What's the concensus on dubs replacing sound effects?

[Soppa Saia People]

i mean it's mostly uber pointless, but also like, i don't really care ? like i can't imagine unless it's super blatant that i would normally even notice it.

[KBABZ]

i mean it's mostly uber pointless, but also like, i don't really care ?

I find this answer really interesting because we've had countless threads for when the music or the voice actors are replaced, but the sound effects aren't considered to be among them, or at least not on the same level.

[Soppa Saia People]

i mean it's mostly uber pointless, but also like, i don't really care ?

I find this answer really interesting because we've had countless threads for when the music or the voice actors are replaced, but the sound effects aren't considered to be among them, or at least not on the same level.

like i said, it's just not something i'll normally notice and it doesn't really effect my Viewing Experience to much. music is something that has a pretty big effect on it, and is something that i'd probably notice right away.

[JohnnyCashKami]

I find this answer really interesting because we've had countless threads for when the music or the voice actors are replaced, but the sound effects aren't considered to be among them, or at least not on the same level.

He makes a good point that BGM is more important than SFX and background music is far more noticeable than sound effects, if someone doesn't know what the original SFX sound like then they can't really be annoyed by it (unless it sounds really unfitting). As goofy as the Ocean Dub SFX were, they weren't totally unsuitable but would have been better if Saban hadn't used it.

[Singh is King]

Yep and eventually late in the 4Kids era, as I understand it, it got to the point that only the Team Rocket theme and the title music was being kept

Nope, that's actually the TPCi (current modern-day) dub. Even later in the 4Kids era, they still fortunately kept all the Japanese music in all the films unlike their early efforts (the tradeoff apparently was that the late 4Kids era did a better job dubbing the Movies than the early 4Kids era, but the Anime's dub got worse about the music replacement simultaneously-- the dialogue was also always rewritten from Day #1 to now, but the later episodes actually had just as mostly accurate translations is the truth) and they still kept a few pieces of Japanese music you'd never hear in the current Goldfarb-rescored Era dub like the S.S Aqua theme, Advanced Adventure, the Movie version of the former, Kanto Battle/Elite Four, Johto Rival Theme, etc.

Also, the dialogue was heavily rewritten for the first two Movies early on as someone else pointed out, but 4Kids did a good job staying faithful to the Japanese Version with the scripts for the third and sixth-eight Movies before. It's a weird situation, so I thought I'd help clear it up.

I know this is more than a year-old thread and all, but I'm just posting to point out that conventional thinking is not at all, in fact, true- it's false.

Some fans of the Series actually took the time to go back and watch the entire dub up until Season 21-ish and here's a list of the Japanese OST kept in the dub with the Anime Series. The worst, naturally, would be XY onward to now (believe it or not AG/Hoenn + Battle Frontier were still actually better than where things have been at the last six or so years).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ao- ... 2ZfzM/edit

The dub of the last few Series (XY, SM, Journeys) is the dub where all they keep now is the title card theme and TR music most of the time. Hell, even TR's theme is often replaced now, used to be untouchable but no longer.

The later/current TPCi era, actually makes the later 4Kids era look fine in comparison: that's how far downhill the Pokemon dub went with time.

Supposedly the dub change was handled super-unprofessionally back in the day as well (to give you an idea of what went down, the current English voice actor for James/Meowth/Oak literally went on Pokemon-related forums praising himself as James saying the other two were worse under an OldGuardTruthSeeker account: no, I'm not kidding), and the English dub to this day, never really recovered from the change in cast.

Think DBZ Season 3, except in reverse, Season 9 of Pokemon was even more watchable than the current stuff (the first season with the current cast) than the XY, SM, and Journeys dubs of 2014 onward to now in 2020.

If you want the modern TPCi-era Pokemon dub summed up:

- They still censor things and Americanize things just like the original dub did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Pwhyx ... M&index=13

- They replace more of the Japanese music than 4Kids, even at their worst in the first few Movies and last seasons respectively.

