The How Much Japanese Music Is Kept In The Dub Thread

[ARC-1300]

In my opinion, the dub of BW would pretty much be perfect if they didn't remove any of the original Japanese music. So until they realize how useless it is to remove it, I think I'll stick to the subbed version.

But the problem is, there is no legal way for us to watch Pokémon subbed. The only way for us to legally watch the original is to import the original DVDs from Japan (I currently own six of the Pikachu shorts on Japanese DVD, all of which come with either a special episode or a main series episode as an extra, apart from the latest one, which comes with the Hikari and Takeshi special episodes) but even then, they don't come with subtitles and the releases for the main series episodes are inconsistent, there are several episodes which to this day are not available on DVD, so we are unable to watch the episodes the way we were meant to see them, apart from the few that come as extras on the special DVDs.

I've been watching the episodes subbed for years via torrents. So, I guess that's illegal, but then again it's going to be really, really hard to find someone who cares... I mean, I'm pretty positive others here do the same.

I know one site (for best wishes saga anyway) that has it subbed. Need to find the link.

But yeah if it weren't for changing the bgm I could really like the dub,but oh well,its been made pretty clear how things are gonna be.

[Aestivate]

You guys are running on Borderline territory here. We won't infract for admitting to using streaming websites and torrents but once you start providing links and asking for them that's where we draw the line.

[Bugg]

That's good, because I wasn't asking for links nor was I planning on sharing any.

[ARC-1300]

And where did I say I was gonna give any links? I am well aware of the rules here,and jumping to conclusions and assuming I don't is plain rude.

Never the less I will watch my steps.

On topic,it would be nice if there was a way to have the DVD retain the original bgm,or at least bring the eyecatchers,alas there is no market for it for this series

[Dogasu]

It was a friendly reminder. No one is accusing anyone of anything.

Now let's all get back on-topic please.

[Mijumaru]

From what I heard, Ash Versus the Champion! kept 4 of 16 pieces, or 25%.

[Lord_Mewtwo]

From what I heard, Ash Versus the Champion! kept 4 of 16 pieces, or 25%.

Actually 5, so 33%.

[BladeLight52]

It feels like that the US is the only country in the world that likes to change everything that is a foreign product. To put it fairly, sometimes American cartoons have their fair share of drastic changes when they are distributed internationally (e.g. Japanese Beast Wars). 99.99% of the time however, the instrumental BGM is left intact in distributed US cartoons (Heck, even macekres japanese beast wars had the original music intact.) So why is it that North America sometimes wants to replace parts (or ALL) of the BGM whenever anime is airing on daytime television? Is TPCi that uptight about what episodes they get from Japan? Is it really that hard to be that of the same quality as the japanese version? Why do we always end up with the inferior version? It's one thing to edit anime for Standards and Practices, but why change harmless things like the BGM and filling in silence resulting in constant sound for 22 full minutes? To quote the Nostalgia Critic:

It's like it's afraid if stops being loud and bouncy, it's going to lose the children's attention. And that's not a good thing. Children need slow moments. They need pauses. It teaches them patience and the appreciation of atmosphere. This...this is just waving your keys in front of their dumb little faces an hour and a half.

I would change "an hour and a half" to "22 minutes", but my point stands.

[TaiChiChasers]

Is it me, or did TPCi start replacing A LOT of the Japanese BGM after Rival Destinies started?

[MizuTaipu]

Is it me, or did TPCi start replacing A LOT of the Japanese BGM after Rival Destinies started?

Yep. Why John Loeffler randomly stepped in and began making his own music for the dub when DuArt was doing so well to begin with is something we can't understand.

[matt0044]

It still makes me wonder why they use both dub music and JPN music when most dubs either do one or the other. Why use some when you can use all? Not that an all dub music score would ever work for me but why can't they just make up their minds? They can use only the Japanese music since, you know, it's cheaper and their dub music is practically effortless so they may as well give up.

[HokageLuffy]

It still makes me wonder why they use both dub music and JPN music when most dubs either do one or the other. Why use some when you can use all? Not that an all dub music score would ever work for me but why can't they just make up their minds? They can use only the Japanese music since, you know, it's cheaper and their dub music is practically effortless so they may as well give up.

I'm sure they'd use the Japanese Music if it was cheaper. It's actually possible that its cheaper to make their own music than to licence the Japanese music. I do wonder how they go about picking which music tracks to licence.

[matt0044]

I'm sure they'd use the Japanese Music if it was cheaper. It's actually possible that its cheaper to make their own music than to licence the Japanese music. I do wonder how they go about picking which music tracks to licence.

They should already own the music. They're The Pokemon Company international. Emphasis on POKEMON.

[BladeLight52]

I remember a 4Kids employee on Reddit explaining why they feel the need to change the music (this answer would probably apply to TPCi's reasoning as well, but I don't know):

And outside of localization for US and age group, a reason we change the music is for the publishing. Buying the original music can lead to a bigger purchase price, versus spending that money on composing it ourselves and also getting money from the publishing after it airs. And again, the target audience is probably the age group under you. Not to say they don't understand the Japanese music, but some of them may not notice it either way. But really, it comes down to money.

He's saying that the cost of licensing the original music can be expensive, and it's not always packaged with the anime license, and thus making their own would be more cost-effective. He concluded with:

I must defend them on this one as otherwise I would probably not have a job.

That's understandable and he seemed very nice about it too.

I listened to part of John Loeffler's interview again after reading the Reddit. John Loeffler said that his music is better than the japanese music. Here's my theory:
He's probably saying that to defend TPCi. If he didn't defend TCPi, he would probably be fired by the higher ups. Again, this is my theory.

[Angel~]

The dub changes the music because they are not allowed to use the japanese one for whatever reason idk I forgot but I would like if they had stuck to it instead of putting music nobody likes.