TCPI doesn't get enough credit for preserving the original 4 kids dub

[Dogasu]

Western distributors have done their own scans from Japanese film masters before but for the most part yes, TPCi would need Japan's cooperation for a true HD remaster.

 

[snowmint]

Western distributors have done their own scans from Japanese film masters before but for the most part yes, TPCi would need Japan's cooperation for a true HD remaster.

Are you surprised Pocket Monsters hasn't remastered it's original cel episodes into proper HD like the Detective Conan anime has?

 

[Yash]

Well, you need to be sure to put "HD" in air quotes. TPCi's Blu-ray release is simply an upscale of the old SD masters they've had since the late 1990s; they didn't go in and rescan all the film elements like you would have to do for a proper HD remaster.

If such a thing ever happened, one benefit at least would be you'd likely see a number of 4Kids' paint edits reverted, as TPCI doesn't seem to be as allergic to Japanese text as 4Kids was.

 

[snowmint]

I still remembered this place getting mad at the Sinnoh Now text edit haha.

 

[Dogasu]

If such a thing ever happened, one benefit at least would be you'd likely see a number of 4Kids' paint edits reverted, as TPCI doesn't seem to be as allergic to Japanese text as 4Kids was.

What are you talking about? TPCi removes Japanese text from the show all the time.

 

[Yash]

What are you talking about? TPCi removes Japanese text from the show all the time.

Perhaps my perspective here is skewed by how little honest-to-God Japanese text actually shows up now. Just thinking of that Best Wishes episode where they played one of the Oak segments and they left the Japanese text completely unaltered.

I know the dub doesn't have the graphics for the attack names or TR's motto in Sun and Moon and such, but I guess I always assumed that was an edit OLM makes before sending out international masters, similar to how often the dub is missing the To Be Continued text that sometimes shows up in later airings/DVD releases/etc.

Anyway, guess I'm just thinking if there ever was a genuine remaster of the series TPCI wouldn't be as invested in slavishly recreating every 4Kids edit for the sake of authenticity, but it seems more likely than anything they just wouldn't bother releasing the dub with the remastered footage period, I guess.

 

[snowmint]

Isn't that why we didn't get the repeated Machamp scene in the Blu ray for the first movie?

 

[Yash]

Isn't that why we didn't get the repeated Machamp scene in the Blu ray for the first movie?

Yeah, TPCI used the updated Japanese remaster and didn't muck with anything besides replacing the logo and credits, as far as I remember. I don't think they even added in opening credits during Ash's battle with the pirate guy.

 

[PaperSplash]

I know the dub doesn't have the graphics for the attack names or TR's motto in Sun and Moon and such, but I guess I always assumed that was an edit OLM makes before sending out international masters, similar to how often the dub is missing the To Be Continued text that sometimes shows up in later airings/DVD releases/etc.

Yeah, I think it's been all but confirmed the resurgence of Japanese text scrubbing from mid-XY has been on OLM's side. Especially since if I remember correctly, the Korean dub also uses those masters, and that isn't under TPCi's control.

Now it's possible that OLM sends those "clean" versions expecting foreign dubbers to add translated equivalents of the on-screen text back in instead of leaving it blank, but that's only speculation.

 

[snowmint]

I will always hate the removal of the to be continued text.

 

[PaperSplash]

I will always hate the removal of the to be continued text.

I guess they got tired of translating it into 12+ languages, but the thing is, they didn't have to. From what I've seen, most foreign countries are very used to seeing English text in their television programming, requiring only a simple voiceover translation at most.

Even for stuff like the title cards, the non-English dubbers are doing a whole lot more work than they actually have to.

 

[snowmint]

Wait they actually translated those for other countries? I thought other countries just said what was on sceen in their dialogue.

 

[PaperSplash]

Wait they actually translated those for other countries? I thought other countries just said what was on sceen in their dialogue.

Not originally, but since BW it's been that way for most international dubs of Pokémon. Latin American Spanish was the exception for a while but even they eventually followed suit.

It's also why even in some English releases of BW, XY and SM, the "To Be Continued" text is over a black bar that takes up much of the lower third of the screen. That's how they were able to "translate" it for international dubs since apparently they couldn't change the plain yellow English text.

 

[Ricbolog]

Wait they actually translated those for other countries? I thought other countries just said what was on sceen in their dialogue.

Here is an example.

Spoiler

 

[Dogasu]

Just thinking of that Best Wishes episode where they played one of the Oak segments and they left the Japanese text completely unaltered.

That's one example out of the 700+ episodes that TPCi has dubbed over the years. In basically every other episode they've worked on the Japanese text the show's animators did allow themselves to put into the show were all removed.

4Kids neglected to edit a few instances of Japanese text back in their day too, by the way. It doesn't mean they didn't very much have a "no Japanese text" policy.

Yeah, I think it's been all but confirmed the resurgence of Japanese text scrubbing from mid-XY has been on OLM's side.

