dawnswalker
2004-05-30 10:46 am UTC (link)

With anime fandom, it's always "~~second~~ 1,305,962,781th verse same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse", isn't it?.

Why did they have to change the title from "Detective Conan" anyway? The only reason that makes even the slightest bit of sense would be that they didn't want people to mistake it for being associated with the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle(?), but even that seems kind of silly. Then again, Funimation doesn't seem to be all that forthcoming with the reason (not that I blame them, because... yow).

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	raikochan 2004-05-30 11:00 am UTC (link)
	Actually I think it was Conan the Barbarian. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	liarliar 2004-05-30 11:04 am UTC (link)
	And here I thought it was Late Night with ~~Detective~~ Conan O'Brien. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Sparkly icon khym_chanur 2004-05-30 11:09 am UTC (link)
	Who's the sparkly blue-haired makes-me-want-to-squee character, and what series is she from? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Sparkly icon raikochan 2004-05-30 11:23 am UTC (link)
	Yu-rei from Di Gi Charat Nyo. She's the cutest thing ever. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2004-05-30 05:43 pm UTC (link)
	The name change was required because "Conan" (as in The Barbarian) is a trademarked name in the United States. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	marginalsanity 2004-05-30 09:30 pm UTC (link)
	OMG THINK OF THE LATENIGHT HOST!!1 Oh, sorry. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	blackjackrocket 2004-05-30 10:35 pm UTC (link)
	And how? I can understand with the " ~ the Barbarian" part, but the name Conan as it stands alone is a real life name, and can be found in just about every name book in the English-speaking world. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

hoshiryo
2004-05-31 05:22 am UTC (link)

It is almost certainly a lie that the name changes were for 'copyright reasons' -- since the one chara's whose personal name escaped being Westernized is Conan himself. They left the surnames in Japanese.

On top of it all, such a lawsuit would be what's generally considered 'frivolous' -- a waste of everybody's time. Now, I don't know the full set of people who hold the copyright(s)/licenses for Conan the Barbarian, the ones I do know would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did file such a lawsuit because they're just as easily vulnerable (if not more) for the exact same sort of lawsuit. (Not only that, but I doubt their lawyers aren't aware of that.)

I think it was marketing. "Oh, look, the main chara's a little kid!" (Not really. He just looks like it.) "Little kiddies will just love this!" (What, you really think kiddies should be watching a show with regular gruesome murders? Are you sure you don't have this confused with Clamp School Detectives?)

Either that, or they wanted to alienate the pre-existent American fanbase completely, because the Westernization is half-assed. The show has around 99% of the population of Tokyo running around with randomly-chosen Western personal names -- and Japanese surnames. Exactly how this is supposed to be a Good Idea is beyond me, perhaps because I don't have a room-temperature IQ and thus am too smart to realize the brilliance of doing something that'll even piss off those who don't mind Americanization...

But at least they didn't decide to try simply dropping each and every single episode with a murder -- there are, out of several hundred, a few. Very few... (This is what Fox Kids had threatened to do several years back.)

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blackjackrocket
2004-05-31 09:30 am UTC (link)

But at least they didn't decide to try simply dropping each and every single episode with a murder -- there are, out of several hundred, a few. Very few... (This is what Fox Kids had threatened to do several years back.)

The same Fox Kids who aired Digimon? Which was, when you got right down to it, one of the most brutal kids shows ever on US tv. (the second season alone had several violent deaths, a near-impaling, Ken thought about killing himself, there were flashbacks to Sam getting killed by a car, two characters had nervous breakdowns...and that's just the stuff I can name off the top of my head!)

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shinigami_co
2004-06-01 01:09 am UTC (link)

Y'know, I'm a long-time Digimon fan, but I never got to see much of the first series. I was really surprised when I sat down and watched some of the Eighth Child stuff from the first season a few days ago. ABC Family was having a marathon or something.

I mean...they (still) cut out kids slapping other kids, but they leave in Myotismon telling Gatomon that he's gonna hafta "hit her until she stops looking at him like that"? WTF? They take out slapping but leave IN abuse?

