Must be nice to be so young to think it started just last decade with this niche product that would have been forgotten in a few weeks if not for the drama.
Ted Woolsey is still famous for his localizations on some of the most classic games in history, and that was 30 years ago.
Heck the original Pokemon anime was in the late 90s and that has the the infamous "jelly donut" localizations, among a shit ton others you probably didn't even know about like matches being swapped for candles and most of Misty slapping Ash removed. Heck even those names were localized.
That one is even more relevant to the current drama, because it was the Japanese company's idea to do so. Much like Square, they prempted the Western market by getting involved with the localization process and telling them to cut the violence and religious aspects.
I feel like those censorship examples were atleast funny. Now they are inherently political which is the crux of the issue. I actually don't care that rice ball was swapped for jelly doughnuts but when someone is obviously translating with a far left bias then it starts to irk me
And to those Lefties most of these woke examples are funny. Ash saying:
They [Vikings] mostly live in Minnesota
In a movie in 1999 is no different than a random Gamergate line in 2016 in terms of out of place "humor" being added by a localizer.
I also don't have an issue with jelly donuts, and I think HFIL is way funnier than plain Hell in DBZ. But the point stands is that its an issue older than most people here and you can't handwave off when its acceptable or not simply because "well that one is okay because I agree with it/its my childhood."
Heck, to most Lefties feminism/gays/trans aren't political at all, they consider it human rights not politics. We just lived through a "pandemic" wherein a year of it was them screaming "covid response isn't political at all, you denier" which is how Social Distancing made it into Kaguya.
So you can't even say "no politics" because to the people doing it, none of it is politics. Its humor or "basic human rights."
Localization =/= censorship. Nowadays localization has been intertwined pretty closely with censorship, but changing Satoshi to Ash wasn't censorship, it was just good business 25 years ago, especially for a target demographic that was like 4-12 years old.
but changing Satoshi to Ash wasn't censorship, it was just good business 25 years ago
That's literally the same argument they use right now in this moment to call what they are doing not-censorship.
The official producers at Shogakukan in Japan demanded all violence*, sexuality and religion be removed from the product before it came to North America. The name change was just incidental as part of their bigger goal to also de-Jap the entire product while also censoring it to hell and back.
The success of this product for 4Kids is what would embolden them to censor future products much more brazenly and egregiously, leading to them the absurd levels later seen in their dub of One Piece or DBZ Kai.
So even if you want to argue it wasn't so, it was setting the groundwork for them to feel comfortable doing so shortly after. Meaning the distinction is meaningless as trying to pretend socialism and communism totally aren't one into the other.
"That's literally the same arguement" doesn't mean the arguement is never appropriate; a hammer isn't the right tool for every job, but it is the right tool for some jobs.
If the character names are Satoshi, Satoru, Sakamoto, Yoshitaka, Yoshimitsu, Yamaguchi, Yamamoto, Yamasaki, and so on, guess what will happen to a little kid who doesn't know Japanese? They will zone out, they will forget who is who, and they will be less likely to enjoy the show. Children don't like things that confuse them, it's the same reason why the kids the suck at math all hate math, whereas the kids who are good at math enjoy it.
Okay, so the name thing can be justifiable. Never even had it as the point being talked about, was just thrown in as a funny detail because I used the localized names while talking about localization. That's why I just called it incidental to the greater goal, which was to completely de-Jap the entire product.
You want to explain how being forced to remove all violence, sex, and religion isn't censorship either? How about removing numerous instances of random salutes or matches? What would kids get confused about there that demands they must do so?
I think One Piece fans would like a word with you about the 4kids dub and it not being outright malicious in terms of what they did to it. Which was a decade prior itself.
Many lesser games in the 80s/90s had their translations literally made from scratch because of how little they thought of those funny foreign games. So the script got tossed and then rewritten basically wholesale.
Point being it didn't even come close to starting there, its been building for a long time to that point. And its important to know the history of these things because they will use it to justify what they do now.
I think One Piece fans would like a word with you about the 4kids dub and it not being outright malicious in terms of what they did to it. Which was a decade prior itself.
Okay, I forgot about that one.
I blame the FCC and focus groups more than the writers, though. The Ocean and Funimation dubs of DBZ had censorship due to those, according to those that worked on them, especially the former--"the next dimension" and all that crap.
Products of their time. At least they got them out there. If not for the DIC/Cloverway dub of Sailor Moon, I never would have gotten into anime as a whole, but I freely admit the Viz re-dub is far superior. A shame more didn't see that one.
Many lesser games in the 80s/90s had their translations literally made from scratch because of how little they thought of those funny foreign games. So the script got tossed and then rewritten basically wholesale.
