Thread: Should the dubbing companies of the Pokémon Anime replace BGM and songs?

I wish they would keep the original BGM, especially the ones that are just instrumental. What's the point of changing that? I can see why they'd be lazy to translate the singing in songs, but come on. Keep it real.

Originally Posted by ❤Haruka❤

even though the original has great music, why would tpci actually spend more money on the licenced soundtrack when they can make there own, and it works!

Because they are The Pokemon Company International. Pokemon is a multi-billion dollar franchise. Even if it does cost a lot of money to get all of the original BGM intact, they make a lot of money from rest of the merchandise: games, trading cards, books, toy figures, all of that stuff. The problem is that they are not using that opportunity to do so.

Originally Posted by ❤Haruka❤

Well the ratings are from the K6-11 Demo, so i doubt anyone even knows pokemon is japanese, rather then watching the raw lol, all i'm saying is that tpci believes that changing the music will appeal to the western audience, and it look's like it's working, so even though the original has great music, why would tpci actually spend more money on the licenced soundtrack when they can make there own, and it works!

The idea that the kids in that demographic doesn't know that Pokemon is in Japanese is entirely possible, but that still doesn't make the argument work for me. Since they wouldn't be aware of the difference between the dub and original background music, I'm not sure if saying that the changes appeals to the kids really works, especially when we can't determine how many kids from those ratings really like the music or if they even care about that. I'm still having a hard time believing that kids, or at least a majority of them, really care that much about the background music as much as people here do. As for TPCI, I think that they could afford to get the original background music, especially when there have been episodes where they've kept all of, if not the majority, of the original background music. I'm not sure how well they're doing financially as a whole due to the economy and all, but they probably could afford to do so. They may not feel comfortable spending more money, as most companies would feel, but it's certainly possible after they've done so before. I still don't think that we can use the ratings to say that the changes with the background music work.

Originally Posted by BladeLight52

Originally Posted by ❤Haruka❤

even though the original has great music, why would tpci actually spend more money on the licenced soundtrack when they can make there own, and it works!

Because they are The Pokemon Company International. Pokemon is a multi-billion dollar franchise. Even if it does cost a lot of money to get all of the original BGM intact, they make a lot of money from rest of the merchandise: games, trading cards, books, toy figures, all of that stuff. The problem is that they are not using that opportunity to do so.

I think it might be a contract issue and tpci needs to use there music producers, nobody knows the full story so you shouldn't judge and people like me actually find the dub music enjoying, plus it's refreshing hearing something new instead of the same soundtracks being used over and over again from the original :)

Originally Posted by Hidden Mew

Originally Posted by ❤Haruka❤

Well the ratings are from the K6-11 Demo, so i doubt anyone even knows pokemon is japanese, rather then watching the raw lol, all i'm saying is that tpci believes that changing the music will appeal to the western audience, and it look's like it's working, so even though the original has great music, why would tpci actually spend more money on the licenced soundtrack when they can make there own, and it works!

The idea that the kids in that demographic doesn't know that Pokemon is in Japanese is entirely possible, but that still doesn't make the argument work for me. Since they wouldn't be aware of the difference between the dub and original background music, I'm not sure if saying that the changes appeals to the kids really works, especially when we can't determine how many kids from those ratings really like the music or if they even care about that. I'm still having a hard time believing that kids, or at least a majority of them, really care that much about the background music as much as people here do. As for TPCI, I think that they could afford to get the original background music, especially when there have been episodes where they've kept all of, if not the majority, of the original background music. I'm not sure how well they're doing financially as a whole due to the economy and all, but they probably could afford to do so. They may not feel comfortable spending more money, as most companies would feel, but it's certainly possible after they've done so before. I still don't think that we can use the ratings to say that the changes with the background music work.

