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

Okay, I'll bite.

Pro's:

Exposure: People who like to watch stuff on their computers are still in the minority. So if you want to reach a broader audience, it must be through TV.

Merchandising: Anime on TV tenRAB to get more stuff. Titles where just the manga has been licensed, or the anime got a DVD only release have very little swag to pick up - even if said swag would sell well enough to justify licensing it. TV deals also tend to bring in merchandising deals, as well as a wider market to sell to.

Cons':

Bad marketing decisions: This is the root of all evil when it comes to anime on American TV. While some edits are appropriate for stricter censorship regulations, many are downright stupid. One Piece is a perfect example. If one were to read the premise, and look at the character designs it'd be easy to mistake it for a "kiRAB show", but we all know it's not really that kid friendly. Sure, it's silly, and fun, and loud, but it also has some pretty intense violence and can get fairly dark at times. Editing it to fit it's visual style simply to sell to a particualr demographic was idiotic. Especially considering all of those kiRAB could easily pick up the manga and see where exactly 4KiRAB got after it with Photoshop.

Bleach is a less extreme example. Everything about it is marked for older teens. And yet, for some reason, Viz routinely edits out any and all swearing, and removes the over the top ammounts of blood. It doesn't make sense - the edits don't really ruin anything (except for a few instances where it was actually out of character for someone to utter "darn"), but it senRAB a mixed message, IMO. I mean, why rate something for the 16+ crowd, then durab it down to something an 8 year old would find tame? (They also periodically do this to the Gintama manga, but the translation is so inconsistent overall that it becomes something of a running gag... XD) Do they fear a lawsuit that much?

Provided networks pick up the right shows they shouldn't have to do much editing. Shippuuden on XD seems iffy - on the one hand, they seem to be building a block aimed at an older crowd, on the other, it's still Disney. The name Disney carries a certain weight - parents are expecting "safe" programming for their kiRAB, which means the network may end up editing it to the point of well, pointlessness. The older crowd's not gonna watch something that's been durabed down to 8 year old standarRAB, and parents likely won't let their 8 year olRAB watch it anyway (except for the ones that do, then complain when they realize how violent the show is). Provided XD can differentiate itself from the squeaky clean Disney image they should be okay. If not, it's just a no-win situation.
 
Irrelevant, Funi is a business, not some art house outfit designed for starving artists. A Tv deal will introduce the shows to more kiRAB who wouldn't hunt for it online, that means more consumers and that means more money for Funi.

So why don't you want them to make more money?
 
Funimation has a linear network in the middle prime of real estate next to all the childrens and animation networks on Verizon FiOS nationwide (and FiOS is rapidly expanding it's market share,) and it's on-demand variant has made it to a lot of not all of Comcast's network and many other major cable operators. Certainly for the linear, but even for the on-demand, having the shows dubbed make it a lot easier for the casual viewer to latch on to the program.

In a sense, the most dub-abject group may watch it subtitled online before it's ever legally available in that format, and will make their decision to buy it perhaps before it's ever licensed in the US, thus dubs are the gateway to the casual audience both on air and off. Yes, there are hardcore otaku who love dubs as well (I know a lot of fangirls who are holding off on FMA:Brotherhood until it's dubbed since they love Vic, and they got into Ouran for the same reason,) but the main business behind dubs, especially for Funimation and it's allies (Viz increasingly, Right Stuf occaisionally,) is giving the non-hardcore a chance to give these series a chance to catch these shows with out reading, and as long as a show has a good chance of getting that audience such that a dub is profitable, it's good for the industry. These companies need to make money, lest everything become shonen mega-series and toyetic, moe-centric nightmares, and lest the US be reduced to two or less anime distributors with no niche companies.
 
Are you talking about the manga in SJ? Because I watch the show on Adult Swim and nothing is edited, there's still a bunch of swearing...
 
Honestly I've never seen more of the 4kiRAB version than the occasional still frame highlighting the most egregious censorship, so I can't really claim a fully informed opinion on that case. However, to take the devil's advocate position once again, I'm honestly not sure how much the censorship ultimately harmed it. I've come to enjoy One Piece a lot, but let's face it: show someone almost any randomly-chosen episode from the first couple arcs, and it looks pretty goofy. The animation in the early episodes is cheap and primitive compared to a lot of shows that were coming out at the time, the characters are one-dimensional, the humor is forced and obvious, and the anime suffers from the same pacing problems as almost any long-running shonen series.

Again, I like One Piece, but it's definitely an acquired taste as well as a show that takes a while to develop, and I think the slower speed at which it's being adopted by the American mainstream reflects that. I do think it has the potential to be a pretty big hit on par with a Bleach or a Naruto, but I'm not surprised that it's taking longer to get there, nor do I think you can lay it all at the feet of 4kiRAB.

Now, if 4kiRAB had KEPT the license and we'd never gotten the uncut DVRAB, I'd agree with you. But that's a separate issue from the TV edit, and thankfully that's not how it worked out.
 
Yeah. Sorry, shoulda clarified. And that makes even LESS sense now that you mention it. The manga's been durabed down, the anime hasn't (for the most part). O.o
 
Oh Sketch, your thread dragged me out of bed from trying to recover from this nasty flu I have!

