Doraemon FINALLY coming to the US

[Drtooth]

After a buttload of missteps, almosts, and frustratingly close never happens, Disney XD will finally air episodes of the character that's iconic all over the world, except here (unless you have a Chinatown or Asian district, that is). Of course, it's going to be heavily censored and everyone gets new names to hide the fact a Japanese cartoon is produced in Japan (standard, boilerplate Westernization stuff)... we're clearly going to lose the running gag where Nobita always accidentally runs into Shizuka-chan taking a bath (unless the Japanese PTA got to it first). The names aren't really that bad. Hopefully some of the original humor and charm can shine through all this Americanization.

But other than that, we're finally getting an English Dub of what's likely the most popular of classic animes out there. Too bad Anpanman's too preschoolish and too bizarre for most preschoolewrs in this country to dub.

 

[mr3urious]

As long as the dubbing itself is high quality (even if it is a gag dub like Samurai Pizza Cats), then the bowdlerized elements can be overlooked. But at least SPC never tried to hide the fact that it was Japanese.

 

[Drtooth]

The biggest sins of child oriented anime dubs are far from new. Hiding Japanese content goes as far back as Speed Racer. And the only reason why you still see Japanese written language in those is that they didn't have the tools to digitally alter the footage (like today). I pretty much expect some head banging moments that keep it clean and pure for the 50+ year old busybodies that love to write letters because they got nothing else to do.

The funny thing is, I've watched some Battle of the Planets and Voltron, and then I look at the One Piece 4Kids dub everyone hates. And as watered down as it was, it was actually fairly progressive in terms of how much violence they could show. Still can't tell kids death exists, but the cutaways anytime a character was about to physically harm another in 70's and 80's dubs is just painful to watch. I've seen too much of the actual Gatchaman to not scream and bang walls when I watched BOTP that couple of times. At least with Voltron, it's actually fun. And the not being able to kill anyone actually worked in the American version's favor with Sven. Almost made him more interesting than having a random twin brother. Of course, 4Kids did dub some things better. Kirby (arguably... there's enough western parody in that series that it works) and especially Ultimate Muscle and Funky Cops (their best dub! I'm actually disappointed in the new, straighter dub). But that's besides the point.

Now the real road block was that Viz apparently had the rights to the series and couldn't do anything with them, so they just sat on the license until the rights expired. I mean, unless the Japanese PTA really reamed the producers, there's going to be a LOT that has to get cut. And a LOT of stuff doesn't translate (or barely does). And maddeningly, similar to the Asterix movie from a few years back, they supposedly aired one of the movies once in the US at some festival. Unlike Asterix, they didn't cast high profile voice actors and basically Americanize the heck out of it to not give it an American release.

 

[mr3urious]

The biggest sins of child oriented anime dubs are far from new. Hiding Japanese content goes as far back as Speed Racer. And the only reason why you still see Japanese written language in those is that they didn't have the tools to digitally alter the footage (like today). I pretty much expect some head banging moments that keep it clean and pure for the 50+ year old busybodies that love to write letters because they got nothing else to do.

I'll also give credit to Digimon for not hiding the fact that it's set in Japan, as I remember a lot of Japanese place names in the English dub.

Of course, 4Kids did dub some things better. Kirby (arguably... there's enough western parody in that series that it works) and especially Ultimate Muscle and Funky Cops (their best dub! I'm actually disappointed in the new, straighter dub). But that's besides the point.

I'm actually surprised how much of the toilet humor UM left intact (must have been dubbed by a different directing team). And Dedede's laser chainsaw in one episode was actually pretty cool.

 

[Drtooth]

UM had even more toilet humor in the original. They couldn't exactly call the sentient pieces of poo by what they were. They hinted at it hard a couple times. Of course, in the manga, they weren't even cartoonish piles of green poo with faces. And there was a lot of poo.

Now what I'm surprised about is the high level of sexual innuendo and crap past the radar that both UM and Funky Cops had. They couldn't say Meat's father was dead (and I swear they purposely dubbed it sarcastically), but they did get away with this wonderful line by Meat: "Something's really gotten into the kid! And it isn't steroids because his urine tested clean."

I'll also give credit to Digimon for not hiding the fact that it's set in Japan, as I remember a lot of Japanese place names in the English dub.

The sad thing is, those toy selling type anime are usually the better of the anime dubs for children. I actually quite like Zatch Bell. It has 2 Henson performers as voice actors, after all. Only real major downer is they can't sing about boobs. But anyone thinking that could even come off in an adult show in the US is fooling themselves.

 

[Drtooth]

UGH... the list of censorship and alterations is causing me to cringe.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...visual-and-script-changes-for-u.s-tv-detailed

Okay, I get the whole "we can't tell dumb kids a Japanese cartoon is from Japan" bit. Getting rid of anime expressions in an anime seems absolutely stupid. I get translating food that we don't understand and all, but replacing any reference to sweets as fruits (which frankly aren't that good for you anyway) is absolutely ridiculous, and I bet Disney's holding blame for that. Replacing a first aid kid with Pizza to hide the fact a character is hurt?

Are they sure this is going to be on Disney XD or Disney Junior?

 

[Drtooth]

Viz has the rights to Doraemon merchandise

Hopefully we'll see some really good stuff so I don't have to go to a Japanese toy store and spend a fortune, mostly on import fees.\

Seriously. Keychains cost as much as a freaking Medium sized Transformer. And those aren't that cheap, either.

 

[Drtooth]

Triple post?

Anyway the English Trailer is up:

His voice sounds roughly equivalent to the current Japanese voice actor, so that's good.

 

[Drtooth]

Season 2 is actually happening and due to premiere in a couple weeks

I was getting a little worried there for a minute. I really hope this season gains popularity. There are small things like T-shirts floating around (I happen to have one), so someone's watching.

And really, I think Mona Marshall (who I met at a convention, she was wearing a Doraemon sweater) is doing a great job as the main character. She sounds almost exactly like the original Japanese voice actresses for the character. That's a rare thing in a dub, as they usually flavor the character's voices for a Western audience (i.e. like Goku's adult male voice in every Western DBZ dub, as the entire Son family at various stages of life are all the same woman). Even the other cast members are more American sounding. Gian and Suneo are kinda close to their originals, though. Nobita's mother doesn't sound half as dense or banshee like as she did before.