4kids General Discussion Thread

[CyberCubed]

The fact that 4kids had to censor pokemon of all things, really proves they have no idea what kids should be allowed to see. In the first episode they cut out the scene of Misty slapping Ash after she fishes him out of the river (which is why her hand is lifted up), because apparently a girl slapping a boy is bad according to them.

 

[Light Lucario]

The fact that 4kids had to censor pokemon of all things, really proves they have no idea what kids should be allowed to see. In the first episode they cut out the scene of Misty slapping Ash after she fishes him out of the river (which is why her hand is lifted up), because apparently a girl slapping a boy is bad according to them.

Honestly, that isn't really one of their worst edits or even their only case of removing a slap. I'm almost positive that they edited other slaps in Pokemon and/or their other dubs, so I can believe something like a non-comedic slap would be an issue for the networks. I believe stuff like that would be more of an issue with the networks than all of the Japanese writings and culture references at least.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

That is fairly typical. Most direct hits seemed to be removed on Saturday mornings. I remember Yu-Gi-Oh had awkward cuts where Tristan would punch Joey and they would cut away so that it was just implied that was why Joey was on the ground.

It seemed like some blows slipped through on Ultimate Muscle, maybe on the pretense that they weren’t really trying to hurt each other due to being wrestlers. At one point a character is killed and the dub passes it off as a “broken knee” to try to reduce the stakes and avoid death references. There was eventually a WWE show that aired on Saturday mornings on Vortexx.

 

[CyberCubed]

What's funny is there's no consistency. In the Squirtle Squad episode, all the townspeople in the shop point guns and shotguns at Ash, and Ash's dub line is even, "I don't need a new gun." 4kids not only left the guns in, but even gave Ash a line that drew attention to it. In later eps they'd digitally remove or ban eps that featured realistic looking guns.

Later on in the ep when the Squirtle Squad have Misty tied up, in the Japanese version they were saying they were going to throw Misty off a cliff (which is why the dub even keeps the scene of Misty falling into a cavern), but they changed the dialogue to saying the Squirtle's were going to dye Misty's hair purple. So apparently the Squirtle's death threat to Misty was removed for some weird "purple hair color" threat, even though the Squirtles were joking at the end of it.

Honestly probably the reason the Japanese writers toned down the show in Johto was because of all these 4kids complaints. Everyone noticed the animes writing got more "bland" or "sanitized" after the first two seasons, and I think it's because once Pokemon became an overseas hit, the anime couldn't be written for Japanese audiences only anymore. It's also the same reason Misty has a lot of sexualized jokes in the first season, like being in the hot springs or the Kangaskhan Kid saying he wanted to nurse on Misty's breasts. 4kids changed his line to, "You people, or Pokemon?" which is admittedly a funnier line.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

It is possible they got feedback from parents complaining about guns in the Squirtle Squad episode and decided to remove guns from later episodes. Or even ban episodes with guns outright; like the Dratini episode. Don’t forget the Columbine massacre also happened in 1999. The ensuing crackdown on violence in media, as well as the move to Kids WB and accompanying extra level of censors to go through, ensured guns would not be present in the dub from fairly early on.

As for the other issues you mentioned, don’t forget there is a season in between Kanto and Johto. The Orange Islands episodes have probably the most sexualized designs out of any arc. Some shots had to be re-edited in reruns by 4Kids because characters like Prima (Lorelei’s inexplicable 4Kids name change…) and Professor Ivy were drawn with giant breasts. Oddly this is the same time they were starting to take the western market into consideration, by replacing Brock with Tracey. Maybe they looked at American comic books from the 1990s and thought American boys love girls with exaggerated anatomy in swimsuits. They can’t have been coordinating that closely with 4Kids on this choice though, because 4Kids had already skipped the Beauty and the Beach episode due to the excessive fanservice, and wouldn’t get to dubbing it until the middle of the Orange Islands season. 4Kids also likely would have told them to keep Brock and drop Jynx, but Jynx was still used in the Japanese version as late as the Ice Cave episode in Johto.

