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The English dub is being released too slowly to be an effective promotional tool in 2020

I'm assuming that you're being facetious or just trying to give me a hard time like Panky and whoever else constantly stalks my posts looking for things to nitpick over, but here you go. You can find all kinds of information about the subject in just a few clicks. I'm not going to pull every single literacy study that can be found just to justify some common sense; if you think that most kids would prefer subs instead of their respective dubs, then I don't know what to tell you.

Okay, first off, I'm not stalking you (and I'm pretty sure @Panky.. isn't either), nor am I trying to harass you or break apart every sentence you say for the sake of nitpicking things to be mad about. If I was doing either of those things, I wouldn't like any of posts you'd make and I would constantly quote you every time you post something. But I haven't done any of these things now, have I (I know for a fact that I've liked some of your posts and I also know that I've seen some posts of yours that I chose to pay no mind to). No, the reason I quote some of your posts is the same reason I quote anyone else's posts: either they said something that I don't agree with/find to be wrong or stupid, they wrote something whose validity questionable or to reference their post in a discussion in which it is relevant. In this case, it's the "questionable validity" one.

Second off, the burden of proof falls on you, since you're the one who made that claim. I shouldn't be the one to search for proof that shows whether a thing that I that I don't believe is true or not. If I made a claim and someone would've asked me "what makes you say that?" or "where's the proof?", even if I didn't have any at the time, I would search for some articles/surveys/analysis related to the subject, see if they support my claim, cite them if they do or admit that I was wrong if they don't. Shouldn't be too hard to find evidence for your claims, if you can do it in "just a few clicks".

Third of all, from what I've seen from most posts on Quora and some of the articles I skimmed through, it's not that kids actually despise reading, but rather that they hate being forced to read books that they find unappealing or that they don't appreciate exigent teachers forcing them to read. From what I've seen, people agree that children would enjoy reading a book if it appeals to them and that a good way to get them into reading is to find out what type of books/stories they enjoy and to buy them books based on those preferences. Not to mention that, if this was common sense, as you seem to believe, then why would people make children's books or comics aimed at a general audience/just kids? By your logic, companies wouldn't bother with such things, as they wouldn't sell and would become financial failures and a waste of time and resources, since they're aimed at kids and kids hate reading. Yet, they're being made to this day.

And, finally, I'm not saying that it should replace the dub altogether (nor do I really care if they make an official subtitled version for the anime or not, since there are subbed versions out there, so it doesn't affect me much whether they do or don't). The dub has its place and appeal and I know I and many others wouldn't even know about the anime or Pokémon, in general, were it not for the dub. However, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to also release a subbed version between the original release of the episodes and the dubbed version, considering how far behind the dub is getting to the Japanese airings, for those unaware of the unofficial subs or who would rather not go to dubious sites to watch them.
 
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In 4kids defence, as a child I wouldn't have watched pokemon if it wasn't available in English.
Replace "English" with "Spanish" and you have my case. I don't think I would have discovered anime if it wasn't dubbed. Then again, most channels had some kind of anime in their programming at the time, and James and Meowth seemed pretty quotable in Spanish.
 
Didn’t 4Kids’ Al Kahn once famously say that kids don’t read? :unsure:

It's True but He Shouldn't Say It | The Simpsons | Know Your Meme


I dunno exactly when he said that but considering that 4Kids' subbed Yu-Gi-Oh DVDs from the mid-2000's flopped after a few releases, he sort of had a point.
 
It's True but He Shouldn't Say It | The Simpsons | Know Your Meme's True but He Shouldn't Say It | The Simpsons | Know Your Meme


I dunno exactly when he said that but considering that 4Kids' subbed Yu-Gi-Oh DVDs from the mid-2000's flopped after a few releases, he sort of had a point.

Not really. The uncut Yu-Gi-Oh! DVDs didn't flop, or at least I don't think that there was any hard sales data for them to indicate that they sold poorly. They stopped releasing them because of legal issues over Yugi's Japanese voice actor, or more specifically the agency for his voice actor made it more difficult for them to release the Japanese version. I think that were also issues with Bakura's original Japanese voice actress since she passed on and was replaced by Rica Matsumoto I think around the Battle City arc. While I'm not sure if I could find images of them now, I clearly remember Amazon listing volume four and five of the uncut series for a long time, so they most likely had more uncut DVDs planned before they had to stop. Years later, 4Kids tried to stream the raw versions on their old YouTube channel and they had to shut it down for the same reason. Someone from the company eventually confirmed that was the reason why the uncut DVDs stopped on their YouTube channel and in an interview with ANN. I think that Al Kahn kept making claims that they didn't want to have the uncut DVDs compete with the dub or that they were going to continue after finishing the dub releases, but those weren't true. Konami eventually was able to get through the legal red tape to legally sub DM on Crunchyroll, but for the longest time, it seemed like a pipe dream because of 4Kids' previous failed attempts.

