History Main / DubInducedPlotHole

** In ''Spirit of Justice'', the characters need to get from the series' usual country to the Kingdom of Khura'in in less than a day [[spoiler:for a HostageForMacGuffin exchange. The problem is that Khura'in is placed in Central Asia, so while getting there from Japan doesn't raise any eyebrows, getting there from the US entails crossing the International Date Line from East to West, which would make them arrive at their destination a day too late.]]

Compare InconsistentDub, when something in a translation keeps zigzagging between two different changes and/or between changes and the original because the translators don't keep things straight; this happens mostly with names or pronunciations, but can happen with plot points, where it would overlap with this trope. LostInTranslation frequently overlaps with this, but merely causes an element in the work to be missed by the viewer (i.e. a PunnyName that doesn't translate), while this trope is when the element being gone causes the plot to actively not make sense.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017'' actually manages to turn this trend on its head since [[LateExportForYou being released]] via DirectToVideo in Japan. It is the first ''Friendship Is Magic''-related content released in Japan since the dub was cancelled. Despite WordOfGod stating that the movie takes place between Seasons 7 and 8, the movie itself outright [[NegativeContinuity ignores and glosses over]] [[{{Flanderization}} the major developments]] that has occurred in the show since Season 3, it can go ''anywhere'' within the continuity and actually ''avoids'' any plot holes aside from the major ones already mentioned above.

** In the Japanese version of ''Apollo Justice'', case 4, Klavier Gavin reveals that [[spoiler:he shared his prosecutorial evidence with his brother Kristoph in preparation for Zak Gramarye’s trial]]. This was meant to explain Klavier’s earlier OhCrap moment when Vera admitted to forging a page from Magnifi Gramarye’s diary: [[spoiler:because the diary was among the evidence he lent to Kristoph, only Kristoph could’ve given it to Vera when the forgery was requested]]. However, in the English localization, the revelatory line is changed to read that [[spoiler:''Kristoph'' shared the trial evidence with ''Klavier'']]. Not only does it make no sense [[spoiler:how Kristoph would’ve gotten the diary instead of the prosecution]], but the diary being part of the defense’s evidence originally removes any of Klavier’s reasoning [[spoiler:to suspect Kristoph of the forgery instead of Phoenix]].

** [[spoiler:The shadows]] were given names, which were given in text even before they were formally named by runes that appeared under the panel. From the formal naming panel on, all characters started referring that specific [[spoiler:Shadow]] by that name, and [[InstantExpert it is unseen how they can read runes all of a sudden]]. This became especially jarring when Ava called [[spoiler:Perry's shadow and Sam's shadow]] "[[spoiler:Ravenna]]" and "[[spoiler:Carly]]", respectively, (the latter of which was [[SpellMyNameWithAnS incorrectly]]) [[VoodooShark despite not being there when they were named]].
** Aforementioned characters also spoke with proper punctuation in contrast to the canon AllLowercaseLetters.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017'' actually manages to turn this trend on its head since [[LateExportForYou being released]] via DirectToVideo in Japan. It is the first ''Friendship Is Magic''-related content released in Japan since the dub was cancelled. Despite WordOfGod stating that the movie takes place between Seasons 7 and 8, the movie itself outright [[NegativeContinuity ignores and glosses over]] [[{{Flanderization}} the major developments]] that has occurred in the show since Season 2, it can go ''anywhere'' within the continuity and actually ''avoids'' any plot holes aside from the major ones already mentioned above.

** The decision to move the place where the series takes place from Japan to a weird fusion of Japan and California (usually called "Japanifornia" by the fandom) also introduces some plot holes:
*** Due to a traumatic experience in his childhood where [[spoiler:Edgeworth almost asphyxiated in an elevator that got stuck during an earthquake, he tends to fall unconscious when on shaking ground. And because all of Japan is earthquake territory, the idea of a place without earthquakes wouldn't occur to a Japanese writer or audience.]]
*** In ''Spirit of Justice'', the characters need to get from the series' usual country to the Kingdom of Khura'in in less than a day [[spoiler:for a HostageForMacGuffin exchange. The problem is that Khura'in is placed in Central Asia, so while getting there from Japan doesn't raise any eyebrows, getting there from the US entails crossing the International Date Line from East to West, which would make them arrive at their destination a day too late.]]

* The English localization of ''Literature/AccelWorld'' omits all UsefulNotes/JapaneseHonorifics, including SenpaiKohai, resulting in Haruyuki "Silver Crow" Arita simply calling Kuroyukihime by name rather than "Senpai." This later causes a problem when Wolfram Cerberus III calls Silver Crow "Arita-senpai," causing Haru to [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay recognize him]] as [[spoiler:Seiji "Dusk Taker" Noumi, who'd been kicked off Brain Burst long ago]]. The localization of the light novel just has Cerberus' third personality call Crow "Arita," something that a few other characters do (for example, Utai "Ardor Maiden" Shinomiya calls him "Arita-san" in the original and "Arita" in the localization).