That's probably correct. But then you have to stop and think about why OLM is even doing this in the first place. Is it just Japan being nice and localizer-friendly? Or is it because they know whatever Japanese text they write will just get erased anyway and so they figured they might as well just do it themselves? At least that way they can ensure that the edited version will look the best it can.


But we're getting off-topic.

To steer the conversation back on-topic, something else TPCi could be doing to preserve the old 4Kids dub is to find a way to return those three Jynx episodes back into rotation. They could do this by getting the purple version edits of "Holiday Hi-Jynx" and "The Mandarin Island Miss Match" from Japan, recreate the 4Kids edits (swap out the opening / title screen / eyecatches / ending themes), and then sync up the English dub audio to the Japanese video. It'd be a bit of work but it would be completely feasible.

"Stage Fight" would be a little more tricky because a purple edit of the episode still does not exist in Japan. And so what they'd have to end up doing instead is cut out all the shots of Jynx from the episode (or airbrush her out) and then re-edit the music to cover up the gaps that'd be created by the cut footage. It'd be a bummer for the show to get even more edits, sure, but sacrificing 38 seconds in order to save what is actually a fairly faithful episode of the 4Kids dub may be worth it.

 

[Yash]

That's one example out of the 700+ episodes that TPCi has dubbed over the years. In basically every other episode they've worked on the Japanese text the show's animators did allow themselves to put into the show were all removed.

4Kids neglected to edit a few instances of Japanese text back in their day too, by the way. It doesn't mean they didn't very much have a "no Japanese text" policy.

You have to admit though that was a pretty glaring oversight:

I'd categorize that much differently than 4Kids missing a sign in the corner of the frame, or something (though I know there are more substantial instances of that on 4Kids' part, like leaving the Japanese text in Meowth's song in Go West, Young Meowth untouched, probably due to Meowth dancing in front of it making it hard to erase).

The only other instance I can think of is the kanji that flash over Korrina's poses during the Lucario episode of X&Y. That I'm still not totally convinced wasn't an OLM-made edit to the international masters like we were talking about earlier, but I could easily be wrong on that.

There was also that Sinnoh Now edit, but from what I heard TPCI reverted that in the DVD release of Diamond & Pearl (I'm sure some Pokefan here would be able to confirm this), and later episodes retained the Japanese logo. But since those were the made-up Pokemon language anyway, maybe not relevant to this discussion, though I'm sure when 4Kids would edit out text like that it was under the assumption that it was real Japanese.

 

[Dogasu]

From "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak," when Gastly turns into a fire extinguisher to defeat Ash's Charmander.

 

[Yash]

From "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak," when Gastly turns into a fire extinguisher to defeat Ash's Charmander.

View attachment 151686

Not saying it never happened in 4Kids!

What might be skewing my perspective here is that the Kanto episodes had a ton of on-screen Japanese text on signs, posters, etc. whereas that had been totally phased out by the time TPCI took over dubbing, so the "opportunity" to wipe Japanese text blank or translate anything hasn't presented itself nearly as often. Like I said I'm fairly certain most instances where there was Japanese text in the original that's gone in the dub are the result of OLM sending "clean" masters to foreign dubbers, especially if like someone pointed out the Korean dub (which unlike most dubs is sourced straight from the Japanese version) is missing that text too.

Either way, still think TPCI would leave most of the text untouched if there ever were a remaster of the original series, and they decided to slap 4Kids' audio track on it, but that in itself is two pretty far out hypotheticals (that the Japanese side would see to it to remaster the OG series in full, and that TPCI would show any initiative to match them), so this is probably all academic anyway.

 

[PaperSplash]

Either way, still think TPCI would leave most of the text untouched if there ever were a remaster of the original series, and they decided to slap 4Kids' audio track on it, but that in itself is two pretty far out hypotheticals (that the Japanese side would see to it to remaster the OG series in full, and that TPCI would show any initiative to match them), so this is probably all academic anyway.

I agree, but I think it would be more to avoid spending the time, effort and money than anything else.

 

[Hidden Mew]

4Kids was always rather inconsistent with the Japanese texts for their dubs. Sometimes they erased it completely, sometimes they translated it and sometimes they didn't do anything with it. It was really weird. A common excuse for it was the standards from Kids' WB/CW, which I never thought was believable considering how inconsistent they were with their edits. I remember that they kept referring to rice balls as sandwiches in Brock's return in AG, they finally called them rice balls a few episodes later when Jessie caught Serviper and then in the next season they started really bad paint edits over Japanese food to turn them into sandwiches.

It is a bit surprising to me that TPCI hasn't tried to use the purple Jynx edits from the Japanese version to include those episodes in the dub. I assume that would be relatively easy to do when they don't have to recolor Jynx themselves and they wouldn't have to redub those episodes either. I suspect that it's just too much work for them to consider doing for what are basically filler episodes.