Besides that, I don't think this is a good example for your claim when the DVDs also had an uncut English dub. They kept the dub names for the characters and the cards, but other than that, they were effectively redubbing the series to make it more faithful to the original version. Even if kids didn't want to read subtitles, they could still hear the voices they'd be familiar with in these uncut DVDs and I'm positive that they didn't hide the fact that there was still an English option in those DVDs.

I also find this whole notion that kids in general don't like to read kind of insulting and belittling. Some kids may not like to read for a number of understandable reasons, but that doesn't mean it applies to every kid or that kids would be so against reading subtitles. Reading for fun is definitely different than reading because you're forced to do so or reading something that you just don't like. Considering that they'd still be able to see Pokemon interacting with each other and see battles, I don't think that reading subtitles would be a huge deal breaker for kids who like Pokemon, especially when legal subs wouldn't replace the dub anyway.
 
The whole "there's no market for the Japanese version" is a horribly outdated talking point that needs to just go ahead and die already.

The reason we originally didn't get the Japanese version of Pocket Monsters back in 1998 is because 4Kids wanted their version to be the only one on the market. It's really as simple as that. Al Kahn even went as far as to say he saw the original Japanese version as competition:

AnimeNewsNetwork said:
Can you shed any light on why Shaman King and Yu-Gi-Oh! uncut were postponed?

I think it's because we are still releasing them as cut versions, and we don't want to put the cut versions and the uncut versions at the same time. So we try to stagger the uncut episodes after the cut episodes have aired. So it's just a function of getting those things to play.

So they aren't competing against each other?

Yes, that's exactly right.

You can argue about the merits of Mr. Kahn's "monopolies are great!" line of thinking all you want, but at the end of the day the companies that didn't treat the Japanese version as the enemy - Viz, FUNimation, etc - are still with us. 4Kids is not.

But anyway, TCPI took over the series after nearly a decade of 4Kids refusing to release the Japanese version in the West and so TPCI just...kept that up. TPCI wasn't exactly rolling in cash back in Season 9 (the whole recasting hullabaloo was an attempt to save money, after all) and so they prooooobably thought they could just fart out a quick little dub and call it a day. And so that's exactly what they did.

This was 14 years ago.

A lot has changed since then. Fans who were in middle school back then are now in their late 20s, many with kids of their own. While 10-year-olds remain the target audience of the franchise, more and more of us older folks are sticking around regardless. The age range is much more evenly spread than it was when the franchise first started out, and a not-at-all insignificant number of us are more than double / triple the age of the show's protagonists. General awareness of the Japanese version is also, meanwhile, higher than it's ever been.

The Japanese version isn't ever going to top the English dub in popularity, no, but that doesn't mean there's no money to be made by releasing it in the West anyway. Last year's "Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution" screening at AnimeExpo proved that we fans of the Japanese version will show up if given the chance. If TPCI offered legal simulsubs of the series on somewhere like Crunchyroll then I see no reason to believe they would lose any money.

And the bonus to all this is that doing so would also allow the anime to as useful a promotional tool in the West as it's been in Japan the last two decades.
 
Last year's "Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution" screening at AnimeExpo proved that we fans of the Japanese version will show up if given the chance.
I don’t really think it can be used as an effective metric since it’s the first screening of the movie, and people might rush just for the novelty factor. I don’t know if that might be a major factor, but it is a noticeable one, nonetheless.

The Pokemon Company has made it incredibly clear that it doesn’t care for the older audiences, be it the games or the anime too, even if lots of money can be made from it.

The main audience, the children (or the only group that matters) won’t bother with the Japanese version, since the dub is simply more accessible through television, and lets face it, even if the voices are "horrible" for many of us children prefer viewing stuff in their native language. I’m speaking as someone who purely watched my native language dubs of shows which were voiced horribly by your standards. The dub also has the bonus of "trapping" people who think the dub is meh, but don’t bother with the Japanese version for convenience reasons. Any accessible sub might take those viewers away.
In addition TPCi has a personal stake now thanks to the dub music royalties and retaining the least amount of original music possible.

I sympathise with those who like the Japanese version over the English one, but let’s face it, TPCi really doesn’t care for us. Releasing the Japanese version isn’t a priority for them because no hefty royalties.
 
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it’s the first screening of the movie, and people might rush just for the novelty factor.

Yes, I agree that people will watch whatever's readily available to them first, regardless of what language it's in.

...which is exactly the role a weekly simuldub / simulsub would fill.
 
Admittedly, I still don't see the simuldub format working for a long running series like Pokemon. That's usually given to seasonal shows and I think it might be too overwhelming for the production team to handle. A simulcast sub on the other hand would be much more of a possibility by comparison. Subbing the series every week would be a lot less expensive than trying to get the same episode dubbed within the same day it airs in Japan. I don't know if TPCI would really consider going that route at this point, but I think there's a better chance for that to happen than a simulcast dub.
 
A simulcast dub is almost certainly not going to happen (I said as much at the top of this thread) but it's not completely out of the question.

A simulcast sub is the much cheaper, easier, feasible option.

