My bachelor thesis on DB dubs in Spain

[kei17]

Since I majored in linguistics at university and wanted to graduate in an effortless way, I selected the stories behind the DB dubs in local languages in Spain as the topic for my bachelor thesis. The entire thesis is written in Japanese, so I share the summary in English:

The thesis discusses boundaries between local languages and dialects in Spain by looking into animation dubbings produced there. The fact that there are dubbings of “Doraemon” and “Dragon Ball” in multiple languages in Spain is intriguing and I have become eager to know the stories behind them. Among the versions dubbed in local languages and dialects, this study especially focuses on the Valencian versions of the Dragon Ball series and Doraemon as well as the Balearic dialect version of Doraemon.

Spain is a multiethnic country with many local languages that are unique to some of its autonomous states such as Catalonia and Galicia. Except for Basque, all the languages in Spain share the same ancestor, Latin. Latin was first brought to Iberian Peninsula through Rome’s settlement in 202 B.C. Even though Iberian Peninsula had been invaded and controlled by other ethnic groups such as Visigoths for centuries, Latin was not wiped out and it later branched into separate languages including Spanish as we know it. Catalan was also one of them, and it also branched into some dialects as a result of Catalan’s spread in Valencia and the Balearic islands. The differences between standard Catalan, Valencian, and the Balearic dialect are not many, and where there are differences, they are not significant. Linguistically, thus, they can all be considered to be one language. However, Valencian has been associated with the regional nationality of Valencia because of the political antipathies that the Valencian people have against Catalonia. In addition, the Valencian government designated Valencian as one of the state’s official languages in 1983. Valencian, therefore, is often considered as a stand-alone language instead of a dialect by the Valencian people themselves despite the little linguistic differences between it and standard Catalan. On the other hand, the Balearic government has been reluctant to politically intervene in people’s stances on languages. Unlike Valencian, the Balearic dialect is not officially acknowledged as an indipendent language by the Balearic people.

Because of this multilingual environment, there are dubbings of animation series in multiple languages in Spain. For example, the Dragon Ball series has been dubbed into Castillian, Galician, Catalan, Valencian, and Basque, and Doraemon also has been dubbed into the same languages with one addition; the Balearic dialect. It is natural that there are dubbings in languages that are definitely defined as stand-alone languages. It is, however, interesting that there also are dubbings in Valencian and the Balearic dialect. These linguistic rarities can be linguistically considered as only regional varieties of Catalan. Therefore, the thesis looks into the dubbings of the above-mentioned animation in these two languages to establish the possible boundaries between languages and dialects.

The Valencian version of the Dragon Ball series started its first run in 1990. It was broadcast on Canal Nou, a government-managed television channel. However, in 1989, a Catalan television channel named TV3 had already started broadcasting the Catalan version of the same series. In addition, these two versions are both based on the French version that had been made earlier, and share almost the same scripts. Considering the very little differences between these two languages and the similarities in the scripts, there must have been no linguistic need for them to produce a Valencian version. Canal Nou, however, also produced and broadcast a Valencian version of Doraemon, which, too, is basically the same as the Catalan version. It is therefore possible to suggest that these Valencian dubbings have been produced for nationalistic reasons. It reflects their belief that Valencian is one stand-alone language and not a dialect of Catalan. Given that the channel is managed by the government, according to Marzà et al, among the imported contents on Canal Nou, only the programs for children are dubbed into Valencian, and all the others are Castillian versions produced outside Valencia. There seems to an agenda of aggressively providing children with programs in Valencian to enhance the position of Valencian in the future. Unfortunately, their attempt has been interrupted by Canal Nou having been closed down for their financial problems in the end of November 2013. As a result, the only Valencian media is now dead, which shed light upon Valencian’s status which was not solid enough to be recognized as an independent language. However, during a demonstration against the closure, some people were strongly arguing that they had learnt how to speak Valencian well through Canal Nou as they showed an image of the main character from the Dragon Ball series. It showed the Valencian people’s enthusiasm for their “language” and how dubbings of animation programs had a great influence in their childhood. On the other hand, IB3, a government-managed television channel in the Balearic Islands, also produced and broadcast a Balearic dialect version of Doraemon. They made the decision in spite of the fact that the Balearic people are able to watch the same show in Catalan on TV3, which is available in the Balearic Islands, too. The attempt did not succeed, however, and IB3 does not broadcast any animation programs including Doraemon in the Balearic dialect any more. The failure seems to correspond with the Balearic government’s reluctance to protect the dialect and their lack of argument that their tongue is a separate language. By examining what has happened to different dubbings and why in these two states, a subjective boundary between language and dialect seems to emerge between Valencian and the Balearic dialect. However, a different picture appears when you look at them from a greater point of view. The Valencian and Balearic dubbings of Doraemon and the Dragon Ball series have never been included in any multilingual home video releases, which have dubbings of all the other languages in Spain such as Castillian, Catalan, Galician, and Basque. This shows that both Valencian and Balearic varieties can be considered dialects by some. It indicates that there is a very arbitrary boundary between languages and dialects.

This thesis has contributed to the sociopolitical study of language identifying the boundaries between languages and dialects by looking into animation dubbings for children, which are casual and familiar for many people.

