My Hero is mainstream because it came out when Marvel movies is at their peak... So it became to easy to digest another superhero series while waiting for the next Marvel movie
I honestly think the only good case study of a studio changing the script for English dubs is ghost stories. That anime was hilarious because of the changes they made
So changing a work completely is only good when it’s funny? I don’t agree. Imagine if VIZ or Funimation changed the script of shows like JJK or MHA because it was “funny”. Ghost stories got away with it because nobody in the west cares about it. Try that with another series and it’s a formula for disaster
Agreed with everything you said here. Especially with the point of making a good story and then tying in your message/themes into that instead of just pushing an agenda without doing it in a creative way. Like you said I believe every series has messaging in it, whether it’s positive or negative, Christlike or demonic, surface, or deep, etc. But I also believe the best stories are those that can be enjoyable and well written on a surface level but also deep enough for those that want to look into it to gain a better grasp of what the author wants to communicate. That’s something that we see a lot with anime/manga that is not as prevalent in Western media at least as it should be, but I’d love to see a change in that 🙌🏾.
The worst things westerners ever did was calling every single new cartoon made by them anime because that's what's trending. It honestly annoying and it shows the lack of creativity and inability to come up with new things. Now we have people who can't differentiate between anime and cartoon. I have friends that will tell you arcane is anime just because it's labelled anime on Netflix.
there is a certain demographic that has the need to take and destroy anything and everything they get their hands on, japan is aware of this and they limit their interactions with america, yes they send things over but there’s a lot of exclusivity around there
100% on every point. You expertly put into words so many things I’ve had on the noggin for a while. I actually spent a couple of weeks in Japan back in October. It was my second time in that beautiful country. You only have to be there for a moment to realize how ridiculous and bizarre it is to think that they must cater to our standards and expectations. It’s a radically different place and mentality and for all intents and purposes, we don’t exist to them. Just let Japan do their thing and enjoy it for what it is.
I've heard a couple things in dubs that make me wonder, and at least one time I thought to myself "that can't possibly be the original line" and it's typically related to an ideology that's really only present in the west.
I was watching one series where a girl in the dub went “chat we got cooked” and it actively ruined my enjoyment of the show bc I KNOW that wasn’t in the Japanese 💀
@@nicwithnok oh it is so offensive to me when they insert american slang into anime i dont usually watch dubs, so i havent seen any examples of this in a dub but there was actually a time in season 1 of dr stone were the sub was worse than the dub the sub said "cringe" and "meme" but the dub said "lame" and "comedy skit" in the sub of girlfriend girlfriend one time they had a character say "simp" in the sub of a sign of affection they had a character say "does bro not realize he's down bad" the fans do not want this not in japan and not anywhere else
100% disagree. Arjuna, Sailor moon, Card Capotor Sakura and ofcourse shows like AOT have a bunch of political messages even more so in the original, as for example the American dub cut the lesbian relationship between Uranus and Neptune and turned them into cousins... Even MHA has pretty strong messages about extremism and propaganda and the dub captures this quite well too.
@annaavertho4944 See you're wrong. Watch a Western product and anime and compare them. AOT didn't force it's political messaging unto the viewers. Meanwhile western media forces the politics unto you. The guy just explained it in the video. This is why High guardian spice failed terribly. This exists in every media. Even in games,it's the sane standard. Don't force politics on your audience
@PharrellSalford I've been watching Anime and reading Manga since the 90's, kid and it really depends on the genre and the show. AOT is basically a recap of the first and second worldwar in a fantasy setting and it shows you how xenophobia can remain even within marginalised opressed groups. It is political but even more so historical, that is the difference. High guardian spice is an extreme example on the other hand but I bet all my money and fortune that you have never watched "Arjuna" or read "fake" they pushed their "agendas" in a similar way as HGS, they just did it with better story telling and art. Because, and that's the thing, artist are people too and they usually write about stuff they experienced or are interested in. It is not some overseeing force turning your animes political, that's complete BS. Just watch the Sailormoon Sailor-Star arc. It has guys turn into female Sailor warriors on screen changing their gender and one of them even becoming Usagis (the mcs) second love interest simply because Naoko Takeuchi thought that it was an interesting concept and she liked taboo concepts and provocation. Not to mention that one person who was working on the Sailormoon anime later was so inspired by that, that he created "legendary girl Utena" another anime from Japan from 1999 that I again bet my money on, you haven't heard off or watched. SPOILERS it features a woman braking the norm of her universe, falling in love with the female "weapon" and further SPOILERS every male character in it is pretty much horrible. If that anime would come out today people would scream "queer propaganda" or "feminist bs" but in the 90's it was just a story about a girl fighting against all odds and being in love with another girl. It was just Utena. Not even that but Anime is literally a medium used in Japan to express yourself and to voice criticism that is otherwise hard to bring up... It has always been political in one way or the other and people should really do a bit of research of it's history and how society correlates to it here in Japan before stating things on the Internet as facts.
@annaavertho4944 Bruv. You still don't get it. I never said AOT wasn't political,I said it wasn't shoved in your face. You just made my point when you say they are telling a historical story but in a different setting, and it's IN-WORLD politics. So you can bring how I've not watched some anime or heard of some that come into the category of the outlier category. Which means they aren't the standard, thereby anime exploring politics like the Western animation does. So you're still wrong.
If by politics you actually mean politics then... well pretty much every other shonen has a message regarding government and how it influences society. And if by politics you mean "I hate LGBT" then... well BL is a big industry.
Brother, I was in 1989, and i can tell you being seen a weird was a part of liking anime in the days of DragonBall, Sailor Moon, and Gundam wing Dragon Ball opened the early doors, followed by the crazy popularity of Naruto's story. By the time your generation came in with my hero, you guys just had to kick the door down. I'm happy to be an anime fan. It's a crazy time with all the chaos that comes with it.