Holy crap, man. O_o

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blackjackrocket
2004-06-01 01:32 am UTC (link)

They also cut a shot of Arukenimon punching Mummymon in the gut, but I think that was a cut for time, as they left in pretty much every *other* time she does so.

They took out Oikawa smacking Cody, which was a shame. I mean, it said a lot about the extent of Myotismon's control over him, really. (and dude, Cody goes FLYING. I would have LOVED to see that--and I *LIKE* Cody!)

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	Re: shinigami_co 2004-06-01 01:59 am UTC (link)
	Aww, man...I'd have paid GOOD MONEY to see that. doesn't like Cody at all XD (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	blackjackrocket 2004-06-01 02:04 am UTC (link)
	I'll send you some pictures of it. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	shinigami_co 2004-06-01 03:02 am UTC (link)
	You're awesome! Thanks! XD (Reply to this)(Parent)

beccastareyes
2004-06-02 01:48 am UTC (link)

Well, it's simple. Nonhuman violence is okay, since it is obviously fictional. But showing a human hitting another human is wrong.

...
...
That actually sounds like a reason an executive would use. Mommy, I'm scared now.

Ah, Digimon. The only fandom I ever had where I have to ask my friends to start talking about somthing truely beastly like Card Captors, selected moments from Sailor Moon sub vs. dub, or the fact Marvel can't keep continuity straight for more than two authors in order to make the hurting stop.

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puipui
2004-05-31 10:33 pm UTC (link)

I can understand with the " ~ the Barbarian" part, but the name Conan as it stands alone is a real life name, and can be found in just about every name book in the English-speaking world.

I can't remember; is this Funimation? Because Funimation also trademarked the name "Hiei" in the US when they started translating Yuu Yuu Hakusho, despite the fact that the character was named after an incredibly famous mountain in the Kyoto region of Japan and the name, therefore, is printed on every single frickin' map of Kyoto ever. Not to mention that it has a very old and very significant Buddhist monastery on top, IIRC, which is probably mentioned in tons of books on Buddhism and the like, and it's a key location in several other anime - an entire arc of Rurouni Kenshin takes place there, for example. So, what, do these people have to get Funimation's permission to talk about a mountain in Japan now?

And, of course, this is made even more baffling by the fact that they didn't trademark the name "Kurama" in the US. Also a mountain in Kyoto, also a character in YYH, but for some reason maybe they just couldn't get the rights to it or something? Did some map manufacturer somewhere already have "Kurama" trademarked but forgot to do the same with "Hiei"?

Trademark law is just bizarre, yo.

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	roswellingram 2004-06-01 10:43 pm UTC (link)
	...Well, the joke's on Funimation, because they'll never wrench the rights to Lively Little Hiei-chan from Fuji Shinichi's grasp. And everyone knows that's where the real money is. :D cackles over her YYH doujinshi (Reply to this)(Parent)

	littlest_lurker 2004-05-31 05:45 am UTC (link)
	I think a reason was given in a newer issue of Animerica, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	sarajayechan 2004-05-30 05:28 pm UTC (link)
	Aah, the old sub vs dub wank. It's become somewhat amusing to me now... (Reply to this)(Thread)

hoshiryo
2004-05-31 05:53 am UTC (link)

It isn't the old sub vs dub argument. It's an example of the "Dub that will offend damn near everybody" -- the show's not been released on DVD yet, and nobody knows if the sub is going to be any good.

If you want some idea how bad the dub is... I normally watch dubbed, because those I watch anime with have reading problems and it's a pain to have to watch anime in slo-mo or have to be able to recite verbatim the subtitles for several minutes past seeing them since which ones will be misread can't be predicted.

I'm not only going to be sticking with the subs, I'm going to be sticking with fansubs or HK subs, depending on which I can get.

(Incidentally, the DVD release last I heard was fucked up beyond belief. The second disk will contain episodes from well into the series -- we're talking around episode 80 or so of a series that is well over 400 episodes long in Japan, and still going. Last I heard, there were also no plans at all for a third disk.)

