Name changes for the dubs

[Gnostic Metatron Prime]

*sigh* Must we bring this whole censorship topic up again?

[Lord Archive]

Demon was the original name. Bandai of America was first to release anything with him and changed it to 'Creepymon.' Saban apparently didn't like Bandai's name and went closer to the original name and Daemon.


As for censorship.... Let's look at facts.

Shows are edited to make it easier to understand and be less offensive in order to prevent corrupting the children with the wrong message.

When you consider individual cities like Detroit, New York, Los Angeles EACH have more murders in a week than ALL of Japan has in a YEAR. That the Japanese crime rate for the entire country is less than any major US city you could name.

If these shows supposedly corrupt young minds, then why is in the country they originate from filled with more law abiding citizens?


The drunk Nanimon was hardly shown in a good light. Would any child honestly want to be falling down and stupedfied like him? No.

When Pinnochimon chased Takeru around with a gun, while the mad puppet considered it a toy-- the fear Takeru held for it clearly showed it was not. Did O'Malley keep the disturbing Puppetmon chasing TK scenes with a gun? Hell, no. The gun was edited out. But it kind of ignores that DISTURBING THE KIDS AND MAKING THEM FEAR GUNS WAS THE ENTIRE POINT! You do NOT want kids thinking guns are toys, and the best way to show them that is by illustrating the point.

You don't have to preach to children to give them a message. Just how many kids who watched Captain Planet actually go out and helped clean up a city park? Now after the Japanese kids watched Nanimon get drunk, how many of them took the beer from their parent's refrigerator? In both cases the number is damn close to zero.

[Cyber Stryker]

How'd this turn into a censorship topic? I was just trying to comment on the name changes. The point I was tring to make is, how are we supposed get used to names from other countries if dubbers change them? And why did they change only some names and left others more or less close to the original? You'd think it'd be easier to synch up some of the lip momvenents when the characters are talking to each other if they left the names alone.

[Siege_TF]

I find it (editing with a chainsaw and name changes) irritating as hell too, particulairly when someone writing a fanfic in english uses the japanese names (you authors know who you are), but since anime series are considered to be the intellectual property of the creator (which is how Games Workshop stopped online stores from selling their products at lower than retail price) the NA comapanies can't change things without the original creator's concent, which may be granted in a pre-production contract, but TOEI is just as bad as Saban (Bandai? whoever) for allowing this to happen in the first place.

If Saban wants a show for kids they should prduce a show for kids, and let another company who can stomach the idea that adults drink, guns kill, and the people in Japan have Japanese names produce Digimon for North Americans. But they don't because they can get away with it, and it makes cash. Still, it could be worse, it could have been produced by 4Kids...

[Wisemon]

Personally, since I have a choice, I use the names that I like better. For the kids, that's usually the Japanese names. For instance, I hate initials, so Junpei and Takeru are a lot better than J.P. and T.K., respectively. However, I wouldn't use Jenrya, because it sounds too much like Jen. I know I don't speak for all of the authors; most of them do it for authenticity.

[Red Mage Dragon Tiamat]

meep. I use for Digimon the Japanese names. Coz *points to Lucemon* the names from his digivolved form are way too much to write for me the whole time in english so the Japanese are better and sounds better too in my POV ^_^