"Alittleacorn" wrote:The English 2003 anime started out okay for me, but after a few episodes rehearing the same voice actors began to irritate me. Not to say they were bad (I thought Astro’s voice was done very well), but to hear the same voices for a bunch of the characters ruined the English dub! An example, the one who did Kari in Digimon, did one of Astro’s friend, all the little girls and that teddy bear too. I found it difficult to enjoy the episodes when thoughts such as ‘I’ve heard you before, you don’t sound any different’ distracted me.
For censorship, it’s not uncommon for scenes to get removed for violence and other suggestive scenes in an anime, brought over to America from Japan…BUT TO CENSOR SCENES OF A KID PLAYING WITH TOYS!? A JOKE! I was shocked to see what adorable scenes were removed when I viewed some of the Japanese version, such as:
-Astro peering at a flower with a ladybird on it and watching it fly away
-Astro lying on his stomach observing suckling puppies with their mother dog
-Astro gets splashed by Uran at a water fountain and falling in
-Astro teaching a girl to use the cross like toy with the floating balls
Omg, Such cute scenes are not suitable for children! It might traumatise them, they might get bad ideas! Start drinking, use drugs and play Grand Theft Auto all day! WE MUST PROTECT THE INNOCENT MINDS OF CHILDREN FROM HORRIFYING IMAGES OF A NAÏVE ASTRO BOY WITH CUTE FLUFFY ANIMALS!!!
…-_-
Sorry, I needed to let off some steam there @_@
Anyways, it is obvious to see the Engish version was toned down for a younger audience (such as shots of Astro brutally hit by an attack, Tomoe’s death, Tenma shutting Astro down and so on) the most noticeable I’ve seen so far is the episode with Denku (The robot that can turn invisible)
First Denku is a boy not a girl
In the English episode Denku has an electric type device strapped around his waist that Astro states will disrupt the city’s power and ‘could’ be the end of them.
In the Japanese version, it is a BOMB. The true plot is Astro and co are searching desperately for Denku before he blows up. Scenes of Denku running from the cops firing at him were censored. You can notice one of these changes when Astro flies to save Denku. As he picks him up, there’s an explosion behind them, caused by the cops shooting. Even the explosion in the sky was edited to blue for the English dub to give off the impression of an electrical explosion, but when Astro and Denku are seen descending the sky is orange again.
Along with a clip of Denku’s arm getting shoot (explaining the tear on his sleeve) Another clip they removed was of Denku sitting under a bridge with only a few minutes left on the timer. Denku, aware of his situation, is staring lifeless when a blast from a firework startles him, making you believe for a second that the bomb has gone off.
Though they did a good job concealing plots such of this, I hate the fact they’ve chopped off a really good anime and turned it into an out of date tuna sandwich! Cute scenes or violent, they destroyed the English dub of Astro Boy by trying to make it for 5 year olds than having it true to what it should be for all ages.
So to sum up I prefer the Japanese version more to the English. The voice acting, music and the story is far more serious and more intense than the English version can stand up to.
And if you want to blame somebody for ruining it…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmyPdrKdIOQ
Blame that Marc in this video who orders the poor group around! And probably ordered them to remove the butt machine guns too! (They could’ve at least done it like a one off joke like in the movie!)
I have no problem with voice actors having voiced many different characters; in fact, I find it amusing to note the similarities, & look up the actors to see if both were from the same one.
I believe the cute scenes were cut for 1 of 2 reasons (I probably already said this, though ):
- Simply to trim it so as to allow for more commercials
- To make it more appealing to little boys, who hate being cute.
About the Eternal Boy episode: It was not even in the Korean DVD set.
I am currently watching both the J & E versions of the B&W series, the latter of which also removed references to death. See my review of Memory Day for an example. I will defer from repeating the details here, so please read my review.
I am also currently reading Fred Patten's book, Watching Anime, Reading Manga, in which he makes numerous references to highly rated programs that were cut to pieces and doomed to failure by being shown in "the kiddy time-slot ghetto" (298).
BTW, welcome to the forums, Alittleacorn.