Name them.
And if this is about Working Designs, they died a few years after starting this. I still wonder why no one has made a re-translation of the Lunar games, though...the crystal dragon saying "Don't you know they're made from my sh..." made me roll my eyes even then. The anime cutscenes were played straight, oddly enough.
On the other spectrum, I remember watching the more mediocre In another world with my smartphone around that time and there being a line in the subs being something like 'I'd rather have a closeted pervert as my boss than a feminist as less rapey' so they knew that much already.
Dubs have long been a problem because the lack of consistent talent. In Japan it's extremely meritocratic so even in the most mudane story, it still feels like VAs still try to put in a performance with what they have. The dubs however, you can get the S tier stuff of FMA Brotherhood or Black Lagoon but a lot of the times it's like a side gig, that they're just reading lines for a paycheck. It made it easier to infiltrate the latter with activists than the former.
How can it be "the same 12 voice actors" AND a "lack of consistent talent?"
Serious question, this sounds incongruous. Did I miss something? I keep hearing that the same people keep getting roles, so you'd think that would be the definition of consistency...right?
Pretty much, it's the difference between when you hear Dio's Japanese VA, you know he'll play a great bad guy or at least morally ambiguous character.
When see it's the same English dub VA, a lot of the time it's the same bored monotonous tone that a high schooler doing a report in class could do better.
Or the next-best people are so darn good that they become a threat to the clique.
Recently I heard a new guy named Reagan Murdock. Holy shit, that man has a GREAT voice. I hope he has a long successful career...or I would, if I knew anything about him as a person whatsoever, but my praise of his voice remains. He also voiced Iron Man on Death Battle, if you're curious.
But I just know he'll never be allowed to succeed past a certain level.
By the way, Cristina Valenzuela (Cristina Vee) is only 36 years old.
Does anyone really think she got so high in the hierarchy by pure skill alone?
Talent the attribute rather than talent the showbiz synonym for actors, I think?
When your clique has a stranglehold on the industry and you're going to get hired for the next job regardless of your performance, then there's way more room to phone it in if you don't like some particular project. In an industry that hires more on results rather than who you know you can't get away with half-assing your work sometimes and still get hired constantly.
The backlash was so bad that the line was re-dubbed for the Blu-Ray release to be more accurate.
But I saved the original for you.
Never forget.
And that was when they realized they needed to make things more subtle next time.
Feminists.
Must be nice to be so young to think it started just last decade with this niche product that would have been forgotten in a few weeks if not for the drama.
Ted Woolsey is still famous for his localizations on some of the most classic games in history, and that was 30 years ago.
Heck the original Pokemon anime was in the late 90s and that has the the infamous "jelly donut" localizations, among a shit ton others you probably didn't even know about like matches being swapped for candles and most of Misty slapping Ash removed. Heck even those names were localized.
That one is even more relevant to the current drama, because it was the Japanese company's idea to do so. Much like Square, they prempted the Western market by getting involved with the localization process and telling them to cut the violence and religious aspects.
I feel like those censorship examples were atleast funny. Now they are inherently political which is the crux of the issue. I actually don't care that rice ball was swapped for jelly doughnuts but when someone is obviously translating with a far left bias then it starts to irk me
And to those Lefties most of these woke examples are funny. Ash saying:
In a movie in 1999 is no different than a random Gamergate line in 2016 in terms of out of place "humor" being added by a localizer.
I also don't have an issue with jelly donuts, and I think HFIL is way funnier than plain Hell in DBZ. But the point stands is that its an issue older than most people here and you can't handwave off when its acceptable or not simply because "well that one is okay because I agree with it/its my childhood."
Heck, to most Lefties feminism/gays/trans aren't political at all, they consider it human rights not politics. We just lived through a "pandemic" wherein a year of it was them screaming "covid response isn't political at all, you denier" which is how Social Distancing made it into Kaguya.
So you can't even say "no politics" because to the people doing it, none of it is politics. Its humor or "basic human rights."
Localization =/= censorship. Nowadays localization has been intertwined pretty closely with censorship, but changing Satoshi to Ash wasn't censorship, it was just good business 25 years ago, especially for a target demographic that was like 4-12 years old.
That's literally the same argument they use right now in this moment to call what they are doing not-censorship.
The official producers at Shogakukan in Japan demanded all violence*, sexuality and religion be removed from the product before it came to North America. The name change was just incidental as part of their bigger goal to also de-Jap the entire product while also censoring it to hell and back.
The success of this product for 4Kids is what would embolden them to censor future products much more brazenly and egregiously, leading to them the absurd levels later seen in their dub of One Piece or DBZ Kai.
