Ask John: Is Dubbing a Form of Americanizing Anime?

Question:
Does Americanization of dubbed anime happen on a regular basis? Would you consider an American dub a form of Americanization?

Answer:
I’m sorry to say that since I’m not a dub watcher, I don’t really keep track of the state of American anime dubs. However, sometimes significantly altered dubs cannot escape notice. Based on my limited awareness of the present state of English language anime dubbing, I wouldn’t say that heavy alteration is frequent nowadays, but it does still happen. Reportedly, one of the most grossly offending censors is AD Vision. Just within recent memory their English dubs of Voices of a Distant Star and Saiyuki have been heavily re-written and “Americanized” to alter original Japanese characterizations and make characters more trendy and more appealing to American viewers. The extensive re-write that AD Vision’s Sorcerous Stabber Orphen received created a brief controversy throughout the entire anime fan community. And going back some way in time, AD Vision changed character names in City Hunter, added dated American culture references to the dialogue in Burn-Up W, and their English dub of Sorcerer Hunters is frequently cited as one that alters the spirit of the original Japanese characterizations.

AD Vision is not the only domestic distributor to be known for heavily “Americanizing” English dubs, merely one of the most prolific. Last year TOKYOPOP came under heavy fire for extensively “Americanizing” the English dub of Initial D, by not only changing character names, but also extensively altering the physical animation footage. TOKYOPOP has also been criticized for writing out religious references in St. Tail. Some time ago Bandai Entertainment was heavily criticized for writing out references to sex from the English dubbed version of Love Hina. And recently FUNimation has changed the title and character names for the English language version of Detective Conan.

As an admitted anime purist, in my strict personal opinion, any English dub of anime is an “Americanization” of anime because it’s an alteration imposed upon Japanese animation by Americans for the benefit of Americans (or English speakers). I’ve always believed that, unless the original creators intend otherwise, it’s logical for Japanese animation to have Japanese dialogue. However, in the case of “good” dubs, the English dubbing is simply a loose translation intended to appeal to English speaking viewers. It’s a necessary evil. Typically the accusation of “Americanization” is levied only against English dubs that seemingly make little effort to respect the creative intentions of the original anime creators. A “good” dub is typically considered a “translation” while a dub that specifically prioritizes appealing to American viewers at the expense of faithfulness to the original Japanese script is considered an “Americanization.”