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Anime Boston 2024: Dubs That Time Forgot
🕑 Added 2024-04-05 04:11:54 +0000 UTCNote: Due to the time-sensitive nature of our coverage, this will be published on the main Anime Herald site on April 8. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Author: Samantha Ferreira
Host: Mike Toole
In this day and age, the idea of shows vanishing into proverbial oblivion has become a distressingly common phenomenon. Organizations like Warner Brothers and AMC have scrapped dozens of beloved titles, like Infinity Train and Pantheon, while news of completed films being binned for tax write-offs has become distressingly common. In the anime world, dozens of series recently disappeared into the aether, as Funimation’s video portal was shuttered on April 2.
In short, it’s easy to see how an English dub can be lost to the sands of time.
When Mike Toole began hosting “Dubs that Time Forgot” in 2002, though, the world was vastly different. The titles he sourced were VHS curiosities, TV test dubs, and other oddities, as they were a window to the past that could not be acquired easily. In the years that followed, though, Toole explained that Discotek Media began acquiring his showcase pieces, leading him to revise the panel.
Then, VCRs vanished from the market, forcing more retools. Companies began producing separate dubs for competing streaming platforms, DVDs started to go out of print, and now Blu-rays are vanishing from the market. Because of this, Toole noted, “Dubs That Time Forgot” had taken on a different meaning.
Mekanda Robot and Dragon Ball
Toole began with a piece that he jokingly referred to as “lost media,” as he started playing clips from the Phillipine dub of Mekanda Robot. He punctuated the clips with a handful of jokes, which elicited chuckles from the room. He flipped to another slide, depicting advertisements for the series.
He shifted the conversation to another so-called “lost dub,” in Harmony Gold’s test episodes for Dragon Ball. The release had been a convention staple through the ‘90s and early 2000s, Toole noted, so he found it surprising when Derek Padula referred to it as a legendary find. “I’ve had the Harmony Gold Dragon Ball dub for years. I showed it at panels for years,” he explained. He added that, while serious tape-heads had a copy of it, the dub had generally been absent from the greater public for some time.
Toole noted that he realized this when he reached out to Padula, asking “Why didn't you just ask Ryan Gavigan for a copy?” Padula responded with confusion, which amounted to a bewildered “Who?”
Toole noted that it was a genuinely enlightening moment for him, and added that “we have to share these things aggressively.”
Dream Dimension Fandora
Toole noted that there was another piece of supposed “lost media”, which has had folks claiming that “it has yet to surface.” He flipped to a clip of Dream Dimension Hunter Fandora’s English dub. The room chuckled and groaned at the OVA’s hammy acting and stilted line deliveries, as Toole interjected to ask “Why did people think this was rare?”
He progressed to the next slide, which depicted a copy of the official English release, which was only shipped to Japanese retailers by Hiro Productions. The title carried a suggested price of 10,800 yen, or “$120 before freight, in 1986 dollars,” as Toole noted. He added that translator Neil Nadelman posted clips of the feature online, which he then began playing.
As the footage began, Toole explained that a good dub typically concentrates on matching lip flaps and generally maintaining a natural cadence and flow that captures the spirit of the line. “This one didn’t… at all,” he notes, as a character immediately attempts to turn “Let’s ask somebody else” into a six-second sentence, which turned the word “else” into an audible, awkward hiss.
Toole focused on other attempts to match lip flaps with exaggerated, often inappropriate exclamations. The audience broke into cackles in the final segment, in which a roughneck screams “Look, a dame!” at the top of his lungs before passing out.
He followed this with a short clip from Ringo Rides West, the second of Toei’s Puss In Boots films. Toole joked that his favorite part was “that Ringo just straight-up murders people,” before rolling a clip of an action scene. Due to a technical issue, there was no audio, but he rolled with the punches and used it as an opportunity to highlight the absurdity of the scene.
Eyeshield 21
The next feature took fans to the gridiron, as Toole began talking about the Toonami Jetstream run for football anime Eyeshield 21. Toonami Jetstream was a prototypical, ad-supported streaming service, which ran from 2006 - 2009 as a collaboration between Cartoon Network and Viz Media. In addition to ongoing Toonami shows, the service boasted a handful of Jetstream exclusives, including Hikaru no Go and Kiba. When the service was shuttered, though, Eyeshield 21’s English dub faded from the public consciousness.
Toole knew of a person who had the entire run, which he managed to get a copy of and proceeded to upload to The Internet Archive. This attracted the attention of a YouTuber, who included a tweet from Toole announcing the upload as he excitedly explained that “This was lost for years until Internet user Mike Toole found it!”
Sadly, it didn’t remain on the Internet Archive long, as TMS Entertainment sent a Cease and Desist notice to have it taken down.
He played a clip, which featured Kate Higgins and Yuri Lowenthal delivering a performance that was hammy enough to fit into a country breakfast, alongside a plate of eggs. It was solid, but the duo certainly chewed the scenery a bit.
Toole noted that Eyeshield 21’s Jetstream adaptation was “definitely kind of a weird, Frankenstein thing,” which merged episodes, and shuffled certain elements.
He continued, noting the YouTuber he previously mentioned explained, “As of 2024, this is the only time Eyeshield 21 was ever dubbed into English."
With a smile, he said, “About that…” before loading a sales clip by Universal Cinergia, which featured roughly two minutes of the first episode, in which Sena and Mamori discover that they’ll be in the same class.