 

[Light Lucario]

What's funny is there's no consistency. In the Squirtle Squad episode, all the townspeople in the shop point guns and shotguns at Ash, and Ash's dub line is even, "I don't need a new gun." 4kids not only left the guns in, but even gave Ash a line that drew attention to it. In later eps they'd digitally remove or ban eps that featured realistic looking guns.

Later on in the ep when the Squirtle Squad have Misty tied up, in the Japanese version they were saying they were going to throw Misty off a cliff (which is why the dub even keeps the scene of Misty falling into a cavern), but they changed the dialogue to saying the Squirtle's were going to dye Misty's hair purple. So apparently the Squirtle's death threat to Misty was removed for some weird "purple hair color" threat, even though the Squirtles were joking at the end of it.

4Kids edits were always rather inconsistent. When Brock appeared in AG, they called riceballs sandwiches and then just a couple of episodes later when Jessie caught Serviper, they finally called them riceballs. Not to mention they kept making up different names for riceballs throughout the original series.

In the case of the Squirtle Squad episode, it was probably deemed relatively fine for them to keep the scene with the townspeople aiming guns since it was relatively brief. The Dratini episode had more prominent use of guns, which would have been much harder to work around them. I can't really blame them for not wanting to feature guns in their dubs, but there must have been a better solution than their infamous finger guns edit during Yu-Gi-Oh! DM.

Honestly probably the reason the Japanese writers toned down the show in Johto was because of all these 4kids complaints. Everyone noticed the animes writing got more "bland" or "sanitized" after the first two seasons, and I think it's because once Pokemon became an overseas hit, the anime couldn't be written for Japanese audiences only anymore. It's also the same reason Misty has a lot of sexualized jokes in the first season, like being in the hot springs or the Kangaskhan Kid saying he wanted to nurse on Misty's breasts. 4kids changed his line to, "You people, or Pokemon?" which is admittedly a funnier line.

I still really doubt that the Japanese writers were toning down the show due to 4Kids. I think factoring in the global audience and trying to better match the world of the video games would have been much bigger factors in regards to the anime's change in humor and references to Japanese culture. I don't think that 4Kids themselves would really have that much influence over the Japanese version. That certainly wasn't the case for any of their other dubs. The Yu-Gi-Oh! spin-offs in particular were still more dark and serious than 4Kids would have wanted them to be.

 

[Bluebaron]

Honestly, that isn't really one of their worst edits or even their only case of removing a slap. I'm almost positive that they edited other slaps in Pokemon and/or their other dubs, so I can believe something like a non-comedic slap would be an issue for the networks. I believe stuff like that would be more of an issue with the networks than all of the Japanese writings and culture references at least.

Its funny cause 4kids kept Anna slapping Hao... Errrr "Zeke" in their Shaman King dub but is that cause it's ok for good character slapping a villain? Then again in their F-Zero GP Legend, they removed all the items Jody Summer slapped Rick Wheeler, is that cause they are both good characters that needed to be shown in a positive light?

 

[The Overlord]

I think 4Kids wouldn't have made it in the streaming era. I think shonen anime is more violent because everything is more violent. Western animation is more violent than in the 90s or the 2000s.

Like if X-Men 97 was an anime, what it count as? What would Arcane count as? Heck, kids shows like Amphibia a character losing a hand and a pre-teen girl getting stabbed by a sword.

Anyone can go to YouTube and watch episodes of Helluva Boss whenever they want. Streaming services has R-rated animated content like Invincible or Castlevania?

It was also weird that for the all censorship 4Kids did to it's anime titles, they had a lot of disturbing content in their TMNT cartoon series.

 

[CyberCubed]

Animation is more geared toward adults now due to online streaming. Back in the 90's censors were so hard on cartoons it's almost absurd that even action cartoons could barely let the heroes punch the villains in the face.

