History Misblamed / AnimeAndManga

* Many Spanish ''Manga/DragonBall'' fans blame the Spanish translation team for all the [[GoodBadTranslation silly]] [[{{Macekre}} or]] [[InconsistentTranslation stupid]] changes in the anime. Actually, Spain bought ''Manga/DragonBall'' from France (like Portugal, Germany and many other European countries did; it was common at the time), and about 90% or more of said changes are France's fault, not Spain's (just ask any German person about THEIR translation, for example.).
** Of course, try telling that to [[BrokenBase Catalonians or Latin Americans]], who say their dubs are numerous times better because they don't have those mistakes (even if the Catalonian dub [[FanMyopia has some of these issues as well]], albeit less of them). Especially on Website/YouTube.

** A character example: Chibiusa/Rini/Sailor Mini Moon is hated by fans for her sudden promotion from supporting character to main character in ''Sailor Moon [=SuperS=]'', and because of her early brattiness in ''R'', people refuse to believe that she's grown up and blame her for why ''[=SuperS=]'' failed. It's not the character's fault she was shoehorned into main character status. It was mostly due to ExecutiveMeddling. The creators thought that it could try and save the show's popularity by trying to reach a new, much younger audience by making her a lead character, mostly in [[KidAppealCharacter an attempt to make younger audiences relate/identify with her]], which obviously didn't work.

* Although the dubs for ''Anime/TransformersArmada'' and ''Anime/TransformersEnergon'' [[BlindIdiotTranslation weren't all that great]], the writing wasn't good in the original Japanese shows either. (Notably, the more favourably received ''Anime/TransformersCybertron'' and ''[[Anime/TransformersRobotsInDisguise Robots in Disguise]]'' were both full of {{Woolseyism}}s.) The same is by and large also true for the animation, in that while the versions seen in the dubs were incredibly sloppy and incomprehensible, the Japanese releases weren't much better even with the additional time put on them (as Creator/CartoonNetwork forced Hasbro and Creator/{{Actas}} into rushing the original versions out, with the latter being unprepared to handle a 52-episode series and outsourced most of the episodes to other companies). Many of the CGI and editing faults in ''Energon'' were in fact, there from the beginning regardless of which version you watch.

* To hear some people, the blame for the late-2000s collapse of the anime market lay entirely on the backs of harem shows. There were several reasons besides that, such as overbidding, not reaching the right market, the changing market, and the collapse of the whole American economy. In fact, many harem series, especially fanservice-laden ones, were surprise successes at the time -- ''Manga/IkkiTousen'' and ''VisualNovel/{{SHUFFLE}}!'' come to mind -- while cleaner or less formulaic shows were left in the dust. And even then, that's blaming the wrong demographic-- lobbying insults at the shows that come on at OtakuOClock obviously didn't help with what shows came on during the average Japanese Sunday morning, for example.

** ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemis2003'' is often accused of CharacterExaggeration, but in at least two cases, it's really not the fault of the producers at all. The reason why Kimblee in the 2003 series is a fairly one-note psychopath as opposed to the surprisingly AffablyEvil version of the manga is that at the time the 2003 anime was made, all of the manga material on Kimblee consisted of references to him being a gleeful war criminal, and so the 2003 anime's presentation of him is the result of making his character based on those references. Similarly, Mustang is a lot more of a JerkAss in the first anime (as opposed to having a HiddenHeartOfGold), because it wasn't yet established in the manga that Mustang had an UrbanLegendLoveLife and wasn't actually a lech, and so, understandably, the writers of 2003 went ahead with this vision of him.

** Of course, try telling that to [[BrokenBase Catalonians or Latin Americans]], who say their dubs are numerous times better because they don't have those mistakes (even if the Catalonian dub [[FanMyopia has some of these issues as well]], albeit less of them). Especially on ''Website/YouTube'.

** Their ''Anime/OnePiece'' dub is their most infamous and the one that earned them a lot of ire from the fandom, held up as the ultimate example of how [=4Kids=] [[AnimationAgeGhetto only sees anime as for children]] and has no respect for the original source material. However, [=4Kids=] never even wanted to dub the show- it was Creator/ToeiAnimation who forced them to do it under threat of taking away their license to ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi'', the show they actually wanted to dub.

