Could Funimation have Censored "Mr. Satan" Differently?

[TheBlackPaladin]

Mr. Satin; because he is such a smooth talker and oh so delicate to the touch.

Bonus points for sounding closer to the Japanese pronunciation of Satan.

That is exceptionally damn creative--I vote for this!

[Trickster]

Your right there's two Latin American dubs. But I've always known the Brazilian Portuguese Latin American dub as simply the Brazilian dub. The Brazilian dub was only used in Brazil while the Mexican Spanish "Latin American" dub was used in the majority of Latin America. I think it's more appropriate(I guess)to call the Mexican dub the Latin American dub because it was used in almost all Latin American countries that speak Spanish.

I do see Kami-sama as a censorship. The reason Brenda Nava(translator for the LatAm dub)kept him as Kami-sama was to avoid problems with religious moms.

You're not wrong, anyway. It was just nitpicking

[Nejishiki]

One last note...one thing I've always found interesting about "Hercule" is that, contrary to what I first thought, we were not the first dub to come up with that name. Apparently the French dub beat us to it by almost a decade. This has always caused me to wonder if "Hercule" was some sort of alternate name for the character that Toei pre-approved for any dub that ran into the problem of "Satan" being too extreme for their local audiences. On the other hand, I believe the French dub did use the name "Satan" for another character (I want to say Piccolo......maaaaybe....?), so it may not be a censoring problem, but I do find it oddly...coincidental...that two totally different dubs with no connections to each other came up with the same alternate name for the same character.

I'm not too confident in Toei Animation involving themselves with "Hercule". It's more likely FUNimation lifted the French alteration for themselves. It's as you said: Piccolo was already "Satan" so I imagine Mr. Satan was renamed out of internal "consistency" rather than censorship. However, it would be amusing if they opted for Piccolo instead!

[SaiyamanMS]

They could've called him Mr. Saturn, his strength is out of this world! And it's not a million miles from Satan (especially the Japanese pronunciation.)

[Man-Child]

Mr. Saban wouldve worked perfectly.

[Footlong Shoe]

This thread's just making me upset that "Mr. Savage" didn't stick. If we got Mr. Savage instead of Hercule, I'd be calling him by that name to this day.

[Danfun64]

But even though Savage sounds closer to the devil pun than Hercule, that's all it has going for it. Same with Satin. If the name has to be censored, Saturn would probably be the best alternative. It sounds adequately close to the Japanese pronunciation of Satan, and even if it doesn't have a devil connection, it still has a religious theme.

[Footlong Shoe]

But even though Savage sounds closer to the devil pun than Hercule, that's all it has going for it. Same with Satin. If the name has to be censored, Saturn would probably be the best alternative. It sounds adequately close to the Japanese pronunciation of Satan, and even if it doesn't have a devil connection, it still has a religious theme.

But "Saturn" doesn't carry the same violent connotations as "Satan" or "Savage". The same can be said for "Hercule" or "Satin". At least with "Savage" you get a name with potentially villainous meaning.

[DrBriefsCat]

This thread's just making me upset that "Mr. Savage" didn't stick. If we got Mr. Savage instead of Hercule, I'd be calling him by that name to this day.

It's commonly believed that they didn't use "Mr. Savage" to avoid legal trouble from pro-wrestler Randy Savage. It's not unheard of for celebrities to have trademarked their names to go after other entities, claiming they're infringing in some way. Film director Spike Lee sued Viacom over the naming one of their TV networks "Spike TV".

[GigaDrill]

Considering that the Funidub had people chant "Satan, Satan" I don't think even they cared by the end

[SaiyamanMS]

Considering that the Funidub had people chant "Satan, Satan" I don't think even they cared by the end

That was only in the uncut version though, on TV those chants were "Hercule, Hercule".

[Kokonoe]

Mr. Devil? Spike the Devil Man was allowed, right?

Either way, I enjoy the name "Hercule" even if it's not an accurate pun to the manga. Puns don't really matter much to me.

[DBZ Macky]

It would be interesting if his name was "Mr. Akuma" or even just "Mark" in the English dub. It would still conserve the name pun though I guess the lip-flaps would be weird.

[Nejishiki]

Mr. Satan's legal name wasn't revealed until April 3, 2009 in the Super Exciting Guide: Character Volume. I don't think FUNimation, or any other company, would have the foresight to reference him as Mark. The "maaku" pun (specifically under the guise of devilish synonym anyway) doesn't exactly translate smoothly as we would intend it. In light of that, considering your "Akuma" example, it would be funny if Mr. Satan were altered to "Mr. Gouki", too. How's that for convoluted references?

[Kendamu]

They could've called him Mr. Saturn, his strength is out of this world! And it's not a million miles from Satan (especially the Japanese pronunciation.)

I've always been a fan of the idea of going with Mr. Saturn. In fact, I thought that I saw that on some piece of official merchandise waaaaaaaay back in the day before he was even introduced into the dub. I mean, "Saturn" (サターン -- Sataan) is very close to "Satan" (サタン -- Satan). I thought it was a pretty decent compromise and the name still sounded outlandish.