Nowadays shows are so violent it makes me wonder what kids are even watching these days.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

There are ratings videos posted on YouTube today.
Four similar videos are on this channel from February and March 2003. My takeaways:
8 am shows are struggling, across networks. Kids are waking up still so it isn’t a good slot. 4Kids shows on Kids WB like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon are dominant. Only SpongeBob on Nick competed with Kids WB anime ratings. Nick on CBS was doing worse than Fox Box, but better than Discovery Kids. The highest rated shows on Fox Box are Turtles, Kirby, Fighting Foodons, and Ultimate Muscle. The lowest rated shows on Fox Box are Stargate Infinity (sometimes it got as low as 0.5) and Ultraman Tiga. After Tiga is replaced by Pirate Islands, it has a strong debut but quickly fell off. This became a pattern with 11:30 am on Fox Box being used for many random live action shows including WMAC Masters and the Menu.

 

[Bluebaron]

I still mad 4kids didnt burn off those Ultraman tiga dub episodes.

 

[KeldeoKitty]

I’m probably the biggest 4Kids fanboy, I enjoy most of their shows for what they are and I’m a big fan of the voice actors but I’ll admit they were mismanaged as an overall licensing company. I actually grew up on 4Kids and wasn’t aware of how infamous they were until after they went bankrupt, and though some of their productions were fair, critics do have valid points on certain productions like One Piece.

Prior to Pokémon 4Kids was mainly a licensing, marketing agent for bigger companies like Nintendo and haven’t yet done a major TV production. I’m sure Nintendo gave Pokémon to 4Kids because they could produce a dub for cheap. As I deduce because Pokémon and later Yu-Gi-Oh! became big hits they thought they could no wrong as licensing other anime and putting them on network TV. I get that the anime would have to be edited on the networks they aired but unlike Viz or Funimation, 4Kids made the dubs edited in mind rather than doing a straight dub and only edit the TV version, and the uncut redubs they briefly attempted put too much work on them.

I thought 4Kids model was effective for Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sonic X, and Kirby because they were based on popular games that appealed to kids. TMNT and Ultimate Muscle also worked because they were toyetic. F-Zero: GP Legend might have worked but its game series was more niche. And though Pokémon clones like Dinosaur King did okay they could never reach Pokémon. It was when they got into the more creator-driven manga based anime geared to teens One Piece and Tokyo Mew Mew that was 4Kids wrongdoing. 4Kids could’ve got any teen/adult appropriate anime and get backlash but One Piece hurt in particular because it’s as big if not bigger than Dragon Ball. Of course in just a few years it would be resigned by Funimation but the long term side effect is that the dub is years further behind than if Funimation licensed it from the start.

As for the Americanization, 4Kids claimed it was to make the anime more internationally appealing. I’m not that concerned of anime having a lot of Japanese references however what baffles me is that TMNT an American cartoon is the one 4Kids show that is allowed to be openly Japanese. One of the factors that disappoint me more though which isn’t exclusive to 4Kids is the music replacement because different BGM drastically changes the tone of a show for me.

Without Pokémon, 4Kids couldn’t really exist now doing mainly anime adaptations because Pokémon clones can never reach the popularity of Pokémon, Many notable anime now are too objectionable in content, while most kid-friendly shows like Doraemon and Chibi Maruko-Chan are too ethnically Japanese and would undergo Americanization. That and plot heavy cartoons have hard time existing on TV in the US nowadays as more kids prefer shorter form animation. Looking at the licenses from Al Khan’s Kidtagious it’s mainly comprised of Chinese/Korean cartoons aimed at preschoolers and very little kids, which would be a fitting business model for 4Kids if they were to continue.

 

[The Overlord]

I have listening to the 4Kids Flashback podcast and it's interesting. Most of the voice actors admit 4Kids made some mistakes, but state they had a fun time working there and that their time at 4 Kids trained them to be better voice actors.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

I think the reason they put occasional Japanese text in TMNT was because any show involving ninjas is Japanese related to some capacity. I don’t think the turtles ever actually went to Japan but Japan may have been briefly shown in Splinter’s origin.