* This applies whenever a voice actor is criticized for "not sounding enough like the Japanese voice" or something to that effect. In reality, besides that being a dubious assessment of voice acting quality, it's not the voice actor who has the ultimate say on how a line is interpreted and delivered, but rather the voice director. Bizarrely, people also complained about Yuki's voice actress (Creator/MichelleRuff) in the English dub of ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' sounding ''too much'' like the original Japanese.

* Creator/BangZoomEntertainment, a dubbing company, was accused of using interns in dubbing some anime (in particular ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' and ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero''). While Bang Zoom ''did'' use people new to the business because it was cheaper (as these particular dubs had a very low budget as they were made right as Creator/{{Geneon}} collapsed), none of the major characters were voiced by interns. Any interns who did voice work were playing incidental characters.

** The [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist 2003 anime version]] of ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' is often accused of CharacterExaggeration, but in at least two cases, it's really not the fault of the producers at all. The reason why Kimblee in the 2003 series is a fairly one-note psychopath as opposed to the surprisingly AffablyEvil version of the manga is that at the time the 2003 anime was made, all of the manga material on Kimblee consisted of references to him being a gleeful war criminal, and so the 2003 anime's presentation of him is the result of making his character based on those references. Similarly, Mustang is a lot more of a JerkAss in the first anime (as opposed to having a HiddenHeartOfGold), because it wasn't yet established in the manga that Mustang had an UrbanLegendLoveLife and wasn't actually a lech, and so, understandably, the writers of 2003 went ahead with this vision of him.

* Sometimes, name changes aren't as bowdlerized as you may think. There's the ''Castle in the Sky'' example listed on this page, and other examples such as [[Manga/DragonBall Chi-Chi]] being changed in Latin America. No, this was done because "Chi-Chi" is regional slang for "Breasts". Would you ''really'' think it's a good idea to have a character named "Breasts" in a show meant for children and teenagers? Though it's also slang for "breasts" ''in Japanese'', so it certainly got used in a childrens' show in Japan and would have been IncidentalMultilingualWordlay if it had been kept. Amusingly enough, the name wasn't changed in Spain, despite the fact that "Chichi" is how kids named female genitalia there.

* Sometimes, name changes aren't as bowdlerized as you may think. There's the ''Castle in the Sky'' example listed on this page, and other examples such as [[Manga/DragonBall Chi-Chi]] being changed in Latin America. No, this was done because "Chi-Chi" is regional slang for "Breasts". Would you ''really'' think it's a good idea to have a character named "Breasts" in a show meant for children and teenagers? Though it's also slang for "breasts" ''in Japanese'', so it certainly got used in a childrens' show in Japan and would have been a LuckyTranslation if it had been kept. Amusingly enough, the name wasn't changed in Spain, despite the fact that "Chichi" is how kids named female genitalia there.

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'':

** Porygon and its evolutions have never appeared in the anime after the episode "Dennō Senshi Porygon", commonly translated as "Electric Soldier Porygon", after the episode's sole airing caused photosensitive epileptic seizures, even though it was actually ''SeriesMascot Pikachu'' who caused the flashing lights to happen.

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': %%Porygon does not count per https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=115462&type=att#comment-115462

%%* Generally speaking, the lengthy amount of time between Japanese and US/EU DVD/Blu-ray releases of anime, and/or [[BadExportForYou releases lacking in quality]], are blamed on the alleged incompetence of Western licensing companies and frequently held up as an excuse to pirate and/or not buy official [=DVDs=]. In truth, problems like these are often the responsibility of the Japanese companies licensing their properties in the first place, and arise from those companies' desire to prevent reverse importing (Japanese fans buying foreign [=DVDs=] because they're so much cheaper than domestic ones).
%%* Dub edits will virtually always be blamed solely on the localization company, assuming that they alone did it with the belief that Americans are too stupid and/or uptight to handle the truth. In reality, TV networks [[ExecutiveMeddling impose standards onto the shows they broadcast that the writers have to live up to]], and imported shows are not exempt from this. Also, dub edits are often approved by the Japanese company originally producing the show, so they share some responsibility as well. Most companies, upon release of the show onto home video, will release the uncut version (if it exists).
%%* It's common for people to read fansubs and fan translations that [[SpiceUpTheSubtitles insert swear words and innuendos that were not originally there]], and then assume the official translation bowdlerised it. This actually happens because a direct translation often seems ''very'' dull due to Japanese having very few "Swear words", just "impolite" ways of saying things. Kuso (a word that is ''never'' polite) is translated to a lot of things.