The only time i’m ok with english dub blatantly changing what the Japanese said is if it meets 2 standards 1. If they purveyed the idea of what they were trying to say just differently 2. Straight up for culture reasons. An Example for #1 is the MHA dub when Camie was speaking straight brainrot terms. This is technically what horikoshi was trying to make kami sound like. She was supposed to be a girl that used present day slang a bit too much, and since our present day slang is different than when horikoshi was looking up terms of slang it makes sense they make that change. Example for #2 is I remember in the japanese version they made a reference/joke to something only Japanese people/ people who know Japanese culture would understand, so for the western audience to understand the joke the dubbers made a similar reference just in American terms. I don’t remember the joke exactly so I’ll just give another example. It would be like if they made a joke about a Japanese statue that u would only know about if u went to japan so the dubbers chose to change that Japanese statue to the statue of liberty so americans can get what the joke was talking about. If it don’t follow these rules then the dubbers gotta rethink what they doin fr
I do remember in FLCL a character referenced a Japanese drink that went out of date called Cheerio, but no one in the west knew what that was so they exchanged it with ANOTHER out of date drink that Americans WOULD get; Crystal Pepsi. This was all to preserve the intention of the joke, which was referencing how seedy and out of touch Naota's dad seemed from an outsider's perspective.
I do think a lot of this comes down to how stuff like really nitpicky video essays are just kind of eaten up in "western culture." Like, there's stuff in anime that we can pick apart and analyze with what works and what doesn't, but I think a lot of this comes down to the fact that those things aren't as much of a thing in Japan. The entertainment is just inherently different. Does that make it perfect? No not really, but I do think this is smth we can keep in mind when talking about these sorts of things.
As someone who has been bilingual my entire life. I feel like some people don’t understand how genuinely hard it is to interpret a language into an ever evolving language as English. Whether you like it or not every single translation of a Japanese work is ALWAYS going to be in a way “localized”. Doesn’t matter how many translators’ notes you give it will never be the same as knowing the language first hand. Some people don’t understand that Japan also has its own slang, so adapting their slang to something equivalent might seem kind of cringe or eyebrow raising, doesn’t change the fact that the translator/“localizer” is trying to make it make sense to the viewer in the simplest way possible. Obviously translators/localizers who completely change the script or insert their own bias into someone else’s work is wrong but I feel like that almost rarely ever goes unnoticed.
This! I used to do amateur fan translations, and ppl need to understand that some phrases do not translate well when done literally, or even with explanation, and it's so much easier to convey both message AND TONE when there already exists a near matching idiom in the translated language. As a translator, you're not just translating what the characters are saying, you also need to translate how the characters say their lines to convey how you hope the author would want these characters and lines to come across to the consumer, usually based on the context of the rest of the story because you can't always consult the author and even if you can, your interpretation may not be adequately conveyed because of the language barrier.
@@amanosatoshitranslates read the last paragraph. The noticeable changes that contain bias or just completely flip the script for “the lols” almost always get noticed immediately.
Basically normie infiltration a normal fan would watch a show and it has stuff they dont like they would ignore it and watch a different show, but these people would change a wholr medium just bc they dont like it
All this happened because of Vatican. I know something going to happened to anime with huge impact. If only anime didn't reach America and Vatican all this wouldn't happen. I see more changes after this conflict In anime industry and manga author.
I think your video kind of misses a lot. You're correct that when anime does have political messaging to, it typically still takes a story first approach that results in it being a better overall story. However, you latter point about Western companies (though Sony is actually a Japanese company) taking advantage of anime's popularity to create shows in their aesthetic and try to make money off of it I feel falls a little flat of reality. Why they are absolutely doing that when you said that they aren't really anime, I feel like you're abscribing certain things to anime that simply are not there. Anime is really just any form of animation from Japan, the popular artistic styles of in it or what we associate with it. But any story can be told. There is not really anything specific to anime that makes it "feel like anime". There might be stuff specific to more subgenres of anime, you know certain tropes and everything, however, anime as a whole is simply just the place of origin associated aesthetic.
Great video! As someone that used to be an american comic book fan and left because of the hamfisted political and social messaging and drop in quality I have noticed and become very concerned about the creeping westernization into my anime and manga. Your analysis was spot on and I'd say more than fair; hopefully now that people are more aware of this phenomenon than they were when it happened in the American comic industry true fans can come together and atop it before it's too late and we lost another great escapist and entertainment medium
Cons of Modern Latin American Anime Dubs - Mostly are made in México and include mannerisms that we find funny but don't hit the same bell in other countries like Chile or Venezuela Cons in Modern English Anime Dubs - They change the dialogue to suit their political views in a product they didn't even create, even changing important plot points How did it got here Seriously, my friend who is always looking for New mangas taught me of DanDaDan when it was just 3 chapters and the slowly growing fanbase was charming But since JJK ended, the big popular Anime in the US, they migrated to DanDaDan and is the same discourse again Why can't we just enjoy the cool japanese media as the cool japanese media Not to attack any folk from the States, i'm talking about social media, you know, the worst type of
What is wrong with the blue light in the background? Why does the shelf not have a shadow? If the light was in front of the shelf wouldn't it also be slightly blue then? I might be focused on the wrong thing
You usually see cringey "localized" edits in official releases of seasonal slop with shows with stupid titles like "My bully is now my girlfriend" or "reincarnated as a sofa in a mid-evil world but im lvl 99" because the translators are probably bored out of their minds translating garbage. You'll see "rizz" in a shitty incest romcom and people will throw a fit on twitter. Doesn't mean that changing the original show's intent is good but i can see why some of it slips passed some final management. I seriously doubt an english sub of a niche show will hurt japan's culture
I'm More Of Western Adult Animation Guy and Like anime I got treated like a Smut Peddler just for South Park and Family Guy then Shows like Rick and Morty and Bob's Burgers become a thing and totally normal but that still kinda sucks though I like both shows but underrated gems get pushed to the wayside and abandoned that's not really fair at all
This is not at all about Censorship, it's about Soft Power, the soft power in Japan long ago far surpassed Hollywood and they do not like it at. For any denizens of Japan and all creative types alike, do not allow the censorship of West to dim your Light. Continue using Unconditional Love as your driving force for soft power, those in the West could barely understand soft power outside of Fear, Division, and Domination, there's far too much fear and hatred in the world, continue this rebellion using Love itself. You're all tapping into something far more powerful than that could possibly be imagined. Remember we're all Infinite, we're all eternal, the measure of power you have, is based off how much love resides in your heart. An important reminder, the Ruling Elites who felt threatened and using their boundless wealth lobbying for that change are collaborating with Archonic Forces, much like any Dark force, it needs to sustain itself with fear, anger, and hatred, it is wise not to feed the Trolls their favorite meal. An easy method of Revenge is feeding them Unconditional Love.