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	soraphilia 2004-05-30 09:36 pm UTC (link)
	Ugh. I hate dub names with a passion, but telling someone you would've killed them for using those names is going way too far, even though s/he's obviously not serious (at least, I really hope not). I'll take silly, sugar-high dub fangirls over rabid purists like that. (Reply to this)(Thread)

shinigami_co
2004-05-31 01:46 am UTC (link)

I second that motion.

I'm not gonna say much about this, since I'm fairly involved, but...some of the reactions of the fans in that community to an innocent (albeit rather spastic) post declaring love for a show they're all supposed to love make me think "wtf?"

It's a good thing the show that got me into anime had a pretty much even-keeled fandom. Everyone spoke in both dub and sub terms and no one had a fit about it.

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elffromspace
2004-05-31 05:19 am UTC (link)

Heh, I know what you mean. I went ahead and posted because I am so NOT involved with the fandom. I'm familiar with the series and had seen one movie subbed, but actually I suppose I sort of AM a dubbie here since I've now seen more of the dub than the sub XD (it was free and took no effort) I find the whole thing rather amusing since I'm rather detatched from it, but man, the ignorant and yet loud dub fans are annoying as heck and the sub elitests are just plain wanky.

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	(Anonymous) 2004-05-31 05:49 am UTC (link)
	In pure, unadultered curiosity, does it mean I'm wanky? [sapphirus @ LJ] (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	elffromspace 2004-05-31 07:37 am UTC (link)
	Actually, you were one of the postier people, but rather boring. Be more wanky next time!!! Just kidding. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	(Anonymous) 2004-05-31 07:54 am UTC (link)
	Aww..... I'm not wanky... sulkage [sapphirus @ LJ] (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(Anonymous)
2004-05-31 02:35 pm UTC (link)

Okay... well... *thinks* since you asked...

I really usually just stick to raw Japanese eps to avoid all troubles related to those things above

I thought this reply to wmchichiri's post about how ugly some of the oldtimers were, was kind of wanky in an elitist sort of way. Not everyone, in fact I would wager that not most of the fandoms anywhere, has the luxury of being able to watch things raw and know what is going on.

Not very wank reportable tho'.

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(Anonymous)
2004-06-01 09:36 pm UTC (link)

Well, I figured as much already. I'd just gotten tired of the old sub/dub argument and went to improve on my Japanese skills so I wouldn't have to bother with either. There's so many nuances and jokes that can be lost through as much translation as through dubbing/adaptation.

Such a reaction /is/ elitist in nature, but it's my way of escaping what I feel is a vicious circle of pain and headaches. XD;; Personally, I think everyone who's into anime should learn Japanese and start buying the R2s (when they can afford it *shakes empty wallet*). Or I'll move to Japan sometime in the future, who knows.

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hoshiryo
2004-05-31 06:17 am UTC (link)

...let me put it this way...

Very, very few fandoms have been screwed with by American companies as badly as Detective Conan fandom has been. (To be honest? I think you'd have to go outside of anime to find a fandom which has been treated worse in the US; I've been keeping track of Detective Conan fandom since Fox Kids first claimed that they'd be running it that year...at least five years ago. It became an annual claim of theirs for a few years: "Detective Conan will be a mid-season replacement. Really. It will. Stop looking at us like that...")

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shinigami_co
2004-05-31 08:02 pm UTC (link)

Good God. Wait a second. You mean, Fox Kids wanted DC? And they didn't get it? And fans are still complaining about the company that did?

Holy shit, man. I'd be sending Funimation fat sacks of cash just because they saved it from the Fox treatment!

They just changed the names around. Yeah, it's annoying, but I will find some way to carry on with my life. After seeing the final product, I still fail to see how Funimation has done Conan some huge world of hurt. Hell, maybe they couldn't call it Detective Conan because Fox prematurely copyrighted that name. There's no way if I was some small-yet-just-getting-larger anime company in Fort Worth that I'd tangle with friggin' Twentieth Century Fox over copyright issues.

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puipui
2004-05-31 10:47 pm UTC (link)

Hell, maybe they couldn't call it Detective Conan because Fox prematurely copyrighted that name.

