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TPCi making better openings/intros

PokeDot517

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Is it me or are the openings for the Pokemon anime just not as good as when 4kids did them like in Advanced Generation also your thoughts on why are only 30 seconds now is CN (cartoonnetwork) limiting them? or do they think 30 secs is just long enough for a intro.
 
The 30-second thing is likely a limitation imposed (indirectly perhaps) by the network. Minute-long intros are rare in TV today, particularly for half-hour shows.

As for the quality of the songs, that's harder to say. Obviously it's a matter of taste as to which you prefer. The 4Kids themes were more consistent (having the same guy for seasons 4-8 contributes to that), but I also appreciate the nature of the TPCi themes, which have more of an "ensemble cast" vibe.
 
A crappy song means a crappy opening, and there just isn't much variety in TPCi's efforts. It's always the same "trust yo friends, gonna be the best, follow your heart. Pokemon" song and dance, which got stale a long time ago.

It'd be good if TPCi took cues from the original version and made opening songs with a variety of POVs, subject materials and instruments, but I guess that's just another reason I don't watch the dub.
 
The last season opening animation, specially the last animation, was horrendous.

They are only showing the TRio, they keep two scenes of the original one (and one of them is TR in his serious mode; like they are in Da!).

They aren't even trying.

What's bugs me is if they are using a 30 minute slot in both countries.
Why Japanese episodes last 24:50 while English episodes last 21:10? It's interesting to know that TV Tokyo has less commercials than CN US.
 
I think it's one of two causes that's causing the TPCi intros to be rather... weaker in quality than the 4Kids one, one being that since the intros since Battle Frontier (when TPCi got the show from 4Kids) have been shorter is more or less something with Cartoon Network (and many other channels) wanting to shorten intros, as Yoshi1001 said earlier:

The 30-second thing is likely a limitation imposed (indirectly perhaps) by the network. Minute-long intros are rare in TV today, particularly for half-hour shows.

Some shows barely have an opening anymore, just the logo of the show accompanied by a little 5-10 second jingle, and that's it, I personally think it's because they want to cut costs and save money for other productions due to the economic situation currently, but that's just what I think. The other reason is because they are simply not putting enough effort into it at all (much like many other things in the anime). Considering how most people see that Japanese openings to anime are almost always better than dubbed openings (unless directly dubbed like in the FUNimation One Piece dub, in which the quality varies), it's not surprising.

A crappy song means a crappy opening, and there just isn't much variety in TPCi's efforts. It's always the same "trust yo friends, gonna be the best, follow your heart. Pokemon" song and dance, which got stale a long time ago.

It'd be good if TPCi took cues from the original version and made opening songs with a variety of POVs, subject materials and instruments, but I guess that's just another reason I don't watch the dub.

I agree with you about the lyrics to the TPCi openings, they just sound so generic and cliche as opposed to the "I wanna be the very best, that no one ever was" theme that was dominant in the 4Kids seasons, the 4Kids themes felt motivational, they were often power-ballads that gave a feeling of determination, a message to the viewers to never give up.

The TPCi songs, on the other hand, make me think less of that and more of this:
[video=youtube_share;ovcUgFxV_GQ]http://youtu.be/ovcUgFxV_GQ[/video]
 
The 30 seconds really is part of the problem. There's only so much you can put in something like that and still try to make it sound good. I like some of TPCI's themes, like: Battle Frontier's, Diamond and Pearl's, and Black and White's. Even "We Will Be Heroes" wasn't too generic." But Rival Desinies' theme and Adventues in Unova's? Now we're just getting repetitive. Which leads me to...

The song itself. I'm personally tired of all these friendship songs. Most of them aren't bad, but by no means are they as good as 4-kids openings, which isn't really fair considering they had more than 30 seconds to work with. But at least the premise of the show was kept: trying to become the best. Each and every song does not need to be about the same thing, which is a problem TPCI is having.
 
What's bugs me is if they are using a 30 minute slot in both countries.
Why Japanese episodes last 24:50 while English episodes last 21:10? It's interesting to know that TV Tokyo has less commercials than CN US.

It's because the United States is a heavily consumerist nation as opposed to Japan, so it's only obvious that 3 minutes are chopped off for more commercials so people can buy more things for their kids.
 
I would like to believe that the openings are 30 seconds long because of a mandate imposed by the network, and not because of TPCi's decision to make their openings shorter. The company has written lyrics for their songs that would last three to four minutes; a 60 to 90-second opening shouldn't be a problem for them. Considering that the openings for One Piece and Soul Eater had been edited for a 20-second broadcast once they started to air on Adult Swim, even though many shows dubbed by FUNimation aired their openings in full on the FUNimation Channel, the shorter openings for Pokemon seem to be CN-related.

And many of the Cartoon Network original programming have very short openings as well (i.e. Regular Show).
 
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Problems with the Dub Themes

Though these are just opinions, I would like to tell the problems of the theme songs of the dub anime.

1. TOO SHORT!
The Opening theme is often edited to make it 30 seconds long, due to rules from CN....
What they could have done is to keep the opening animation, and created a new song using just that (and probably move to another broadcaster), for example, like "One Piece". Instead, they use clips from the opening animation, or use clips from episodes.