I definitely agree when it comes to show from the west or etc I'd say Terminator 0,Cyberpunk edgerunners and Star wars visions s2 mainly. Rick and Morty anime/suicide squad ohhhhh. Also Avatar obviously castlevania and maybe owl house and Recently invincible fight girl.
I’ve got two points. 1. The localizers of Noragami do a great job with the manga. Over 21 volumes anf I haven’t seen Western politics inserted. They also include translator notes at the end which I rarely see. 2: There probably are “woke” manga out there. They just tend to rarely make it to the US, and unlike in the US, the story has to actually sell and produce profits in order for it to continue. There may be self published doujins, but they would not be mainstream.
I have stopped watching western media for a few years now. I watch anime because the writing and storytelling are there with zero-- ZERO politics and western filth being shoved in my face!! And the fandoms (Ex: MHA) are a whole other can of worms that I don't even want to get into. I dont watch the bigger animes because of how insane the attached fandoms are.
This is really incorrect. A lot of anime have very political messaging in them directly and sometimes indirectly. Not this is less true for smaller more slice of life, romance, or strictly power fantasy stories so since you didn't watch bigger anime you might have missed it. But no, a lot of anime are very political, the difference is that there are less anime that are political message first then story. They're typically story then political message.
@totha098 I have given some the bigger anime a try recently and see what you mean. I guess what I can say now that I've done so, is it's more of a subplot than the main plot (Ex: The Acolyte) in anime. Like the characters and the story don't revolve around some political agenda like you see in the west now a days. In my opinion, it's fine to implement to give characters depth and growth, but just don't make it the whole point of the show, you know?
@moon_wolff Honestly, I'm okay, even if they were to make a political message the entire point of the show, so long as the story and characters are good. I just feel like it's kind of impossible to do that while also being so overtly political as some shows do nowadays. I think a great example to illustrate what I'm talking about is the scene and endgame when all the women heros are just together for like a shot. That scene made zero sense, why would only the women characters be at that position at that time and in the middle of a battle? It's too coincidental to be a believable natural occurring thing. And so the only point of the scene is to have this woman empowerment moment. Personally, I'm all for women empowerment, however, that moment just sucked. Its existence in the story was purely for a political message and its result was that it took me out of the story.
As a one piece (and oda) fan i feel confortable drinking my pinna colada watching how the west ruins its enterneinament indurstry while reading over 1000 chapters of a story of a rubber boy wanting to the king of the pirates
One piece is extremely political though... If your point is just that anime is not as in your face about its politics that's fine, but many anime are extremely political and one piece is definitely one of them.
Yeah but my point is that i trust japanese authors more because i know the wont pander to american politics yeah on piece is political but it is mostly fictional politics
@@fairveiga1440 I agree with your first point. However when I was talking about one piece being political though I wasn't talking about its inner story politics. Rather it's very outwardly political themes. Its use of gender queer characters since the early 2000s. Dragon's younger aesthetic seemingly taking from Fidel Castro can point towards more communist undertones, especially considering the way that Luffy defines the idea of a hero as the idea of someone who shares meat with everyone else. A sentiment that can definitely be related to the sharing of the means of production and goods with other people that is associated with communism. There are more things that could be bright up, though you are absolutely correct that none of this is for pandering to the American audience.
So this puts me in an interesting position because while I want to agree, I can’t be a hypocrite. A good chunk of my videos are sort of attempting to correct mistakes that anime makes. In one video for example, I argue that anime’s depiction of demons is dangerously morally ambiguous. I think the issue has less to do with “just let foreign media be foreign media” and more to do with “don’t poison a good thing with your evil ideology.” What we term “wokeism” is largely the cynical insertion of left wing politics into media. Rather than leave shows alone, I would suggest that it’s better to offer correction in a positive direction. In other words, instead of cynically inserting left wing politics into media, we should graciously encourage creatives to make more stories with good values and good lessons, devoid of social ills. One such example, as you pointed out, is The Lord of the Rings. Anyway 10/10 good movie Nic!
