01-10-2005, 10:37 AM
Let us not judge cut scenes as "good" or "bad", involving it to an issue of ethics or morals. Admittedly, it is a (potential) violation of the artist's work, but we can leave that for the law-makers and artists to decide.
I propose that we call it a "necessary imperfection" in the translation process, much like changes in the scripts and changes to character names. They may seem bad to a certain point of view, but too often they are nothing more than imperfections in the localization process of a series. Sometimes the imperfections are the fault of the company localizing the series, sometimes the fault of federal standards for broadcast (based on the time of day a program is aired, these regulations vary), and sometimes they're simply caused by a lack of a convenient translation (as with puns and many figures of speech) in the target language.
Any translation will be imperfect -- even within different eras of the same language a "perfect" translation can become difficult if not impossible, so between separate and unrelated languages, it's not hard to see that these imperfections are a necessary "evil".
I do not think it is "right" for a company to edit scenes simply for the sake of airing a program, unless they are willing to at least keep the unedited version for a VHS or DVD release of the series.
In regard to some of the comments posted, however...
GabumonRules -- First off, only one particular scene with Kojiro (James) was cut when the episode finally was aired (there are still two "lost" episodes of Pokemon, however, which may never be aired for reasons unrelated to Kojiro), and this has been addressed before anyhow.
Concerning the Sailormoon edits, there were a lot of changes there, including changing Sailors Neptune and Uranus to "cousins" to conceal their lesbian relationship, as well as the Zoicite and Kunzite relationship (by changing Zoicite to a woman)... it may be one of the most butchered dubs out there.
Jamesbond007 -- It would cost more money that it would bring in to make two versions of a show, unless you simply mean like the TV and Video versions of some series (ie: the North American version of Tenchi Muyo Ryo-ohki has 'swimsuits' airbrushed in during bathing scenes, while the video version retains the nudity of the original Japanese release).
To Everybody:
Even Digimon has been censored in the North American release -- in the episodes where Taichi and Yamato are fighting, they freeze frame a lot to prevent showing punches between the boys. This is visible because it sort of "pixelizes" during the freeze frames bits, and I only noticed this strongly while watching the second episode (the one during the Dark Masters arc) where they fight each other. This is only one such thing -- the episode where Pinocchimon kidnaps Takeru was cut (a bit more famously) because it involved a real-looking gun with company markings (for a real company).
Censoring is a "bad" thing, but censoring goes beyond just cut scenes and dialogue changes, because those would probably happen anyway. Censoring forces them to happen where they wouldn't normally occur, and is a way of protecting people from reality. I don't object to toning down language, but I do object to replacing a person who says "shit" with them saying something that removes the impact completely ("crap" or even "Oh, no!"
I propose that we call it a "necessary imperfection" in the translation process, much like changes in the scripts and changes to character names. They may seem bad to a certain point of view, but too often they are nothing more than imperfections in the localization process of a series. Sometimes the imperfections are the fault of the company localizing the series, sometimes the fault of federal standards for broadcast (based on the time of day a program is aired, these regulations vary), and sometimes they're simply caused by a lack of a convenient translation (as with puns and many figures of speech) in the target language.
Any translation will be imperfect -- even within different eras of the same language a "perfect" translation can become difficult if not impossible, so between separate and unrelated languages, it's not hard to see that these imperfections are a necessary "evil".
I do not think it is "right" for a company to edit scenes simply for the sake of airing a program, unless they are willing to at least keep the unedited version for a VHS or DVD release of the series.
In regard to some of the comments posted, however...
GabumonRules -- First off, only one particular scene with Kojiro (James) was cut when the episode finally was aired (there are still two "lost" episodes of Pokemon, however, which may never be aired for reasons unrelated to Kojiro), and this has been addressed before anyhow.
Concerning the Sailormoon edits, there were a lot of changes there, including changing Sailors Neptune and Uranus to "cousins" to conceal their lesbian relationship, as well as the Zoicite and Kunzite relationship (by changing Zoicite to a woman)... it may be one of the most butchered dubs out there.
Jamesbond007 -- It would cost more money that it would bring in to make two versions of a show, unless you simply mean like the TV and Video versions of some series (ie: the North American version of Tenchi Muyo Ryo-ohki has 'swimsuits' airbrushed in during bathing scenes, while the video version retains the nudity of the original Japanese release).
To Everybody:
Even Digimon has been censored in the North American release -- in the episodes where Taichi and Yamato are fighting, they freeze frame a lot to prevent showing punches between the boys. This is visible because it sort of "pixelizes" during the freeze frames bits, and I only noticed this strongly while watching the second episode (the one during the Dark Masters arc) where they fight each other. This is only one such thing -- the episode where Pinocchimon kidnaps Takeru was cut (a bit more famously) because it involved a real-looking gun with company markings (for a real company).
Censoring is a "bad" thing, but censoring goes beyond just cut scenes and dialogue changes, because those would probably happen anyway. Censoring forces them to happen where they wouldn't normally occur, and is a way of protecting people from reality. I don't object to toning down language, but I do object to replacing a person who says "shit" with them saying something that removes the impact completely ("crap" or even "Oh, no!"