So even if you want to argue it wasn't so, it was setting the groundwork for them to feel comfortable doing so shortly after. Meaning the distinction is meaningless as trying to pretend socialism and communism totally aren't one into the other.
*between people presumably
"That's literally the same arguement" doesn't mean the arguement is never appropriate; a hammer isn't the right tool for every job, but it is the right tool for some jobs.
If the character names are Satoshi, Satoru, Sakamoto, Yoshitaka, Yoshimitsu, Yamaguchi, Yamamoto, Yamasaki, and so on, guess what will happen to a little kid who doesn't know Japanese? They will zone out, they will forget who is who, and they will be less likely to enjoy the show. Children don't like things that confuse them, it's the same reason why the kids the suck at math all hate math, whereas the kids who are good at math enjoy it.
Okay, so the name thing can be justifiable. Never even had it as the point being talked about, was just thrown in as a funny detail because I used the localized names while talking about localization. That's why I just called it incidental to the greater goal, which was to completely de-Jap the entire product.
You want to explain how being forced to remove all violence, sex, and religion isn't censorship either? How about removing numerous instances of random salutes or matches? What would kids get confused about there that demands they must do so?
Yes, but those weren't outright malice.
Besides, it was this scene where I first really started to notice this.
I think One Piece fans would like a word with you about the 4kids dub and it not being outright malicious in terms of what they did to it. Which was a decade prior itself.
Many lesser games in the 80s/90s had their translations literally made from scratch because of how little they thought of those funny foreign games. So the script got tossed and then rewritten basically wholesale.
Point being it didn't even come close to starting there, its been building for a long time to that point. And its important to know the history of these things because they will use it to justify what they do now.
Okay, I forgot about that one.
I blame the FCC and focus groups more than the writers, though. The Ocean and Funimation dubs of DBZ had censorship due to those, according to those that worked on them, especially the former--"the next dimension" and all that crap.
Products of their time. At least they got them out there. If not for the DIC/Cloverway dub of Sailor Moon, I never would have gotten into anime as a whole, but I freely admit the Viz re-dub is far superior. A shame more didn't see that one.
Name them.
And if this is about Working Designs, they died a few years after starting this. I still wonder why no one has made a re-translation of the Lunar games, though...the crystal dragon saying "Don't you know they're made from my sh..." made me roll my eyes even then. The anime cutscenes were played straight, oddly enough.
On the other spectrum, I remember watching the more mediocre In another world with my smartphone around that time and there being a line in the subs being something like 'I'd rather have a closeted pervert as my boss than a feminist as less rapey' so they knew that much already.
Dubs have long been a problem because the lack of consistent talent. In Japan it's extremely meritocratic so even in the most mudane story, it still feels like VAs still try to put in a performance with what they have. The dubs however, you can get the S tier stuff of FMA Brotherhood or Black Lagoon but a lot of the times it's like a side gig, that they're just reading lines for a paycheck. It made it easier to infiltrate the latter with activists than the former.
Wait a second.
How can it be "the same 12 voice actors" AND a "lack of consistent talent?"
Serious question, this sounds incongruous. Did I miss something? I keep hearing that the same people keep getting roles, so you'd think that would be the definition of consistency...right?
Nepotism.
Just because they get the job doesn't mean they're actually good at it.
Pretty much, it's the difference between when you hear Dio's Japanese VA, you know he'll play a great bad guy or at least morally ambiguous character.
When see it's the same English dub VA, a lot of the time it's the same bored monotonous tone that a high schooler doing a report in class could do better.
Or sleeping around.
Cristina Vee is only 36. No way she got there with just skill. Too many new skilled actors have been passed over.
Or the next-best people are so darn good that they become a threat to the clique.
Recently I heard a new guy named Reagan Murdock. Holy shit, that man has a GREAT voice. I hope he has a long successful career...or I would, if I knew anything about him as a person whatsoever, but my praise of his voice remains. He also voiced Iron Man on Death Battle, if you're curious.
But I just know he'll never be allowed to succeed past a certain level.
By the way, Cristina Valenzuela (Cristina Vee) is only 36 years old.
Does anyone really think she got so high in the hierarchy by pure skill alone?
No. She almost certainly slept with everyone.
Talent the attribute rather than talent the showbiz synonym for actors, I think?
When your clique has a stranglehold on the industry and you're going to get hired for the next job regardless of your performance, then there's way more room to phone it in if you don't like some particular project. In an industry that hires more on results rather than who you know you can't get away with half-assing your work sometimes and still get hired constantly.
the big start to the drama i remember was the god-awful treehouse localizations Nintendo had with fire emblem and xenoblade
"..." "..." "..."
This is how you know they don't actually want to create anything.
Just tear down the things you like.