Totally agree with you on the fact that the west likes to shoehorn things into a show rather than making a good show and seeing if this will work or not Usually putting the cart before the horse
One thing to point out though is, that Manga mostly also does not reflect the japanese culture. It is and was always a way for artists to express themselves in a very sterile and conservative society. The contrast shown between that is especially true for 80's and 90's Shojo Anime and Manga, like Lady Oscar, Sailor Moon, Card Capotor Sakura etc. The shows featured a bunch of queer themes and homosexuell relationships that were at this point illigal in Japan (Fun fact the American dub for Sailormoon even changed the relationship of two Sailor warriors to cousins, which is memed on by everyone outside the US to this day). Also the criticism of social issues and political themes is more likely to occur in Manga than in an actual conversation with a Japanese person or on general japanese TV due to the japanese culture of "honne" and "tatamae", which itself stands in contrast with the japanese "Omoiyari". You should look that up. Not to mention all the ecchi and nudity shown in manga: Outside of Osaka, fashion itself is all focused on not showing skin for men and woman and even in summer a lot of people wear long sleves. Which however also spwaned a bunch sub fashion genres to go against the flow such as yanki and ganguro and multiple different punk fashion styles which on the other hand are often present in Anime and Manga, because they are more provoking and fun. A lot of Japanese people actually have a lot of issues with their strict, compatetative, and conservative culture especially when it comes to work and company culture and age based hierarchy. Those are some of the reasons Japan is always in the top ten of countries with the highest suicide-rates. I am not defending the changing of dubs here by the way, i just wanted to point out that most (not all) Anime and Manga is used as a form of escapism in Japan as well. I watched a lot of people move here, who only base their knowledge of Japan on Japanese entertainment media to find a pretty harsh awakening, especially when trying to assimilate. That goes for all of trash taste in my opinion too 😂. Once your honey-moon period (it is the period where you're excited about exploring and generally see everything through rose coloured glasses cause it still feels like a vacation) with a country is over you are bound to enter the second stage of immigration (cultural transition and isolation) which is the hardest one and especially hard in japan. Just something i wanted to point out about Japanese culture vs Anime and Manga. That said, i will however defend that some lines have to be changed simply also to match lip movements and because some words and phrases in Japan do not have a concrete translation, such as "wabi sabi" to make it make some sense, you would have to translate it to "memento mori" which isn't 100% correct either and would also leave a bunch of question marks with the standard western anime consumer. To really translate it, you would basically need a Wikipedia article read out loud. In general translations have been better however, especially when compared to shows from the 70's like speed racer. And sometimes a dub and recut can even save an artist, just look up the curious case of a show called "saber rider". Do i like what the dub/ recut did? No. But was it a creative decision that caused Saber rider to be more known in the west than in Japan, where it completely flopped? Yes. Like everything, it's not that simple.
Unrelated to the video, and I'm probably the only person saying this, but weren't you on Nintendo Prime's podcast a few times??? Edit: Just finished the video. You bring up some excellent points.
Men I don't know how you can be a fan of MHA and not notice the big part that inclusivity plays in the anime. The Heteromorphic getting discriminated against is one of the big topics on the anime. The only reason One For All almost achieved his goal was because he took advantage of this population resentment. And that has been present in MHA from day one.
See the difference there though is that the heteromorph subplot is worked into the story naturally and it makes sense for the universe, not just shoved in for brownie points
I’d say that anime already has been poisoned. The imagery, some of it is way too inappropriate. Consider bleach, smeggualizing Orihime. Or newer series like Dandadan. Showing characters dang near exposed. I dislike that. I like anime, but showing characters who are not of age in a way that is inappropriate just irks me.
So what you're saying is you don't like anime. If you don't like it don't watch it. "I view it as inappropriate, so they should censor it." Nah, anime doesn't need to become like the west. 4kids turned Sanjis cigarette into a lollipop. There's a word for people who move into a place and start telling the people who've been there that they should change their ways, because it offends the new people. I'm not trying to sit here and watch Cultural Colonizers turn anime in to a real life version of Shimoneta and Magical Destroyers.
@ I don’t think you read my comment correctly. It’s clear what I said. I never said what you put in quotes. I never said to censor it. I said that it is inappropriate. It’s wrong that minors in shows are being smeggualized. I don’t want anime to become censored in the way that they completely alter the story, but what it is that I am saying is that it is inappropriate. It has no place when it comes to minors involved these shows. You could say even pedophilic. Please take a chance to read exactly what I said, not what you interpreted.
@@wendylacey2745 Trump has gone on record for blaming video games for inciting mass violence. He's an old man who knows nothing about what he's talking about. HE will censor games, even the Japanese games you think are being censored now.
So basically the 4Kids era never went away, it just got worse.
My Hero is mainstream because it came out when Marvel movies is at their peak... So it became to easy to digest another superhero series while waiting for the next Marvel movie
Capitalism is not at fault. It's the same old practice of ignoring how the product got there in the first place.
I honestly think the only good case study of a studio changing the script for English dubs is ghost stories. That anime was hilarious because of the changes they made
Thank the stars it's not like this anymore (or at least not as much)
So changing a work completely is only good when it’s funny?
I don’t agree. Imagine if VIZ or Funimation changed the script of shows like JJK or MHA because it was “funny”. Ghost stories got away with it because nobody in the west cares about it. Try that with another series and it’s a formula for disaster
@@SuperProgFrog100% agree with you. Ghost Stories is objectively a bad dub, because it isn’t properly adapting the source material.
Honestly, I prefer Ghost Hunt over Ghost Stories.
This is misinformation
Agreed with everything you said here. Especially with the point of making a good story and then tying in your message/themes into that instead of just pushing an agenda without doing it in a creative way. Like you said I believe every series has messaging in it, whether it’s positive or negative, Christlike or demonic, surface, or deep, etc. But I also believe the best stories are those that can be enjoyable and well written on a surface level but also deep enough for those that want to look into it to gain a better grasp of what the author wants to communicate. That’s something that we see a lot with anime/manga that is not as prevalent in Western media at least as it should be, but I’d love to see a change in that 🙌🏾.
The worst things westerners ever did was calling every single new cartoon made by them anime because that's what's trending. It honestly annoying and it shows the lack of creativity and inability to come up with new things. Now we have people who can't differentiate between anime and cartoon. I have friends that will tell you arcane is anime just because it's labelled anime on Netflix.
there is a certain demographic that has the need to take and destroy anything and everything they get their hands on, japan is aware of this and they limit their interactions with america, yes they send things over but there’s a lot of exclusivity around there
Honestly I don’t blame them either
100% on every point. You expertly put into words so many things I’ve had on the noggin for a while. I actually spent a couple of weeks in Japan back in October. It was my second time in that beautiful country. You only have to be there for a moment to realize how ridiculous and bizarre it is to think that they must cater to our standards and expectations. It’s a radically different place and mentality and for all intents and purposes, we don’t exist to them. Just let Japan do their thing and enjoy it for what it is.
thats so funny you said that cause I was just in Japan for 2 weeks in September for the 2nd time, the first time was 5 years ago in October
I've heard a couple things in dubs that make me wonder, and at least one time I thought to myself "that can't possibly be the original line" and it's typically related to an ideology that's really only present in the west.
