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This is really strange, and not so because it's happening, it happens all of the time, but because Viz is doing it. Through all of Shounen Jump, a magazine geared towards kids, they leave all of the characters with their regular Japanese names. This includes titles like Dragonball Z that fans are probably more familiar with their TV names than their manga original names. This is just a little unusual for them, but then they don't do a lot of manga that has been shown on TV first, but with Conan having a somewhat wider range of readers they'd keep the names the same as the originals.

Emerje

I read where the anime character name changes were done at the insistence of the Japanese producers, not Funi. So it may be they told Viz the same thing: Change the names if you want the license. (^_*)

Last edited by Tenseiga323 on Tue Jun 29, 2004 5:08 am; edited 1 time in total

herbkir wrote:

I read where the anime character name changes were done at the insistence of the Japanese producers, not Funi.

No.The title was change because of license issues.They change the name themself so it could fit the american viewer.

The title change is necessary, but the name changes are definitely not. I won't be picking this up...

z4rd wrote:

now if only [FUNi] would make decent subtitles instead of dubtitles...

Um...hello? They do. Try actually watching a FUNi-licensed title before bashing the company next time, okay?

GATSU wrote:

I don't even see how it can be compared to Conan the Barbarian. By their logic, NBC would have to change Conan O' Brien's name.

Not exactly. Conan O'Brien is the guy's real name. Conan the Barbarian and Detective Conan are copyrighted creations. I'm pretty sure someone whose real name is Conan doesn't have to worry, while the company importing Detective Conan does.

herbkir wrote:

I read where the anime character name changes were done at the insistence of the Japanese producers, not Funi. So it may be they told Viz the same thing: Change the names if you want the license. (^_*)

I'm beginning to think this is actually the case.

Tenseiga232 wrote:

No.The title was change because of license issues.They change the name themself so it could fit the american viewer.

So how come Viz seldom does that for other more popular titles?

Well I won't be buying it, or the anime cause I'm a bit of a purist. I feel that changes to suit the american market are out of order. As I have said before America is not the only nation on the planet, so silly name changes then travel to different countries to fans who don't want them. This market exists because of fans and they are failing to consult them is just insulting. Call me crazy but I could see this effect their sales of this manga in the long run.

This is just like the Hollywood Mew Mew thing all over again. If you want to make money out of manga the first rule is to respect the customer and the product. Viz and Funi are totally disrespecting the fans here. I think this will also encourage fans to seek out the original japanese manga and do a scanalation job on it if these companies don't reconsider, which again will bite DC sales.

Just because they present the show to kids it doesn't mean all it's fans are kids. This is indeed a dark day for anime and manga fans. The same plague of unnecessary name changes that has been effecting the games industry is now targeting anime and manga (though I know it's really been around longer).

I'm sure kids that read Shonen Jump are used to japanese names by now anyway, so doing this just to fall in line with tv is wrong, when so many other anime series on u.s tv leave them unchanged. Right now I hope this manga doesn't sell very well just to teach these lot a valuable lesson, that if it's not broke don't fix it. Manga, anime and japanese games are not just entertainment, but an education in another country and culture. These sort of changes breed ignorance to the way things should be, only confusing and annoying regular fans and customers further.

If Viz tried this with NGE they would pay a heavy price and I wouldn't buy, so I'm sure while some may think this is a trivial matter try thinking of the big picture if everyone did this, and if they came to alter yours and others favourite manga tomorrow.
Long live Tokyopop.

Onizuka666 wrote:

This is just like the Hollywood Mew Mew thing all over again. If you want to make money out of manga the first rule is to respect the customer and the product. Viz and Funi are totally disrespecting the fans here. I think this will also encourage fans to seek out the original japanese manga and do a scanalation job on it if these companies don't reconsider, which again will bite DC sales.

Certainly jumping to conclusions here. As stated, it's highly possible that this was a change brought about by the Japanese rights holders (wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened) that FUNi & Viz couldn't avoid if they wanted the license.

Onizuka666 wrote:

Just because they present the show to kids it doesn't mean all it's fans are kids. This is indeed a dark day for anime and manga fans. The same plague of unnecessary name changes that has been effecting the games industry is now targeting anime and manga (though I know it's really been around longer).

Wow...this...wow. Do you often overreact this much?

Onizuka666 wrote:

I'm sure kids that read Shonen Jump are used to japanese names by now anyway, so doing this just to fall in line with tv is wrong, when so many other anime series on u.s tv leave them unchanged.

I'd say this is more evidence to support the theory that it's the Japanese rights holders pushing the changes.