Universal Cinergia is a dubbing company that works on hundreds of shows for global markets, typically adapting shows into Portuguese and Spanish. Toole explained that their Vimeo page, due to neglect or some other reason, had all of its private videos made public. However, there is no way to do a standard search on the videos, so finding specific clips requires combing through their entire archive.
He remarked that there are countless dubs like this, from little-known sales pitch pieces to an adaptation of Gintama’s first season that’s currently streaming on Hulu. What will happen to them when their licenses expire remains unknown, though. “Who will save it?” Toole asked, before answering with “We have to save it.”
Sales Promotion Dubs
Toole used Eyeshield 21 as a springboard into a handful of dubbed sales promotion trailers, which were aimed at broadcasters rather than consumers. The first was Rocky Joe, an adaptation of Tomorrow’s Joe, which pitched the series as being similar to the Rocky films. In the teaser, a cheerful narrator presented a highly sanitized and idealized version of the show, which painted Joe as a generally good influence, while ignoring the title’s generally darker back half.
According to Toole, five episodes were dubbed, one of which has found a way out into collectors’ hands. And, while nobody in North America bought the series, the dub did manage to sell adaptations in Europe.
He quickly switched to a sales trailer for Saint Seiya, which pretty much answered why Saint Seiya never became a thing in North America in the ‘80s. From the cheesy, incredibly 1980s logo flying in, to the narrator delivering a synopsis with all the enthusiasm of a person on downers reading the phone book, the entire audience groaned and laughed. They cackled at seemingly nonsensical lines and generally tried to make their own fun against the drone of the teaser.
Techno Police and Leda
The presentation continued its course through the ‘80s, as Toole brought up a handful of seemingly unrelated films. Notably, Techno Police, Clash of the Bionoids (Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?), and Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko.
Notably, Techno Police is a 1982 OVA from Studio Nue, which features music by Joe Hisaishi. The film was marketed worldwide by Peregrine Films in a package known as “Dynamagic.”
Do You Remember Love? is the infamous Macross film, which was released during a window in which Harmony Gold wasn’t paying much attention to the license.
Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko, meanwhile, was dubbed for a potential sale at the Marché International de Programmes Television in Cannes, and released by Right Stuf in 1997.
The three shared an unlikely commonality in their dub cast, which is most prominent in newscaster Matthew Oram, whom Toole discovered in an interview. He recalled the interviewer asking, “How did you get into dubbing in your part of the world,” to which Oram responded, “Well, it’s natural because I was a broadcaster!”
Indeed, Oram was a British newscaster who lived in Hong Kong, which led to him getting involved with English dubbing in the region. He and his wife performed with other English speakers in Hong Kong.
Other Dubs Around The World
Following the discussion on Matthew Oram, Toole played a clip from Ninja Hattori. The audience expressed confusion at the adaptation before the host explained that it was from India. The show proved to be a massive hit there, to the point that Hindi dubs were produced for the original series. In 2012, Shin-Ei Animation began producing episodes primarily for India, which were recorded in English, and later dubbed into Japanese.
Following Ninja Hattori, Toole screened a segment of the Philippine dub for Voltes V. He remarked that the series “was seen as a driving force of overthrowing Ferdinand Marcos,” who abruptly canceled the series four episodes before the finale, as he feared that it could provoke an insurrection.
Marcos was deposed less than a year later.
The series became a beloved cultural icon following Marcos’ ouster, to the point that director Mark A. Reyes helmed Voltes V Legacy, which Toole referred to as “the first great anime adaptation of 2023.”
Toole closed the panel with a pair of English dubs produced for English speakers in the region. The first, an adaptation of Ranma ½, was produced by Asian TV network Animax. And, while generally competent, character voices didn’t mesh as well as Viz Media’s adaptation, and the humor felt generally stiffer in the clips.
As one person in the audience described it, “We have Ranma at home.”
Toole closed off his presentation by comparing Crunchyroll’s and Indian firm Muse Asia’s dubs for Spy x Family. And, much like with Ranma, the dub is fairly competent, though it has a different overall tone and feel. For example, in Crunchyroll’s dub, where it was decided to portray Anya’s character generally naturally, Muse Asia opted to hew closer to the Japanese performances. As such, they present her as a person who speaks in third-person, and uses the exclamation “Wowie Wow!” to adapt her Japanese counterpart’s “わくわく!”
Conclusion
The “Dubs That Time Forgot” panel proved to be a genuinely fascinating trip through anime history. Every adaptation that Toole featured presented a new opportunity to weave anecdotes and personal stories, which he happily delivered with a sense of good humor. Each of these tales then built up ties and bonds to long-passed eras. Whether he was recalling tales of the tape trades, or relaying detailed accounts of little-known dub stars, Toole’s warm delivery and laid-back nature helped to bring those in attendance closer to long-forgotten eras.
Through it all, though, Toole repeatedly emphasized the importance of not only preserving but sharing these dubs that fall out of the public eye. Whether it’s a rare adaptation from the ‘80s or an alternate dub of a modern favorite, these dubs only truly become forgotten when they stop being traded and shown to other people. And, as fans, we share a responsibility to keep them alive.
The world may have changed since Toole started this panel in 2002, but it’s clear that, even twenty years later, there will always be a need for folks to save and show off these works that helped to define generations of fandom. Rare dubs will always be in danger of disappearance, but so long as folks are circulating the tapes, they’ll never truly become lost works.