I was watching one series where a girl in the dub went “chat we got cooked” and it actively ruined my enjoyment of the show bc I KNOW that wasn’t in the Japanese 💀
@@nicwithnok oh it is so offensive to me when they insert american slang into anime
i dont usually watch dubs, so i havent seen any examples of this in a dub
but there was actually a time in season 1 of dr stone were the sub was worse than the dub
the sub said "cringe" and "meme" but the dub said "lame" and "comedy skit"
in the sub of girlfriend girlfriend one time they had a character say "simp"
in the sub of a sign of affection they had a character say "does bro not realize he's down bad"
the fans do not want this
not in japan and not anywhere else
The only justification for changing a line is if the original is a pun that doesn't translate well.
@@realteamwalllowkey it’s kinda funny lol
The reason why people in the west enjoy anime because of the lack of politics in its programming, the translations guys don't understand that
100% disagree. Arjuna, Sailor moon, Card Capotor Sakura and ofcourse shows like AOT have a bunch of political messages even more so in the original, as for example the American dub cut the lesbian relationship between Uranus and Neptune and turned them into cousins...
Even MHA has pretty strong messages about extremism and propaganda and the dub captures this quite well too.
@annaavertho4944 See you're wrong. Watch a Western product and anime and compare them. AOT didn't force it's political messaging unto the viewers. Meanwhile western media forces the politics unto you. The guy just explained it in the video. This is why High guardian spice failed terribly. This exists in every media. Even in games,it's the sane standard. Don't force politics on your audience
@PharrellSalford I've been watching Anime and reading Manga since the 90's, kid and it really depends on the genre and the show. AOT is basically a recap of the first and second worldwar in a fantasy setting and it shows you how xenophobia can remain even within marginalised opressed groups. It is political but even more so historical, that is the difference.
High guardian spice is an extreme example on the other hand but I bet all my money and fortune that you have never watched "Arjuna" or read "fake" they pushed their "agendas" in a similar way as HGS, they just did it with better story telling and art. Because, and that's the thing, artist are people too and they usually write about stuff they experienced or are interested in. It is not some overseeing force turning your animes political, that's complete BS.
Just watch the Sailormoon Sailor-Star arc. It has guys turn into female Sailor warriors on screen changing their gender and one of them even becoming Usagis (the mcs) second love interest simply because Naoko Takeuchi thought that it was an interesting concept and she liked taboo concepts and provocation.
Not to mention that one person who was working on the Sailormoon anime later was so inspired by that, that he created "legendary girl Utena" another anime from Japan from 1999 that I again bet my money on, you haven't heard off or watched.
SPOILERS it features a woman braking the norm of her universe, falling in love with the female "weapon" and further SPOILERS every male character in it is pretty much horrible.
If that anime would come out today people would scream "queer propaganda" or "feminist bs" but in the 90's it was just a story about a girl fighting against all odds and being in love with another girl. It was just Utena.
Not even that but Anime is literally a medium used in Japan to express yourself and to voice criticism that is otherwise hard to bring up...
It has always been political in one way or the other and people should really do a bit of research of it's history and how society correlates to it here in Japan before stating things on the Internet as facts.
@annaavertho4944 Bruv. You still don't get it. I never said AOT wasn't political,I said it wasn't shoved in your face. You just made my point when you say they are telling a historical story but in a different setting, and it's IN-WORLD politics. So you can bring how I've not watched some anime or heard of some that come into the category of the outlier category. Which means they aren't the standard, thereby anime exploring politics like the Western animation does. So you're still wrong.
If by politics you actually mean politics then... well pretty much every other shonen has a message regarding government and how it influences society.
And if by politics you mean "I hate LGBT" then... well BL is a big industry.
Brother, I was in 1989, and i can tell you being seen a weird was a part of liking anime in the days of DragonBall, Sailor Moon, and Gundam wing Dragon Ball opened the early doors, followed by the crazy popularity of Naruto's story. By the time your generation came in with my hero, you guys just had to kick the door down. I'm happy to be an anime fan. It's a crazy time with all the chaos that comes with it.
The only time i’m ok with english dub blatantly changing what the Japanese said is if it meets 2 standards
1. If they purveyed the idea of what they were trying to say just differently
2. Straight up for culture reasons.
An Example for #1 is the MHA dub when Camie was speaking straight brainrot terms. This is technically what horikoshi was trying to make kami sound like. She was supposed to be a girl that used present day slang a bit too much, and since our present day slang is different than when horikoshi was looking up terms of slang it makes sense they make that change.
Example for #2 is I remember in the japanese version they made a reference/joke to something only Japanese people/ people who know Japanese culture would understand, so for the western audience to understand the joke the dubbers made a similar reference just in American terms. I don’t remember the joke exactly so I’ll just give another example. It would be like if they made a joke about a Japanese statue that u would only know about if u went to japan so the dubbers chose to change that Japanese statue to the statue of liberty so americans can get what the joke was talking about.
If it don’t follow these rules then the dubbers gotta rethink what they doin fr
I do remember in FLCL a character referenced a Japanese drink that went out of date called Cheerio, but no one in the west knew what that was so they exchanged it with ANOTHER out of date drink that Americans WOULD get; Crystal Pepsi. This was all to preserve the intention of the joke, which was referencing how seedy and out of touch Naota's dad seemed from an outsider's perspective.
only the 1. one is valid.
