Good Things about the 2003 series dub?

[Prettywitchiusaka]

April
Actually, it's funny you mention that. Mark Handler (the man being interviewed) was actually interviewed recently for an anime podcast, in which he explained that not only does he have great respect for the character, but he too didn't care for the regulations he was forced to inflict upon the Japanese writing staff. That being said, most of the edits made to the series were not his fault. His job was to cut as little as possible, and after he handed the episodes to them, Sony and Warner Brothers made the edits that are present in the dub.

I'm not trying to be mean or anything April. It's just now that I know that, I feel the ned to come to Mr. Handler's defence, since it wasn't his fault.

Little Brown Fox
Oh, I know. The cropped imagery is actually another one of my pet-peeves with the dub. Sometimes, it looks okay. But other times, it's REALLY noticeable. Heck, I can understand why they had to crop it for tv sake. But why not leave the wide screen format for the dvdd? Seriously, were they just THAT lazy?

[AprilSeven]

Thanks for sharing that information about Mark Handler - do you remember where you saw the podcast? Was it The Right Stuf? And I don't blame him, he was just carrying out his job. My guess is when the episodes reached Sony/Warner Bros. they had their legal dept. review everything and removed content they felt "could" create controversy.

I find that extremely troubling from this aspect, though - last night I was channel surfing and stopped on WNEW (yes, Astro's original channel in New York City) - I saw a cartoon with people acting out a Christmas manger scene, and stopped to watch. Well, it was one of their "adult" cartoons - and I was stunned when they started joking about Mary being a "blow up doll" -

I immediately changed the channel and wondered how THAT could be acceptable . . . but an emotional father/son conflict is "condemned." It's very troubling to me.

And, when putting together the DVD set, I'm guessing they didn't bother with things like screen size or sub/dub options because they didn't feel the market would not warrant the extra work on their part (from what I understand, the entire series never completely aired in the US which would have been the major market.)

We can only hope that someday we'll be able to own "the whole thing."

[Little Brown Fox]

Prettywitch:
It's cropped on Netflix, too.

April:
Eh, being agnostic and not very religious, myself, I'm fairly desensitized to that sort of irreverance. However, you DO make a good point. But I have to ask; was it an adult cartoon, like Family Guy or South Park and the like? Because that's apparently acceptable, in the realm of "grown-up" humor (although how "grown-up" is it really, when they're joking about a blow-up doll?).

[Prettywitchiusaka]

April;

Sure, here's the link;

http://www.awopodcast.com/2006/10/anime-world-order-show-37-interview.html

It's actually quite an intersting interview in full, since it has Handler talking about his earlier days on Voltron, for his better known dub work like Cowboy Bebop and FLCL. That alone, deserves forgiveness.

AS for your being upset over what was cut, I understand your frustration. I think part of the problem is that cartoon makers have to abide by FCC regulations, that basically tell them you can't have consequences in a kids show. This is ridiculous when you consider the fact that children at lest go through one death in the family in their life, and it's certainly made no better by the fact that we usually have consequence-less violence in a lot of shows aimed at kids, that have no real lesson attached to them.

Now, I'm not saying that every cartoon show needs to be some deep, brooding storyline with death and important life lessons learned. Heck, many of my favourites cartoons (like Spongebob) are purely escapist entertainment, but well written escapist entertainment (most of the time). However, if you're importing a kids anime, or making a cartoon like Avatar, shouldn't you at lest trust that the people in the driver's seat know what they're doing? I guess not. Because if that were the case, stuff like this wouldn't keep happening.

And considering how dark the 03 could be, how is it possible that a child death is somehow the thing that gets frowned upon. The series deals with complex issues like robotic evolution, nature vs. nurture, what it means to be human, and the age old question of whether or not two intelligent species can co-exist without killing each other, and somehow an implied child death is not allowed to be shown? How does that work?

As for your comments regarding what's acceptable in "adult" cartoons, I have a bit more leniency when it comes to that. You see, I have no problem with offensive humour when it's done right. The whole point of offensive humour is to get an unexpected laugh, or to sometimes comment on something in a more disturbing manner. Hence why I have no problem with South Park, or either The Simpsons or Futurama poking fun at certain ideas or concepts in a more offensive fashion; usually, there's a point to it.

However, there is a difference between having a point, and just being mean-spirited. Hence, why I don't watch Family Guy anymore. As for why it's considered acceptable? Well, I guess people feel that we need to shelter kids from certain types of humour that are only allowed to be shown to adults. But the way that some of these jokes come off, you'd swear they were written by a fifth grader (and not a bright one either). At least that's my take on it.

Brown Fox;

Seriously? Well, I shouldn't be too surprised that the episodes are cropped even on Netflix.

[Little Brown Fox]

That's how I watched them. And it really shows in certain instances, like if something (or someone) is in the foreground, but the focus is on the scene at large.