[sangofe]

Wow, kei, your english has gotten really good! And although I knew about the different languages in spain, it's nice to put it out there. I hope you get a good grade

[Blade]

Academic papers relating to Dragonball are something that really interest me, having written one myself in the past year about the different approaches between Kikuchi's score and the Faulconer Productions score to a given episode of Dragonball Z.

I'd definitely like to read more should you chose to make any more of it available in English!

[Tzigi]

As a fellow Dragon Ball fan, I'll just say "awesome".

As a PhD student, I'll say that if this summary is representative of your thesis then it seems poorly structured - too much time spent on the linguistic division of Spain and too little on actual dubs. You write a bit about the situation of different language media but there's almost nothing about the specificity of dubs. I'd include such things as policy regarding translation - of proper names (people, techniques, places), of songs - like the intro and outro - are they left in the original, Japanese, version (for example the French and the German dubs created they own, different music for it [BTW: listening to those two just now made me feel like I was half my age again - those were the two versions that I became acquainted with first])? Are they translated (I checked the respective versions of Makafushigi Adventure and they all keep the original music: Castillian, Galician, Catalan, Valencian, Basque - you could do the same things with the other openings)- and if yes, are the translation faithful? How do they fit the music (did the translators try to recreate the vowel sounds of Japanese in different languages - that's a good practice if one wants the translation to be "singable" in the output language)? You wrote that some different translation depend on the French one - how does it affect the actual series (I remember the French "Club Dorothée" version to be an exercise in mangling the series)? Do they also depend on each other? Could you actually create a stemma and see different (mis)translations spread?

I hope that you'll understand that this wasn't meant to discourage you - I only wanted to help you improve your thesis

[UltimateHammerBro]

If you need information about this subject, I have a lot of information which can be of use, mainly regarding the translation mistakes and all that (I attended a conference with several of the Castilian voice actors and one of the translators).

The latest DVD release of DBZ and DB was first intended to include the Valencian dub (which, by the way, dubbed DB and most of the DBZ movies, but never finished DBZ) as they said they were "in talks" with RTVV (Radiotelevisio Valenciana), but it wasn't included in the final product, just like it had happened in the previous release.
Now that Canal 9 has closed, there is a possibility that the Valencian masters are available for the second volume of the release, since they don't depend on the channel's policies anymore, which were what led them to take it off the air in the first place.

[kei17]

As a fellow Dragon Ball fan, I'll just say "awesome".

As a PhD student, I'll say that if this summary is representative of your thesis then it seems poorly structured - too much time spent on the linguistic division of Spain and too little on actual dubs. You write a bit about the situation of different language media but there's almost nothing about the specificity of dubs. I'd include such things as policy regarding translation - of proper names (people, techniques, places), of songs - like the intro and outro - are they left in the original, Japanese, version (for example the French and the German dubs created they own, different music for it [BTW: listening to those two just now made me feel like I was half my age again - those were the two versions that I became acquainted with first])? Are they translated (I checked the respective versions of Makafushigi Adventure and they all keep the original music: Castillian, Galician, Catalan, Valencian, Basque - you could do the same things with the other openings)- and if yes, are the translation faithful? How do they fit the music (did the translators try to recreate the vowel sounds of Japanese in different languages - that's a good practice if one wants the translation to be "singable" in the output language)? You wrote that some different translation depend on the French one - how does it affect the actual series (I remember the French "Club Dorothée" version to be an exercise in mangling the series)? Do they also depend on each other? Could you actually create a stemma and see different (mis)translations spread?

I hope that you'll understand that this wasn't meant to discourage you - I only wanted to help you improve your thesis

You've got very good points. The actual paper has much more info about the stories behind dubs, but I omitted it in this summary (I lost my energy after writing the part of the local languages). Of course I referred to many of the things you stated here, but there're a lot of things I couldn't include to the paper because of the lack of reliable references.

If you need information about this subject, I have a lot of information which can be of use, mainly regarding the translation mistakes and all that (I attended a conference with several of the Castilian voice actors and one of the translators).

Thanks, but I've already finished and submitted it.

[Tzigi]

You've got very good points. The actual paper has much more info about the stories behind dubs, but I omitted it in this summary (I lost my energy after writing the part of the local languages). Of course I referred to many of the things you stated here, but there're a lot of things I couldn't include to the paper because of the lack of reliable references.

Well, that's great. I only wish know my Japanese was good enough for me to be able to read such works... Other then that are you going to continue researching Dragon Ball - be it in the field of translation/linguistic studies or in any other?

[sangofe]

As a fellow Dragon Ball fan, I'll just say "awesome".

(for example the French and the German dubs created they own, different music for it

Music... You mean openings, don't you?

[UltimateHammerBro]

Could you post it, even though it is in Japanese? Google Translate sucks most of the time, but we may still get an idea...

[Tzigi]

As a fellow Dragon Ball fan, I'll just say "awesome".

(for example the French and the German dubs created they own, different music for it

Music... You mean openings, don't you?

I meant music used in an opening sequence. For my suggestions here it was important that the music was different - not that the images/animation were changed. This second change is also important because it concerns the perception of the series as a whole but it doesn't concern actual linguistic study.

The French and German dubs had a completely new musical setting for the opening so they could use any text they wanted (sure, in theory, one can sing any text to any tune but most of the time it will not sound right). The dubs coming from Spain all used the same musical setting as the original Japanese version (Makafushigi Adventure) so they were in a way more restrained in their possible wording. And some changes in meaning probably resulted from this restriction - that was what I proposed to investigate.