3. Puns that don't translate into English.
@@AmachiEligwe have fun being blind
I do think a lot of this comes down to how stuff like really nitpicky video essays are just kind of eaten up in "western culture." Like, there's stuff in anime that we can pick apart and analyze with what works and what doesn't, but I think a lot of this comes down to the fact that those things aren't as much of a thing in Japan. The entertainment is just inherently different. Does that make it perfect? No not really, but I do think this is smth we can keep in mind when talking about these sorts of things.
As someone who has been bilingual my entire life. I feel like some people don’t understand how genuinely hard it is to interpret a language into an ever evolving language as English. Whether you like it or not every single translation of a Japanese work is ALWAYS going to be in a way “localized”. Doesn’t matter how many translators’ notes you give it will never be the same as knowing the language first hand. Some people don’t understand that Japan also has its own slang, so adapting their slang to something equivalent might seem kind of cringe or eyebrow raising, doesn’t change the fact that the translator/“localizer” is trying to make it make sense to the viewer in the simplest way possible.
Obviously translators/localizers who completely change the script or insert their own bias into someone else’s work is wrong but I feel like that almost rarely ever goes unnoticed.
This! I used to do amateur fan translations, and ppl need to understand that some phrases do not translate well when done literally, or even with explanation, and it's so much easier to convey both message AND TONE when there already exists a near matching idiom in the translated language.
As a translator, you're not just translating what the characters are saying, you also need to translate how the characters say their lines to convey how you hope the author would want these characters and lines to come across to the consumer, usually based on the context of the rest of the story because you can't always consult the author and even if you can, your interpretation may not be adequately conveyed because of the language barrier.
what da hail man we are talking about localizers that change stuff just because they wanna change shift.
@@amanosatoshitranslates read the last paragraph. The noticeable changes that contain bias or just completely flip the script for “the lols” almost always get noticed immediately.
@@SuperProgFrog
last part is in "read more" section. you should put it in first part where people most likely to read.
Basically normie infiltration a normal fan would watch a show and it has stuff they dont like they would ignore it and watch a different show, but these people would change a wholr medium just bc they dont like it
I miss when anime was niche and was mostly left alone 😭
All this happened because of Vatican. I know something going to happened to anime with huge impact. If only anime didn't reach America and Vatican all this wouldn't happen. I see more changes after this conflict In anime industry and manga author.
Star Wars Visions had studios from all over the world working on it
I think your video kind of misses a lot. You're correct that when anime does have political messaging to, it typically still takes a story first approach that results in it being a better overall story. However, you latter point about Western companies (though Sony is actually a Japanese company) taking advantage of anime's popularity to create shows in their aesthetic and try to make money off of it I feel falls a little flat of reality. Why they are absolutely doing that when you said that they aren't really anime, I feel like you're abscribing certain things to anime that simply are not there. Anime is really just any form of animation from Japan, the popular artistic styles of in it or what we associate with it. But any story can be told. There is not really anything specific to anime that makes it "feel like anime". There might be stuff specific to more subgenres of anime, you know certain tropes and everything, however, anime as a whole is simply just the place of origin associated aesthetic.
We have Japan comics and they made manga.
Great video! As someone that used to be an american comic book fan and left because of the hamfisted political and social messaging and drop in quality I have noticed and become very concerned about the creeping westernization into my anime and manga. Your analysis was spot on and I'd say more than fair; hopefully now that people are more aware of this phenomenon than they were when it happened in the American comic industry true fans can come together and atop it before it's too late and we lost another great escapist and entertainment medium
Cons of Modern Latin American Anime Dubs
- Mostly are made in México and include mannerisms that we find funny but don't hit the same bell in other countries like Chile or Venezuela
Cons in Modern English Anime Dubs
- They change the dialogue to suit their political views in a product they didn't even create, even changing important plot points
How did it got here
Seriously, my friend who is always looking for New mangas taught me of DanDaDan when it was just 3 chapters and the slowly growing fanbase was charming
But since JJK ended, the big popular Anime in the US, they migrated to DanDaDan and is the same discourse again
Why can't we just enjoy the cool japanese media as the cool japanese media
Not to attack any folk from the States, i'm talking about social media, you know, the worst type of
Most of the Diversity Manga are pretty good though like Apple Black for an example
*Is it okay for the West to change the name of techniques....*
Example: Raikiri in Japanese but Lightning Blade in English
Ichigo > Naruto
@@ChillDeathgod That is a random opinion to just place under a comment post..........
What is wrong with the blue light in the background? Why does the shelf not have a shadow? If the light was in front of the shelf wouldn't it also be slightly blue then? I might be focused on the wrong thing
Maybe because the light is on the floor pointed up rather than dead on?
call me weak if you want but i am deeply distressed by anything that harms japanese culture
You usually see cringey "localized" edits in official releases of seasonal slop with shows with stupid titles like "My bully is now my girlfriend" or "reincarnated as a sofa in a mid-evil world but im lvl 99" because the translators are probably bored out of their minds translating garbage. You'll see "rizz" in a shitty incest romcom and people will throw a fit on twitter.
Doesn't mean that changing the original show's intent is good but i can see why some of it slips passed some final management. I seriously doubt an english sub of a niche show will hurt japan's culture
I'm More Of Western Adult Animation Guy and Like anime I got treated like a Smut Peddler just for South Park and Family Guy then Shows like Rick and Morty and Bob's Burgers become a thing and totally normal but that still kinda sucks though I like both shows but underrated gems get pushed to the wayside and abandoned that's not really fair at all
This is not at all about Censorship, it's about Soft Power, the soft power in Japan long ago far surpassed Hollywood and they do not like it at. For any denizens of Japan and all creative types alike, do not allow the censorship of West to dim your Light. Continue using Unconditional Love as your driving force for soft power, those in the West could barely understand soft power outside of Fear, Division, and Domination, there's far too much fear and hatred in the world, continue this rebellion using Love itself.