- The voice acting got substantially worse over time, because the voice director does not take the job seriously since they think it's for kids, so what's the need to try (e.g. Sarah Natochenny still pales in comparison to Veronica Taylor after all this time despite voicing him longer w/Ash, and the same goes for the rest, I could go on a tirade about how bad these changes proved to be but suffice it to say they don't even try.)

See this as an example of just what they let pass for "acting" in the current dub:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7W4LmhgQsI

- To top it off, the opening themes went from 45 seconds-1 minute long throughout the 4Kids dub, to literally 30 seconds as the TPCi dub went on.

I know we Dragonball fans gave FUNi a hard (and justified flak) time for the initial drop in quality between Saban/Ocean and FUNi back in 1999, but at least they actually bothered to get better with Kai, and BoG/RoF dubs.

TPCi on the other hand, didn't get better and got worse and worse: so much so, even the worst of 4Kids is favorable in comparison to today's Pokemon dub.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXHtAz3 ... &index=394

It's literally like a 1990s dub in 2020 still being produced, but without any of the old Pokemon dub's redeemable qualities.

As to the topic at hand, I don't really mind dubs replacing sound effects, but I do find it really pointless and unnecessary- still better than changing the OST, rewriting scripts, and subpar voice acting to me.

.
Anyway, IIRC Pokémon had its original score, but added music to fill silence. Though I would hazard a guess some of the original music was also replaced.

Correct. The 4Kids dub basically picked and chose from scene to scene what music to keep and what to change, and somehow they wound up removing every single instance of the Lavender Town theme, but aside from that basically every piece of BGM made for the Japanese version was retained at some point or another... As for it being "surprisingly accurate", that depends; At least the dubs for the first two movies are a prime case study of the dub completely missing the point and trying to make them out to be about something entirely different than what they were supposed to. The second one in particular literally inverted the original theme (Japan: We may be weak individually but we can do anything by working together! US: One person can make all the difference!)
Of course, those movies also threw out the entire original score except Team Rocket's theme, so maybe I just shouldn't use them as a measure for the show's faithfulness. They were clearly made with a different mindset.

Heh, thought that might be the case.

As far as scripts go, I was referring to the series... I've heard some of Pokémon's movie dubs have been good(I seem to recall hearing good things about the third one...?), but, well, as I say, I was more thinking of the series there.

Since I know my stuff about this topic, to give you an idea:

The first two Movies have botched up scripts (the first moreso, it's the worst dub to come out of the OG dub w/anything having to do with the main Series), but the third Movie's dub script is accurate and faithful (unfortunately the second Movie keeps some of the OST, third doesn't keep any). The fourth's is better than the first three as it keeps pretty much all the Japanese score, but the ending was American-only with the script. The fifth is like the fourth's, but cuts out the prologue. The sixth to sixteenth are all pretty well done and accurate (4Kids was still around until the eighth), can't complain, in terms of writing and OST retention (the voice acting is very questionable however from the ninth onward, as the dub cast got overhauled in a manner very similar to Saban to FUNi back in the day for DB only to cut costs and save money on production when 4Kids got the boot, but ironically it's sadly much worse today, much worse).

The seventeenth (Diancie) is when the dub started to go way downhill again, as far as the Movies went with the original dub music composer being canned for a man going by the name Ed Goldfarb who tended to leave the OST alone in the Movies, and the script also got heavily rewritten for all films from then up until I Choose You. The most recent film apes the 4Kids' script of the first Movie and simultaneously tries to go for a faithful translation in the first half, so I don't know who it's for besides fans of the current dub though they didn't mess with the score ironically (however, they brought back the stupid jelly donut Americanization because...?).

The show is a different beast but, to put a long story short, the older seasons actually had a better dub than the current ones.

[kei17]

Personally I think it removes the exact tone and "spice" of the show, similar to when the music is switched out, particularly when generic stock sound effects are used.

That's literally what Toei themselves did with Super and that's exactly why I hate it with passion.

Edit: Oh I didn't notice this thread had been bumped by necroposting. Sorry.

