Well, I don't know about them refusing to license it to anyone, because a couple years ago, Toei remastered the video and audio for "Sailor Moon" and began shopping the remastered version around to the different countries of the world. Italy was the first to pick it up, and Mexico and Brazil (and I think a few other places) picked the remastered version up as well. So people have been commenting that this is a golden opportunity for FUNimation to justify a redub...because redubs do need to be justified financially. It doesn't make business sense for a dubbing company to redub something unless there's a financial reason behind doing it. For example, FUNimation (kind of, sort of) redubbed the first two "seasons" of DBZ because...Eight-Star Dragon wrote:Didn't Sailor Moon start in 1992? Or am I just remembering wrong? I'm pretty happy that the show is being re-done, and this time hopefully more faithful to the manga (especially the last two arcs, they really deviate from the manga...) If a re-dub happens, I wouldn't mind seeing the voice actors from the DiC dub or Cloverway dub (although some VAs were around for both) I just want a complete re-dub, from the ground up, no dub-added elements from the dubs of the original.
@TheBlackPaladin I've heard that Toei is refusing to give the license to the show to anyone, and it's been this way for a while, but I have no idea how much truth there is to it.
a) They needed to create a full, uncut release of the series on home video, with all of the scenes previously edited out in the Ocean dub.
b) They needed to have a consistent voice cast across the entire series.
I'm sure the creative powers that be would have loved to have redubbed the rest of DBZ, but there really wasn't much financial incentive to do so, because the dub fans (the primary audience to whom FUNimation has marketed DBZ material) want to see the dub they grew up with. That's unfortunate, as I would have loved a redub, but the anime business is a business..."the acting in the old dub wasn't good" doesn't make any sense on a business level to justify a redub. Especially when that's not a universally-held consensus. If the dubbing companies get hurt financially, us fans get hurt too, because financial difficulties limit their ability to acquire and distribute other anime properties. Many fans have come to think of the Kai dub in the back of their minds as a "redub," when in fact, it isn't. We must all keep in mind that that's a dub of a new show that just happens to have a lot in common with another. Toei was releasing a new series, so it needed a new dub. That was the financial justification there. Similarly, with "One Piece," the only version that had been released was--at one point--an edited version, and so releasing an uncut version was the financial incentive to do a redub there.
Redubs just don't happen unless they make sense on a business level, never mind artistic or creative reasons. People have been actively praying that the new remastered version of "Sailor Moon" acts as the financial incentive that FUNimation needs to justify a redub. Having said all that, I don't know that Italy, Mexico, Brazil, or any of the other countries who acquired the remastered version of "Sailor Moon" also did redubs, or if they just spliced the old dub audio into the new, remastered footage. Someone else with more knowledge, feel free to speak up.
If FUNimation did get their hands on "Sailor Moon," they would almost certainly not use the same cast from the DiC or Cloverway dubs because those dubs were done in Toronto, whereas FUNimation is all the way down in Dallas. Sure, voice actors have commuted before, but the longer the project, the longer the time commitment...and by extension, the less likely they are to commute. For an entire Canadian cast to commute to the States for a 200-episode series is next to impossible. We'd almost definitely have an entirely new cast on our hands. However, on the production level, it would likely be a mountainous improvement over the previous dubs, because someone asked FUNimation how they'd handle certain aspects of the series if they got it, and the rep responded that they would produce an uncut dub, use the original Japanese names, keep the original music, and dub the songs.
What a senario that'd be.