** Some countries had problem translating the line in Film/{{Solo}} that shows Han Solo being called like that because an imperial recruiter officer realized he was, well, solo (albeit not in the case of Spanish as "Solo" means "alone").

* In the Russian dub of ''Film/TheLastJedi'' in the scene when Rose explains business matters of Canto Bight to Finn, the latter guesses that it’s ''"ore"'' makes people this rich (instead of original ''"war"''), making it look like an unexplained plot point. In the same dub Yoda’s lines: "We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters" was translated as "We are ''whom we'' grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters", leaving the viewers to wonder about meaning and future ramifications of the Master's ever puzzling insights.

** In the Japanese version of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'', Maya's TrademarkFavoriteFood is miso ramen. When the game was localized in America, the setting was changed from vaguely Japan to vaguely America, and Maya's TrademarkFavoriteFood changed accordingly; she now is a fanatic for hamburgers. For the first three games, this was a fairly harmless change; instead of a favorite ramen stand, they now have a frequented burger joint. The problem came in ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'', when their favorite ramen stand becomes central to one of the cases and all the characters talk about how much Phoenix and Maya used to visit the ramen stand, making something that was always an element of the Japanese script look like a {{Retcon}} in the English script. So, from now on, new works (like the manga) have her down as loving burgers ''and'' ramen. Then again, since Maya is repeatedly stated in the games to be a BigEater, it's still pretty easy to apply the "she loves both burgers and ramen" explanation back to the games. It does still leave a bit of room for confusion, though, since it would have only taken a short line or two in-game to mention something like this. This was eventually patched in ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice Spirit of Justice]]'', where Maya is stated to be a fan of both burgers and noodles.
** The change from Japan to America also causes problems in ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies Dual Destinies]]''. The second case of the game features {{Yokai}} as a prominent plot point. This makes sense in Japan where Yokai are the regional mythological creatures, not so much in America. Ditto goes for the sudden existence of Rakugo practioners in the following game, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairakutei_Black_I although a few]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsura_Sunshine non-Japanese rakugoka]] ''do'' actually exist.

** One the developers couldn't have predicted happening was the story of Apollo's deceased father [[spoiler:and Thalassa's first husband]] Jove Justice. In ''Apollo Justice'', Brushel reveals that Apollo's father was a performer who died in an accident on stage, heavily implying he was a magician like the Trope Gramarye. When the thread is revisited in ''Spirit of Justice'' nine years later, however, Jove is suddenly a traveling musician and died [[spoiler:in the fire during Queen Amara's attempted assassination when Apollo was an infant]]. The reason for this seemingly extreme {{retcon}} is that the original Japanese is far less specific about who Apollo's father was, merely stating he was an artist of some kind and that he died around when Apollo was born.

*** Toko Fukawa makes an offhand remark where she states she HasTwoMommies. While left unexplained in the Japanese version, the English localization inserted dialogue in School Mode that insinuated that her father had divorced and got remarried. This got problematic when ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'' came out and revealed that the two mothers thing came from an incident involving her father being in relationship with two women at the same time and a malpractice accident that left her actual mother unknown (Toko even says her father was never divorced). Whoops. When the latter game was localised, the team chose to completely ignore the original dub script and just go with the original.

* Inevitable when dubs of certain ''Series/SesameStreet'' segments revolving around letter- or number-based wordplay get translated, to the point where some songs and sketches that are basically impossible to translate accurately seldom show up other than in English. (The biggest example would be Cookie Monster's signature song, "C is for Cookie," which has almost never shown up on an international version of ''Sesame Street'' unless it's in the context of another segment; most other languages' words for "cookie" don't actually start with the letter C, so the segment wouldn't make any sense). An actual instance is a sketch with Ernie and Bert that was at least dubbed for ''Series/PlazaSesamo'' in Latin America. In the original, Ernie ropes Bert into playing a game where they count up to the number 10, following each number with the letter Q. The set-up is that when Bert eventually goes "10-Q, 10-Q, 10-Q!" exasperatedly, Ernie replies, "You're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome, Bert!"[[note]]For non-English speakers, [[DontExplainTheJoke it sounds like Bert was saying "thank you."[[/note]] In Spanish, however, Ernie replies, "Diez cuentos, diez cuentos, diez cuentos" - "ten stories, ten stories, ten stories," which renders the punchline incomprehensible.

