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Answerman - How Hard Is It To License Western Music For Use In Anime?

AbZeroNow wrote:

@WingKing...Roundabout is intact on the Warner DVDs of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Too bad the set has no proper subs with Japanese dub. I hear even the english dub isn't any good.

I wonder if Viz now has the physical release rights to jojo and if so, would they give it a proper release??

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Unfortunately, since the United States is the world's #1 media market, those rights are always the most expensive for us -- even when the project the song is being attached to might only sell a few thousand copies.

Because the record companies are greedy and short-sighted.

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All of that matters: bigger bands with more cash and a bigger name can drive a much harder bargain (and be pickier in general) when it comes to their licensing deals.

Again, see WKRP. And we're still waiting on The Wonder Years home video release, even though it was announced not too long ago.

I have a similar/related question regarding JoJo and music, but more regarding the names of characters and stands. Also, are subtitles considered absolute/definitive?... what I'm trying to get at is I find it silly that you can clearly hear the characters say "Crazy Diamond" and "Bad Company", (the character even has Bad Co on written on his collar), but the subtitles say "shining diamond" and "worse company". Does this actually do/change anything legal-wise? or is it just kind of a show of good faith? I would understand if it was dubbed over and was completely replaced, but it seems silly.
If its definitely for legal reason, then would the japanese audio need to be removed/altered to change the names?
It sometimes ruins the sense of immersion. Similar to when the JP track uses a character's given name, but the subs use their family name; or when there's a pause in the middle of a sentence so the subs have it in 2 parts, but the sentence structure is different between JP and english so the second parts meaning is subtitled over the first and vice versa.

Also, the first series of "Gunslinger Girl" had "The Light Before We Land" by Scottish band The Delgados.

Here's an odd one. My fansubs of Monster have the ED songs as listed in the ANN encyclopaedia: For The Love of Life by David Sylvian for eps 1-32 and Make It Home by Fujiko Heming for eps 33-74. The official Siren Visual release has the David Sylvian song for the entire series, with the vocal track removed.

Someone brought up Monster's ending theme a bit earlier; from what I remember the vocal track was missing from the SyFy broadcast too. (Still hate you forever Viz.) The same show had a few in-episode music issues too: the famous "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was replaced with a vague sound-alike during one scene that made explicit reference to it, and another character's favorite song was meant to be "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes but received the same treatment. I think that instance was even worse, because the character was nicknamed "The Baby" as an explicit reference to that song, so removing it made the whole thing lose its import.

You are correct. Speed Grapher used Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" for its original OP, and Funi had to replace it because they couldn't get the rights to use that song in the US (I can only imagine how expensive it would've been, especially for a series that I don't think was all that popular).

There was also another series, I forget the name right now, that used a couple of Backstreet Boys songs. I think that's a series that was never released outside Japan, though.