THE BANE OF THE ANIME FANDOM
Note: Please excuse any grammar mistakes. I checked for them as I usually do but may have missed a few. Don't eat me. Also, I do realize that it is incorrect to pluralize any Japanese word with an "s". What can I say? I like imitating idiots; it's fun.
Who is this 4Kids Entertainment? They are a company specializing in acquiring various television series from all over the world and modifying them to fit the American broadcasting audience.
Put in the terms for this essay, 4Kids is an American establishment that takes Japanese cartoons (read: anime) and changes them to fit the average American cartoon audience: the children. If you are interested, you can see their website, located here.
In the anime fandom, 4Kids is often synonymous with "evil" or Insert-Swear-Word. Why? Because they've allegedly taken such popular anime series such as Pocket Monsters, Yuugi Ou, Shaman King, and more recently One Piece and Tokyo Mew Mew and transformed them into series that are "totally different" from the original Japanese show.
Which is veritably all bullshit, because if they had totally changed the shows, Luffy would be wearing a tutu and hanging out at a luau with Jounouchi.
Guys, this is pretty much all they do to the series they license:
Face it. They do what almost all other dub companies do. And just for the record, 4Kids didn't touch Card Captor Sakura, so stop saying they were responsible for its rather, um, original dub.
However, many "otakus" seem to think otherwise. Do keep in mind that "otakus" pretty much encompasses all pubescent teenage fangirls/fanboys who think that Insert-Show is tough and mature and think it's cool to take Japanese words and add the American plural "s" to pluralize them. Because we otakus all watch animes and mangas, which are all horribly kakkooiiiii dessuuu~~
Excuse me while I gouge my eyes out.
Okay, done. Now, their biggest gripe is the supposed "censorship" that anime series go through when 4Kids licenses them. They like to rant endlessly about how this and that was changed, how this character is now a snobby retard while he used to be a compassionate and caring connoisseur, and how closeminded the American dubbing companies in comparison to the wonderful oh-so-accepting and openminded Japanese population.
First of all, in the immortal words of a friend of mine, "Human minds are like parachutes. They're more interesting when closed." Secondly, the Japanese are not entirely openminded. They are equally as closeminded as Americans, only they're closed to different things. Japanese society is, believe it or not, different from American society.
Thirdly, while I do agree that characters in the 4Kids dub do not wholly match those in the original, they are not different to the point where anything is affected. For example, Mutou Yuugi in Yuugi Ou is still the same character as Yugi Moto in Yu-Gi-Oh!. They may be a little different because certain things get lost in translation, but they are still essentially the same person and that's all that matters.
Next, you must realize that the general audience for such shows is the children. 4Kids does not and will not dub shows so that they are directed towards teenagers. Furthermore, 4Kids would never license an anime series that wasn't intended for kids in the first place. No matter how many times you whine and scream, Yuugiou and the other series 4Kids has will always remain kids' shows. There's just no way out of that. There is a legitimate reason why 4Kids is named that way. It's for kids. Not for adults, and certainly not for otakus.
Oftentimes, people also have a lot of trouble accepting the fact that popular Japanese seiyuu like Takehito Koyasu and Ogata Megumi do not speak sufficient English to dub the American shows. Therefore, they think it's only fair that they are allowed to insult 4Kids' voice actor choices, deeming them inappropriate for the character.
My question is, Who the hell do you think you are to dictate that? 4Kids and all other dubbing companies are forced to work with what they have. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, voice acting is not a popular career track for most Americans. Face it. People don't hop out of MIT thinking "Hey, I just got a PhD. in Computer Engineering-- I think I'll go audition for a dubbing job!" It doesn't happen. Further, while the dub names almost never match the original, they usually still fit the character somehow. Don't be --oh, I'm sorry-- closeminded to the fact that the dubbers may have been looking at a different personality trait of a character when casting voice actors.
Don't even get me started on the morons who think 4Kids should keep the original theme songs. While they're certainly pretty (most of the time, anyway) and catchy, they are still Japanese. If 4Kids doesn't dub them, they wouldn't be doing a very good job of dubbing, now would they. In fact, when you think about it, 4Kids' themes are more fit to the series than the original Japanese sometimes. Take Yuugiou for example. Its Japanese op themes just aren't fit for a show about a card game. On the other hand, 4Kids' rather catchy techno theme does. It's stupid and it's repetitive. What's the YGO! card game again? Stupid and repetitive.
In conclusion, because a lot of people evidently like that phrase, 4Kids does not suck. If I've forgotten to counter a point, do let me know by e-mail so I can add it in. You can also use that e-mail to rant, but I'd prefer if you submitted a counteropinion. Those are more fun.