* ''Film/PrinceOfSpace'' wasn't immune to enemy weapon fire in the original Japanese, but picked this up sometime during the conversion to English. Neatly explains why he keeps dodging. And why Phantom of Krankor keeps ordering his men to shoot him anyway.

* In the German dub of ''Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'', the brief scene reveal with the fifth golden ticket being a fake was cut out, mainly due to the picture used of the Paraguay gambler was one of Martin Bormann, head of the Nazi Party Chancellory, and Adolf Hitler's private secretary (intending to be a riff on former Nazis fleeing to South America). Furthermore, Wonka's explanation towards the end was somewhat confusing, considering that he intended to send out the golden tickets only to children (as he explains that "a grown-up would want to do everything his own way"). Likewise, the former scene remains in English on the DVD release.

* In ''[[Literature/RamonaQuimby Ramona The Pest]]'', Ramona has a misunderstanding on her first day of kindergarten when her teacher tells her to sit at a desk "for the present time" and Ramona thinks that means she'll get a present for sitting there. Since the misunderstanding relies on a particular oddity of the English language (the fact that "present" has two meanings), the whole thing becomes completely nonsensical when the book is translated into other languages that don't have that particular homonym (which is basically all of them).

* In one episode of ''Series/TheKingOfQueens'', Carrie tries to get rid of her accent, in order to get a promotion. Viewers of the German dub are now tempted to ask "What accent?", because she speaks perfect Standard German (like most people in German dubs do). [[LuckyTranslation Luckily, the episode is salvaged a bit]] by the fact that ''talk'' (the word treated as representative for Carrie's pronunciation problems) is contained in the German [[GratuitousEnglish anglicism]] ''Small Talk'', giving somewhat the impression that Carrie's main problem is specifically the pronunciation of such anglicisms. [[note]]They even managed to put in a small {{Woolseyism}}: In one scene, Spencer's instructions cause a confused Carrie to pronounce ''talk'' like ''tag''. In the dubbed version, Carrie pronounces it like the similarly spelled German word ''Talk'' ( = ''talc'').[[/note]]

* In the first volume of ''LightNovel/NoGameNoLife'', Kurami, in an attempt to win a gambling tournament to become ruler of Elkia, enlists the help of an elf, who uses magic to help Kurami cheat, since none of the other participants can even detect it, much less do anything. In the English localization, the elf, who only appears briefly after being exposed, is referred to with male pronouns. The problem? The elf [[ChekhovsGunman later turns out to be Feel]], a secondary character who happens to be ''a woman''.

** The localization team was also unable to licence ''LightNovel/DanganronpaZero'', which is problematic given a large amount of the plot of ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'' hinges on one reading the novel, since many of the plot twists otherwise come out of complete and utter nowhere and there are several references to the book that are rendered meaningless. A good example is, in the final trial, [[spoiler:Junko makes a glitched statement about "Yasuke" and "the pain of losing ones beloved". If you hadn't read ''[=DR0=]'' and thus don't know about Yasuke Matsuda, this line is a complete and utter non-sequitur.]]

** Inevitable when dubs of certain ''Series/SesameStreet'' segments revolving around letter- or number-based wordplay get translated, to the point where some songs and sketches that are basically impossible to translate accurately seldom show up other than in English. (The biggest example would be Cookie Monster's signature song, "C is for Cookie," which has almost never shown up on an international version of ''Sesame Street'' unless it's in the context of another segment; most other languages' words for "cookie" don't actually start with the letter C, so the segment wouldn't make any sense). An actual instance is a sketch with Ernie and Bert that was at least dubbed for ''Series/PlazaSesamo'' in Latin America. In the original, Ernie ropes Bert into playing a game where they count up to the number 10, following each number with the letter Q. The set-up is that when Bert eventually goes "10-Q, 10-Q, 10-Q!" exasperatedly, Ernie replies, "You're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome, Bert!"[[note]]For non-English speakers, [[DontExplainTheJoke it sounds like Bert was saying "thank you."]] In Spanish, however, Ernie replies, "Diez cuentos, diez cuentos, diez cuentos" - "ten stories, ten stories, ten stories," which renders the punchline incomprehensible.

* The Latin-American dub for ''Film/{{Commando}}'' is specially stupid, because it doesn't only introduces a plot hole, but is not even consistent with itself. At some point, John Matrix says to an enemy that he likes him, so he'll kill him last. In the Mexican dub Matrix says ''"Me caes bien, por eso te haré talco"'' (lit. "I like you, so I'll turn you into talcum powder"), maybe because the "A" in "last" is said very obviously and the dubbing tried to adjust to that. But later in the movie Matrix finds the mook again and he asks "Remember that I told you that I would kill you last? I lied." The Mexican dub has Matrix asking the same question... even when in the dub he never asked the mook that.

