Depending on who you ask, localisation is a very dirty word amongst anime fans as it can make or break a franchise, with some of these decisions having consequences that still affect the series to this day.
Not all of this is censorship, keep that in mind.
10. Jelly Filled Donuts
A classic anime meme, as Pokemon's Brock calls rice balls, donuts; this is not an isolated case as other food gets edited around in Pokemon. Pretty low on the list as it's the official meme of Lost Pause.
9. Allowing Central Park Media to License MD Geist
I've brought up this story before, so I'll keep it brief. CPM liked this anime too much and kick started the ultra violent era of anime, this has always given older fans a bitter pill to swallow compared to younger generations of fans.
8. Next Dimension/Shadow Realm
Death was hard to sell for any network, especially when it had to be on TV. This was more the Ocean dub of Dragonballz as Funimation played it more straight seeing as death is merely a slap on the wrist anyway, Yu-Gi-Oh was much worse for it, particularly in Season 1.
7. Painted Bikinis
Tenchi Muyo's run on Toonami came with some strange forms of censorship, the weirdest one being the clearly MS paint job bikinis, although this had a more beneficial effect as early internet otaku sought out the uncut version, I know I did.
6. Naming HoroHoro Trey Racer
Shaman King despite being localised by 4Kids kept a fairly unchanged cast naming until you get to the whole Trey Racer moment, the funny thing about it is, it's used as a nickname as his actual name is kept, wouldn't mind digging up a back story for this.
5. Making Big Cheese a Rat
Tell me, what animal this is below.
If you said fox, you are right, if you say rat, you are as blind as the people at Saban. I know they had very little to work with but seriously?
4. Making Uranus and Neptune Cousins
A classic bit of early censorship, only it just made the whole thing creepier in context when it was more obvious that these two were much closer to the point it couldn't be ignored.
3. Giving One Piece to 4Kids
How and why this decision was made is still a mystery, the aftermath has caused it to slip behind other Shonen Jump powerhouses over the years but on the other side it made the series more adult back in Japan to avoid a repeat of it happening ever again.
2. Renaming Pretty Cure, Glitter Force
The sad thing about this one, it was already in English as Pretty Cure is the English translated title anyway, the Canadians got it right why didn't Netflix? Glitter Force is a stupid name and because of this disaster, Precure may never see localisation ever again.
1. Inserting American Political Commentary
This is an uncomfortable trend that started in the height of the Trump administration, Funimation were the main culprits for this. Within a few of their dubs, first noted in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, the dubbing team would go off script to bring up a political subject or something woke which has no context in the anime at all and was never referenced in the original script. Basically they've taken Japan's property and inserted political propaganda that has nothing to do with Japan, this is the type of bullshit I expect from Russia!
This is also why I don't watch dubs anymore.
Last one tonight, after this just 25 to go.
30. Ouran High School Host Club
If there is one series that stands the harem genre on it's head it's Ouran Host Club. A colourful array of charismatic characters with the right amount of charm for it to be enjoyable.
29. Bubblegum Crisis
The only cyberpunk anime you should see and one of the best 80s anime ever made, a must watch even for those younger than me.
28. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid
A show that made me believe there is still anime out there for the 25+ crowd. A heart warming comedy about a dragon maid's devotion to her female office worker master.
27. Naruto/Boruto
The ninja epic that entertained a generation of otaku, I was going to put it lower but then Boruto got made and that raised the bar for character design, so it got much higher.
26. Dragonball Franchise
No matter how many times I criticise this franchise it always finds new ways to entertain me. The abridged series does help.
Apparently today is officially Goku Day in Japan, just for the celebration of anime's finest hero Son Goku from Dragonballz so I figured I review his introduction in the original Dragonball anime.
Do I really need to tell you the story?.........
Okay fine, Goku is a boy with a monkey tail who grows up alone having lost his grandfather, this doesn't seem to affect the kid as he functions quite well on his own. Bulma is a teenage girl in search of the mystical Dragonballs, large shiny stones that when seven are combined can summon a dragon and grant wishes, upon meeting Goku, Bulma explains what Dragonballs are as Goku has one and the two decide to search for the other Dragonballs, this starts a series of fantastic adventures fighting weird beasts, martial arts masters and plenty of juvenile jokes to go around.
And that last part is my biggest problem with this series, it's the juvenile jokes, they haven't aged well in an era that doesn't welcome them anymore. For example an early running joke is Goku trying to identify women by tapping them in a forbidden area. I'll let you work that one out.
Some other jokes are Bulma being a tsundere (you wouldn't think she invented it but she did) Oolong being a coward and a pervert and the first enemy boiling down to an imp dressed as a clown.
The story all round is terrible, but, and this a big but, it improves dramatically as the series goes on as stakes are raised and enemies get better and then you start looking at Dragonball as a fighting shonen anime rather than a mystical adventure one which foreshadows Dragonballz's premier towards the end.
Toriyama is a good artist and can choreograph an excellent fight scene but can't write a story without featuring horribly written jokes and pointless fanservice in an era that didn't feature it mainstream. The Overall experience knowing that this show is roughly the same age as me is slight disbelief that the most significant fighting anime of all time evolved from such a train wreck packed with really difficult to swallow 80s cliches, while it's a long series that does grow up over time, you still have to put up with the really bad parts to get to the good parts.
Final Verdict: This is why Dragonballz was licensed before Dragonball, the jokes really fall flat for a modern day audience and shows it's age badly as a result, while it does improve it takes time to improve and if you haven't already switched off by then, then you will be well rewarded for your patience.
