Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
After showcasing the what if on the Dragonball Harmony Gold dub, I now present something a million times more terrifying. An Americanized Sailor Moon.
This poorly made image above is real, and here is the story.
When Toei Animation brought Sailor Moon to the States for licensing, it received two offers. One from DiC which is the version everyone remembers, and Saban the guys behind the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
DiC pitched a dubbed version of the show while Saban using it's Toon Maker division, pitched a two minute music video showcasing a live action segment of the five main characters followed by an animated sequence featuring the Sailor Scouts. The idea was to have a crossover of Live Action & Cartoon but that's not the worst of it, here's the plot.
After Transforming into Sailor Scouts in a way not much different to She-Ra, they would fight Queen Beryl on her Spaceship using Solar Windsurfers to breathe in space. Luna is now a white cat, Jupiter is black, Mercury is wheelchair bound, Mars is Asian and Venus was rumored to be Latino continuing the 90s cartoon tradition of catering for every person. And just to rub salt into that wound, they would also have vehicles.
The footage for the music video came from a first episode pilot and neither saw light of day, the footage still hangs around online and at conventions as an example of "It could've been so much worst"
The only thing that came out of the Saban pitch was a piece of merchandise called the Mooncycle. It's a very rare piece of Sailor Moon history as it came from the Americanized version rather than the actual series. If you have the Mooncycle it's worth a lot of money.
So there you have it, there is always something far worst than a bad dub, and next time I'll show you another grossly offensive piece of licensing. Til next time.
I now have footage, but sadly this was the best version I can find from a convention a few years ago.
Abridged series have been part of the fan culture of anime for a number of years now having turned poor quality dubbing into a joke, but a number of series have been dubbed in such a way that it turns from something fairly straight into a gag comedy.
Arguably the most well known gag dub is the Samurai Pizza Cats, the story goes that the original script and audio were not sent to the dubbing team at Saban, so instead of trying to work out what was going on they decided to turn it into a spoof comedy which worked so well that the creators of the original considered it better, but there are others.
ADVFilms & Funimation were notorious for reworking a number of shows into gag fests, either as DVD extras or as part of the show, most notably and more recently, Hetalia Axis Powers; it was obvious that the group wanted to put as much gags as possible so they got heavy with the accents and the stereotype jokes but the winner is the narrator for her sharp-tongue humor.
But when we British do dubs, we certainly go the extra mile; I've already mentioned Catgirl Nuku Nuku in a previous post but we have more.
Super rare dub "The Enemy's The Pirates" (the rarest in the world) was packed to the brim with gags especially with wise cracking characters such as space cat Apulo, sounding like a cross between Mother Brain from Captain N the Games Master and comedian Chris Rock. Ultimate Teacher another anime film differed between American & British dubs with the British one having more gags, Ultimate Teacher of course is the one series deemed un-reviewable by Bennett the Sage from the thatguywiththeglasses team.
But the winner and most obscure was BBC's take on Urusei Yatsura, as part of a cultural weekend celebrating Japan the BBC attempted to dub Urusei Yatsura but the way it was edited and scripted it became more like an abridged series. It was even called Lum the Invader Girl instead of it's Japanese title Urusei Yatsura. In fact see for yourself.
For those unfamiliar with the rarer titles in this feature, I will do my best to explain them in the comments if asked. Until next time.
To keep up with something I wrote a couple weeks back, my next review will be on Gunsmith Cats, a series I listed along with four others but included with this review is also Riding Bean as both series occur in the same universe and are short enough to be reviewed together, so here is the review for Riding Bean & Gunsmith Cats. That is one sexy car
Kenichi Sonoda is a familiar face to anyone whose watched 80s anime Bubblegum Crisis and Gall Force as he is the character designer behind them, although he's a lot better at drawing cars than drawing humans, judging by how good the picture looks.
His first work Riding Bean is about a transporter called Bean Bandit who receives money for courier jobs on both sides of the law, in the OVA he's framed for a kidnapping which he responds by chasing down the real criminal using his custom made car, styled using a Porsche 959 chassis with a Corvette Stingray engine and a few small design features similar to a Honda NSX. The series is definitely 80s due to the ultra violence shown in some parts but all in all extremely toned down compared to it's predecessors, it's an extremely early dub as well, nothing special to look at but it can be forgiven for the time period it was dubbed. Not much else to say about it, creator Sonoda fell out with the production company so another series wasn't made, instead we got Gunsmith Cats.