I wonder why FUNimation specifically went with Hercule.

[Kokonoe]

They could've called him Mr. Saturn, his strength is out of this world! And it's not a million miles from Satan (especially the Japanese pronunciation.)

I've always been a fan of the idea of going with Mr. Saturn. In fact, I thought that I saw that on some piece of official merchandise waaaaaaaay back in the day before he was even introduced into the dub. I mean, "Saturn" (サターン -- Sataan) is very close to "Satan" (サタン -- Satan). I thought it was a pretty decent compromise and the name still sounded outlandish.

I wonder why FUNimation specifically went with Hercule.

My assumption is that they were thinking of a macho name to go with the character and Hercule is Hercules without the letter s. I'd like to hear more about this myself.

[omegalucas]

They could've called him Mr. Saturn, his strength is out of this world! And it's not a million miles from Satan (especially the Japanese pronunciation.)

I've always been a fan of the idea of going with Mr. Saturn. In fact, I thought that I saw that on some piece of official merchandise waaaaaaaay back in the day before he was even introduced into the dub. I mean, "Saturn" (サターン -- Sataan) is very close to "Satan" (サタン -- Satan). I thought it was a pretty decent compromise and the name still sounded outlandish.

I wonder why FUNimation specifically went with Hercule.

I think they just followed the French dub on that, which is (I believe) the earliest source for "Hercule".
In France it wasn't changed for censoring purposes, but to cover for their earlier adaptation of Piccolo (Daimao), "Satan Petit Cœur". Couldn't have two (main-ish) characters with the same name.

[YonedgeHP]

I don't really mind Hercule as a name in it of itself. No matter what they would've picked the censorship would've been unecessary. There's nothing really wrong with it though. Mr. Savage either, that would've been fine.

I want to point out however, that Dragon Ball aired UNCENSORED in Mexico specifically marketed towards kids and teens. That is a country where the percentage of Christians in the population is significantly higher than the United States and Mr. Satan was never a big deal to anybody. Stupid American broadcasting standards...

Dragon Ball was censored though. The Latin American dub cut out all the sexual content and censored the dirty jokes like Kame Sennin offering gifts to Bulma at the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai in exchange for some "favors", Goku asking what vital areas are to the ring announcer, etc. Some of the names were censored too. Like God. They kept is as Kami-sama in order to avoid problems with religious soccer moms. Kinda like how FUNi used Kami. Chi-Chi was also change to Milk because "Chichi" means boobies or tits in Spanish. It also means vagina in Spain but somehow the Spanish dub left her name uncensored as Chi-Chi. Both Dbz and GT were visually uncut and uncensored. I love the Latin American dub but let's not pretend like it's a completely uncensored, perfect dub with no errors.

Naming Chi-Chi as Milk was not a censorship decision, it was the client who made up those terms based from the Zero y el Dragón Mágico script, which was based on the Harmony Gold dub. But they kept her name, like Ox-Satán, when his name is Rey Gyuma.

[Bajosexto]

I don't really mind Hercule as a name in it of itself. No matter what they would've picked the censorship would've been unecessary. There's nothing really wrong with it though. Mr. Savage either, that would've been fine.

I want to point out however, that Dragon Ball aired UNCENSORED in Mexico specifically marketed towards kids and teens. That is a country where the percentage of Christians in the population is significantly higher than the United States and Mr. Satan was never a big deal to anybody. Stupid American broadcasting standards...

Dragon Ball was censored though. The Latin American dub cut out all the sexual content and censored the dirty jokes like Kame Sennin offering gifts to Bulma at the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai in exchange for some "favors", Goku asking what vital areas are to the ring announcer, etc. Some of the names were censored too. Like God. They kept is as Kami-sama in order to avoid problems with religious soccer moms. Kinda like how FUNi used Kami. Chi-Chi was also change to Milk because "Chichi" means boobies or tits in Spanish. It also means vagina in Spain but somehow the Spanish dub left her name uncensored as Chi-Chi. Both Dbz and GT were visually uncut and uncensored. I love the Latin American dub but let's not pretend like it's a completely uncensored, perfect dub with no errors.

Naming Chi-Chi as Milk was not a censorship decision, it was the client who made up those terms based from the Zero y el Dragón Mágico script, which was based on the Harmony Gold dub. But they kept her name, like Ox-Satán, when his name is Rey Gyuma.

I taught Gloria Rocha was the one who came up with the name Milk. She liked to change names for no reason like Piccolo Daimao to Pikkoro Daimaku, Dr. Gero to Dr. Maki etc. I still see Milk as a censorship though. Why did the client changed her name in the first place? If I had to bet, I would say that it was because naming her Chichi wasn't appropiate for a kids show.

[floofychan333]

I like Mark personally but I don't think that was known until fairly recently. If they kept Mark and added some random English last name it would at least be half acceptable. (Though I don't support censorship of names, especially not in Mr Satan's case.)