BW Media Spotlight

Some time ago I posted a series of videos by The Cartoon Cypher on the subject of the dub versus the sub and I will be referring to them. I think my conclusion article was a bit rambly. It was about “hack dubs”, where Japanese shows were turned into a completely new, more American show. You know, like the original Voltron, Robotech, Battle Of The Planets, and stuff going back to Astro Boy. I don’t believe this is necessary today but at the time it was the best way to expose America and other Western countries to Japanese animation and we do that now with the Power Rangers franchise and super sentai. Nowadays we don’t need to do that because the anime style is accepted enough. There’s plenty of art and Western shows that take cues from anime if not copy the style outright.

I’m not going to post the video because the video itself isn’t directly tied to this commentary but it is the starting point so I’m about to link to it. In a recent commentary by dannphan (she spells it with a small d, so blame her–and it’s her screenname so I’m not going to tell her she’s wrong–I hated when that happened to me and “ShadowWing”) she discussed a Funimation VA defending dubs…or rather their more recent dubbing style which adds social commentary and political attacks not featured in the anime because Japan couldn’t care less about our stupidity. I’m not going to get into the current backstage drama at Funimation and with the fans because that isn’t what we do ’round these here parts. However, I did make a comment that ended up leading to a conversation with two other commenters.

Changing a line to reflect something that is only understood if you know Japanese culture is one thing. Changing it to make an attack on this or that person or group that the Japanese creators weren’t thinking about and probably couldn’t care less about is not doing that.

Most of the sub versus dub debate involves the artistic side, and I’m more interested in a good story than how artistic it is. However, some good points are made. The two people that responded came from some different angles and were not attacking my viewpoint. They were actually calmly disagreeing with me…which is unusual for the internet, or at least that’s how it appears. One of the conversations did spark what I thought was a good article idea when I was asked:

Make some examples: what are the things you would change and what the ones you wouldn’t.

My initial response that it varies from project to project, which I shall now expand upon in this article. See, good things CAN come from the YouTube comments. Occasionally.

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