Naruto

[Music] Stance Punks - No Boy No Cry

So, Cartoon Network is debutting Naruto in its Toonami block tomorrow night, and despite its dubbed nature, I'm looking forward to it. From the looks of things, they're treating the show pretty well. Viz even has a new website up with info and a trailer. Naruto's voice will take some getting used to, but some of the others seem good. It's weird imagining that Naruto is going to be voiced by Maile Flanagan, a 40 some-odd year-old woman with poofy hair who looks like she would be more at home slingin' salsbury steak and whackin' kids for sassing her in a school cafeteria. It's also kind of a shame that Steven Blum (voice of Spike from Cowboy Bebop and Mugen from Samurai Champloo) didn't get the role of Kakashi, as he probably would've been great for it. He'll make a good Zabuza though. Here's a clip from the dubbed version of the first episode that will air tomorrow night. Probably not gonna be home when it airs, but that's what a VCR is for. Gotta hook it up again and reset everything on it, but oh well, shit happens. If only I could afford a TiVO...mmmm, life would be good.

As for the show itself, they seem to be sticking very close to the series as is. The rankings of the ninjas remain as they were (genin, chuunin, jounin, Hokage), "jutsus" are still called "jutsus" (the names of the jutsus have been translated pretty faithfully, too), the music is unchanged and so on. As far as I can tell, they toned down some of the blood for TV, but that's about it. Rumor has it that the show will appear uncensored on the DVDs, though that's not to say that there's a lot to censor anyway.

Hell, the way I figure, it couldn't be any worse than the travesty that is 4Kid's dubbing of One Piece. Honestly, the dub is bad enough that I can't stand to watch it. It's a crime again humanity, since they are ripping the guts out of a really good series. And the editing....damn. We're not talking about editing out some blood here and there. We're talking sweeping and sometimes unnecessary changes. For starters, the music is insufferable now. The soundtrack used to be composed of orchestral music. The end of the battle between Luffy and Crocodile is punctuated by the 4th movement of Dvorak's "New World Symphony." Now, it's shitty hip-hop. It's taken all of my power not to ram a pencil in my ear when I hear the opening theme. I could enumerate all of the other elements that have been changed, but it's been done in more detail elsewhere.

Some of the changes listed in there are just fucking stupid. The Marines become the Navy. Text is removed in various completely useless places (Usopp's dad no longer has his name on his headband, the word "Anchor" is removed from a young Luffy's shirt, the word "Milk" was taken off of a cup). The "Navy" carry "Super Soakers," not rifles. No smoking (that should be interesting to see what they do when Captain Smoker is introduced). And this isn't even to mention all of the stuff they've just out and out removed. I know that 4Kids is a company that aims its programming at young children (most likely 8 and under), but One Piece is a show aimed at a more 'tween-oriented set of 10 to 15 year olds or so. (I'm basing this on the fact that One Piece appears every week in Shounen Jump, a manga magazine that caters to young teenagers, and is also the home of Naruto, Bleach and Dragonball.)

It really makes you wonder: if they had to do that much editing and cutting and rewriting, did they ever ask themselves that maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't be dubbing this show? If they're having to do that much work to make the show suitable for their audience, is that show really appropriate for their audience in the first place? I dunno. I really wish someone else had picked up the show and could've done it justice. Oh well, too late now.

Anyhow, to wrap up, the dub of One Piece is crap, but the dub of Naruto looks to have some definite promise. And I'm spent. Didn't really expect to ramble this much, but oh well, whaddayagunnado.