Anime in Arabia.

Setting the last commotion aside - and I admit it should have been left for an appropriate place - , I want to ask those who watched at least some Arabic dubs to give their opinion about the voice acting . Is it as good ? It would be even better if you compare between anime back in , let's say the time from 90's to 2005 or so and what follows .

Even with my limited experience, I can tell that it really depends on who does what dub as well as on the story itself. Let's take one classic anime that got Arabic-dubbed: Heidi, Girl of the Alps. I watched pretty much the whole thing, and the dubbing was fantastic, though possibly barring a handful of minor kinks.

Now compare that to Dragon Ball; putting aside the huge amount of censorship and the badly done attempts to mask it by reusing "safe" cuts to replace the "unsafe" cuts (which isn't limited to sexual fanservice, BTW; visibly bloody gore was a no-no for the dubbers, too), the dialogue and storyline was mangled badly in several places. Just to mention one example, apparently the dubbers cannot stomach having the first, clearly mass-murderous villain of DBZ's first few episodes be the long-lost older brother of the hero, so they changed him to being said hero's old friend... despite the fact that the hero arrived on the planet as a baby! Whoah, must have been such a fantastically powerful friendship, to be able to form while one of them was still in the cradle, the other was only a few years older himself, and the two being unable to communicate at all.

edited 28th Sep '14 12:55:35 PM by MarqFJA

Surely being his friend is worse than being a long-lost blood relation? I mean, the former implies some sort of approval on some level at some point.

Well, I guess the amnesia-due-to-head-trauma thing was a swallowable excuse for them. (The aforementioned hero really used to be as violent and hostile as the average Saiyan was, despite being a mere baby with no education or brainwashing; all that changed when he accidentally hit his head hard soon after his adoptive grandfather found him, though.)

edited 28th Sep '14 2:42:42 PM by MarqFJA

Yeah , that . I watched the dub first , and while I rarely saw clips of the anime in sub or English dub , I got most of my information from the video games . Yeah , "Nobody watched Dragonball" if you know the reference . Anyway , when I found out that Raditz was Goku's brother I was like "What on Earth ?!" . Yet I understand . Disagreement between brothers which reaches ti o trying to kill each other , not a good thing . That's a heavy idea to "stomach" even for adults , let alone children .

Yet , they could have made him to be someone who knew about Goku or his father and since there are very few Saiyans left , it wouldn't be surprising .

The "cannot stomach fratricidal feuds" thing (which I persume to be rooted at least partly in Islamic culture) is ridiculous, given that Islamic traditions never gloss over the Cain and Abel feud, and even have examples of wayward sons defying their righteous parents to seek a darker path (like the Prophet Noah's apostate son, who adamantly refused to heed his father's warning when The Flood came and instead thought that he could take refuge at a mountaintop from the worldwide deluge sent by Allah).

edited 29th Sep '14 10:19:50 AM by MarqFJA

Did you just say that something with roots in Islam is ridiculous ? Because there is a difference between righteous parents/children defying their children/parents and an animation with really not much of a spiritual message . Yes , we know about the son of Nooh and the father of Ibrahim peace upon the two of those two prophets . Yet , I still don't think it's a good idea for children to see such a thing outside of that .

I say it's ridiculous because the same cited source for said aversion does not exhibit it in the first place, and therefore claiming that the aversion comes from it is self-contradictory. Saying that connecting a certain X to a certain Y is ridiculous does not automatically imply that X and/or Y are ridiculous, barring explicitly saying otherwise.

And for the record, I use "Islamic culture" to refer to the broad set of sociocultural values that were influenced over the centuries by Islamic teachings and the various interpretations of it (represented by the many denominations that comprise Islam as a whole, and the many schools of juridprudence/fiqh as well), which are not necessarily accurate reflections of said teachings themselves. (Though in hindsight, "Islam-influenced cultures" would've been more accurate.)

edited 29th Sep '14 10:25:43 AM by MarqFJA

I'll set it aside since it would turn into another commotion .

I'm curious about the portrayal of girls in anime dubs. For example, take Detective Conan: many girls appear in school uniforms with short skirts and the like. Do they digitally add clothes, cut the scenes, or just leave it untouched?

Using Detective Conan as an example, and only when it comes to more conservative/prudish-minded dubbers... If they can, they'd replace the scene with a repetition of a "safe" one (often one that only depicts the girl from the waist up only, or even shoulders up if the former isn't viable). Failing that, they would resort to a very bad digital censoring by covering up the legs with something that I honestly have idea what it is, save that it's too conspicuous for anyone with even half a working brain cell to not notice as being an artificial modification of the scene in question.