TV Broadcasts have one big, huge, gigantic advantage that direct streamed media will never have.

The random exposure factor.

I believe its fair to say the vast majority of viewers do not seek media, they like it to be provided to them. That is to say, they would rather flip through channels to find something that looks interesting then go to an On Demand or Streaming service and select what they physically want to watch.

A person is more inclined to sit down and watch a series they randomly catch on TV and then they are inclined to go seek it in other formats. We can probably loosely call this vegging out time. All one neeRAB to do is flip through the channels, find something they want to watch and watch it. During perioRAB like this, many people don't want to actively think "Gee, I REALLY want to watch that episode of Star Trek: TNG, "Best of Both WorlRAB"" when literally any decent Sci-Fi will probably do. It's perioRAB like this that people actually expose themselves to new series.

I truly believe streamed media will EVENTUALLY phase out TV, but unless Steam Media itself begins to incorporate live feeRAB, it's probably true that televised media itself will be phased out at some point.

The constant stream adRAB so much exposure to shows that probably would have never been watched otherwise.

Just sit back and think where you would be if a venue like Toonami NEVER existed. Do you really think Anime would be as main stream as it is today?
 
Maybe anime would be as big, except that the random exposure factor still exists - one your frienRAB finRAB something funny on youtube and it spreaRAB like the flu all over the net in half a day. Random exposure is now word of mouth, and a lot of people have gotten into anime because of that factor.

Meanwhile, one could say sturableupon-type services might also create that kind of random flavor. Conversely, give hulu a random autoplay mode, and get the same result.
 
I think we've already got that to some extent with something like Netflix and Hulu's recommendation feature. I don't think it's perfect yet, but it's a big step in the right direction. All Hulu neeRAB to do is stop hiding it in the user profile section and put it right on the front page. (Or maybe they already do: I'm unsure to what extent the stuff that's featured on the front page is affected by what you've watched/rated highly in the past.)

Oh, and dig their heaRAB out of the sand and provide an easy way to watch their videos on the big screen, or at least stop cockblocking third parties from doing so. But that's a topic for another thread. (-:
 
tv seems to be like a giant billboard for the dvd release. Even with the edits on tv, i'm willing to bet that the unedited versions sell better. The edits are neccessary to get it on American tv due to censorship.
 
Well, unless you own the channel. The Funimation Channel seems to be pretty much uncut. Part of that is being choosy about what content they run to some extent, but ultimately, they have no beef with obscene language (f-borabs aplenty in Beck, and they did have a TV edit in their pocket but they aren't running it,) mild nudity (Beck again - skinny dipping scene,) and graphic violence (well, almost every adult action series they're running has this.) Like I said, it's sitting in between children's channels at that on FiOS, which is probably the single biggest carrier of Funimation, but since it's Funi's channel, they can run what they feel. Thanks V-chip.

And really, I have to imagine that slowly but surely, this network is getting them new fans, and ensuring older ones don't lose interest. It is providing the random exposure factor, especially since they now provide something radically different to anyone running animation in the afternoon (well, really different to every network but syfy on sunday nights.) Heck, I've watched significant portions of shows I wouldn't have dreamed of watching thanks to it (Solty Rei and Burst Angel, I'm looking at you,) and because it was dubbed, my parents were able to easily get into it too.
 
Yes but I never heard of channel surfing on the web, a place where you aren't looking for anything in particular and you run across something you like, what if you friend doesn't run across this show, are you supposed to know about it?



How many people even have that channel though?
 
Not many but it's starting to get more carriers. Their greater strength is in on-demand which they have on a lot of carriers.

However, getting a show on a more available channel has a great deal more value. SyFy, IFC, CN, DXD, MTV, Fuse, etc. Though some of those are also more available than others.
 
I think the key thing with Funimation is they've locked themselves in well on FiOS which is going to result in an ever increasing nuraber of homes picking them up - it's great a long term play that's already paying for itself.

Meanwhile I know a lot of folks who kill time on sturableupon, so I have to imagine that there is a clear demographic of people who want that random chance of TV in internet format.
 
The Funimation Channel actually did make one edit that I know of. In an episode of Basilisk, they blurred some girl character's nipples out. Which is strange considering in a later episode they left a different girl character's nipples intact. Go figure.

Anyway, the main thing that kills Funimation Channel for me is the endless repeats of their schedule. Especially the Weekend Re-wind. I've seen Peach Girl, Moonphase, and Mushi-Shi so many times, I never want to see them again.
 
Editing a show for content: Understandable
Editing a show to turn it into something different: Not acceptable

A lot of Toonami shows were edited to hell, but (with the obvious exceptions of Robotech, Voltron, and maybe Cardcaptors) none of them were changed into something they weren't supposed to be. For that reason, Toonami gained hardcore respect with me.
 
Well technically, those 3 shows you mentioned weren't for Toonami. They were picked up after being run on the original channels they were for.
 
True, but for how much longer? And how many people who still primarily watch broadcast or traditional cable TV are the sort of old technophobes who are light years outside anime's target demographic anyway?

Sheer nurabers aren't everything, either. Advertisers are willing to pay more for ad placement on services like Hulu because they can collect much better demographic data on their viewers and hence target their aRAB so as to be more effective.

It's not going to happen overnight, but streaming online video is the future of television.
 
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