Onizuka666 wrote:

If Viz tried this with NGE they would pay a heavy price and I wouldn't buy,

Ah, but they did "try it." Neon Genesis Evangelion is not a proper translation of Shin Seiki Evangelion, but rather a name change pushed by Gainax. Like I said, name changes demanded by the Japanese producers have occurred in the past, so for it to have happened here isn't all that unreasonable.

Nagisa wrote:

Ah, but they did "try it." Neon Genesis Evangelion is not a proper translation of Shin Seiki Evangelion, but rather a name change pushed by Gainax. Like I said, name changes demanded by the Japanese producers have occurred in the past, so for it to have happened here isn't all that unreasonable.

Series titles are a different case altogether (no pun intended). There are a lot of different ways to translate "Shin Seiki," and though "Neon Genesis" is not one of them, that's the name that went on all the Japanese merchandise. It wasn't a name change, that's how Gainax did it. That's their official translation.

Until I see some kind of reasonable explanation why the Japanese companies would want the character names localized and changed for a U.S. release, that hypothesis is totally out of the question as far as I'm concerned.

Vekou wrote:

Until I see some kind of reasonable explanation why the Japanese companies would want the character names localized and changed for a U.S. release, that hypothesis is totally out of the question as far as I'm concerned.

Simple. International appeal. These companies want their products to attract audiences internationally, so often titles (and even characters) will have their names changed abroad, or companies interested in purchasing domestic rights will be given the option to go with such name changes or stick with the original title. Japanese producers want money just like American ones, and if they have to compromise a film just to do it, they sometimes will. We aren't the only ones guilty of shameless marketing, just so you know.

BTW, Viz has done a few changes in their Shonen Jump mag, in DBZ, Mr.Satan is Hercule (as most of us know him), Android 16's Hell's Flash is Inferno Blast (in the mag, but it may change in the GN release), and Naruto had plenty of changes, but they were all technique names mostly.

Great. Just great. I don't know now if I'll be buying it. Confused

Guess I'll wait to see if this stays. Sad

I really don't understand why they changed the names of the characters. They say they changed the names because of copyright issues, but Conan's name stayed while Shinchi's didn't and neither did a host of others. What does Ran have to do with Conan the Barbaian(?)?

I also don't buy the copyright issue thing in the first place. I was under the impression that names can't be copyrighted. Sure, something that had a name on it could be, but the name itself couldn't. You may correct me if I'm wrong about this.

Onizuka666 wrote:

Just because they present the show to kids it doesn't mean all it's fans are kids.

The show airs on Adult Swim. Why would they present the show to kids (my 10 year old brother excluded!)? I've heard bad words in the show and very blood scenes so it doesn't make sense them presenting the show to kids.

I must be really out of the loop, I had no idea there was a Detective Conan manga. I thought it was original anime. ^^;

Name changes are bad, but scene edits are the worse -- hopefully Viz won't go nuts on it like they did with the Pokemon manga.

Nagisa wrote:

I'd say this is more evidence to support the theory that it's the Japanese rights holders pushing the changes.

This is highly unlikely and I don't think that this is what actually happened. I think that Viz is doing this because they want the characters in the manga to have the same names as the characters in the anime. This kind of thing really annoys me. I'd much rather they kept the original names.

Nagisa wrote:

Ah, but they did "try it." Neon Genesis Evangelion is not a proper translation of Shin Seiki Evangelion, but rather a name change pushed by Gainax. Like I said, name changes demanded by the Japanese producers have occurred in the past, so for it to have happened here isn't all that unreasonable.

It's not the same. Changing the name of the title to make it more understandable and changing the characters' names are two different things. As far as I know, no Japanese company has ever insisted on changing original Japanese names to make their anime easier to sell.

Proman wrote:

It's not the same. Changing the name of the title to make it more understandable and changing the characters' names are two different things. As far as I know, no Japanese company has ever insisted on changing original Japanese names to make their anime easier to sell.

City Hunter...

Nagisa wrote:

Simple. International appeal. These companies want their products to attract audiences internationally, so often titles (and even characters) will have their names changed abroad, or companies interested in purchasing domestic rights will be given the option to go with such name changes or stick with the original title.

That's a possibility, but I highly, highly doubt it.

To put the speculation and arguing to an end, I will be asking about this at Anime Expo this weekend.

Izlude wrote:

BTW, Viz has done a few changes in their Shonen Jump mag, in DBZ, Mr.Satan is Hercule (as most of us know him),

They're not up to the chapter in which Ms. Satan is introduced yet. How could you know that?

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