It's double list time, and we kick off with a best and worst villains in an anime, let me clarify that this is based on all villains within an anime not just one individual, with that out the way lets begin.
Dishonorable Mentions
Black Butler: Alois Trancey is one of the worst characters ever made but one bad villain isn't enough to put a whole series on this list, especially when he isn't canon.
Negima: Fate Averruncus was overused but really the show didn't have enough villains to justify it being listed.
Shaman King: Hao Asakura is a scary guy but I find him annoying, again one villain isn't enough for this list.
10. Trigun
My issues with Trigun's villains come from the fact that the early ones don't live up to the standard the series set out. Trigun is an excellent series and it should really grab you straight away and the first few episode villains fail to do that.
9. Digimon
Digimon has a problem with originality, the villains are either obviously dark looking devils or goofing comedy villains such as Elvis impersonator Etemon. The sad thing is, Digimon can do terrifying the villains, it's just that the creative team don't seem to use them often and their really good ones like Machinedramon don't last five minutes.
8. Dragonball
The franchise has a history of some goofy looking villains, the picture of Majin Buu says it all, but the real problem with Dragonball's villains from the original to GT is that older villains are made to look redundant very quickly; considering how terrifying many of them were built up to be only for them to be utterly humiliated later on is a very sad way to go, even Broly gets it bad and he's utterly terrifying.
7. Bleach
Bleach has some utterly terrible villains, couple of stand out ones include a professional wrestler and "Mr Self Insert Character" such a horrific standard for a series that started with some great characters only to fall from grace so horribly.
6. Naruto
Saying that Naruto isn't any better, for a while now, especially recently, they've made the villains completely boring, I can't pick out anything from Madara, Obito or Kaguya that I actually enjoyed, what's worst is that these are main villains, I'm not even going to begin on the filler ones.
5. Fairy Tail
I love Fairy Tail but my god are some of their villains really bad, I remember finishing Edolas arc thinking "There's a villain called Sugarboy?" other than the Oracion Seis, female villains and big name villains, the rest are really bad and stops me naming Fairy Tail best anime.
4. Panty & Stocking
In a series this colorful and crazy, you stick with complete opposites to the main cast, you kind of expect a series named Panty & Stocking to have a bit more too it than that but you'd be quite shocked to find that under it's anarchic sense of humor it's very grounded.
3. Attack on Titan
I can't help but laugh at the Titans these days, they look so goofy. A series with such shocking imagery fails to have ever lasting impact when another episode depicts the same creatures looking stupid. I remember one Titan running to the Benny Hill theme music in one AMV.
2. G Gundam
In a series so used to playing stereotypes, it can't make a decent villain other than Master Asia who you could argue isn't a full villain. The Devil Gundam doesn't look any better and side villains such as Gentle Chapman, Michelo Chariot & Prime Minister Wong can be best described as an aging drug addict, a rejected Street Fighter II character and an arrogant movie star respectively. Seriously this is billed as a fighting anime, you can do better than this Gundam.
1. Needless
Take your pick from these villains, either clones of Adam Blade or moe girls. Any other choices are quickly killed off. Again this series is crazy yet this is the best you can do with villains? Clones and little moe girls? My God do you lower the standards in anime Needless.
The Dragon is a magnificent creature, now it's time to see which anime Dragons make the grade in the Top 10 Anime Dragons.
10. Mink from Dragon Half
Okay so the first one is not entirely a Dragon, but is still to this day more popular than many of the Dragons who missed the list.
9. Filia Ui Copt from Slayers Try
Not normally in Dragon form, Filia is a Golden Dragon and a former Priestess, she has a bit of a temper on her and an obsession with pottery.
8. Dragoon from Beyblade
The Bit Beast Dragoon is a core part of the four Bladebreaker beasts alongside Driger, Draciel & Dranzer. Although Dragoon spends most of his time just attacking he does have a soul and can communicate with Tyson at times.
7. Ceres from Magic Knight Rayearth
There are many spellings of his name; Ceres is the Water Dragon Guardian who helps Umi become a Magic Knight. Definitely my personal favorite Dragon and one that has inspired my Dragon OCs.
6. Dragonite from Pokemon
The first Dragon of Pokemon and probably the most innocent looking, don't let that fool you, it has proven to be a destructive force in the right conditions.
5. Haku from Spirited Away
If you remember anything at all about Spirited Away, it'd probably be Haku, the Dragon Spirit who helps Chihiro out in the film and probably the most majestic of the dragons.
4. Jeep from Saiyuki
His namesake is not a typo he does actually turn into a Jeep for the Saiyuki group to travel in. Well it's better to be in a motorized vehicle traveling the Silk Roads to India than being on foot but considering Saiyuki never really finished I guess it doesn't make a difference.
3. Igneel from Fairy Tail
He taught Natsu the art of Dragon Slayer magic as well as play surrogate father; there are other Dragons but Igneel is the first one we learn about and when we meet the Dragon he really gives us a boisterous introduction.
2. Blue Eyes White Dragon from Yu-Gi-Oh
The Dragon that will forever stop Seto Kaiba from getting laid oh wait Blue Eyes is really a girl from Ancient Egypt who was with the Egyptian Kaiba who can turn into the Blue Eyes. The card will probably out last the franchise in the same way Yugi Muto does now.
1. Shenlong from Dragonballz
He was always going to be number one, the word Dragon is part of the title after all, heck he's frequently in the franchise logos as well.
Shenlong is the impatient Chinese looking Dragon who has mystical balls that can grant wishes or as I call them the "Magic Reset Balls" you think Anime Dragon and Shenlong will always come first.