[Planetnamek]

I guess you could look at it in some ways like Pokemon, which only got a partial rescore so combined with the fact it already had good voice acting the dub was more easily forgiven (although I couldn't tell you how much was rescored but I assume the SFX and scripts were accurate for the most part) as opposed to anime like Dragon Ball, which had entire original scores and SFX replaced, and up until the mid to late 2000s the voice acting was pretty bad (and even in cases where the voices were good the scripts were bad).

The ironic thing about Pokemon is ever since The Pokemon Company started doing the dubbing, they replaced way more background music then 4Kids ever did in spite of having more faithful scripts to the original(at least AFAIK).

As for sound effects in DBZ, i'll be honest in that I really can't tell what sound effects were added by Ocean/FUNI and which ones were part of the original episodes so i'm kind of indifferent to the whole thing. That said Kunz makes a good point in regards to Star Wars, I don't mind the added visual effects in the special editions so much, but if they messed with the iconic sound effects i'd definitely notice that and probably not like it too much, so I do get why the added sound effects annoy some people.

[Cure Dragon 255]

You know I have been ITCHING for someone to ask me that question. I really dont mind... But...

There was one time where it REALLY ticked me off that they DIDNT replace the sound effects. It was, surprise surprise, the 4Kids One Piece Dub. It was one scene where Kaya(Usopp's Friend) pointed a Gun at Captain Kuro in the Original....In the dub its an....ugh... slingshot. WHICH MAKES THE EXACT SOUNDEFFECTS OF A GUN. DESPITE THE BEAUTIFUL JAPANESE OST BEING REPLACED ENTIRELY. UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH. This goes to show 4Kids didnt replace the music "To stop gaps in the music being created because of the editing" and more "We will earn mad cash with all this original dub music playing non stop".

[KBABZ]

Personally I think it removes the exact tone and "spice" of the show, similar to when the music is switched out, particularly when generic stock sound effects are used.

That's literally what Toei themselves did with Super and that's exactly why I hate it with passion.

Edit: Oh I didn't notice this thread had been bumped by necroposting. Sorry.

That's fine! Personally I sympathize; while I haven't seen Super, it just makes no sense to replace the sound effects like that when you JUST remastered them in stereo for Kai+TFC!

[Planetnamek]

You know I have been ITCHING for someone to ask me that question. I really dont mind... But...

There was one time where it REALLY ticked me off that they DIDNT replace the sound effects. It was, surprise surprise, the 4Kids One Piece Dub. It was one scene where Kaya(Usopp's Friend) pointed a Gun at Captain Kuro in the Original....In the dub its an....ugh... slingshot. WHICH MAKES THE EXACT SOUNDEFFECTS OF A GUN. DESPITE THE BEAUTIFUL JAPANESE OST BEING REPLACED ENTIRELY. UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH. This goes to show 4Kids didnt replace the music "To stop gaps in the music being created because of the editing" and more "We will earn mad cash with all this original dub music playing non stop".

That was actually probably Toei's own idea as they were actually the ones that insisted on 4Kids dubbing One Piece, basically 4Kids wanted to do English dubs of Magical DoReMei and Ultimate Muscle but Toei refused to license either of them out unless 4Kids also did an English dub of One Piece. 4Kids knew full well how violent the show was and really weren't comfortable with dubbing it and trying to aim it at kids, but they also really wanted to do those other two shows, so they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Toei did this because they were just that desperate to have One Piece be a big hit in the USA, hoping it would have the same success as DBZ did(ironically Funimation were considered early on to dub OP, but the DBZ dub's reputation made Toei go to 4Kids instead) and they approved every single edit 4Kids had to make too, hell they were actually the ones that pushed 4Kids to be less faithful with script translations and record a new theme song(after 4Kids had already recorded an English version of "We Are!" which had been shown off at anime conventions and can be seen on Youtube). So i'm guessing the whole "not replacing sound effects" thing was another Toei mandate.