See, now that makes sense. And things like that have happened before - the title for YYH (Which I seem to be referencing a lot in this wank - does it just have a lot of these weird trademark issues, I wonder?) was originally translated as "Poltergeist Report" in the US, but that company only had the rights to the movies, so when Funimation picked up the TV series they had to translate the title to "Ghost Files" instead, even though it's slightly less accurate.

I'd previously heard that it had something to do with "Conan the Barbarian" but if they didn't change the actual character's name then the pre-existing copyright thing would make more sense, I think.

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shinigami_co
2004-06-01 01:11 am UTC (link)

Huh, I never noticed that. I wonder if they do that in the manga? *doesn't have a SJ nearby to check, and this chair is sooo comfy...*

Concerning DC, all I know is that when I first heard Funi had licensed Conan, I went to their site and the filler page for it said Detective Conan. So they were at least going to call it that at first, but something happened between then and airtime. *shrugs*

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elffromspace
2004-06-01 02:37 am UTC (link)

Wow, and the rumors fly. I wonder if the real story is officially out there anywhere. What I heard is that Fox Kids didn't just *try* to get the rights, they got them. Then they sat on them for year after year while they kept saying they were going to start airing it on TV soon and they apparently never figured out how to make it into a kiddie show ^^ Gee, what a surprise. It actually does seem fairly plausible, then, that they copyrighted the name and perhaps they KEPT that copyright even after they were somehow forced to relinquish the rights to the episodes. Fox WOULD make an ass of themselves by keeping the name, too. They're just like that.

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puipui
2004-06-01 09:10 am UTC (link)

Well, since copyrights generally last for a very very long time, they probably would've continued to own the rights to the name long after their rights to the episodes - which probably had to be translated/aired/distributed/whatever within a certain (short) number of years by the terms of the contract - had expired. Of course, they could certainly sell the rights to the name, I'm sure, but this is, of course, Fox, so they probably wanted an absolutely outrageous sum of money, and Funi just probably decided that it was just cheaper and easier to change the name rather than have to go through all the trouble.

Like I said, it seems plausible enough to me. It's pulled entirely from my ass, of course, since I've heard absolutely nothing to that effect at all, but it still seems plausible enough to me. XD

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hoshiryo
2004-06-01 03:09 am UTC (link)

Fox had gotten Detective Conan: they seem to have mixed it up with Clamp School Detectives. Given that, I'd say that Disney, which had bought the remains of Fox Kids (which ran the hacked-apart Escaflowne toward its end) probably sold it off...

Besides that, if I remember my copyright law correctly, the title "Detective Conan" is almost certainly copyrighted...by the company that publishes it in Japan. (Either that, or trademarked, which I think is the proper term for titles anyway.) The right to use the name would have to be part of the license, unless the American company's lawyers were rank incompetents. (You don't license the content and not the name(s)...)

And I'm not going to complain about their changing the names -- except they did only did it half-way, and could definitely have done a better job. I don't mind Americanization, and in fact when I first heard that they were going to be doing that I didn't think it would be bad. However, I also thought that they'd either keep it to the absolute minimum, or do a complete job.

(The copyrighted name problems have happened before, with Lupin III: it was dealt with by simply rendering his name 'Wolf' or 'Rupin.' You can still find copies of some of it which date back to before the copyrights on the original Lupin stories ran out in the US.)

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	(Anonymous) 2004-06-01 09:10 pm UTC (link)
	Sis... Didn't I /tell/ you that long ago that Fox Kids /had/ the rights to Conan but never pulled the series out of their dusty shelves? Thought I did... [sapphirus @ LJ] (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: shinigami_co 2004-06-01 10:53 pm UTC (link)
	Buh...yeah, probably. But you know me and my craptastic memory. ^_^;; (Reply to this)(Parent)

puipui
2004-05-31 10:51 pm UTC (link)

Very, very few fandoms have been screwed with by American companies as badly as Detective Conan fandom has been.