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'':

** Porygon and its evolutions have never appeared in the anime after the episode "Dennō Senshi Porygon", commonly translated as "Electric Soldier Porygon", after the episode's sole airing caused photosensitive epileptic seizures, even though it was actually ''SeriesMascot Pikachu'' who caused the flashing lights to happen.

** The 2011 Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster catches the blame for pushing Team Plasma into an arc after the badge quest, as well as, for some fans, [[DorkAge dramatically changing (for the worse) a saga that started off strong, or at least decent]]. In reality, the production of [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 sequel games]] ''instead of'' the usual third version is what caused the Plasma arc to be temporarily aborted and the series to change so dramatically. This also made the ''Team Rocket vs. Team Plasma!'' two-parter, which ''was'' cancelled because of the earthquake and would have resolved [[AbortedArc the Meteonite plot]], a MortonsFork. If it ''did'' air, the fans would be on the writers for giving Team Plasma as short a shrift as they gave [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Teams Magma and Aqua]]. That said, it certainly didn't help matters.

** There's also a lot of people who don't seem to realize that some of these Western references put into anime that weren't there in the first place were actually replacing a reference that [[LostInTranslation wouldn't make sense]] elsewhere. Some manga series leave pop-cultural references intact and explain it outside the panels or on an extra page, and while some fansubs will include a little extra subtitle explaining it - some however prefer not to do this, as it's distracting and may be way too easy to miss. Mangas have the advantage of the reader being able to read at their own pace, whereas anime and film do not have this advantage.

%% ** You wanna know one funny thing in the eternal subbing and dubbing wars? Well voice actors often get blamed for how a character is ''written''.

*** You want to talk about getting blamed for stuff that wasn't their fault? Their page on this wiki reminds people that they weren't the ones responsible for the [[DubInducedPlotlineChane edited]] ''Cardcaptors'' translation of ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'': Nelvana was[[labelnote:*]]also misblamed, see below[[/labelnote]]. Yes, their reputation for screwing things up was so bad that they got blamed for bad dubs they didn't even do.

%% * Some seem to think [[Creator/NipponIchi Nippon Ichi Software America]] made a new dub for their DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the series. In reality, they had used the old {{Creator/Animax}} dub for the release. Whether or not they ''should'' have made a new dub is [[BrokenBase a source of debate]], but NISA had nothing to do with the dub beyond getting the rights and putting it in their release. What show is this referring to?
%% ^ Appears to be Manga/CardcaptorSakura, but I'm not certain enough to fix and uncomment.

** At one point in ''Z'', Goku says that Dr. Briefs modified the space pod Goku landed on Earth in to be able to fly him to Namek. The problem with that plot point is that Piccolo had blown up Goku's spaceship in an earlier episode. ''DBZ Uncensored'', a popular fansite back in the late 90's and early 2000's, blamed Funimation for creating a DubInducedPlotHole, and claimed that in the original Japanese, Goku had modified Raditz's ship instead. However, Funimation actually translated the line accurately, and the plothole exists in the original Japanese as well - [[AdaptationInducedPlotHole the scene where Piccolo finds Goku's spacepod and blows it up is a filler scene that doesn't exist in the original manga.]] While the original line ''does'' mention Raditz's spacepod, it's only in passing and explicitly says that it "got blown to bits".
** In yet ''another'' dubbing-related example, Funimation is frequently blamed for the changing of characters' names and the title of the American dub and English manga[[labelnote:*]] published by Creator/VizMedia, who also gets a share of the blame[[/labelnote]] of ''Manga/CaseClosed'', which is called ''Case Closed''. The name changes were actually requested by the Japanese licensor Tokyo Movie Shinsha, while the title change [[MarketBasedTitle was the result of]] a complaint by one of the owners to the rights of ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian''.

