4Kids Entertainment Forum

So, word on the streets is that 4Kids, better known as "those people who turned One Piece's cigarettes into lollipops," among other things, is getting back into the anime licensing game, having failed utterly to develop their own game-and-cartoon property (called "Chaotic"). 

It reminded me of this great video someone put together that answered the burning question: what if 4Kids had licensed Higurashi no Naku Koro ni?
    

So, I came up with this list of other shows 4Kids could dub, in an amusingly horrible fashion of course.

5) Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei - This show is already licensed, but I'd love to see the 4Kids execs figure out how to crop out the constant references to suicide even in just the first episode. Maybe Itoshiki-sensei would have a remarkable love for really big pearl necklaces to cover up his noose, for example. They would also restructure the series so that Kafka would be the main character, and her insane optimism would no longer be ironic or amusing.
 
 
4) Sora no Otoshimono - Those aren't REALLY flying panties, they're paper airplanes! Oh...wait...
    


3) Kuroshitsuji - Any reference to Sebastian being an actual demon will be excised in favor of him being a "doyen" (it means "expert"), and the episodes will be cut to focus primarily on the wacky hijinks of the three idiot servants and whatever other secondary characters pop up. Ciel's wacky right eye and eyepatch are explained by a tragic, but curable!, disease.


2) Soul Eater - The "Shinigami" school becomes a Nerf battle school, so instead of transforming into a scythe, Soul Eater-- whose name will be "Peter," but he's so cool that everyone calls him "Soul Peter" --transforms into a Nerf scythe. Heehee. Nerf. The Thompson twins would transform into marshmallow guns, and Tsubaki is totally nerf nunchuks.
 
1) Durarara!! - I just imagine them 'shopping some kind of head onto Celty, for fear that the show would be "too violent" for the kiddies. And in the scene in the first episode where Celty beats a few guys into the ground with her motorcycle that's actually a horse? Think: My Little Pony.      

 
 
Okay, kids, share: what shows do you think it'd be funny for 4Kids to license...and which ones are you hoping to god they don't? (I sort of fear for my Shugo Chara!...)

Thankfully it's already been licensed and dubbed, but Narutaru (Shadow Star for the other folk).  It'd turn into a Pokemon clone where instead of children turning Lord of the Flies and being violently killed by anatomy parts with teeth it'd be explained that they've taken their dragon to Nurse Joy even though they're never seen again.  The military involvement would become similar to Team Rocket's relentless pursuit to steal all the kids' Pikachu's so they could win the next tournament against the U.S.

Not to mention the 4Kids the "ones who hates breasts". In One Piece they removed all breasts lines.
 
Oh, Gia. Don't forget that in the 4Kids version of Soul Eater. Blair the Cat. STAYS A CAT.

Maria+Holic: A story about chaste young girls going to an all girls' school and there are NO BOYS ANYWHERE. Oddly enough, Kanako, renamed Katty, still gets nose bleeds but the effect is replaced with rainbows or flowers, and it's not due to her thinking 'naughty' thoughts. She has leukemia. 

 
I still say what VIZ is doing to Detective Conan is the equivalent of 4Kids. They renamed the two villains that appear in the very first Volume from their code names of Gin and Vodka to Melkior and Kaspar (I looked it up and it appears that these are suppose to be two of the three wise men from the Bible). In the manga the whole theme of the Black Organization is suppose to be their code names are all liquors. In that one move they destroyed the theme of the villains created by the author.
How is it people can read about graphic murder but not the name of liquors?
 
@DocHaus:
Love your Black Lagoon and Strike Witches comparison.

Love the Higurashi video.  God, what show they will pick up, I wont be watching it.

@sora_thekey: For One Piece, FUNimation eventually took over the license, and all uncut One Piece DVDs come from them; 4Kids never released uncut episodes, although they also cancelled One Piece pretty early on "for financial reasons" (i.e. no one was buying it because they were marketing it at the wrong group). 
 
But generally speaking, whoever does all the work gets to release the DVDs however they see fit, albeit with oversight from the Japanese owners (who, you have to remember, have the goal of selling as many copies as possible, more often than the goal of maintaining the artistic vision). With Yu-Gi-Oh!, 4Kids worked with FUNimation to release unedited DVDs, and they also put the subtitled episodes up on YouTube (though the subs still used the dub names), so in their defense, they HAVE shown that they want to at least cater to that group enough to try and limit the "need" for piracy.

@sora_thekey:
A lot of people are still under the mistaken impression that just because something is in comic or cartoon form that kids 'should' be able to watch it. The same argument is always made about  M rated video games.
 

@gia

said:

" @sora_thekey: For One Piece, FUNimation eventually took over the license, and all uncut One Piece DVDs come from them; 4Kids never released uncut episodes, although they also cancelled One Piece pretty early on "for financial reasons" (i.e. no one was buying it because they were marketing it at the wrong group).  But generally speaking, whoever does all the work gets to release the DVDs however they see fit, albeit with oversight from the Japanese owners (who, you have to remember, have the goal of selling as many copies as possible, more often than the goal of maintaining the artistic vision). With Yu-Gi-Oh!, 4Kids worked with FUNimation to release unedited DVDs, and they also put the subtitled episodes up on YouTube (though the subs still used the dub names), so in their defense, they HAVE shown that they want to at least cater to that group enough to try and limit the "need" for piracy. "

Which is exactly the reason why I still have respect for FUNimation. Though they may make alterations to series. They seemed determined to always try and offer an authentic product to the audience so people have options. That's a highly respectable business practice that should be emulated.
 
If it wasn't for those unspecified "financial reasons" 4Kids could still be butchering One Piece to this day. Just because they had some kind of consent. It didn't make it right or worth supporting.
You can't throw out a crappy and poorly made product and just expect people to buy it, because it's 'officially' licensed. Not when fansubs would make a better and more accurate product.
 
Now that FUNimation is doing a far better job on the series. That's worthy of support over any fan sub.

Can we just bar 4Shame from licensing ANY anime?

@sora_thekey: 
Well, I suggest that their folly was altering the series in the first place in a vain attempt to broaden the viewer base. The only thing they succeeded in was shrinking it. I also blame that for the original poor sales of the manga. For years they were pretty much only releasing a single volume sometimes four months apart at a time. I believe that the uninitiated either thought that the manga was just like altered 4Kids anime and some fans thought the manga had been altered like that as well.
It only seemed to be after FUNimation picked up the anime did VIZ start putting it into higher production.
 
In their prideful attempt to broaden an audience. They just turned off fans who would be their strongest supporters. That was the gamble they took, and they deserved to lose. Sell to your base, and then branch out.
 
@Netstryke said:

" 4Shame "

That's a good one. Bravo.

@AJV: Better yet, that they pick something that's fairly family-friendly to begin with-- One Piece really isn't a *little* kid show.