Well, I don't know what you'd consider being treated badly, but since we're talking about bad dub jobs, I feel it necessary to mention at this point that I'm a Card Captor Sakura fan. *attempts to suppress the Cardcaptors memories again*

At least the CCS subs seem decent enough, though. Although the special edition DVD for the second movie appears to be missing the extra content that was supposed to make it a special edition. Hmm...

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	(Anonymous) 2004-05-31 04:34 am UTC (link)
	i mean, they changed Shinichi to Jimmy, what kinda name is Jimmy, (no offense to the people whose name is Jimmy) my name is Jimmy and I AM OFFENDED! -~~Ariel~~ Jimmy (Reply to this)(Thread)

	(Anonymous) 2004-05-31 06:39 am UTC (link)
	You got to fight for your money! How you doing Jimmy! <</>/obscure> --ch3x (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	(Anonymous) 2004-05-31 06:59 am UTC (link)
	...ok, that was a bad bad reference to PMK's ED... o_o; [sapphirus @ LJ] (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	shinigami_co 2004-05-31 07:40 am UTC (link)
	Which makes me even more sad, because I thought about replying with that when I read the post too. XD (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ladyrogue 2004-06-01 09:15 am UTC (link)
	and Case Closed has its prevert moments and Yu-Gi-Oh anything preverted has been edited ...raises hand What's a prevert? (Reply to this)

toxictattoo
2004-06-01 05:53 pm UTC (link)

The continuing conversation has now triggered a pet peeve of mine.

And it is not in the least elitist to say that one can learn more from the original. It's a fact.

Well...fucking hooray for her. And tell me. How is it exactly that those of us poor wretches who

a) don't speak/read/understand Japanese (and don't have the time to learn)

b) don't speak/read/understand Chinese (and don't have the time to learn)

c) don't know anyone who does either a) or b)

supposed to learn from this supposed high and almighty god called 'the original'?

I agree if we ALL could watch it in it's pure, unspoiled, unadulterated form, we would most inevitably enjoy it more.

But there are a lot of us who can't. It's a fact.

Not to defend what they did to this Case Closed/Detective Conan whatever, since I don't watch it. I have no idea if it was butchered or not.

But it's attitudes of elitism that causes a great deal of bitterness among new folks. If they were taught instead of talked down to, if they were shown the 'better' translations instead of having it held away from them for being a bad fan and liking what the nasty American corporations version (which is all that is available to them), then perhaps, I certainly wouldn't think so poorly of these elitists who wish to do nothing more than to wave their flag of 'I know more than you do so I'm a better fan, nyah'

[wipes up the splooge and stomps off]

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elffromspace
2004-06-01 07:21 pm UTC (link)

I've always thought that *good* dubs should be respected. The subtitled version is technically a dub itself, when you think about it. As an English speaking fan I often get a lot more enjoyment from dubs, so long as the voices and acting are tolerably good.
This Conan wank has a few variations from the classical Sub/Dub argument, however. Many of the old fans are English speakers too who have watched fansubs and scantranslated comics. It's always hard when you have a relatively mature fandom, and then, suddenly, it is invaded by young teenagers who show no real desire to correct their ignorance, and who expect the old time fans to show the same excitement over all of the "new" things that happen. Not to say that the elitests are right, but I personally found both sides fairly wanky here ^_~ I'm a survivor of the InuYasha fandom in which I've been flamed by TV-dub fans for allowing mention of little semi-spoileristic details that really weren't that important. Then I got flamed again when putting a ban on discussion of the TV Shedulde on a pairing specific community after about the 40th message that simply asked in all caps "WHEN R THEY GONNA SHOW MOR INUYASHA?" in spite of a link to the schedule from the main page.

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	ladyofviolets 2004-06-01 06:33 pm UTC (link)
	Shit. Those brats should be thankful that they have a mildly-decent English version. One who has watched the HORRID Latin-american dubbed version, I think the "Rachel" name for Ran and the "Jimmy" one for Shinichi is almost music to my ears. Poor Sonoko, i.e, got at least FOUR name changes in the dubs, each one worse than the last one, as well as an horrible voice. Go figure. (Reply to this)