Also, I thought that Candi Milo did Zoran's voice? She sounds almost exactly like Astro... (to the point, sometimes, where they sound almost too much alike)

[Prettywitchiusaka]

I know what you mean. The ones I tended to notice the most were scenes where someone was clearly having a conversation with another party member, and half of said party member's face is cut off.

Actually, Zoran was voiced by Susan Blu, who any Transformers fans here should recognize as the voice of Arcee. Candi Milo did play other character in the series, but they were mostly older background extras or the like.

[GreenDarthVader]

Thanks for sharing that information about Mark Handler - do you remember where you saw the podcast? Was it The Right Stuf? And I don't blame him, he was just carrying out his job. My guess is when the episodes reached Sony/Warner Bros. they had their legal dept. review everything and removed content they felt "could" create controversy.

I find that extremely troubling from this aspect, though - last night I was channel surfing and stopped on WNEW (yes, Astro's original channel in New York City) - I saw a cartoon with people acting out a Christmas manger scene, and stopped to watch. Well, it was one of their "adult" cartoons - and I was stunned when they started joking about Mary being a "blow up doll" -

I immediately changed the channel and wondered how THAT could be acceptable . . . but an emotional father/son conflict is "condemned." It's very troubling to me.

And, when putting together the DVD set, I'm guessing they didn't bother with things like screen size or sub/dub options because they didn't feel the market would not warrant the extra work on their part (from what I understand, the entire series never completely aired in the US which would have been the major market.)

We can only hope that someday we'll be able to own "the whole thing."

Yeah, I made the exact same impression as you when I saw that behind the scenes DVD until I heard the interview.

[Prettywitchiusaka]

[QUOTE=AprilSeven;204895]Thanks for sharing that information about Mark Handler - do you remember where you saw the podcast? Was it The Right Stuf? And I don't blame him, he was just carrying out his job. My guess is when the episodes reached Sony/Warner Bros. they had their legal dept. review everything and removed content they felt "could" create controversy.

I find that extremely troubling from this aspect, though - last night I was channel surfing and stopped on WNEW (yes, Astro's original channel in New York City) - I saw a cartoon with people acting out a Christmas manger scene, and stopped to watch. Well, it was one of their "adult" cartoons - and I was stunned when they started joking about Mary being a "blow up doll" -

I immediately changed the channel and wondered how THAT could be acceptable . . . but an emotional father/son conflict is "condemned." It's very troubling to me.

And, when putting together the DVD set, I'm guessing they didn't bother with things like screen size or sub/dub options because they didn't feel the market would not warrant the extra work on their part (from what I understand, the entire series never completely aired in the US which would have been the major market.)

We can only hope that someday we'll be able to own "the whole thing."

Yeah, I made the exact same impression as you when I saw that behind the scenes DVD until I heard the interview. [/QUOTE]

You know what I find ironic about the portions of the interview shown on the American release? The Japanese version of this same segment, actually shows Handler to be a bit more competent, and give examples of cutting as little as possible in an attempt to match the original spirit of Astro Boy.

For example, he talks at one point about how the American producers didn't want Astro being shown in school all that much. The Japanese writing staff however, had an issue with that, so Handler came up with a compromise; let's make the school more futuristic.

Heck, that version even ends with him talking about how passionate everyone working on the project. Showing that he both appreciates, as well as understands the value of hard work.

Why they chose to leave that out of the American version of the segment is beyond me.

[Crazy_Red]

Astroboy’s 2003 dub was sort of a product of this time. A lot of dubs that KidsWB aired at that time had edited the scripts or cut scenes according to what they thought western audiences would want. For example, the english dub of Cardcaptor Sakura had more edits than 2003 Astro Boy. When KidsWB first broadcast Cardcaptors, they showed the 8th episode first since they wanted to introduce Syaoran rather than focus on Sakura’s daily life.

Mark Handler should be credited for doing the voice casting for the first trailer for the 2003 series. Astro Boy sounded younger and did not have the same kind “tough guy attitude” he had in the final version of the English dub.

[Prettywitchiusaka]

Astroboy’s 2003 dub was sort of a product of this time. A lot of dubs that KidsWB aired at that time had edited the scripts or cut scenes according to what they thought western audiences would want. For example, the english dub of Cardcaptor Sakura had more edits than 2003 Astro Boy. When KidsWB first broadcast Cardcaptors, they showed the 8th episode first since they wanted to introduce Syaoran rather than focus on Sakura’s daily life.

Mark Handler should be credited for doing the voice casting for the first trailer for the 2003 series. Astro Boy sounded younger and did not have the same kind “tough guy attitude” he had in the final version of the English dub.

Actually, now that you mention it, I've always wanted to know who voiced Astro in that initial trailer. I've always thought it was Mona Marshall, but I've never been 100% certain.