When did liking the dub become acceptable?

[Dotogam]

Comparing (old) FUNimation to 4Kids is very appropriate. FUNimation has since redeemed themselves, and they are now a great dubbing/distribution company, but back in the day, their dub of Dragon Ball Z was sort of the 4Kids One Piece dub of its time. In fact, I read that when FUNimation announced that they acquired Fullmetal Alchemist, the general reaction online was one of dread, because people thought that it was going to be handled with the same lack of regard to the original version that DBZ was handled with.

Speaking of irony and One Piece, though...

FUNimation would eventually get One Piece, but as we know, 4Kids got it first. However, FUNimation was thisdamnclose to getting it first. They registered a domain name for a One Piece website and even produced a "test episode" (with Eric Vale as Luffy and Chris Sabat as Helmeppo). However, for reasons that are still not entirely clear, it ended up going to 4Kids instead. However, for a brief period of time there were a lot of signs pointing to FUNimation dubbing it, and the reaction was, once again, one of dread. People thought that the music was going to be changed, that the dialogue would be horribly adapted...and while I cannot find it, somebody interviewed an animator for the final episode of GT and asked them their thoughts on FUNimation's acquisition of One Piece, and their response was (not word-for-word, but essentially), "I honestly think that if Mr. Oda knew about what kind of company FUNimation was, he would have pulled out of the deal." My how times changed...we went from dreading FUNimation's acquisition of One Piece to celebrating their saving of it.

That's some extremely interesting info regarding One Piece. As a huge fan of the series, I love hearing about its history in regards to coming to North America. If you ever find that interview, please post it.

Took a little bit of detective work, but I found it. Here's the interview!

Keep in mind, all references to One Piece were made at a time when 4Kids hadn't gotten it yet, and it looked like FUNimation was going to get it.

That interview is amazing. I'm surprised a TOEI animator gave his opinion on Funimation.

[VejituhTheWarriorGuy]

Comparing (old) FUNimation to 4Kids is very appropriate. FUNimation has since redeemed themselves, and they are now a great dubbing/distribution company, but back in the day, their dub of Dragon Ball Z was sort of the 4Kids One Piece dub of its time. In fact, I read that when FUNimation announced that they acquired Fullmetal Alchemist, the general reaction online was one of dread, because people thought that it was going to be handled with the same lack of regard to the original version that DBZ was handled with.

Speaking of irony and One Piece, though...

FUNimation would eventually get One Piece, but as we know, 4Kids got it first. However, FUNimation was thisdamnclose to getting it first. They registered a domain name for a One Piece website and even produced a "test episode" (with Eric Vale as Luffy and Chris Sabat as Helmeppo). However, for reasons that are still not entirely clear, it ended up going to 4Kids instead. However, for a brief period of time there were a lot of signs pointing to FUNimation dubbing it, and the reaction was, once again, one of dread. People thought that the music was going to be changed, that the dialogue would be horribly adapted...and while I cannot find it, somebody interviewed an animator for the final episode of GT and asked them their thoughts on FUNimation's acquisition of One Piece, and their response was (not word-for-word, but essentially), "I honestly think that if Mr. Oda knew about what kind of company FUNimation was, he would have pulled out of the deal." My how times changed...we went from dreading FUNimation's acquisition of One Piece to celebrating their saving of it.

That's some extremely interesting info regarding One Piece. As a huge fan of the series, I love hearing about its history in regards to coming to North America. If you ever find that interview, please post it.

Took a little bit of detective work, but I found it. Here's the interview!

Keep in mind, all references to One Piece were made at a time when 4Kids hadn't gotten it yet, and it looked like FUNimation was going to get it.

I just did research and yup, this is real. The guy really did work at Toei Phillipines and worked there til 2010. Really interesting stuff, I wonder what he thinks of the FUNi dub of OP.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Really interesting stuff, I wonder what he thinks of the FUNi dub of OP.

