4Kids Entertainment

Lately, I've been hearing more and more people say positive things about 4kids. While some were kind of trollish (ONE PIECE'S JAPANESE VERSION IS DUMB, 4KIDS DID IT A FAVOR~!) other's do present more convincing and compelling arguments in 4kids defense that cant be as easily dismissed. Now dont get me wrong, I hate them for what they did not just to One Piece but the anime industry. The flops of so many of their properties has crippled the enviroment of Kids TV.

However, I do have some things I like about them.

• They were one of the first and last companies to actually aim anime aggresively at kids. Now before you cry "ANIMATION AGE GHETTO!" you've got to admit introduced millions of youngsters to anime via their dubs of genuine kids fare. Pokemon isnt an Hellsing level adult OVA. And its sad that with their death, no one will aim anime at kids anymore. Again, dont get me wrong. They mauled every anime not named Pokemon and the anime industry is probably better now that they are gone.

• The early One Piece dub did try to be faithful to the original. Sure the HAMMER GUN is unforgiveable, but it didnt reach the levels of ARLONG'S DUNGEON. The episode with the dog was handled well and I actually teared up a bit. Lots of stuff slipped past the censors like Zoro getting stabbed by Buggy.

• Some say the casting for One Piece was good. Im not one of them. However they had terrific voices for Ojamajo Doremi. They were as cute and great as the originals. Except Aiko/Mirabelle, she got the short end of the stick.

4Kids adapted Team Rocket is funnier than Japanese Team Rocket.

They made awesome O Ps. To this day, Pokemon has some of the greatest openings you'll ever find. Well, before 4Kids lost the license. But before that there was the oiriginal, Johto Journeys, Born To Be A Winner...

And the great music doesn't stop at Openings.

Dub Pegasus was the best thing about any Yugioh series.

They paid V As way more than, say, Bang Zoom or Seraphim.

Speaking of V As, some of them were excellent. Dan Green, Mike Pollock, Veronica Taylor.

edited 9th Mar '15 9:08:45 AM by Logograph

Given the generous after-effect of the debut of Pokemon and the anime boom they started, I could probably say...

Um... That the fact that Pokemon pretty much killed the WB animation boom of the 90s meant that a lot of the people who worked on those shows could make some very quality programs on cable.

But that's pretty much it.

I actually liked the dub of Pokemon.

They no longer exist.

Accept no other.

edited 9th Mar '15 10:17:47 AM by TheAirman

I was going to post about the One Piece rap.

That's about the only thing I liked about 4Kids.

- their Pokemon dub was passable. This is mostly because the original was genuinely a show meant for small children. Granted certain episodes and specials which were actually kinda good got ruined (ie the first movie's dub is horrendous), but other than that it was mostly fine.

- while the majority of their plot changes were stupid and weakened their shows, occasionally one of their changes would actually be good. Ex: Yugi's duel with Mai has a better personal struggle in the dub.

When I say dub, I mostly refer to the voice actors. The Script Changes definitely suck.

As I said, most of their voice actors were pretty good. It's just that it's impossible to do good acting with the shit scripts.

I only enjoyed Omajio Doremi dub to the point i'm rewatching it now.

TMNT 2003.

The following is all brought to you by 4Kids in the Yugioh GX Dub. Anyone who denies 4Kids made GX a billion times better is crazy.

http://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/14554835/

edited 9th Mar '15 4:14:30 PM by Nikkolas

• Their hammy Yu-Gi-Oh! dubbing.
• Some of their orignal music for the Yu-Gi-Oh! dubs.
• Their dub of Kinnikuman Nisei.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)
• Ultraman Tiga

They had a spiffy logo.

At least one of their One Piece recuts made more sense than canon: Kuina's fate. 4Kids had a gang of jealous boys attack her and beat her to the point that she was never able to hold a sword again, jealous that a girl was such a good swordfighter.

Oda had her die falling down the steps.

