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spiderbraidsBefore we take a break before the next season, a minor aside...
Back in 2006, I interviewed tanz_fanatika about her love of the show, and one of the questions that ended up on the cutting room floor asked about her opinion on criticism against the 4Kids dub (I remember adding something along the lines of "Years of mainstream anime dubbing have established that the original uncut version is always going to be better") TF responded (NB: trigger warning):
Of course people are going to side with an uncut version. A lot of people think uncut is automatically better, but that's asinine. To be seen in my country, IT MUST BE CUT. Winx would not have a large portion of its current audience without 4Kids. That needs to be accepted and respected. For every bad thing 4Kids does, I think there's an equally stupid thing the original did, so both versions balance out and there is no perfect version. ... In a nutshell: Snobby uncut viewers can take a long walk off a narrow skyscraper. They need to grow the F up and realize there are many benefits to dubbing.
So in her mind, automatically treating the original author's vision as better is asinine, and people who watch (and insist on preferring) the uncut version are snobby and narrow-minded jerks :-\ (Wonder if my attempt to at least explain things made any difference to her)
In my mind, however, the main benefit to dubbing should always be being able to see the show in your own language, not to "fix" the plot; even if some of the fixes are understandable, most of them just seem arbitrary to me... TF's defunct LJ community had this written in the profile about 4Kids criticism: "Constructive criticism is okay, but it must be constructive and not comments like 'It sucks because it's cut.'" That just reductively conflates cuts, which, in her own words, are necessary, with plot changes, which are not (at least most of the time anyway...) Turning it back to TF's comment, saying that Winx wouldn't be a thing in the US without 4Kids shouldn't be a universal crutch against criticism, and 4Kids probably would have warranted more respect by just leaving the story alone :-\ (well, except for things like Afrogate)
Some time later, I posted this response to an anime forum (well, after toning down the last part to "Uncut viewers should realize there are many benefits to dubbing") and one user responded:
US censorship laws are not my concern but this quote made me facefault (eyeroll emoji) Is that a real quote or a joke I don't get? It's one thing to say "Sorrreee but if we don't cut it we can't broadcast it. Take your pick." And a completely different thing to have the chutzpah to actually sell changes as improvements. I'm asking everybody to imagine for a few seconds a Japanese licensee of a Hollywood movie on a press conference going like "Well, we had to make some cuts but one the other hand this allowed us to fix some stupid mistakes this Cameron guy did, so in the end it all balances out." :-P If you think you can make the better cartoons then show us instead of "improving" other people's creative work. OK, the above statement is probably well-calculated PR instead of a mixture of arrogance and naivety but that doesn't make it better, quite the contrary. *shakes head*
1. There are some flaws with the above analogy: Not saying that I know exactly how respectful the Japanese are of Hollywood movies (though I assume "enough not to make cuts and insist they're necessary"), but any meddling with the plot would always come across as censorship (and [you'd hope that] the original finished article wouldn't have any egregious plot errors to fix in the first place); and in any case, it wouldn't be the Japanese licensee trying to sell the changes as improvements in the above analogy, it would be the Japanese viewers claiming their version fixed the original script (and then calling American viewers narrow-minded snobs for preferring the original)
2. The Transformers animated series franchise actually received a similar treatment in Japan, on which this post goes into detail; let's just say that for all its faults, at least 4Kids Winx retained the same general vibe as the original version
(Also, with TF's claim that "I think there's an equally stupid thing the original did", while I get there are things like the afro incident in 1x12, it doesn't help matters that many of the changes that TF preferred were ones I felt the original had handled better, like the handling of Bloom's adoption in 1x13, FG/Grif's conversation in 1x17, and Icy taking the Dragonfire from her sisters in 1x26; I'd argue that at least story-wise, the balance comes out in favor of the original version)
Back in 2006, I interviewed tanz_fanatika about her love of the show, and one of the questions that ended up on the cutting room floor asked about her opinion on criticism against the 4Kids dub (I remember adding something along the lines of "Years of mainstream anime dubbing have established that the original uncut version is always going to be better") TF responded (NB: trigger warning):
Of course people are going to side with an uncut version. A lot of people think uncut is automatically better, but that's asinine. To be seen in my country, IT MUST BE CUT. Winx would not have a large portion of its current audience without 4Kids. That needs to be accepted and respected. For every bad thing 4Kids does, I think there's an equally stupid thing the original did, so both versions balance out and there is no perfect version. ... In a nutshell: Snobby uncut viewers can take a long walk off a narrow skyscraper. They need to grow the F up and realize there are many benefits to dubbing.
So in her mind, automatically treating the original author's vision as better is asinine, and people who watch (and insist on preferring) the uncut version are snobby and narrow-minded jerks :-\ (Wonder if my attempt to at least explain things made any difference to her)
In my mind, however, the main benefit to dubbing should always be being able to see the show in your own language, not to "fix" the plot; even if some of the fixes are understandable, most of them just seem arbitrary to me... TF's defunct LJ community had this written in the profile about 4Kids criticism: "Constructive criticism is okay, but it must be constructive and not comments like 'It sucks because it's cut.'" That just reductively conflates cuts, which, in her own words, are necessary, with plot changes, which are not (at least most of the time anyway...) Turning it back to TF's comment, saying that Winx wouldn't be a thing in the US without 4Kids shouldn't be a universal crutch against criticism, and 4Kids probably would have warranted more respect by just leaving the story alone :-\ (well, except for things like Afrogate)
Some time later, I posted this response to an anime forum (well, after toning down the last part to "Uncut viewers should realize there are many benefits to dubbing") and one user responded:
US censorship laws are not my concern but this quote made me facefault (eyeroll emoji) Is that a real quote or a joke I don't get? It's one thing to say "Sorrreee but if we don't cut it we can't broadcast it. Take your pick." And a completely different thing to have the chutzpah to actually sell changes as improvements. I'm asking everybody to imagine for a few seconds a Japanese licensee of a Hollywood movie on a press conference going like "Well, we had to make some cuts but one the other hand this allowed us to fix some stupid mistakes this Cameron guy did, so in the end it all balances out." :-P If you think you can make the better cartoons then show us instead of "improving" other people's creative work. OK, the above statement is probably well-calculated PR instead of a mixture of arrogance and naivety but that doesn't make it better, quite the contrary. *shakes head*
1. There are some flaws with the above analogy: Not saying that I know exactly how respectful the Japanese are of Hollywood movies (though I assume "enough not to make cuts and insist they're necessary"), but any meddling with the plot would always come across as censorship (and [you'd hope that] the original finished article wouldn't have any egregious plot errors to fix in the first place); and in any case, it wouldn't be the Japanese licensee trying to sell the changes as improvements in the above analogy, it would be the Japanese viewers claiming their version fixed the original script (and then calling American viewers narrow-minded snobs for preferring the original)
2. The Transformers animated series franchise actually received a similar treatment in Japan, on which this post goes into detail; let's just say that for all its faults, at least 4Kids Winx retained the same general vibe as the original version
(Also, with TF's claim that "I think there's an equally stupid thing the original did", while I get there are things like the afro incident in 1x12, it doesn't help matters that many of the changes that TF preferred were ones I felt the original had handled better, like the handling of Bloom's adoption in 1x13, FG/Grif's conversation in 1x17, and Icy taking the Dragonfire from her sisters in 1x26; I'd argue that at least story-wise, the balance comes out in favor of the original version)
