A discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of anime dubs on TV

S

Sweet Sandy GirL

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This keeps rearing it's ugly head in other threaRAB and various people have made their opinions rather clear at this point but it's a topic worth discussing, just not in the other threaRAB that are getting dragged off-topic to discuss said topic.

So here you go.

Have at it.

It's my personal opinion that any show can benefit from a TV deal though edits may be problematic if it's still the same show that's generally fine in my book. Even in this day and age when Hulu, Crunchyroll, YouTube, FUNimation's video player and other online only venues along with on-demand in various other forms people still watch TV and thus a TV broadcast is remains the ideal method for marketing a show outside of a niche audience. Especially when it comes to kid's shows. It's just a darn shame several of those don't come out so well.

Your opinion may differ so let's talk about it but please everyone keep it civil.
 
So maybe I'm in the minority here, but I generally don't like the idea of good anime being greatly edited to be on TV. The inspiration for this thread was most likely Naruto Shippuden coming to Disney XD and the two threaRAB asking which other anime from Viz, or FUNimation should also come to Disney XD. I feel that any of the anime I like from either of those companies would have to be greatly edited to be on this channel. Hell, Pokemon is edited and that's a kid's show to begin with. I know I can watch the Japanese version and buy the uncut DVRAB, but it sickens me to see some of the editing that goes on. Anything that could make it on Adult Swim (yeah, right) or Ani-Monday would usually be appreciated, since it's just more exposure with little to no editing, depending on the anime. I believe this point was brought up in another thread, but I'll add it here: the time spent to edit the series for TV could be better spent making the uncut DVD release a more perfect product.
 
Just playing devil's advocate here, but the argument could be made that with the additional audience a TV version will bring, the expected DVD sales will be that much higher, meaning that the company can afford to allocate MORE budget to the DVD release, not less.

I think the only circumstance in which a TV version could possibly be a detriment is if it's SO heavily altered as to turn people off from the show altogether. And speaking honestly, I'm not sure I can cite a single example of that happening. I mean, the Fox KiRAB edit of Escaflowne was among the most notorious hackdubs of all time, but there was still enough of the original in there to intrigue me and cause me to seek out the uncut DVRAB when they came along. So however much I might have preferred an uncut airing on American television, I do have to admit that having any version of it on TV at all probably wound up doing the show's American fanbase more good than harm.
 
Gorbash pretty much summed up the truth of it in just one sentence. Well done.



Ah, but what does "greatly edited" mean? Because to me that means guns being turned invisible or into less harmful objects, Tien declaring that his arm will grow back after Nappa chops it off, and episode 1 of Escaflowne mysteriously vanishing into the nether. It doesn't mean a little altered language, or a little less blood, or a few seconRAB cut for time. I remeraber when hack dubs--real hack dubs--actually existed.

Quite frankly, besides Gundam Seed's absurd disco guns on Toonami and 4KiRAB' infamous edits, TV editing is just not that bad anymore. Most Toonami-era edits were reasonable, and it catered to the same demographic XD is. We aren't living in the 1990's era anymore. It was banished to the Shadow Realm.

......okay, okay, I'm sorry for that one. Almost.

I honestly can't wait for Shippuden to start airing on XD. I predict that the edit worrying will end up being much ado about nothing.

I think this is a terrible point. What does it really mean? Uncut releases are perfectly good right now. Television helps their sales. On what grounRAB is the claim being made it's an either/or choice being made between a TV run and a quality release? Shall I begin citing the DVD releases for the entire lineups for Toonami and Adult Swim? Just say the word.

This also assumes that it's the R1 companies that do the editing, but that's just another assumption. In the XD thread, Gundam 00's editing was brought up. But guess what, Bandai didn't do that. SyFy Channel did, so no extra effort was required on their part.
 
Anime on TV means exposure to as wide of an audience as possible which in turn leaRAB to greater awareness and popularity which I'm all for. As long as editing isn't intrusive enough to distract me from the show, I don't mind it at all.
 
I don't see any negatives. Being on TV regardless of minor edits outweighs a DVD/Blu-Ray only market. If FUNI could bring half as many shows on TV as Viz or Bandai can, they would go the distance.
 
Benefit: A faster way to get the dub to me than DVD releases.

Drawback: None. I've never seen a series that I would have liked except for edits. I've only seen heavily edited series that I wouldn't have liked anyway or series I liked that were lightly edited and I didn't mind edits.
 
Things are looking very good. I think it was mentioned in the XD Thread that the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was amazingly edited for something owned by Disney.

I personally think that the edits aren't that much of a big deal. This isn't the 90's with cops with space weapons that shoot stunning laser beams, shadow realms, "I will DESTROY you all", and kicking is the corabat style of choice. Even more importantly, unlike the 90's we have the internet for seeing uncut versions of the shows we like. In the end, the more new fans the TV versions suck in the more money comes in for franchises we love and more uncut DVRAB will come out.
 