Well i and most of my friends didn't even find out pokemon was japanese till we were 13, it's well disguised, and financially they are doing very well i would guess, the ratings are at an all time high, the games are selling more then ever and the trading card game has become huge, and we got basically the entire black and white season with little to no music being changed, but tcpi cant have there music producers doing nothing, so i guess they figured they would stop using most of the original soundtrack and start making there own again.

Originally Posted by ❤Haruka❤

Well i and most of my friends didn't even find out pokemon was japanese till we were 13, it's well disguised, and financially they are doing very well i would guess, the ratings are at an all time high, the games are selling more then ever and the trading card game has become huge, and we got basically the entire black and white season with little to no music being changed, but tcpi cant have there music producers doing nothing, so i guess they figured they would stop using most of the original soundtrack and start making there own again.

I don't know if I would say that it's well disguised, but I knew it was from Japan pretty much right away. Pokemon is doing well financially, although I don't really see how the games selling well and the card game being successful has much to do with the music issue. I think it's more likely that TPCI just didn't want to spend more money on getting the rights to the original music for the time being due to the economy. Pokemon is still successful, but that doesn't mean that TPCI isn't financially perfect. I'm also not sure that the music producers wouldn't be doing anything if they weren't making dub music, but I think it was a financial reason for more dub music to come back than anything else. It also doesn't help that they've gone from having episodes that have most or all of the original background music to episode with mostly dub music in the past.

Originally Posted by ❤Haruka❤

Originally Posted by BladeLight52

Originally Posted by ❤Haruka❤

even though the original has great music, why would tpci actually spend more money on the licenced soundtrack when they can make there own, and it works!

Because they are The Pokemon Company International. Pokemon is a multi-billion dollar franchise. Even if it does cost a lot of money to get all of the original BGM intact, they make a lot of money from rest of the merchandise: games, trading cards, books, toy figures, all of that stuff. The problem is that they are not using that opportunity to do so.

I think it might be a contract issue and tpci needs to use there music producers, nobody knows the full story so you shouldn't judge and people like me actually find the dub music enjoying, plus it's refreshing hearing something new instead of the same soundtracks being used over and over again from the original :)

The original japanese version of Kanto-Orange Islands-Johto is just as guilty of this (but not as overly redundant as the 4Kids dub music), whether it's up to quality or not. In fact, I would like to breakdown seasons on what music was new in the japanese version and what music was 'new and refreshing' in the dub. Let me start out with the original japanese version:

Kanto: First set of music, Some of the BGM from Movie 1
Orange Islands: The rest of the Movie 1 BGM
Johto: Second set of music, BGM from Movie 2, Few pieces from Movie 3, Only one piece from Movie 4
Advanced Generation: Third set of music, BGM from Movies 3, 4, 5, and 6
Battle Frontier: BGM from Movie 7, few pieces from Movie 8
Diamond and Pearl: Fourth set of music, BGM from Movies 8, 9, 10, and 11, One piece from Movie 12 in the final D&P episode

And now the dub verison:

Kanto: First set of dub music
Orange Islands: The first set
Johto Journeys: Still The first set
Johto League Champions: Still Still the first set
Master Quest: Still Still Still the first set
Advanced: The first set (seriously? Nothing new?)
Advanced Challenge: The first set (Yawn...)
Advanced Battle: The first set (...no comment)
Battle Frontier: Some new music, while using the first set of dub Kanto tracks (Are you kidding me?)
Diamond and Pearl: Same set of new music, while using the first set of dub Kanto tracks (REALLY?! Are you that insistent on using those old, tired pieces?!)
Battle Dimension: Some new music, while the 4Kids dub tracks begin to fade away
Galactic Battles: Still the same music as Battle Dimension, 4Kids tracks are completely gone
Sinnoh League Victors: New set of dub music

I don't understand why you consider the dub music 'refreshing' when really the dub music both 4Kids and TPCi still uses the same 20 tracks from their library over and over again, while the japanese version uses a new block of music as it progresses.

