Main Page Editorial Column Anime 101 Features [1] [2] [3] [4] Reviews [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] ___________ Home    Email		The Low Down on: Dubbing continued... Restrictions      Now let me see… PD1986, GMA, religion, excessive violence... take all the stuff they don’t want in anime and what you see is what you get. If there are any cuts in an anime, at least one of the aforementioned can be blamed. What is up with them? Cultural sensitivities. The Japanese don’t really care if we are offended with the way they handle the Christian faith or whatever faith for that matter, and whatever is supposed to offend the local viewers is left on the cutting room floor. Among the restrictions are: brand names – we never know which channel might buy the show or which channel might buy the show after one channel is through with it. So no brand names or TV shows must be mentioned in the anime. I’d like to see how they omit the SMB beer can in ghost in the shell. religiously sensitive stuff – no words like panginoon, diyos ko, susmaryosep, etc. [my work on trigun’s gunslinging pastor nick wolfwood is pushing the envelope] violent language/verbs – no direct dialogue using the verbs patay, todas, baril, etc. derogatory names – self explanatory. You only hear hangal, right? No tanga, bobo, walanghya, etc. no profanity. no excessive showing of skin. [GMA is giving us hell with Lupin III’s Fujiko] no excessive gunfire – Lupin’s firepower and the gunfire in the show is toned down, and whatever is left is aired with the audio suppressed [makes us look like we can’t mix audio properly] no gore – any human being cut open, impaled, etc. no stories involving religion or occult – even if the episode shows everything short of the devil himself [who shows up quite often as it is], the story must be changed. Preservation of the Original      It has been a practice since the 70’s that names and stuff are changed to make the anime a little more close to home. Only with the internet going mainstream did fans suddenly start asking why the names were changed, and prior to this there were hardly any complaints because back then they didn’t know better. The local English version of Voltes V has been the accepted version for most of the fans both local and international. Even in European countries anime in terms of character names and stuff are changed [Grandizer is changed to Goldorak].      Only recently has this trend been changed and changing names is slowly being discouraged. Besides, it’s easier to retain an ugly unpronounceable Japanese name than think up a better name for it. Here’s some trivia for you, the list of choices for the local names of the male members of the Combattler team were names of delivery boys who deliver our dinner at dubbing: Glenn, Jason, Kevin, Bob. Compensation      Without mentioning any figures, put it this way. A dubber earns just as much as an office worker, minus the benefits like SSS, Medicare and stuff. A dubber never gets paid on time either. And when you realize how much rights to an anime is really worth, and you know how much it’s being sold to GMA, and how much you’re getting for dubbing the damn thing, without getting any royalties no matter how many times they air it again, you’d be wondering what the hell you are doing in this line of work. Deadlines      Somebody is probably not doing their homework in the office of the outfit, or GMA thinks we’re magicians. Sometimes the deadlines are outrageous, especially for an OAV like Grandoll, we had to dub it in one night because it had to make it to the MTRCB the next day to be aired Monday the week after. Sometimes we aren’t provided translations well in advance, and GMA is pressing us for advance episodes so they can make teasers. [ prev page ] [ top ] [ next page ]
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