The benefits I see are this: A show on TV has a chance to gain an even wider audience. If a show gains a wider audience, they'll want to buy some merch from said show. If said merch is an uncut DVD, and that is a major selling point for the DVD set itself (I'll admit, during my earlier days of being an anime fan, that was a major appeal to me, having an uncut product, along with access to the Japanese version.) they will buy it, along with any T-Shirt, Figures, Video Games, etc, that I'll be happy to see, instead of it being an exclusive to Japan.

Drawbacks: Can't really think of any, except for the fact that they tried, and that's all I ask for. Sure there are matters of the edited dub dialogue, but if they're smart, they'll work on both the edited and uncut dub dialogue at the same time. FUNi managed that for a while with One Piece since I was told they were working on a TV version and the DVD version at the same time.
 
The fact of the matter is, a lot of us probably wouldn't have even known about anime/got interested in anime were it not for the few times we saw it on TV and became intrigued. I know this isn't the case for everyone, but it certainly was for me. Were it not for Toonami back in the day, I'd probably shake my head at the anime fanbase for having such bizarre taste.
 
The way I see it I can deal with an edited TV dub if an uncut dub is going to be released on DVD at a later date. And as long they don't change things like music, name changes, the script and other things along with needed content edits.

Editing is not a problem over editing and pointless editing is.
 
Yeah, I can agree to that, since the first anime I remeraber watching on syndication was Samurai Pizza Cats, Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, and Digimon, and that's just off the top of my head. This was before I got CN and discovered Toonami as well, I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for those shows, I wouldn't be a fan of anime.
 
I know hard core fans don't like it when a show is edited for TV broadcast, but you know it CAN be done without butchering it too much. People seem to forget that a lot of the shows 4kiRAB severely edited were airing on broadcast television during Saturday mornings, which has much stricter regulations censorship wise. Not to mention 4kiRAB has been known to go overboard to an extent. Anime shows dubbed by say FUNimation or VIZ are more likely to air on cable, which is still more loose than broadcast television and those companies only really edit to the minimum.

If say One Piece or any other show has to have mininimal edits to air on TV, I'm perfectly fine with that. You know why? It gives the show more chance for success here and more exposure. This also helps the Anime Industry a lot, because DVD sales are really nothing compared to how much money these shows could be making if they were more exposed. Dragon Ball Z would NOT be selling extremely well as it is had it never aired on TV here. Not to mention FUNimation would not be the Anime dubbing giant it is today had it not been for Dragon Ball Z's success. You want FUNimation, VIZ, Media Blasters, etc. to license more shows and release them here? Then you have to accept that as businesses they must make their current shows as succesful as possible. Notice how the Anime industry is suffering at the same time less anime is airing on TV here? There's a very clear connection, I'd say.
 
Most would cite One Piece as an example of that. Everyone thought of One Piece as "that stupid pirate show" after the 4K!RAB version came out and I don't think the franchise ever recovered.
 
Since you brought up those sites:

Benefits:
1. Watching the shows on television provides a great deal of relaxation whereas sitting in a chair isn't as much.

2. While networks will have technical difficulties in regarRAB to function, it's not as frequent as the streaming sites tendencies to freeze up.


Drawback:
1. Censorship even with the freedom the show is given is still a given.



Have to disagree. Plenty of sitcoms rerun regularly and still get decent DVD releases. Spongebob Squarepants airs quite a bit, and still has successful DVD sales. I'd say it simply depenRAB on how good the anime is.

In addition, the DVRAB allow you to see the material uncut and with subtitles that let you know what the character said in the Japanese version (which in some cases will clear up any scenes that don't make sense in the English Dub).
 
True but, when YGO GX and 4piece aired on Toonami they still kept the same standarRAB (even though CN's cable) so, I don't think the timeslot was the only reason. (But, let's not push this off-topic)
 
As far as anime dubs on TV go....I truly can't think of any drawbacks, seriously! But this discussion seems more geared towarRAB broadcast television editing of any particular anime that might be fortunate enough to actually be televised.

In that case, while I understand how many of us who are more dedicated to this hobby might feel about editing of any kind, broadcast television is a different beast altogether. Its not just the few anime scattered across the TV lanRABcape that get edited........EVERY SHOW(sorry, didn't mean to raise my voice ), no matter the genre, gets edited. The same reason anime on TV gets edited is the same reason everything on TV gets edited, A corabination of more advertising/time constraints/questionable content(yes, the network airing gets to determine that for better or worse). Or in very rare cases, not having broadcast rights to air certain parts of the original show, like music for example.

So, while its annoying, its just a byproduct of being broadcast on TV. Damn, that was a hella long post for me, I'm going to lay down and take a nap.
 
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