You're all tapping into something far more powerful than that could possibly be imagined. Remember we're all Infinite, we're all eternal, the measure of power you have, is based off how much love resides in your heart.
An important reminder, the Ruling Elites who felt threatened and using their boundless wealth lobbying for that change are collaborating with Archonic Forces, much like any Dark force, it needs to sustain itself with fear, anger, and hatred, it is wise not to feed the Trolls their favorite meal. An easy method of Revenge is feeding them Unconditional Love.
They do the same thing for game translations
1:30 source?
Do a very simple Google search on “HiDive translators changing scripts” I didn’t have to dig very hard
Agree. Saw a Lilo & Stitch manga. At least it looked good, but I didn’t read it.
I definitely agree when it comes to show from the west or etc I'd say Terminator 0,Cyberpunk edgerunners and Star wars visions s2 mainly. Rick and Morty anime/suicide squad ohhhhh. Also Avatar obviously castlevania and maybe owl house and Recently invincible fight girl.
0:52 not really
6:01 care to give example on what you said?
Another very simple Google search or just looking at recent Marvel/DC comics
I’ve got two points.
1. The localizers of Noragami do a great job with the manga. Over 21 volumes anf I haven’t seen Western politics inserted. They also include translator notes at the end which I rarely see.
2: There probably are “woke” manga out there. They just tend to rarely make it to the US, and unlike in the US, the story has to actually sell and produce profits in order for it to continue. There may be self published doujins, but they would not be mainstream.
Indeed there are. Just check out the later golden boy manga chapters.
I have stopped watching western media for a few years now. I watch anime because the writing and storytelling are there with zero-- ZERO politics and western filth being shoved in my face!! And the fandoms (Ex: MHA) are a whole other can of worms that I don't even want to get into. I dont watch the bigger animes because of how insane the attached fandoms are.
This is really incorrect. A lot of anime have very political messaging in them directly and sometimes indirectly. Not this is less true for smaller more slice of life, romance, or strictly power fantasy stories so since you didn't watch bigger anime you might have missed it. But no, a lot of anime are very political, the difference is that there are less anime that are political message first then story. They're typically story then political message.
@totha098 I have given some the bigger anime a try recently and see what you mean. I guess what I can say now that I've done so, is it's more of a subplot than the main plot (Ex: The Acolyte) in anime. Like the characters and the story don't revolve around some political agenda like you see in the west now a days. In my opinion, it's fine to implement to give characters depth and growth, but just don't make it the whole point of the show, you know?
@moon_wolff Honestly, I'm okay, even if they were to make a political message the entire point of the show, so long as the story and characters are good. I just feel like it's kind of impossible to do that while also being so overtly political as some shows do nowadays. I think a great example to illustrate what I'm talking about is the scene and endgame when all the women heros are just together for like a shot. That scene made zero sense, why would only the women characters be at that position at that time and in the middle of a battle? It's too coincidental to be a believable natural occurring thing. And so the only point of the scene is to have this woman empowerment moment. Personally, I'm all for women empowerment, however, that moment just sucked. Its existence in the story was purely for a political message and its result was that it took me out of the story.
If these clowns really feel the need to change the lines in an anime just make an abridged series.
If you wanna know how Japan views us in the west just look at Dorian from Baki
You cooked with this one 🔥
Thank you thank you 😎
5:57 so comics dont priortise good story telling huh?
Modern comics usually don’t. There are exceptions obviously, but a majority of them don’t in the way they used to
As a one piece (and oda) fan i feel confortable drinking my pinna colada watching how the west ruins its enterneinament indurstry while reading over 1000 chapters of a story of a rubber boy wanting to the king of the pirates
One piece is extremely political though... If your point is just that anime is not as in your face about its politics that's fine, but many anime are extremely political and one piece is definitely one of them.
Yeah but my point is that i trust japanese authors more because i know the wont pander to american politics yeah on piece is political but it is mostly fictional politics
@@fairveiga1440 I agree with your first point. However when I was talking about one piece being political though I wasn't talking about its inner story politics. Rather it's very outwardly political themes. Its use of gender queer characters since the early 2000s. Dragon's younger aesthetic seemingly taking from Fidel Castro can point towards more communist undertones, especially considering the way that Luffy defines the idea of a hero as the idea of someone who shares meat with everyone else. A sentiment that can definitely be related to the sharing of the means of production and goods with other people that is associated with communism. There are more things that could be bright up, though you are absolutely correct that none of this is for pandering to the American audience.
5:05 should they get there animated films
We are making it si weird I highly doubt it’s si weird in Japan
Pokemon and dragon ball made anime mainstream... fight me.. xD Toho is just trying to take the glory but they were way behind the ball.
Now I want a Mickey Mouse anime!
I’d be down
So this puts me in an interesting position because while I want to agree, I can’t be a hypocrite.
A good chunk of my videos are sort of attempting to correct mistakes that anime makes. In one video for example, I argue that anime’s depiction of demons is dangerously morally ambiguous.
I think the issue has less to do with “just let foreign media be foreign media” and more to do with “don’t poison a good thing with your evil ideology.” What we term “wokeism” is largely the cynical insertion of left wing politics into media. Rather than leave shows alone, I would suggest that it’s better to offer correction in a positive direction. In other words, instead of cynically inserting left wing politics into media, we should graciously encourage creatives to make more stories with good values and good lessons, devoid of social ills. One such example, as you pointed out, is The Lord of the Rings.
Anyway 10/10 good movie Nic!
Totally agree with you on the fact that the west likes to shoehorn things into a show rather than making a good show and seeing if this will work or not
Usually putting the cart before the horse
One thing to point out though is, that Manga mostly also does not reflect the japanese culture. It is and was always a way for artists to express themselves in a very sterile and conservative society.
