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REVIEW: Shin Chan DVD Season 1 Part 1 (Dub)

dub only?? i thought those days were over...

Hmm..

I guess overall in the thread, I seem to be the only one who likes Shin-Chan so far. I know the reasons why it's dub only, though. >.>;

I wonder if Toei didn't want them to use the original subs.

I'm surprised by the F rating on the animation though, just because it isn't as pretty as other anime makes it sucky?

luffypirate85 wrote:

dub only?? i thought those days were over...

Exactly, 3 reasons why I won't buy this, no sub = dub only (Massively changed from the original), and I imagine with FUNimation releases nowadays, all overlayed with English rubbish (No Multple Angles anymore) and the series is massive, too much of a commitment.

DVDTalk: If I was fluent in Japanese and Japanese culture,
how different would "Shin Chan" be in Japanese versus the show in English?

Hedges: Very, very, very different.

Muniz: Substantially different.

Hedges: We try to keep the basic spirit of the show, from the Japanese,
but we basically throw out... we look at the story from the translations
we get, but we really don't take any lines from the translation, like we
totally re-write the jokes, and ours is much more adult. It's weird,
because it's a kids or family show in Japan, even though there's child
nudity in the show, but here in America there could never be a kids show
with child nudity, so we just write it for an adult audience and put in
a lot more sexual innuendo and very very dirty offensive... I think our
show's also a little darker than their show. We've gone a bit more into
taboo subjects like suicide and abortion and tried to make them funny.

Bergen: Yeah, all the funny stuff. Until you can have a stretching
penis on "Kim Possible," "Shin Chan" has to go on [adult swim.]


DVDTalk: Have you had any interaction with the original creators?

Hedges: Last summer, at San Diego [Comic Con], we got to meet with
representatives from both [network] TV Asahi and [publisher] Futabasha,
and so we were able for a couple of days to talk with them, and they
told us the things that were important to them, and it was good for
both us and them, to understand why we were making the changes we were,
to appeal and make sense to an American audience. And they told us some
things. The most important thing they told us was they wanted the core
family to clearly be a loving family, so we've tried to make sure that
stays in tact, despite them frequently calling each other friggin' fat
or cheap or flat or whatever.

DVDTalk: Did they have an opinion about your show or did they even
understand it?

Hedges: Yeah. [laughs] I don't know if anyone understands it.

Muniz: I think they were diplomatic at first, then they went around to
other panels of indigenous American comedy shows like "American Dad!"
and "Family Guy" and, to their credit, the Japanese end of "Shin Chan"
really got a feel for American comedy pacing, and just how we do things
over here, and I think they went from diplomatic to more understanding,
and now that I think it's a relative success, I think they're supportive
of what we do.

Bergen: Yeah, they tried two times before to do an American dub of the
show, and it didn't quite work, because one time they made it a kids
show... I don't know what the other problem was. So I think they
realized, for it to work in America, it can't be 100 percent faithful
to the Japanese, because the humor just doesn't translate and the pacing
isn't the same in Japan. So they understand we had to make changes
to it that will make it more successful in America.

DVDTalk: "Shin Chan" has an unusual credit on it for "punch-up" writers.
What would you categorize their role as?

Hedges: Well, are you talking about Sarah Dyer and Evan Dworkin?
Well that was for the first episodes one through six, and episode eight.
At the beginning of the process, this was the first time Funimation had
ever tackled this kind of show, basically, a Japanese animated sitcom,
and so the dubbing process was completely different. It was also
different, because [adult swim] was actually kind of involved, in trying
to go out and acquire this from Japan with Funimation. [adult swim]
told Funimation from the beginning that they were interested in it,
so that first trial run, where no one was sure exactly how the show was
going to be, and the direction we were going to take, we had Sarah and
Evan, who were the punch-up writers, so that we would write the scripts,
write two or three drafts between ourselves, and then our team would
send it off to them, and then they would do a fourth draft, and that
would be sent to the booth. The booth would have our draft and Sarah
and Evan's draft, and then sort of combine them together with whatever
worked best, and that was sort of the hodgepodge that was the beginning.