Also, 4Kids seemed more invested in TMNT being a faithful adaptation than their anime. A number of the people on 4Kids flashback said they were fans of TMNT growing up, either the cartoon or comics. Norman Grossfeld heard they were making a pilot for Kids WB with April and Casey in high school. Something along the lines of Static Shock or X-Men Evolution, but with turtles too. He didn’t like the idea and proposed to Mirage that Fox Box could air a closer adaptation of the Mirage comics he loved. Surprisingly, Fox Box ends up making a very awesome version of the Turtles.

Of course, some aspects of the comic still had to be changed involving the more graphic violence and elements of the April/Casey romance. The show still went further than I expected. Fox allowed them to do the scene where Shredder’s head is severed, because he reattached it by the end of the episode. Later censors began to object to the body horror of Insane in the Membrane. These problems with the censors also led to them scrapping a fifth season episode involving Garbageman and Hun being conjoined twins. The later TMNT seasons like Fast Forward seemed to try to move away from the violent reputation of the first five seasons. Veronica Taylor said she didn’t let her daughter watch the show because it was too scary.

 

[aegisrawks]

Oh god TMNT 2003. Their best show. But extremely intense and scary.

Also I am astounded an 4kids executive liked the original comics and got to work on a faithful version! I thought it would be the usual "4kids sees a successful franchise and wanted in on that money."

The ratings were great too and it was a worthwhile venture.

To bring this back to Anime, I think there were people who loved Mew Mew Power, especially in the UK. A fan from the UK said that in 2010 UK kids knew Mew Mew Power more than they did Sailor Moon.

 

[CyberCubed]

Peter Laird, the co-creator of TMNT, worked on the 2003 series and oversaw the scripts and could approve or veto story directions or ideas, that's why it turned out as good as it did. And yes the 2003 cartoon had a lot of violence, Japanese text and origins, etc...everything 4kids erased in their own dubs.

Getting back to Pokemon, you guys also have to remember when Pokemon first came out nobody had any idea how long it would last. Back then there was a belief Pokemon was a "fad" and would die out in 2-3 years. It's the same reason when the show started nobody could have predicted Ash would be around for 25 years, if you told someone that back in 1998 they'd laugh because of how absurd it sounds.

 

[Shiloh Otter]

To bring this back to Anime, I think there were people who loved Mew Mew Power, especially in the UK. A fan from the UK said that in 2010 UK kids knew Mew Mew Power more than they did Sailor Moon.

I'm sure there were some who did love it. I never saw the appeal myself. But I did love their other attempt at a shoujo series Magical DoReMi. And still do, really.

Something I learned about Doremi is that "Magical Doremi" was not just what it was called in the USA, but was Toei's name for it internationally in general. Also, 4Kids wasn't the only ones to change the character names. Toei actually gave English names for other countries to use, but 4Kids wanted to do the do-re-mi pun with the main characters, so they used their own instead.

 

[Light Lucario]

Getting back to Pokemon, you guys also have to remember when Pokemon first came out nobody had any idea how long it would last. Back then there was a belief Pokemon was a "fad" and would die out in 2-3 years. It's the same reason when the show started nobody could have predicted Ash would be around for 25 years, if you told someone that back in 1998 they'd laugh because of how absurd it sounds.

Even the Japanese writers and creative team didn't know how long it was going to last. I believe that the series was originally going to be just covering the Kanto arc of the original series, but it was a massive hit both in and out of Japan, so they kept it going with multiple different series. It's basically one of the main pillars of the franchise. No one was expecting Pokemon to become a massive franchise like it is now.

 

[CyberCubed]

That's actually one of the reasons Misty/Brock's characters suffered as the show went on. They were both designed to be relatively short-lived characters (the anime was going to end after Kanto and the Mewtwo movie), but then as it went on, the writers just had nothing planned for them.

Johto tried a back to basics approach removing Tracey and bringing Brock back, but as soon as you get roughly 20ish eps into Johto or so, it became obvious the writers had no real plans for either Misty or Brock. They had no "real" goals to follow, no story arcs, no rivals, very few battles, and only captured 1 pokemon each for 150 episode span. Looking back on it now, I can understand why Misty fans were so frustrated back then, the Johto saga was long enough they should have given Misty an arc that went on the whole series but she only got a handful of eps till the tail-end. And for Brock, well, the writers obviously didn't care much outside of using him as an exposition character since his role barely changed in AG/DP either aside from having more memorable pokemon teams.