This guy lists several other things that were changed in Detective Conan, usually forms of censorship. Example: Sonoko's habit of flirting is censored by changing all relevant scenes so that all of the guys in question are "old friends, neighbors or cousins".

Oh, and you can forget about Beach Episodes in the Arabic dub, BTW; I guess the aforementioned dubbers gave up on trying to salvage anything from those, with good reason (really, when 90% of the episode depicts at least one woman in a skintight, often-revealing swimsuit, then none of their censoring methods will result in anything but a total narrative disaster).

edited 10th Oct '14 8:34:36 AM by MarqFJA

To be honest, all those changes make me think whether it's actually profitable. If they're going to have to edit almost half of the times a female character appears, won't they get to a point in which it's actually cheaper to make animated series in the Arab world, adjusting to Islamic standards from the start?

That is something that I thought of before as well. The best that I can think of as a possible explanation is that whoever is acting as their financial sponsor, he's very wealthy and probably is only given a broad, low-resolution picture of what exactly is being done, how exactly is the money spent, and how things usually work in foreign countries where such an industry has already been well-developed many years ago.

"If they're going to have to edit almost half of the times a female character appears, won't they get to a point in which it's actually cheaper to make animated series in the Arab world, adjusting to Islamic standards from the start? "

We wish , pal ! However , no such thing is supported . That's in almost any field . Whoever has potential and aspires to do something great is thwarted and shut down .

Well, perhaps in Saudi Arabia and similarly conservative-minded Arab countries. According to one of the posters several pages ago, there is an original Arabic Super Robot Genre anime being made in the UAE by a native studio.

Im STILL interested in Gold Ring as animated by GAINAX. I read some interviews with the original author and he made sure to showcase some Muslim Values like the Hijab and Praying. I hope this is an opportunity for some to see Islam in a better light.

<looks up Wikipedia for unfamiliar title> Well, it's a given that the author would showcase such elements in a positive light, given that he's an Arab and a Muslim in the first place, and he made the comic with the purpose of doing such things. I'm surprised that he managed to secure an Animated Adaptation contract with a high-profile studio like Gainax, though.

edited 20th Oct '14 9:37:22 PM by MarqFJA

You say it like its a bad thing!

I love that an Arab Muslim shows the world what he is made of and follow his dream!

No, I'm just saying that it shouldn't be as surprising as you seem to think it is.

Im not saying its surprising. Ok, actually I AM surprised, but only at the fact that its getting an anime at all. I love Qiais Sedki he's an inspiration to me!

Edit:Also, I read an article on Gold Ring and It said that dubbing of Old School anime was made in Irak. Which I've heard was REALLY conservative?

How did they get away with so much stuff with Rose Of Versailles and Grendizer?

edited 20th Oct '14 10:33:21 PM by prettycoco

I don't recall this rose thing , but I remember some of Grendaizer and I don't remember anything clashing with Islam along with it .

EDIT : Then again , don't take my word for it . I only watched a few on old school video tapes - what are they called anyway ?! - and I can barely remember something from over 10 years .

edited 21st Oct '14 6:57:09 AM by Edger

Rose of Versailles prominently features a young woman who was raised as a male impersonator, but Oscar is fully clothed 99.9% of the time so there would be relatively little to cut there. I forget if the women's outfits had cleavage, but that's a relatively easy fix. No supernatural stuff, so that's not an issue. The king's marital infidelity is a subplot, but there's no onscreen sex.

Can anyone think of an anime where only the bad guys use magic? That should fly, right?

Depending upon who does the dubbing and what Arab channel they want to broadcast the anime on, even crossdressing would be out of the question. Understandable, really, since wearing clothes that are decidely intended for the other gender is heavily condemned in Islam, whether it's a man or a woman who's doing it.

I wouldn't be sure about that. If that would've flown, then they could've just censored the heroic usage of magic into something else and left the villains' own unchanged to enforce the dichotomy. Conservative Arabic dubbers generally seem to believe that anything explicitly supernatural is unsuitable for children — kinda like some Moral Guardians in North America with regards to some imported anime/manga, actually.

"No crossdressing" cuts a rather large swath through the allowable anime and manga.

And yes, the stricter Christian sects frown upon any mention of the supernatural that is not directly in the Bible. Even the openly pro-Christian Narnia books are not allowable.

Slightly less strict sects allow C.S. Lewis and a small list of speculative fiction works by other overtly Christian authors. But they also tend to be heavily into Start My Own and The Moral Substitute so that their adherents have some pop culture and (theoretically) don't stray off after godless entertainment. One of the reasons the Left Behind books did so well is because they were speculative fiction thrillers (in a loose sense) that your pastor would approve of.

edited 22nd Oct '14 9:52:46 AM by SKJAM