Existing in the same universe and taking a character who was originally Bean Bandit's partner, Rally Vincent is a bounty hunter and Gunsmith who takes jobs much in the same way Bean Bandit did, her partner in crime is an explosive former call girl Minnie-May Hopkins who custom makes hand grenades which becomes a form slapstick in the first episode.
After the introduction were introduced to Natasha Radinov a former KGB and a juggernaut type character who takes a number of explosions and bullets to kill which is trademark to the series as Bean Bandit himself could take bullets to the head and chest and tear through a car's bodywork with his bare hands; the rest of the short series is Rally & May taking down Radinov with their trusty Shelby Cobra GT500, not much else to say, both series are exactly the same in content, all feature more stylized art on the cars & guns and both series contain Rally Vincent, okay one version is blonde hair & Caucasian and the other is black hair & Indian but both characters look exactly the same; you know that's all you really need. Most series and movies based on the typical Chicago police vs violent criminals don't always see it's audience as being smart, so you see a gun you fire it, you see a car you drive it, but both these shows actually tell you what cars & guns are and why they are effective for the current plot which is Sonoda's greatest strength as a writer.
Final Verdict: Cheap entertainment that was good for it's time that has a lot of style and will easily draw you into the manga, and also translates well for a western audience.
Okay it didn't take as long as I thought to think of a worst list, mainly because some entries escaped the 2007 start date, (Damn you Johnny Test!) and some other entries I didn't actually see. (And I'm happy I didn't)
So here we go, the top 10 worst modern cartoons.
10. Fleabag Monkeyface
Over in the UK we have to put up with a juvenile kids show about farts. Feel sorry for us and be glad that it's not shown in America.
9. Almost Naked Animals
Although Canada is not much better at making cartoons. A concept that makes Spongebob look like intelligent tv is an achievement that's as rare as a serious Family Guy episode.
8. The Garfield Show
The 90s show was clever and maintained much of the humor that made Garfield such a big name in comics, today however by not changing with the times and using cheap CGI, the fat cat is no longer funny.
7. Star Wars Clone Wars (CGI Series)
I hate this show, I really do; a sad attempt at flogging a dead horse that's already been stripped of it's meat. All I ask from Disney now is to end this series.
6. Transformers Prime
Speaking of flogging a dead horse, another show that's been robbed of it's dignity by lousy CGI. Thanks a lot Michael Bay for making sure that Transformers will forever remain an extended toy commercial.
5. Scooby Doo Mystery Inc. & The Looney Tunes Show
This is a tie as both have the same problem. Combined these two have over hundred years worth of history and in that time we've worked out certain quirks that these popular iconic characters have that make them fun to watch, what the reboots did wrong was TELL US WHAT THEY ARE! You've stolen imagination away from these shows and I hope you're proud of yourselves Warner Bros, now if you don't mind returning the licensing for live action Bleach & Death Note movies we'll forget about the fact that you're sellouts.
4. Winx Club
A great example of why girls shows fail. Looking pretty, wearing fashionable clothing and doing the BFF thing doesn't cut it when My Little Pony has changed the playing field for girls cartoons forever. Stop throwing up glitter in our faces.
3. Redakai: Conquer the Kairu
I made this just for this entry
2. Matt Hatter Chronicles
Again Canada cannot make cartoons anymore and whats worst we British are helping them. More lousy CGI, horrific design choices, one dimensional characters, a stupid title and a god awful story.
1. Thomas the Tank Engine (CGI Era)
Under normal circumstances a pre-school show has no right to be on this list or any worst list as all of them stick to a target audience and unless I have kids myself I shouldn't have any right watching them or criticizing them no matter how stupid they sound. Thomas the Tank Engine is a special case as it's been around long enough that I grew up with it myself, what started as a clever little stop motion show using real model steam engines, which over the years has been dumbed down in such a way that CGI has replaced it's clever design and it's stories have been reduced from learning about the railways to watching a train with a face sitting on the naughty step every single episode. That's what betrayal is like people.
Well there you have it. At this point we'll never reclaim the golden age of cartoons nor the era of home grown Cartoon Network & Nickelodeon cartoons, but rest assured that there are still some talents ready for a chance to make something awesome.