The contrast shown between that is especially true for 80's and 90's Shojo Anime and Manga, like Lady Oscar, Sailor Moon, Card Capotor Sakura etc.
The shows featured a bunch of queer themes and homosexuell relationships that were at this point illigal in Japan (Fun fact the American dub for Sailormoon even changed the relationship of two Sailor warriors to cousins, which is memed on by everyone outside the US to this day).
Also the criticism of social issues and political themes is more likely to occur in Manga than in an actual conversation with a Japanese person or on general japanese TV due to the japanese culture of "honne" and "tatamae", which itself stands in contrast with the japanese "Omoiyari". You should look that up.
Not to mention all the ecchi and nudity shown in manga: Outside of Osaka, fashion itself is all focused on not showing skin for men and woman and even in summer a lot of people wear long sleves. Which however also spwaned a bunch sub fashion genres to go against the flow such as yanki and ganguro and multiple different punk fashion styles which on the other hand are often present in Anime and Manga, because they are more provoking and fun.
A lot of Japanese people actually have a lot of issues with their strict, compatetative, and conservative culture especially when it comes to work and company culture and age based hierarchy. Those are some of the reasons Japan is always in the top ten of countries with the highest suicide-rates.
I am not defending the changing of dubs here by the way, i just wanted to point out that most (not all) Anime and Manga is used as a form of escapism in Japan as well. I watched a lot of people move here, who only base their knowledge of Japan on Japanese entertainment media to find a pretty harsh awakening, especially when trying to assimilate. That goes for all of trash taste in my opinion too 😂. Once your honey-moon period (it is the period where you're excited about exploring and generally see everything through rose coloured glasses cause it still feels like a vacation) with a country is over you are bound to enter the second stage of immigration (cultural transition and isolation) which is the hardest one and especially hard in japan.
Just something i wanted to point out about Japanese culture vs Anime and Manga.
That said, i will however defend that some lines have to be changed simply also to match lip movements and because some words and phrases in Japan do not have a concrete translation, such as "wabi sabi" to make it make some sense, you would have to translate it to "memento mori" which isn't 100% correct either and would also leave a bunch of question marks with the standard western anime consumer.
To really translate it, you would basically need a Wikipedia article read out loud.
In general translations have been better however, especially when compared to shows from the 70's like speed racer.
And sometimes a dub and recut can even save an artist, just look up the curious case of a show called "saber rider".
Do i like what the dub/ recut did? No. But was it a creative decision that caused Saber rider to be more known in the west than in Japan, where it completely flopped? Yes.
Like everything, it's not that simple.
Unrelated to the video, and I'm probably the only person saying this, but weren't you on Nintendo Prime's podcast a few times???
Edit: Just finished the video. You bring up some excellent points.
I have been on his podcast a few times!
@@nicwithnok Cool. Weird that I stumbled upon you again haha
1:08 brings lot more people so what ? Isn't that a good thing for anime industry ? Since more audience can enjoy the things
I hate the Scott pilgrim anime
Men I don't know how you can be a fan of MHA and not notice the big part that inclusivity plays in the anime. The Heteromorphic getting discriminated against is one of the big topics on the anime. The only reason One For All almost achieved his goal was because he took advantage of this population resentment. And that has been present in MHA from day one.
See the difference there though is that the heteromorph subplot is worked into the story naturally and it makes sense for the universe, not just shoved in for brownie points
Deadpool Samurai is a good example of that western grift in manga you spoke of...funny enough, All Might's in there😅
9:22 Ben 10 too
I’d say that anime already has been poisoned. The imagery, some of it is way too inappropriate. Consider bleach, smeggualizing Orihime. Or newer series like Dandadan. Showing characters dang near exposed. I dislike that. I like anime, but showing characters who are not of age in a way that is inappropriate just irks me.
So what you're saying is you don't like anime. If you don't like it don't watch it.
"I view it as inappropriate, so they should censor it."
Nah, anime doesn't need to become like the west. 4kids turned Sanjis cigarette into a lollipop. There's a word for people who move into a place and start telling the people who've been there that they should change their ways, because it offends the new people.
I'm not trying to sit here and watch Cultural Colonizers turn anime in to a real life version of Shimoneta and Magical Destroyers.
@ I don’t think you read my comment correctly. It’s clear what I said. I never said what you put in quotes. I never said to censor it. I said that it is inappropriate. It’s wrong that minors in shows are being smeggualized. I don’t want anime to become censored in the way that they completely alter the story, but what it is that I am saying is that it is inappropriate. It has no place when it comes to minors involved these shows. You could say even pedophilic. Please take a chance to read exactly what I said, not what you interpreted.
@@Boberjai Yoruichi’s outfit will be uncensored in the games let’s just hope Nel’s will be to
has anyone told you that you sound like bryce papenbrook you should play out a meliodas script or eren you reeeeally sound like him lol
Oh god
How can you even watch the dubs ?
Watch the subs directly and you will be fine.
I don’t think all dubs are horrible, plus it’s easier for me to watch while I’m working or doing other stuff
@nicwithnok Well if you like it so be it.
I grew up with Toonami how i got into anime so i prfer dubs but i also watch subs to like detective conan
i aint listening to anyone with that shirt on
Imagine letting a shirt bother you, lmfao-
@nikkonya1187 the shirt doesn't bother me, but clearly this man has poor taste.
Hopefully (Now that Trump’s back in office.) things will finally start looking up for not just anime, But media in general.
You’re an idiot
I thought they're banning anime and manga for being too violent
@ No. They’re just censoring it.
@@wendylacey2745 Trump has gone on record for blaming video games for inciting mass violence. He's an old man who knows nothing about what he's talking about. HE will censor games, even the Japanese games you think are being censored now.
@@wendylacey2745 So basically the opposite will happen. That’s not a good sign for anime with Trump in charge.