Now, i totally get what Oda was going for, how we can be denied our dreams for very senseless reasons (which is quite true to life), but 4Kids both made more sense and was inadvertently more cruel. Instead of a senseless death, Kuina had to live knowing that she could never achieve her dreams.

Now Im definitely sure I disagree with everyone here.

As with you , really.

Thing, there is very little that 4kids has actuLly done that benefitted the english language manga and anime community.

From saying how kids don't read, to needlessly getting rid of any Japanese cultural references of any sort, to cutting out even the most harmless violence from the shows they get.

If they had managed to get a TV deal for Pretty cure, they would have made every fight scene have a white flash of them because of how brutal the choreography can get. Basically every fight in that would be like how they white flashed Yusei beating the crap out of thugs in Yu Gi Oh 5 Ds.

edited 11th Mar '15 11:22:37 AM by Demongodofchaos2

I agree their censoring was atrocious at times.

Anyway, I did really like many of their theme songs(Shaman King, Pokemon, and I did honestly love the Pirate Rap). They were catchy and worked. Their version of TMNT(which was a dub first, for that matter) was rather good in itself. They went pretty dang far at times.

Now, keep in mind as a fan of Legend of Zorro, I actually liked the name Zolo being used instead as it made it easier to connect with a different character. I didn't confuse them. That said, no, I do not agree with the bad censoring they did in One Piece otherwise. The names didn't bother me, keep in mind. Another thing is Sonic X. The theme was honestly good, and the voices were fine, but the censoring seemed a bit silly. I actually, to be honest, find the fact that in Season 3, The rebels essentially weren't shown to be killed, but it seemed like they were implied to be turned into plants or something like that. An even worse fate... Then again, that season was already pretty high up there in maturity even with the censoring. I didn't feel like the dub's changes affected the implications of what happened enough to ruin it.(it's not like Chris was particularly good in the original either, anyway)

Yeah, it's hard to honestly say what good points they brought without noting they have made mistakes. But I also do understand the the US has stricter standards these days. That's why a lot more Anime came to Adult Swim, to allow them to go effectively uncensored. Likewise, I will not lie, I thought they did a fairly good job with Pokemon overall. It is true they mostly got rid of the Japanese culture, but you also have to remember it doesn't treat it much like it's set in a Japanese place, unlike a lot of other Anime(Inuyasha, Cardcaptors, even Bleach). Likewise, I thought the jokes were fairly funny overall. Some are lame now that I'm an adult, but I still get a chuckle out of "Perverse psychology" from Season 2. Or the slap on the ass taunts. Can't get enough of how ridiculous it is that they let that slip through. XD

That said, they have a lot of misses, but I won't say they're beyond awful or anything. Now when I did become entertained by some of their stuff. Infact, I will honestly say there wasn't a theme song I heard of theirs I could honestly dislike. That I particularly listened to. Ultimate Muscle, One Piece, Pokemon, Shaman King, TMNT(well, the second series that was about the Future was not as good as it could be, but Back to the Sewers was a nice theme), Sonic X, Mew Mew Power(it's catchy!). Which ones did I miss that was on Fox Kids and related blocks? I'm pretty sure Digimon was dubbed by a different company, so...

What does as with you mean?

And I DO agree massively with you Demogodofchaos. Pretty Cure would have been DESTROYED if they had their way with it. The fact that 4kids never got around to dubbing it despite having the license for so log was definitely a miracle. I dont care if people think Pretty Cure is already dumb and babyish, it does have maturity and appeal beyond your average girls cartoon.

And now Saban wants to maul and butcher it too. And dont come with "How do you know that?". The name Gangnam Girls doesnt exactly inspire confidence. Sure, they changed it to Glitter Force which is less awful but not by much. And you bet that if they hadnt found legal problems with Gangnam Girls they would have used that name.

You ask me, "Pretty Cure" doesn't sound much more BA than "Glitter Force".

Well, Pretty Cure is known for much more elaborate fight scenes then standard Shoujo fair.

It's all about dispensing fabulous medical remedies

Until they changed the name to Pre-Cure, so now it's all about what comes before the cure.