Think about it logically for a minute, guys. TPCi keeping the original Japanese score in its entirety for the remainder of the series and releasing uncut DVDs is never happening. They couldn't even spend money to keep their voice actors back during the dub switch...really? Even 4Kids released some uncut DVDs of anime (Yu-Gi-Oh, Shaman King!) with FUNimation. TPCi would never even think about releasing anything uncut. TPCi just want more money.

Personally, I enjoy both the 4Kids dub and JPN version scores. Do not like the TPCi dub scores at all (well I'm not a fan of their dub in general).

They can if they want to. They owe nothing to the people old enough to actually care about it and it's clear that the target audience doesn't care. If you so happen to be old enough to care, I'm sure that you've already remedied the lack of original music by watching the original episodes. When I used to watch the show, I didn't care about the music for a moment so I'm not bothered if they keep (well, kept) it or not. If I still watched, I still wouldn't care.

I really don't understand why changing BGM and songs is such a touchy subject with fans. I personally see no problem with it.

Originally Posted by Gengarzilla

I really don't understand why changing BGM and songs is such a touchy subject with fans. I personally see no problem with it.

Because the practice of replacing music is pretty much gone these days. Most dubbing companies now know that replacing music ruins the integrity on what an english dub should be. If a dub has an accurate script, respectful voice acting, and the original music, Then it is an english dub. If an english dub removes one of these components, then I wouldn't call it a great english dub, but can be tolerable at the very least (Though in Rave Music's case, all of their dub compositions don't match what's going on onscreen). (An example of removing one component is the Zeta Gundam English dub. It has an accurate script and original music, but the voice acting can be a little off and wooden at times. But I can tolerate with that because most of the voices themselves don't make me want to rip my eardrums out.) If an english dub removes all of the components, I wouldn't call it an english dub. I would call it a hackdub.

No, no, no. I don't like translations because they generally do not have the same feel as the original, but I understand that because this is a kids' show it's not convenient to use subtitles, so dubs are ok. But a good dub should be as close to the original as possible. In Latin America, that's what we got for a lot of anime. US got Cardcaptors, I got CardCaptor Sakura, which was a good translation that kept all scenes, names, music and translated the songs (and even left some in Japanese when they were used as background songs). The downside was that a couple of the voice actors were pretty shitty. But it's pretty close to what I think a translation should be like. Pokémon should be no different.

I wish more dubbing companies would replace the bgm and opening songs like TPCi. I can't think of a single anime whose replaced dub music wasn't superior in quality to the original Japanese. Yugioh, IGPX, MAR, Digimon, Shman King, DBGT, DBZ, Zatch Bell, the list goes on and on. Loffler was right on the money when he said the original tracks were basic and flat. Whether I'm watching the raw of Pokemon or just listening to the tracks by themselves, Shinji's music never invokes any emotion from me and just feels like garbled background noise. There's no heart and soul behind it. The dub music on the other hand always fits the mood of each scene and adds an extra dimension to the show. Not all the Japanese tracks are bad but most of them just don't compliment the show well at all.

It's rather unfortunate that most dub companies don't hire music composers anymore. Even small stuff like Funimation's one minute bgm in their trailers and dvd menus just completely blow the Japanese composer's music out of the water.

What I don't get is that they keep some of the original music but replace a huge percent of it. Why not just keep all of it? I can understand changing it if there's Japanese vocals int he background, but I don't get why instrumantals get replaced. I can understand why they change the opening, because they need to cut something to make room for commercials, and I'd rather have a shorter opening than a long opening with scenes cut from the show. I just don'tg et the point of keeping some of the the original music and replacing most of it.

It's pointless to replace non-vocal BGM but fully support replacing vocal songs, intros and endings. Replace as in fully replace and not translate. Coz from what I've seen, tranlated songs are terrible.

The real reason has probably already been said. Japanese music is very expensive and TPCI does not have infinite funds.