4Kids Entertainment files for bankruptcy: Former dubber goes bankrupt

[Kazamatsuri]

A few things I want to point out to put things into perspective.

For one thing, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy doesn't expel debt owed by a business... it merely delays the deadline with which they would be required to pay it off (similar to forbearance in mortgage). 4Kids will need to prove to a judge and its creditors that can eventually become profitable again and pay off its debt. It may not be the end game, but it's pretty much the last resort to staying in business. Given what I know, this pretty much it for 4Kids, and they're just delaying the inevitable. Over the past 5+ years, the following has occurred with 4Kids:

- They lost the licensing rights to Pokemon and One Piece.
- They publicly reported a net loss of income in almost every 3-month quarter.
- They laid off 15% of their workforce by year end 2008.
- They publicly considered options such as a joint money market merger or a buyout of the company.
- The CEO (at the time) Alfred Kahn reportedly took a 20% pay cut.

If the lawsuit by the makers of Yugioh is successful, which seems most likely, it will just add further to 4Kids debt, not to mention diminish its credibility even more with its affiliates.

As far the people who work at 4Kids, I'm far more concerned about the full time employees who will have to constantly fill out job applications and interview for new work, just to keep up their employment benefits. Voice actors and other contractors have it easy. It's a little inconvenient for them, but don't forget that VAs are freelance and do work for multiple businesses. They are naturally trained to go out and look for work as it is part their everyday life in their career of choice.

This also make me wonder if 4Kids' standard editing practices and revelations of corruption go hand-in-hand. To be fair, other companies have produced Anime Dubs that are considered just as bad or even worse than your standard 4Kids Dub (Cardcaptors anyone). And assuming the edits made to a particular Anime are infrequent, the changes made are insubstantial to what was done in the original version, and/or they are arguably necessary, I might find them more acceptable depending on the nature of these edits (for example, the paint edits done to Naruto during its days on Toonami weren't that bad).

But 4Kids takes things much further than that. They seem to have this policy of 'Americanization'. And their definition of Americanization apparently means the following:

- Having blank signs with no text on them.
- Writing scripts that don't match up to the onscreen plot and don't adequately reflect the overall full nature characters in a story.
- Saturating entire shows with generic synthesizer music that frequently changes up every 10 seconds.

And then you have their shitty fan-service in which they attempt to justify their editing policies. For example, you have the BS interview that Michael Haigney did back in 06 with Anime Boredom. Then there was the Nameless Cubicle Office Guy's PR blitz, in which he posts a FAQ where those who have legit concerns about 4Kids' edits are mischaracterized as Otakus who are obsessed with guns and blood. And who can forget all of Al Kahn's infamous controversial quotes.

Now I know some people say that 4KIds' paint edits are no big deal to them. Fair enough, but consider this. For sake of the business, paint edits cost extra money to the company. That's fine, but there is something called a budget, which every business needs in order to stay. If you're going to add to your expenses, you must first make sure you have the money to do so, and/or guarantee that doing so will result in revenues in excess of said expenses. In the case of 4Kids, their expenses obviously exceeded their revenues. As a result, seem to expect their affiliates carry the burden of their mistakes, either by charging them super high fees, or going through back room deals to secretly generate income.

And then you have the fact that 4Kids pays to have the rights to license their Anime to all western countries. That means that the adaptations in European countries such as France are entirely faithful to the original version. And by that I don't mean the original original version from Japan, but the heavily edited version by 4Kids. So basic, 4Kids insists that European countries remain entirely faithful to their 'Americanized' adaptations of Japanese Anime (can we say hypocrisy).

With all the money that 4Kids spends on needless paint edits and Western licensing rights among other things, just to maintain their shallow philosophy of 'Americanization' and impose it on other people, it's no wonder they've gotten themselves into debt. And because they refuse to account for their mistakes, everyone else ends up having to pay the tab. So yeah, I do think their standard editing practices and latest revelations of corruption go hand-in-hand.

 

[PS3D]

You've reminded me: The First Movie. While 4Kids eventually didn't edit the dialogue and plots of the latter Pokémon movies that they dubbed, the early ones weren't so lucky.

Yeah, First Movie was completely botched and as a result, turned out completely stupid.

The shipping hints probably weren't necessary, especially since they ended up not going anywhere. There were some other aspects about the first season that they didn't seem to care about (see Dogasu's Backpack, Episode 11). But in their defense, the animé ended up going far longer than anyone had ever anticipated.

Beauty and the Beach didn't need to be aired two years late--they could have just cut the offending scene and aired it on time.

The Legend of Dratini was an unnecessary cut: gun use has been seen on other cartoons everywhere, plus it created a plot hole.

And Brock's mother--no one could have seen that one coming.

 

[Cybersai]

In short, I hope 4Kids survives, Pokemon was much better under there, and Veronica Taylor will always be the real Ash.

"Real Ash?" You mean there's a fake Ash now?