** Ironically, the Japanese producers often have the final say on a dub cast. This is especially true of high-profile shows like ''Franchise/OnePiece'' (the Funimation audio commentaries make this ''abundantly'' clear), as well as titles where a major member of production takes a personal interest in the localization - as happened with ''Anime/{{FLCL}}'' (for better) and ''Manga/LoveHina'' (for worse).

** The Government's law enforcers are referred to in Japanese as the "Kaigun" with the word "MARINE" written on their clothes. Thus, most fan-translations went with "Marine" to translate "Kaigun". However, "Kaigun" doesn't actually mean "Marine"; it means "Navy". All official English versions correctly translate it as "Navy", and this usually gets a backlash from fans claiming mistranslation. Funimation, aware of this, would - at least for the first 3 seasons - use "Marine" in the dub but translate it correctly as "Navy" in the subtitles; starting with the fourth season, though, they switched to using "Navy" in both. The word choice itself is somewhat misblamed, however; Marine is technically synonymous with navy, making them interchangeable rather than "right" or "wrong", but that use of the word has fallen out of favor in English.
** Another good example is that Mr. 2 Bon Clay constantly refers to himself as a crossdresser ("okama") in the Japanese manga. Toei - the company who produce the anime adaption - objected to this for some reason (probably because he's a walking stereotype) and, in the Japanese version, they changed all his references to being a "crossdresser" to being a "ballerina". This is often called out as a form of "Funimation censorship" when seen in the dub or official subtitles, despite the fact that it was there in the Japanese version too... including pretty much all fansubs.
** Mr 2 is ''himself'' a subject of this. The upper-echelon of Baroque Works work in male-female pairs, the man designated by a number and the woman with a holiday. Mr 2 - a self-declared transvestite - is given both; the holiday is meant to be ''bon kurei'', the Festival of the Dead. Fans blame the spelling "Bon Clay" on Viz either due to mistranslation or thinking ViewersAreMorons, but actually both "Bon Kurei" and "Bon Clay" appear in Japanese materials and the "Bon Clay" spelling was used at Shueisha's request.

* ''Manga/FairyTail'': Jellal regarding a lot wrongdoings that have occurred throughout the manga. Fans tend to forget that not only is Jellal brainwashed and controlled by Ultear for the duration of ''all'' his evil deeds, but he spends six years hunting evil and still feels his life is worthless due to what he'd done. It's surprising that he never got more of a break from the fans (although his CreatorsPet status via Mashima could be a very prominent reason). Surprisingly, Ultear never got such a NeverLiveItDown reputation, despite not only freely chosing to MindRape Jellal for years but torturing and massacring huge numbers of people (Ultear's very prominent FreudianExcuse is one reason why she gets so much compassion). There was an attempt to rid Jellal of his NeverLiveItDown reputation after ''[[BigGood Mavis herself]]'' says he isn't evil - and she puts the 'God' in WordOfGod - but with not a huge amount of success. Part of this might be because he is responsible for the series' only on-screen death, Simon, and part might be because of the completely psychopathic StalkerWithACrush way he treats Erza in the ''Tower Of Heaven'' arc.

* One argument that has been used against the dub of ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' is that [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks in the English versions, the characters refer to the mecha's trademark move as the "Giga Drill Break" instead of "Giga Drill Breaker."]] While "Break" admittedly doesn't sound quite as cool, that is actually what it's supposed to be called -- "Breaker" is a MemeticMutation coming from the GratuitousEnglish of "[[CallingYourAttacks BUUUU-REEEEKKKKAAAAA!]]"

** [=4Kids=] is often blamed for "removing" the [[Radio/PokemonTheBirthOfMewtwo backstory]] of Mewtwo in ''[[Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie Mewtwo Strikes Back]]'', where Amber teaches Mewtwo about life, for being too sad, or because it involved cloning human children. In actuality, this prologue was never part of the original theatrical release in Japan, and was created much later for DVDs and various other re-releases.