Well, one thing's for sure: considering how events actually unfolded, it's amazing how much irony is in that interview. Like I said, to me it's so amazingly ironic that this interview went on and on about how FUNimation was going to ruin One Piece (and understandably so, given that time in FUNimation's history), but by the time they did actually get One Piece, it was more like they saved it.

[Kakacarrottop]

but still, did Funimation made the Z warriors sing the Stars Bangled Banner, "twinkling up" explosions, or change the food ramen bowls to bowls of cereal?

No, but Piccolo quoted the story of David and Goliath, they covered punches with giant colored star effects, and changed beer to frosty water.

So... yes!

To be fair, those edits were probably due to American broadcasting regulations of the time. If they got to do things their way from day one then the worst kind of censorship we would have gotten from them would be the removal of overly sexual stuff. You can only really blame them for constantly changing the soundtrack and dumbing down the scripts, although those decisions were semi-justifiable (music royalties, no access to Japanese material etc).

[Super Sonic]

Also Saban still had the angry folks over violence in Power Rangers fresh in their memory at the time. So trying to lower it down was likely in their mind. Though interestingly by the time Funimation got the show, outcries had died down, so they were able to get away with things more on that front. And speaking of Digimon, Tamers didn't have much major content changes aside from buildings blowing up.

[Theophrastus]

Took a little bit of detective work, but I found it. Here's the interview!

Keep in mind, all references to One Piece were made at a time when 4Kids hadn't gotten it yet, and it looked like FUNimation was going to get it.

I realize that this interview would be dated to sometime back in 2003 or 2004 (so the OP anime would've only been up to around the Skypiea arc), but this bit:

FUNimation has shown that "making the most money" has always been their number one goal with any anime series. And they want OP to be the next DBZ. And unless OP extends to at least 510 episodes, 3 series, and 4 tv specials that outsell DBZ in Japan, by FUNimation's standards- OP won't mean as much to them, and might be treated with less respect than DBZ or even GT were.

is kind of hilarious in hindsight, since that's exactly what ended up happening (well, except the "three series" part).

It's also kind of funny to think that there was only a gap of about 2.5 years between Funimation wrapping up their work on the GT dub and them taking over One Piece from 4Kids, and the massive difference in the approach taken toward both dubs. Funimation really grew a lot after they started branching out from Dragon Ball...just a shame none of the lessons they learned from their other work were really applied to Dragon Ball until Kai came around.

[ABED]

but still, did Funimation made the Z warriors sing the Stars Bangled Banner, "twinkling up" explosions, or change the food ramen bowls to bowls of cereal?

No, but Piccolo quoted the story of David and Goliath, they covered punches with giant colored star effects, and changed beer to frosty water.

So... yes!

To be fair, those edits were probably due to American broadcasting regulations of the time. If they got to do things their way from day one then the worst kind of censorship we would have gotten from them would be the removal of overly sexual stuff. You can only really blame them for constantly changing the soundtrack and dumbing down the scripts, although those decisions were semi-justifiable (music royalties, no access to Japanese material etc).

I don't think that's the case, Saban is just very conservative. Other shows mentioned death and showed hits the face on broadcast TV.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I don't think that's the case, Saban is just very conservative. Other shows mentioned death and showed hits the face on broadcast TV.

Well, what you have to edit out and what you don't have to edit out is partially based on the network in question and the air time. For example, when FUNimation first picked up One Piece (it's not my intention to keep bringing up One Piece by the way, just an odd coincidence) and aired it on Cartoon Network, they said that they requested a later air time so that they wouldn't have to edit as much. They did still edit some stuff, but significantly less than what 4Kids had done.

[ABED]

True, but Batman and Power Rangers aired on the same exact network. Batman showed blood a few times and constantly showed hits to the face. Sure, there are differences between networks, but from what I can gather, many of the non-violence edicts came from Saban themselves. Saban strikes me as a company that will go almost out of its way to not offend anyone.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Saban strikes me as a company that will go almost out of its way to not offend anyone.

That wouldn't surprise me. They had to deal with a few lawsuits relating to little kids trying to imitate Power Rangers and kicking the crap out of one another in the process.