* The Latin-American dub for ''Film/{{Commando}}'' is specially stupid, because it doesn't only introduces a plot hole, but is not even consistent with itself. At some point, John Matrix says to an enemy that he likes him, so he'll kill him last. In the Mexican dub Matrix says ''"Me caes bien, por eso te haré talco"'' (lit. "I like you, so I'll turn you into talcum powder", maybe because the "A" in "last" is said very obviously and the dubbing tried to adjust to that. But later in the movie Matrix finds the mook again and he asks "Remember that I told you that I would kill you last? I lied." The Mexican dub has Matrix asking the same question... even when in the dub he never asked the mook that.

* The Latin-American dub for ''Film/Commando'' is specially stupid, because it doesn't only introduces a plot hole, but is not even consistent with itself. At some point, John Matrix says to an enemy that he likes him, so he'll kill him last. In the Mexican dub Matrix says ''"Me caes bien, por eso te haré talco"'' (lit. "I like you, so I'll turn you into talcum powder", maybe because the "A" in "last" is said very obviously and the dubbing tried to adjust to that. But later in the movie Matrix finds the mook again and he asks "Remember that I told you that I would kill you last? I lied." The Mexican dub has Matrix asking the same question... even when in the dub he never asked the mook that.

** The Czech dub of "Asylum of the Daleks" was criticized by fans for translating the "eggs-exterminate" pun of the episode in such a lazy way that it altered all the later soufflé-related references of Series 7. In the dub, Oswin is apparently working on "baked ice cream" ([[AluminumChristmasTrees which is a real thing, BTW]]) instead of soufflés -- despite the fact that what she's trying to bake looks very obviously like a soufflé. This whole bizarre and unnecessary change in that one bit of the translation was made so that the translator-chosen pun could work in the episode. While the pun arguably works, the ham-fisted way it's incorporated into the episode and how it messes up all later Series 7 soufflé references and the continuity tied to them, is really ridiculous. And, to add insult to injury, Oswin isn't even nicknamed the [[InSeriesNickname Soufflé Girl]] at any point in the episode, because it wouldn't make sense anymore. The consensus among the Czech fans is that the pun could have certainly been translated a little differently, without omitting any and all references to soufflés.

** The change from Japan to America also causes problems in ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies Dual Destinies]]''. The second case of the game features {{Yokai}} as a prominent plot point. This makes sense in Japan where Yokai are the regional mythological creatures, not so much in America. Ditto goes for the sudden existence of Rakugo practioners in the following game, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairakutei_Black_I although a few]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsura_Sunshine non-Japanese rakugoka]] ''do'' [[AluminumChristmasTrees actually exist]].

** In ''Asterix and Obelix's Birthday'' we see a crossword that joins up ASTERIX and OBELIX with IDEFIX (between the I of Asterix and the X of Obelix). The dog's name was [[DubNameChange changed to Dogmatix]] in English, so it was impossible to change the drawing. The clue section is changed to read "Dog's idea" riffing off the literal meaning of "dogmatics" and "idée fixe", but it's incredibly tenuous. It would be an excellent cryptic crossword clue in a general setting, though. (It should be noted the English translator is the daughter of a cryptic crossword designer.)

* The English localization of ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'' omits all UsefulNotes/JapaneseHonorifics, including SenpaiKohai, resulting in Haruyuki "Silver Crow" Arita simply calling Kuroyukihime by name rather than "Senpai." This later causes a problem when Wolfram Cerberus III calls Silver Crow "Arita-senpai," causing Haru to [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay recognize him]] as [[spoiler:Seiji "Dusk Taker" Noumi, who'd been kicked off Brain Burst long ago]]. The localization of the light novel just has Cerberus' third personality call Crow "Arita," something that a few other characters do (for example, Utai "Ardor Maiden" Shinomiya calls him "Arita-san" in the original and "Arita" in the localization).

* The German dub of ''Toys/{{Bionicle}} 3: Web of Shadows'' cut nearly 10 minutes to meet German age restriction guidelines, including a line that explains the villains' plan. When Sidorak asks Roodaka what she wants for proof of the Toa's deaths, she demands their bodies. In the dub, the scene abruptly cuts after Sidorak asks the question. Strangely, Roodaka does talk about the Toa's bodies being brought to her in a later scene, but the fact that she deliberately requested them isn't clear. The movie also cuts the Toa mutating and bursting from their cocoons, meaning they suddenly appear looking completely different and falling to their apparent doom without a reason -- their mutation is at least explained later.