2. LYRICS ARE HORRIBLE!
While I agree that the Pokemon Theme from Season 1 is the most awesome thing my ears ever listened to, Why are the lyrics the same? Why all about friendship? They should change that too.

3. NO ENDING THEME!
This is the part I really don't understand. Why the ending themes use music from the opening theme? Again, just like the opening theme, they could just use the entire ending animation and make new music.

Again, these are just opinions, but really, by the time Pokemon XY is dubbed over here, they should do this...

NOTE: I have just found out that China and Korea has used the Opening and Ending themes! I wonder why?
 
Re: Problems with the Dub Themes

I wonder if they could make longer intros if they moved to Nickelodeon, Disney or if it's possible make their own TV network. I don't think that possible though (making their own tv network)
 
We currently already have a thread discussing the TCPi intros, so merging this one with that.
 
3. NO ENDING THEME!
This is the part I really don't understand. Why the ending themes use music from the opening theme? Again, just like the opening theme, they could just use the entire ending animation and make new music.

Problem is, the only way to hear the ending is generally to wait for the DVD or view the episode on demand (in other words, via the "On Demand" section of your cable/satellite provider, or via the Cartoon Network App). If they create additional music, they're probably better off showing it off on the Pokemon website/YouTube channel as an AMV.
 
Less song time+same or shortened episode length=more commercials=moar $$$ for the network.
 
You know, I must say 4Kids had a better music department than TPCi has had over the years as far as the dub goes. That's one of the reasons why I prefer their dub to TPCi's. The TPCi intros just...lack any genuine emotion and feeling. It's just the same old "friendship and follow your heart because it's okay to lose, because you're a winner in my book cutie" feeling and it's gotten so old and repetitive. I mean, I'm sure it's nice to exude that feeling once in a while, but nearly every intro and it just diminishes the intent of the message.

I don't know if people have noticed this, but what applies to the intros also really applies to the dub-composed background music both dubs have used, too. TPCi keeps about 10-20% more (which is pretty marginal but nice) of the JPN score, but their dub-only BGM is simply...terrible. I mean, it feels lifeless and just plain bland half the time.

Compare TPCi's movie music and 4Kids' movie music: it's clear which company had the better music department in my book. I actually doubt TPCi would do better intros than 4Kids without the 30 second restriction, but I DO think they would do much better without that restriction CN imposes on them.

I know they messed up some other dubs (*coughs* OP *coughs*), but I've simply got to praise 4Kids when they did something right. The Pokemon dub-composed intros and music, they did quite well. I would even go as far as to say it's some of the best dub BGM I've heard in an English dub before. It gave off a very adventure-esque feeling, and as super repetitive as it was, the score was really nice to listen to. I mean, it's NO Shinji Miyazaki epic orchestrated BGM, but it was really nice for what it was. :)

Come to think of it, the fact that TAJ recycled some of the old 4Kids dub BGM is probably the only thing, besides avoiding the abuse of the "let's go" command, I prefer about the PUSA/TAJ dub over the TPCi/DuArt dub.
 
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I think there isn't much "energy" in the music to get you pumped up. I don't mind at all whether the opening is 30 seconds or not, but before BW, I would watch through the whole opening as opposed to now; I can't even watch through a 30-second intro. It just doesn't get me excited anymore.
 
Not a fan of the TPCI openings and looking back, ironically for me the battle frontier one is actually to me the only listenable one.
 
Not a fan of the TPCI openings and looking back, ironically for me the battle frontier one is actually to me the only listenable one.

There are only three openings I can listen to and like as much as the 4Kids ones, those being 9 (Battle Frontier), 12 (Galactic Battles), and 16 (It's Always You and Me). The rest...mostly yuck.

10 is just beyond godawful, though: no tune, no rhythm...essentially just some guy trying to be a wannabe rapper, by being hip with a bunch of gangsta rap, because we cool dawg, ya dig? The guy even broke the fourth wall in that intro...just freaking terrible. I could come up with better than that as an intro...-_-.

I think there isn't much "energy" in the music to get you pumped up. I don't mind at all whether the opening is 30 seconds or not, but before BW, I would watch through the whole opening as opposed to now; I can't even watch through a 30-second intro. It just doesn't get me excited anymore.

I actually much prefer the BW dub's intros to all of DP's. DP just had some of the most awful openings in the dub. Sure, we had the awesome 12 and the decent 11, but we also had the godawful 10 and mediocre 13. XD.
 
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If I'm going to be honest the only TPCi songs I truly liked was We Will Be Heroes, Battle Cry - (Stand Up!), We Will Carry On!, and I guess the XY version of the Pokemon theme if that counts. I don't really watch new dub episodes hardly ever anymore partly because I've adapted to watching the Japanese version now and it in general just seems more appealing to me personally. I like it when an opening song makes me feel pumped to watch an episode, and I just don't get that vibe anymore with the English songs, of course music is one of the most subjective things ever, so I won't fault anyone if they like the dub songs, they're just not everyone's cup of tea.
 
I still get a kick out of Dub theme songs even now these days. The S20 op is nice and upbeat, S21 is more atmospheric than anything else and S22's is even more upbeat and a pleasure to listen to. Hopefully S23 continues to impress.
 
Please note: The thread is from 4 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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