** [=4Kids=] is often blamed for "removing" the [[Radio/PokemonTheBirthOfMewtwo backstory]] of Mewtwo in ''[[Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie Mewtwo Strikes Back]]'', where Amber teaches Mewtwo about life, for being too sad, or because it involved cloning human children. However, this prologue was purely meant as supplementary material for both America and Japan, with it airing on television in Japan, not in theaters.

* Funimation gets blamed even before they release shows. In the later installments of ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'', some {{fansub}} groups have been accused of "using Funimation's translation" in [[SpellMyNameWithAnS spelling]] the female lead's name as "Holo" rather than "Horo". Once again, "Holo" is the official spelling according to the Japanese companies and the in-show visuals (as seen in episode 6 of the 2nd season). Interestingly, the original light novels' author uses "Horo", in direct contradiction to what the official Japanese sources gave to Funimation.

* It was widely believed that Keyop in ''Anime/BattleOfThePlanets'' (which really ''is'' a CutAndPasteTranslation, but in other ways) has his strange speech pattern because swearing was censored out in the original ''[[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman Gatchaman]]'', though this belief has pretty much ended now that unedited dub ''Gatchaman'' by Creator/ADVFilms is commercially available and can be compared. It seems more likely that the Sandy Frank adaptation team gave him the speech pattern to emphasize how "strange" he is as an engineered clone (while Jinpei in the original Gatchaman has no such origin).

*** You want to talk about getting blamed for stuff that wasn't their fault? Their page on this wiki reminds people that they weren't the ones responsible for the ''Cardcaptors'' CutAndPasteTranslation of ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'': Nelvana was[[labelnote:*]]also misblamed, see below[[/labelnote]]. Yes, their reputation for screwing things up was so bad that they got blamed for bad dubs they didn't even do.

* The ''original'' {{Macekre}}, ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' even has some level of this. While Creator/CarlMacek did make the scripts for individual episodes, the whole "[[CutAndPasteTranslation make one show using the footage from three]]" wasn't something he decided, and was in fact exactly what he was ''hired to do'', for the sake of making a show [[SixtyFiveEpisodeCartoon with enough episodes for syndication]].

** The ''Advanced Generation'' series has a number of very weird edits and censorship, like the removal of Poké Ball symbols on Ash's badge case and removal of crosshairs on some of Team Rocket's devices, that get blamed on [=4Kids=]. In reality, these edits were entirely due to [[ExecutiveMeddling the laws of American TV at the time]] and are ''only'' present in the American airing of the episodes. The edits don't appear when the same episodes were shown outside America.

** Porygon being the Pokémon that caused the infamous seizure-inducing imagery present in the banned episode [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/EP038 "Electric Soldier Porygon"]]. It wasn't. While Porygon and its evolutions have certainly never appeared in any anime adaptation ever since outside brief blink-and-you'll-miss cameos, this is purely due to the unfortunate association its name has with the incident. The imagery was actually caused by ''Pikachu'', who was attacking incoming missiles being shot at Porygon and the rest of the group.

*** This "Toriyama is Anime ''POISON''!" attitude has also unfotunately spread into other stuff he is involved in. ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' is often given a free pass, but would you believe people sometimes refuse to play games like ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' and ''VideoGame/BlueDragon'' because they assume they're ''Dragon Ball Z''? Akira Toriyama has little to no involvement with the writing and game design of ''Dragon Quest'' (which is handled by Square Enix and other companies such as Level-5).

* Although the dubs for ''Anime/TransformersArmada'' and ''Anime/TransformersEnergon'' [[BlindIdiotTranslation weren't all that great]], the writing wasn't good in the original Japanese shows either. (Notably, the more favourably received ''Anime/TransformersCybertron'' and ''[[Anime/TransformersRobotsInDisguise Robots in Disguise]]'' were both full of {{Woolseyism}}s.) The same is by and large also true for the animation, in that while the versions seen in the dubs were incredibly sloppy and incomprehensible, the Japanese releases weren't much better even with the additional time put on them (as Creator/CartoonNetwork forced Hasbro and Creator/{{Actas}} into rushing the original versions out). Many of the CGI and editing faults in ''Energon'' were in fact there from the beginning regardless of which version you watch.