shell has a number of languages including Spanish. I'm sure there are others if I think hard enough. |
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Bitter Almonds
Posts: 57 |
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It isn't rare at all. There are plenty of anime titles that were and are dubbed in Spanish. In fact, there's a few that weren't even translated into English that made it to Spanish. What's rare is trying to sell the videos and manga. Anime shows are usually shown by television stations and are run for years before they're retired and a whole new batch of shows are dubbed. While it was difficult to see anime on regular television in the US from the late 80s and throughout most of the 90s, anime was regularly shown throughout Latin America and Spain since the late 60s/early 70s up to today. |
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quikbeam1
 Posts: 150 Location: Behind you |
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Wow, another person from Bogotá, thats suprising. Anyway yeah, i have to agree with Anime and Manga not being popular in Latin America, or atleast people are not as open to saying they watch it as a hobby. They did have a channel a few years ago, around 1995 or 1996 that showed solely anime, or atleast for what i remember. Which is actually the channel that got me started with anime. Also, while some DVDs are dubbed and subbed in Spanish, they are not that easy to find in Latin America, and importing DVDs doesn't always work because DVD regional codes. |
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