Ask John: What’s John’s Reaction to 4Kids Distributing Pretty Cure?

Question:
Anime News Network recently broke the news that 4kids will be releasing Pretty Cure on TV. You are a fan of the show. From your columns with Pretty Cure as a topic, I had actually become quite excited at the thought of it being brought over eventually. Not like this, though. 4kids has earned its bad reputation with the extremely poor quality work they do with dub casting, editing, not releasing the shows onto some form of video or releasing only english language, edited videos, and so forth. Really, we all know what will happen, but I was hoping you might put your two cents in about this.

Answer:
Honestly, I have a mixed attitude about the 4Kids acquisition of Pretty Cure. On an immediate level the 4Kids acquisition actually doesn’t personally affect me. Since I don’t watch English dubbed anime and hadn’t seriously anticipated ever being able to buy Pretty Cure on American DVD, the 4Kids acquisition doesn’t actually deprive me of anything I expected or anticipated. I’m also aware that 4Kids Entertainment is not typically considered part of America’s anime community. 4Kids is an anime licensor roughly in the way that Disney is an anime licensor; 4Kids is a mainstream entertainment company that distributes some anime. 4Kids is not an anime translation company. So I’m neither shocked nor disappointed that 4Kids will likely heavily alter Pretty Cure and refuse to release an unaltered, Japanese language version of the series. The hardcore fan community has never been of significant concern to 4Kids, and I don’t expect any change for Pretty Cure. The show will undoubtedly be tailored and marketed toward mainstream American children, and all of the Japanese cultural characteristics within it will almost certainly be removed. In fact, even basic color coordinated names like “Cure Black” and “Cure White” might end up being changed to avoid any potential criticisms of racial insensitivity.

Objectively I’m disappointed and saddened by the knowledge that a show I love will likely be drastically altered for American viewers by a company that has never shown any respect for the artistic or cultural integrity of its anime properties. On the other hand, it’s said that no publicity is bad publicity. Merely by licensing the show and broadcasting it in America, 4Kids may inadvertently generate interest in the original Japanese Futari wa Precure animation, and provide a catalyst that will create new anime fans. Already, the 4Kids acquisition has brought Pretty Cure to the forefront of discussion among American fans, which is something that America’s Pretty Cure fans themselves haven’t been able to do. After all, despite heavy censoring for its American television broadcast, Sailor Moon was able to generate a large American fan base. And the American TV broadcast of Sailor Moon helped create a lot of American anime fans, which eventually resulted in uncut, unaltered American DVD releases for most of the Sailor Moon animation.

So I’m conflicted. In one respect I’m excited about the confirmation that Pretty Cure will finally be exposed to a wider audience. However, I’m crestfallen to know that Americans will probably see only a heavily censored and altered version of Pretty Cure. And if the American release of Tokyo Mew Mew is any indication, America may not even get all 49 original Pretty Cure episodes. Although my expectations are minimal, I don’t yet want to entirely discount the 4Kids acquisition of Pretty Cure because no one yet has any clear example of how the series will be localized and treated for its official American debut.