Samurai Pizza Cats coming to DVD!

[Drtooth]

I've been complaining about Disney's ownership (read: sitting the heck on a license they barely know they have or even care about) of Saban's stuff for years. Last year, Saban bought back the rights to Power Rangers and various live action series they produced in the 90's. But what of the animated programming? Why would I title the thread if I wasn't going to say this:

The series finally has DVD rights thankfully bought up by Discotek so we'd get the WHOLE thing.

Now, here's where it gets strange in the conceptual part. There will be 2 different releases... the Saban dubbed series and the original Japanese version, Cat Ninja Legend Teyandee with English Subtitles. Mostly because there are 2 other episodes not shown in the US (nothing of note... they are just 2 more clip shows in a series that had 4). I'm hardpressed to choose which one I want.

Also of note, Shout's got some distribution deal with Saban's live action shows, so if you like Power Rangers, you got 'em... and there's a high likelyhood we'd see the TMNT: Next Mutation series too. Frog help us all on that one.

 

[mr3urious]

Even though I haven't watched much of SPC as a kid, this is great news, both for fans of the gag dub and fans of the original.

 

[Drtooth]

Even though I haven't watched much of SPC as a kid, this is great news, both for fans of the gag dub and fans of the original.

The huge conflict for me comes down to this...

The Japanese version has Japanese jokes and I usually watch anime to see Japanese humor because its different...

But... the American Dub of Samurai Pizza Cats was art. There have been countless gag dubs of anime since (including a bizzarro world 4Adults Crayon Shin-Chan with adult humor added to it), but none of them quite have the same insanity that made SPC a cult classic. Consider this...

as I stated before, SPC is a cartoon who's Japanese version has a shocking 4 clip show episodes (due to budgets). 2 of such were dubbed, only leaving the other 2 due to the 52 episode syndication episode order (the same reason Robotech was 3 shows... to fill the order). But the ones that were dubbed were dubbed sarcastically. Clips were redubbed in a different context, and MST3K style sarcastic comments were added on top of that.

Releasing them separate is necessary. There is NO way that they can synch up the edited American version with the original Japanese version. Since they don't fit, there's no way a dub track would work. Shout addressed this when they released Medabots. Funimation sorta solved that problem with single disk releases of DBZ and DBGT with large, obvious pauses in a disk's run to accommodate the switch of a layer from American opening and closing to the Japanese one... but the episodes used still were unedited.

Usually I'd say, heck with the dub... but the dub is original enough to be considered a completely different show. Like a Voltron/Go-Lion situation (both have been released in their different forms separate). I'd be inclined to get both.

 

[Xerus]

I remember that show. It had some pretty funny lines.

Narrator: This pizza place is the location of the most brave and daring people in the world. The customers!"

Kid: "Mommy, I want to be a Samurai Pizza Cat and get blasted into the air in funny costumes."
Mother: "Just as long as you don't become a lawyer."

 

[Drtooth]

From the one fansubbed episode I've seen, they don't really have witty dialogue like that in the Japanese version... they basically just say "It must be hard to deliver a pizza."

Like I said, almost 2 completely different shows.

 

[mr3urious]

Word is that the Japanese producers intentionally left out the transcripts when providing the episodes so that it would feel original for each country that dubs it. The Latin Spanish dub was also given a similar treatment.