I suppose so given that Funimation has a simulcast dub for at least one on-going series on top of their seasonal simulcast dubs. I'm just not sure if I could see TPCI going down that route not only because of it being so expensive, but also because they'd be going pretty far to keep the dub airing right along the Japanese version. That doesn't seem like it would be that huge of a priority for them, at least with the dub itself.
 
Let´s look at what happened today: Instead of subbing a 5 minute short (a process that would take 4 hours maximum) they choose to postpone it 4 days in order to dub it, in the middle of a pandemic. If that doesn't make people believe TPCi doesn't like subs I don't know what will.
 
The video games have had simultaneous worldwide releases since Generation 6. Pokémon GO's releases are (now) all the same worldwide as well. The Pokémon Company / Game Freak / etc. figured out that having everyone get the same things at the same time is key to being able to effectivly market the franchise worldwide.

And then you have the TV series. The English dub of the animated series is about four months behind the Japanese version, and while this is a great improvement from the 4Kids days (where there'd be a full year between the two) that's still a quarter of a year wait for an official English version. The video games have been in Generation 8 for three months now but the English dub of the TV series is going to be stuck in Gen 7 until about March or so.

It's even worse for the other international versions since they have to wait for the English dub to be completed before they can even get started on theirs. The German dub, for example, seems like it's only on the very first episode of the Alola League and so even if they air one new episode a week they probably won't be able to finish Sun & Moon until June 2020 or so. The first Sword & Shield expansion pass will be out by then.

Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution, meanwhile, came out in Japan a full 7 months ago. The movie is so old that the tie-in distributon they had in Japan - a Mewtwo you can download to your copy of Let's Go! Pikachu / Let's Go! Eevee - can't really be brought over anymore because we've moved on to a new generation since then. "To celebrate the release of the new movie you can download a Mewtwo to your Pokémon games! No, not those ones, the ones that came out in 2018....OK, yes...we understand...sure, but...but Mewtwo's not in Sword & Shield and..."

The Pokémon Company must realize that the delayed release of the TV series abroad is severely handicapping its ability to provide effective cross-media promotion. But even TPCI halving the gap of their dub from four months to two months wouldn't be enough. In the year 2020 an English translation of the TV series needs to be made available day-and-date with Japan.

So what's to be done?

1) A simulsub, which is something that basically every other anime series on the planet has been doing for the last half a decade or so. Crunchyroll already promotes the Japanese version of the show for free so it's not like TPCI would have trouble finding a home for it.

Or

2) A simuldub, which would be trickier to do logistically because most simuldubs are for short 13 or 26 episode series and not for endless marathon series like Pokémon.

Either way, something needs to be done because the current way things are being done just isn't working anymore. Does anyone have any other ideas of how to fix this problem?
I think they should put the Japanese version with English Subtitles on Pokemon TV as well as work on the dub episode right after the Japanese episode comes out
 
It's also amazing to see the dub having fallen in quality so acutely over the years, to boot: SM and JN kept the least OST of all the sagas in English, the MPM component is currently runner up behind them (6 pieces kept as a ceiling so far is still shockingly low in recent times, but when the norm is 1 or 2 pieces kept in the Goldfarb Era, that's a cause for celebration nowadays). My two cents is TPCi knows the target audience (kids ages 5-12) will swallow up anything they dish out without complaint, their fanbase is kids that grew up with their dub (even then, they are conceding there are issues with it these days, telling), and sadly many older dub fans of PokeAni don't have the drive or passion to work together to demand better and are content with such a poor dub in so many aspects so long as it's what they are used to alone- rather than it being any good at all (also have to love the puff pieces on some of the VAs from CBR which is the most deaf outlet of them all to me, The Independent, and such in the media over here in the USA, most of the fans don't agree with them at all thankfully- these are the same ill-informed clowns who think JCC was the original dub Professor Oak or James, or Meowth, though...that said, hope he recovers from his fight w/cancer, regardless).

Thus, we arrive at the state in which things are, pretty dismal. I personally think the dub's popularity was never to reach the same heights as it had prior, after late AG when they recast literally every original English VA but Cathcart (hiding under VARIOUS pseudonyms back then like "Jimmy Zoppi" which he used in the 4Kids Era, then "Billy Beach" in the PUSA Era), Kayzie Rogers (hiding under the pseudonym "Jamie Peacock" for her PUSA-related work then), and Parsons (we still don't know why 4Kids brought in Mike Pollock midway into early AG there in AG021, but Pollock says he didn't ask & they didn't tell so he'd leave it at that on Twitter- the irony when he got to return when almost everyone else got treated like sh*t by TAJ/TPCi back then and very cruelly overhauled for cost reduction/"going cheap").

And the gap has widened back to almost a full year under TPCi by the end of JN pre-MPM, same as it was under 4Kids with the "season breaks" in the early days, not that I care about that personally because I think taking their time on releasing things helped especially 4Kids' VA quality in comparison to TPCi's in that department overall.
 
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