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Naruto's Blu-ray Delay Not Caused By Past Pot Noodle Subbing Catastrophe

Anime Limited has confirmed to ANN that the delay to its Blu-ray release of Naruto was not related to a previous company's subtitling of the series.

A new YouTube channel, Anime Biz 101 recently posted an 11-minute video entitled "Anime Insiders Reveal Their Biggest Mistakes!" It features a conversation between two former staff of the British anime distributor Manga Entertainment. Jerome Mazandarani, who was the company's Marketing Director from 2004 to 2014, was in conversation with Fraser Overington, who was the PR Executive at Manga. (The video is embedded at the bottom of this story.)

It was under Mazandarani's watch that Manga Entertainment started releasing Naruto in the 2000s. In the video, Mazandarani speculated that one of Manga's errors in the early days might be responsible for the recent delay to Anime Limited's new Blu-ray release of the series, which has been moved back to November.

However, Anime Limited has now confirmed to ANN that it was not using the Manga Entertainment subtitles. (Anime Limited previously mentioned that the delay in the Naruto Blu-ray was because the subtitles in the company's possession turned out to be of insufficient quality.)

As Mazandarani recalled the issues with Manga Entertainment's subtitles:

"Whoever did the Japanese to English translations for (Manga Entertainment's) release – and it was ultimately my responsibility – those translations are too literal, and there were some assumptions made about (the) British audience. So for me the most glaring one is we know Naruto loves ramen. It's central to Naruto's existence, just like pizza is core to being a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. And whoever created the subs insisted on referring to (ramen) for the first 26 episodes as Pot Noodle."

Mazandarani also commented, "We were so green we didn't realise we could have probably built a relationship with Viz Media and done a deal with them to access their subs. So that was a big learning experience."

He also remembered that Manga Entertainment branded the series Naruto Unleashed, but the first two thousand slip-covers had a typo, reading Naruto Unleased instead.

Mazandarani also talked about his work releasing One Piece, and how he thinks its popularity was boosted in Britain when the country was locked down during the Covid pandemic, long after Mazandarani had left Manga “I'd say (One Piece) was our fifth bestselling series, it barely broken even... I think what the (Covid) lockdown did was that everyone know One Piece was great, they finally had the time to watch it."

He also remembered when he was working as an independent consultant for an Amsterdam film distributor (this was after he had left Manga) and was told that the company would be releasing the film One Piece Film Red, pictured left. “I'd seen the trailers… I was like, 'This is (expletive), they've inserted an idol into it (the character Uta), it will be a J-Pop, idoru frickin' One Piece film, I can't think of anything worse…"

"Shows what I know!" Mazandarani continued. "I think that movie just came out at a critical mass, it was after [Demon Slayer: Mugen Train]… Audiences had migrated from home back into cinemas to have a communal experience with other fans. They loved that experience all around the world, it was wonderful… People had really invested in One Piece, loved it, and they wanted to go and celebrate it."

From Mazandarani's perspective, "I'm just bringing the experience of the guy who spent hundreds of thousands of pounds acquiring numerous One Piece movies (at Manga Entertainment), trying to make them work, none of them worked… and then it's all come to fruition.”

"Still," Mazandarani adds, "I'm really not into idol anime at all."

Manga Entertainment was acquired by Funimation in 2019, and the label was rebranded as Funimation in 2021. It was subsequently rebranded as Crunchyroll in 2022.