Forum - View topicNEWS: Viz Media Adds Yo-kai Watch Manga to Perfect Square Imprint
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Primus
 Posts: 2831 Location: Toronto |
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"No company has yet announced that it has licensed the anime for North America."
As mentioned later on, Dentsu has. They handled Deltora Quest, Monsuno and LBX (also from Level-5) in North America too. |
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CallumKeyblade
Posts: 536 |
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Hoping someone will hurry up and announce a western release for the games!!
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epicwizard
Posts: 420 Location: Ashburn, VA |
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Back before this announcement, I predicted that Viz Media would license the manga, and looks like my prediction came true!
What I'm about to say is a little off topic, but did you guys know that both the manga and the anime are already released in South Korea? According to the Korean Wikipedia article both of them were released during the Fall of last year! Koreans are lucky that they got to get this franchise early. |
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IanRootBeerDubber
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Michael Pizzuto confirmed that he would be starring in an English dub of the anime. Check out his Facebook page.
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Primus
Posts: 2831 Location: Toronto |
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Based on his credits, I'm going to assume that'll be an Asia-exclusive dub. |
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Jex2193
 Posts: 295 |
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Aww shame. But I actually don't like Animax's dubs, I find the voices usually aren't very good. |
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TsukasaElkKite
 Posts: 4035 |
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Animax dubs are, for the most part, absolute shit. |
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Sheleigha
 Posts: 1674 |
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I saw on Viz' Facebook that the characters will be given super Americanized names. Unless the name is complicated, I hate that this still happens
 I know it's a kid's series but the Americanizing continues...
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epicwizard
Posts: 420 Location: Ashburn, VA |
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I definitely agree with you! I don't understand why the heck name changes STILL happen in English versions of kids anime and manga. Seriously, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the name Keita Amano! It's not that hard to pronounce and should have been retained! Anime and manga are already known here in the US, so there's no point in trying to Americanize everything! These people localizing kids anime and manga in the US still don't understand that. It's pathetic since other countries don't do extreme localization on kids anime and manga. However, I don't think Viz Media was responsible for changing the names. I bet that either Dentsu or Level-5 was responsible and made Viz Media use the name changes in the manga. |
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CallumKeyblade
Posts: 536 |
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I thought they were going to rename the monsters but keep the character names the same so seeing him called Nathan Adams is a shame. I can understand changing the names of the monsters (& I think with things like pokémon they've done a good job). However leaving the actual names of characters as Japanese would have been a nice touch. In my eyes, it's like translating neko to cat is perfectly fine but translating/localising the cat's actual name is a bit irritating.
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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Unfortunately we as Americans are very a xenophobic and racist country that tend to disapprove of foreign things. It would take many decades to change that mindset. Very disappointing to hear a celebration of Japanese culture is going to be so heavily localized. -Stuart Smith |
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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Pretty disheartened to hear that the characters' names are being Americanized.
Then again, I expected that to happen; thus, I'm not at all surprised by this. Oh, well, I still look forward to watching Yōkai Watch when the TV show of it makes its U.S. debut. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14896 |
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It's all about the mighty money and marketability. Some names are more marketable/memorable/interesting to an audience than others (there's a reason many actors have changed names). After all, Dentsu is Japan's biggest by far advertising and public relations company, and they didn't become a giant in the business without knowing how to market stuff to the audience. So they'll likely do a Pokemon and use names that kids would remember and could pronounce the next time they go to McD's for a kid's meal wearing their licensed attire belching out the singable theme song while playing with their games. |
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Ryu Shoji
Posts: 676 Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom |
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The President of Level-5 said quite a while ago that the series will be heavily localised to help it appeal to western audiences and even without that, anyone who didn't see it coming was deluding themselves to be honest.
The decision to change these things isn't down to xenophobia or racism either; but for marketability and ease of access for the target audience in foreign territories. The English and Japanese languages are very different and I can definitely see western children struggling to even pronounce some of the Yo-Kai names - heck, when I was first getting into anime in my early teens, I found it impossible to even remember a "long" name like "Motoko Kusanagi". Like with the Pokémon franchise, the mascot characters Jibanyan and Whisper will be retaining their names internationally (it helps that "Whisper" is already an English word), but did anyone seriously expect names like "Sakigakenosuke" and "Todorokijishi" to be retained in the localisation of a franchise that will be targeting primary school children? |
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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That's why I find it fascinating that Japan almost never changes names for kids properties. None of the heroes in Marvel's Disk Wars Avengers got their names changed to be easier to say, or how the Monster High characters all retained their American names in the anime. I guess Japanese kids are just smarter. It's a bit ironic in Youkai Watch's case given there's a lot of multi-cultural references in the show to begin with. One episode had Jibanyan and Whisper transforming into Will Smith and Leonardo DiCaprio. It'll be really awkward to see a show clearly set in Japan and about Japanese monsters and Japanese customs to be altered to western examples. |
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