 

[Shinneth]

You know, I was thinking about how the numerous paint edits on 4Kids' part over dozens of series including Pokemon had an impact on their expenses. Because we have to face it: 99% of the paint edits 4Kids had made, at least in Pokemon, were absolutely, completely pointless. They did a number on One Piece and other shows in the same fashion, and there's no doubt that those sort of practices cost money. So while the majority of their paint edits weren't devastating and just more of a "Why?" thing than anything else, they were throwing in a lot of money to get rid of fake-language text on billboards and slogans that most viewers will never even notice. There's absolutely no logic in that; it's even more costly to do their more infamous edits, such as the onigiri-sandwich one they pulled a couple of times in AG. Even as badly animated as that one particular sandwich was, that still took up several frames of animation to edit, and I imagine it adds up to some pretty big figures over time. There's also expenses involved in making their own music, both background and theme music... which I'm still not clear if that was a cheaper alternative to just buying the rights to the Japanese music, but either way that's still money down the drain. When you look at how 4Kids ran things from a financial perspective, a lot of it doesn't make any sense. It's like they had no concept of a "budget" at all, which is what makes me doubt that they could truly become profitable enough to recover more than what they lost.

And just like the dub company change for Pokemon, I didn't worry much for the 4Kids voice actors. It's not like they were made destitute after TCPi acquired Pokemon because they still had plenty of 4Kids property to work with, plus I know several of these VAs work on plenty of projects outside of the 4Kids realm (some of them even came in to do some work for the TCPi dub, if I'm not mistaken). 4Kids going down still doesn't mean the VAs are destitute, and like Kazamatsuri said, most are freelance and have plenty of options as to where to go from 4Kids, so it's not like they're out of work. This is just how the life of a VA is, so there's no point in weeping over their situation. I don't mean to come off as a bitch saying that, but it's the truth. They'll be just fine. Bad off as the economy is, the VAs from 4Kids have made quite a name for themselves, so of all people, I think they'll have the least amount of trouble trying to find work elsewhere.

But overall, I do think this is the death knell for 4Kids as a whole. Unless they seriously change their tune and possess a true understanding of money management, they'll just end up right back here if they recover soon enough, and they'll be under the grave for certain by then.

 

[PS3D]

The paint edits in One Piece probably did them in. EVERYTHING was edited in One Piece: they replaced guns with water pistols, cigarettes with lollipops, and lots of blood edits. If they had just realized that it was meant for more mature audiences and hadn't done away with everything, they wouldn't be in trouble financially.

 

[Trainer Lisa]

"Real Ash?" You mean there's a fake Ash now?

No. You know that's not what he meant.

Personality wise, Veronica made the character come to life with lots of ENERGY. So, through her portrayal, Ash was just like a "real" kid (to us Veronica Taylor fans, at least).

 

[Bluelatios]

Kazimatsuri, you sure do know a lot about business practices, and it does make sense that 4Kids juts wont be able to stay alive this time. If no businesses will be confident in them, its the end of the road. And it certainly is possible for the VA's to head on over to DuArt or something and get work there, assuming DuArt can create some jobs for them. You never know, they COULD get Pokemon back or be one step closer so I'm always optimistic.

 

[Adamant]

When I found out the Shadow Realm was a complete 4Kids concept, I was impressed, it fitted in so perfectly, I was always under the assumption the Shadow Realm was invented by the original writers.

It was, sort of. The idea of these creepy places with tons of weird shit going on that the millennium item users could summon up and make use of was in the original, they just weren't one specific, named alternate dimension like what 4Kids claimed it was.
4Kids just ran with the idea and came up with the clever cop-out that people getting killed would just get banished to this already introduced, creepy place with no means of escaping.

 

[Lilac]

Yeah, First Movie was completely botched and as a result, turned out completely stupid.

The shipping hints probably weren't necessary, especially since they ended up not going anywhere. There were some other aspects about the first season that they didn't seem to care about (see Dogasu's Backpack, Episode 11). But in their defense, the animé ended up going far longer than anyone had ever anticipated.

Beauty and the Beach didn't need to be aired two years late--they could have just cut the offending scene and aired it on time.

The Legend of Dratini was an unnecessary cut: gun use has been seen on other cartoons everywhere, plus it created a plot hole.

And Brock's mother--no one could have seen that one coming.

1.Pokemon The Movie Is Better Than Some Of The Newer Movies
2.Why Do Love Hints If They Wont Grow Up In Age
3.Beauty and the Beach is a awsome episode and they should just cut it out (if they cut out food they can cut out boobs)
4.It Probily Because On Kids WB it was rated TV-Y but they could just put the rating up to TV-Y7

 

[Dewgong Reign]

This happens to me way too often- Normally I'd giggle at the thought of a zillion metaphorical karmic rice balls sabatoging the company, but now it's happening, I'm strangely saddened.

4Kids is dying a slow, painful death. Looking at the facts, many providers to their families are now losing their jobs, people who would have no idea what you're talking about if you walked up to them and said "rolling sandwich", mind you.

Just putting it out there. I don't really care what happens to the company, but it's unfair to all the people who'll be put out of work because of a stupid Yu-gi-oh lawsuit.