[Cure Dragon 255]

You know I have been ITCHING for someone to ask me that question. I really dont mind... But...

There was one time where it REALLY ticked me off that they DIDNT replace the sound effects. It was, surprise surprise, the 4Kids One Piece Dub. It was one scene where Kaya(Usopp's Friend) pointed a Gun at Captain Kuro in the Original....In the dub its an....ugh... slingshot. WHICH MAKES THE EXACT SOUNDEFFECTS OF A GUN. DESPITE THE BEAUTIFUL JAPANESE OST BEING REPLACED ENTIRELY. UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH. This goes to show 4Kids didnt replace the music "To stop gaps in the music being created because of the editing" and more "We will earn mad cash with all this original dub music playing non stop".

That was actually probably Toei's own idea as they were actually the ones that insisted on 4Kids dubbing One Piece, basically 4Kids wanted to do English dubs of Magical DoReMei and Ultimate Muscle but Toei refused to license either of them out unless 4Kids also did an English dub of One Piece. 4Kids knew full well how violent the show was and really weren't comfortable with dubbing it and trying to aim it at kids, but they also really wanted to do those other two shows, so they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Toei did this because they were just that desperate to have One Piece be a big hit in the USA, hoping it would have the same success as DBZ did(ironically Funimation were considered early on to dub OP, but the DBZ dub's reputation made Toei go to 4Kids instead) and they approved every single edit 4Kids had to make too, hell they were actually the ones that pushed 4Kids to be less faithful with script translations and record a new theme song(after 4Kids had already recorded an English version of "We Are!" which had been shown off at anime conventions and can be seen on Youtube). So i'm guessing the whole "not replacing sound effects" thing was another Toei mandate.

I know all about that thank you very much. I wish they had the sense to replace that sound effect. It doesnt matter anymore though. I do love that they were way more detail oriented on their airings of DBZ Kai. (They had to remove or change several sound effects due to censorship such as guns firing or Goku crushing Frieza's hand). I wish Toei had allowed for a more faithful dub to be made. The We Are cover had much potential.

How do you feel about Toonzai? I know you must be sick of me talkign about it but I want to know how you feel.

[AlexSketchy04]

You know I have been ITCHING for someone to ask me that question. I really dont mind... But...

There was one time where it REALLY ticked me off that they DIDNT replace the sound effects. It was, surprise surprise, the 4Kids One Piece Dub. It was one scene where Kaya(Usopp's Friend) pointed a Gun at Captain Kuro in the Original....In the dub its an....ugh... slingshot. WHICH MAKES THE EXACT SOUNDEFFECTS OF A GUN. DESPITE THE BEAUTIFUL JAPANESE OST BEING REPLACED ENTIRELY. UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH. This goes to show 4Kids didnt replace the music "To stop gaps in the music being created because of the editing" and more "We will earn mad cash with all this original dub music playing non stop".

That was actually probably Toei's own idea as they were actually the ones that insisted on 4Kids dubbing One Piece, basically 4Kids wanted to do English dubs of Magical DoReMei and Ultimate Muscle but Toei refused to license either of them out unless 4Kids also did an English dub of One Piece. 4Kids knew full well how violent the show was and really weren't comfortable with dubbing it and trying to aim it at kids, but they also really wanted to do those other two shows, so they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Toei did this because they were just that desperate to have One Piece be a big hit in the USA, hoping it would have the same success as DBZ did(ironically Funimation were considered early on to dub OP, but the DBZ dub's reputation made Toei go to 4Kids instead) and they approved every single edit 4Kids had to make too, hell they were actually the ones that pushed 4Kids to be less faithful with script translations and record a new theme song(after 4Kids had already recorded an English version of "We Are!" which had been shown off at anime conventions and can be seen on Youtube). So i'm guessing the whole "not replacing sound effects" thing was another Toei mandate.

Yeah, 4Kids case is kind unfortunate, they were forced to get the show because it was along Ultimate Muscle, then tried to do uncut dvd's, but forced to edit them for TV