In many ways the Johto saga is still the most "damaging" saga of the entire anime, not because the eps themselves were bad or anything (Johto does have a number of great episodes if you skip some of the more boring eps), but it essentially bombed the original trio and Misty in particular in the series forever. You can tell the writers placed the blame on Misty/Brock for the shows initial loss of popularity in the early 2000's, and even though Brock stayed, they pretty much sidelined them for the rest of the anime for the next 20 years.

 

[Light Lucario]

That's actually one of the reasons Misty/Brock's characters suffered as the show went on. They were both designed to be relatively short-lived characters (the anime was going to end after Kanto and the Mewtwo movie), but then as it went on, the writers just had nothing planned for them.

Even if the series had only lasted for the Kanto arc, that's still over eighty episodes. I wouldn't really consider a nearly two year long series to make them relatively short lived characters, especially when they'd still probably be pretty recognizable.

Johto tried a back to basics approach removing Tracey and bringing Brock back, but as soon as you get roughly 20ish eps into Johto or so, it became obvious the writers had no real plans for either Misty or Brock. They had no "real" goals to follow, no story arcs, no rivals, very few battles, and only captured 1 pokemon each for 150 episode span. Looking back on it now, I can understand why Misty fans were so frustrated back then, the Johto saga was long enough they should have given Misty an arc that went on the whole series but she only got a handful of eps till the tail-end. And for Brock, well, the writers obviously didn't care much outside of using him as an exposition character since his role barely changed in AG/DP either aside from having more memorable pokemon teams.

To be fair, it isn't like they had a lot going for them in either Kanto or the Orange Islands in Misty's case either. Misty got a few episodes here and there, but the original series was largely more interested in focusing on Ash and Team Rocket more so than Misty and Brock. It might have been more apparent in Johto due to its length, but I wouldn't really say that they were handled significantly better earlier in the series. Misty had a full team at one point, but most of them were bland, forgettable and barely used. So acting as if this was only an issue during the Johto saga doesn't make much sense.

In many ways the Johto saga is still the most "damaging" saga of the entire anime, not because the eps themselves were bad or anything (Johto does have a number of great episodes if you skip some of the more boring eps), but it essentially bombed the original trio and Misty in particular in the series forever. You can tell the writers placed the blame on Misty/Brock for the shows initial loss of popularity in the early 2000's, and even though Brock stayed, they pretty much sidelined them for the rest of the anime for the next 20 years.

It really isn't the most damaging saga of the anime. Aside from long time fans like you who still complain about it, I don't think that the saga is particularly infamous. I think you'll find a lot more fans complaining about BW, SM or Journeys more so than Johto these days. The notion that Johto essetially bombed the original trio is pretty ridiculous. I think you're projecting a lot about your own issues with Misty and Brock onto the writers. I certainly never felt like they blammed them for the initial loss of popularity in the early 2000's at least. The anime needed a shakeup after keeping the same main cast for as long as it did, Misty had the least justification for being there and they probably wanted to have more promotion for the then newest main series games.

Nothing about how they were treated afterwards really gives me that impression either. It's not like they avoided Misty and/or Brock while they left. They gave Misty multiple apparances in AG and their appearances in SM were clearly there to appeal to fans of the original trio too. As for Brock, I thought that he got better focused episodes in both AG and DP than he did in the original series. He was still there to provid exposition, food and running gags too, but he still had plenty of good moments and episodes, so it wasn't like the writers were avoiding him altogether. He played a major role in the Team Galatic climax for goodness shake. I'm not saying that Brock was handled perfectly, but to say that he was just sidelined for the rest of his time on the cast really does not make sense.

I also do not understnad why you keep using this 4Kids thread to make these same complaints about Pokemon. Aside from being a dub made by 4Kids, this really has nothing to do with the actual topic at hand. It just comes off as an excuse to keep making the same complaints over and over again for some strange reason.