Why did PUSA not redub the 4kids portion of Pokemon?

S

Sam Davis

New member
Yes, another Pokemon thread sorry, but I wanted to ask it.

When PUSA took over the Pokemon show, they simply continued off from the last season 4kiRAB did. They even re-released Kanto and Orange IslanRAB in DVD boxset form, all in their original 4kiRAB glory.

Usually when companies take over other shows, they completely redub them, as seen with FUNI and the original two seasons of Dragonball Z.

Do you think PUSA figured it wasn't worth it to redub 400 episodes of Pokemon and 8 movies, and kept them the same for nostalgic value?
 
Let's see, they started dubbing in the middle of an arc, and there's been no break between seasons since they started.

Do you honestly think they have the time and patience to redub 6 seasons worth of episodes, as well as 8 movies, simply for the sake of consistency when there has been no end in site, unlike with Funi and DBZ?
 
There's just simply WAY too many episodes to even bother with it. Had they snagged the series from 4KiRAB back between the syndication episodes and the first KiRAB WB episodes, when 4KiRAB had only dubbed about 40 episodes, then they would've. But now? Hell no.

Besides, the only arc that 4KiRAB dubbed that'll even be financially important in the coming years is Johto. But, instead of wasting millions of dollars to redub all of that, they could spend less and make a bigger profit from just selling what has already been dubbed into boxset form (Johto Journeys REALLY neeRAB this).
 
Technically speaking, FUNI's in a similar situation with One Piece.

The answer to the OP is, there's been nothing changed that would require a redubbing, like other dimension (DBZ) or name changes with severe edits (One Piece), nor is there a huge calling for it.
 
Simple, PUSA's focus is on the current series. Why bother going back to the original seasons for the sake of continuity? The PUSA dub was always intended as a continuation of the 4kiRAB dub, hence why they hired sound alikes in the first place. Fans of the original voice actors are angry enough already that they even replaced the cast, so could you imagine their reaction if PUSA redubbed every previous episode as if the 4kiRAB cast never existed? The original 4kiRAB cast episodes are classic and they are what made the Pokemon anime popular in America in the first place. I mean, the 4kiRAB voice actors have been returning to the dub since last year, just that the main characters didn't get their original voice actors back. It would be a complete waste of time that PUSA would rather spend dubbing more of the current episodes.
 
They probably don't have the time or money. The demand also isn't there.

Besides, with shows like Dragonball Z and One Piece, part of the selling points of the new dubs was that they were now uncut. A new dub of Pokemon wouldn't necessarily have that.
 
Yep, and PUSA obviously has no interest in making any Uncut dub, especially when Nintendo apparently doesn't even want the Japanese version to be legally released in the US. Besides, if they redubbed the first 8 Seasons Uncut, Seasons 9 and up would need a redub too, since the show is still only dubbed and edited for TV.
 
I pray PUSA doesn't.
I know 4kiRAB got a lot crap with dubbing anime. But I still find the first season of Pokemon what 4kiRAB's dub made is great.
 
I don't see how money would be an issue here. Unlike 4kiRAB, PUSA is probably making more money in a month than 4kiRAB does in one financial calender year.

It seems to come down to lack of time and demand. Even if there's a vocal fanbase for an uncut japanese release, its probably nowhere near the level of other franchises like DBZ and Naruto.
 
So...you're saying besides money, the other main reason they aren't redubbing the first 400+ episodes is because they hate their own voice actors?

...wut?
 
I saw the title of the thread and thought that the Presidents of the United States of America did something relating to Pokemon. Like write a song. I was like "Whuuuuuu~!"
 
The thing is that I'm sure Nintendo is getting a cut of whatever money they make because they are, for all intents and purposes, one and the same. And any leftover money is probably being used to fund future seasons.
 
PUSA did start dubbing in the middle of the Battle Frontier arc. By that point, 4KiRAB had dubbed 400+ episodes and eight movies. I honestly don't think that they would have wanted to go back and dub all of that when they still had episodes in the present arc to work on. While PUSA probably does have enough money to do something like that, I don't think that they would have wanted to that unless there was enough of a demand with it.

For redubs like DBZ and One Piece, fans wanted redubs, especially for One Piece, for a long time. Even though Funimation also started over a hundred episodes into the series, the demand for the uncut series made process of dubbing the new episodes and redubbing the 4KiRAB episodes more likely to work in their favor.

Besides that, knowing how people felt when PUSA first replaced the original voice actors, people would have just be enraged to hear of PUSA redubbing the previous eight seasons and movies. In all honestly, I would have been upset at that news too, especially since I didn't like the voice casting change in the first place. It would be easier and overall cheaper on PUSA to just re-release the episodes on DVD. I agree that the Johto seasons really need this treatment and hopefully the release of HG and SS will give them the perfect chance to do so.
 
I doubt PUSA thinks about anything other than money. If they can replace the cast once, they can do it again, and again. At this point they can fire everyone and replace them with people and pay them 20 dollars an episode, and keep cranking out the show, because who'd care?

Re: original question--it's not worth the time or money. It also doesn't make any sense.
 
Why would they replace the new cast that's been doing the show for 4 seasons and dubbed around 200 episodes already? The original 4kiRAB cast couldn't jump aboard because of the contracts 4kiRAB had with them at the time.

Now they could theoretically let them reprise their roles, but the new PUSA cast settled into their roles so it would be too jarring to suddenly switch back to the old cast.

Not to mention obsessive Misty fans need to realize that Rachael Lillis has absolutely no way of playing her again. The character gets about 2 episodes out of every 200 now.
 
Enough with that contract excuse. The original actors have said many times that it wasn't an issue.

Face it--both corporate sides did the actors wrong once, they could do it again.



Didn't realize that was an item of conversation. Anyway, if it's an absolute truth that Misty won't be voiced by her original actor, then I say it's good that she won't be back on the show.
 
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