Dubs with obscure references

[Lady Vulpix]

I must say this first: I don't like watching dubs, not only because a lot of the original content is lost in translation (which can't be avoided for those who don't speak the original language), but also because you can't hear what the characters were intended to sound like, and the acting in general doesn't sound very natural. I prefer to hear the voices of the actors who played/voiced those characters originally; even in the cases where I can't understand most of the words, there's a lot of expressiveness in the voices and the intonation which is lost in dubs.

That said, some dubs made by good actors can manage to be somewhat decent, and I would recommend them for little children who can't read fast enough.

Some dubs try to make up for the jokes which are lost in translation by replacing them with more or less similar jokes in the target language which should make sense for the intended audience. I've very rarely seen this approach actually work.

And then... some dubs are really, really awful. Such is the case, for example, of the Mexican Pokemon dub (at least up until 2005, I haven't bothered to watch the rest). That dub was so terrible that every episode was full of inside jokes and references that only people who knew a lot about Mexico could understand. And of course, I didn't get most of them. But I did learn some Mexican slang and some facts about the agricultural production of Zacatlán from watching it.

Now there was one reference that had been bugging me for years, ever since the Pokemon horoscope episode. James was claiming to be a Moltres and called himself something I just couldn't understand: Guajolotón Macías. Later, I learned that the first word was derived from "guajolote", which is Mexican slang for turkey (okay? What does a Moltres have to do with a turkey other than being a bird?), but the 2nd word was still a mystery. Until today. Today I was browsing Bulbapedia and I learned that Macías was the last name of the voice actor who voiced James in the dub. He called himself by his own real name! Why did he do that? How was the audience supposed to get it?

So there goes my rant about the worst dub I've ever heard. What about the rest of you? have you heard any dubs with inside jokes or things that you just didn't get?

[classy_cat18]

For me, bad dubs are less about lost inside jokes and more about bad voice choices and writing. The worst that I've heard is Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, but that's probably just because I'm so used to the sub. Some of the dub voices were like nails on a chalkboard. Although Revolutionary Girl Utena may be even worse because I've heard a few seconds of that in a review or something. I've never watched Japanese Sailor Moon, so it's the opposite for that (so used to the dub).

Speaking of inside jokes and such, it is really hard to translate those since some anime rely heavily on humor related to Japanese culture. That's why I love the English dubs for Crayon Shin-chan and Sgt. Frog. They just replace them with American humor...and it works.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

I liked how they adapted the Finnish version of 'Island of the Giant Pokemon'. If I'm right, in both the English and the Finnish dub they had the Pokemon talking and the respective subtitles below. But I was shocked when I saw the Swedish dub because they had a Swedish human voice instead of the subs!

I have also been forced to watch the English dub of Dragonball Z and the Swedish dub of Sailor Moon. The former I never really got into and the latter had some funny translations. While they didn't edit the transformation animations, the jokes in the storyline were sometimes a bit odd. The original Moonlight Densetsu was a love song, but a bit like the English one, the Swedish version was about Sailor Moon. Here's a quote from that song:

En liten tjej med jättelånga flätor
A little girl with very long plaits
Så där en fjorton år och rätt söt
About 14 years old and really cute
Men om hon ramlar på sin lilla rumpa
But if she falls on her little rump
Du kan vara säker på att hon tjöt
You can be sure that she cries

Also, a dramatic scene where Sailor Mars dies had a stupid dub error. Sailor Moon kept crying "Mercury"!

[Telume]

The English dubs for most of the things I've seen are terrible.

The Worst:
Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and the Cardcaptor Sakura dub (... it does not exist.)

The Best:
Yu Yu Hakusho (the ONLY voice I hated was Kuwabara's, I can't STAND it.)

[Master Rudy]

Well in keeping with the original post here's one for you from the American dub for Pokémon: The First Movie. I'm pretty sure a fair number of folks on TPM will know this one.

Near the start of the film when Ash and company are trying to get to the island we see Team Rocket dressed as a bunch of vikings. Brock eventually comments on not knowing that vikings still existed which leads us to this groan inducing, facepalm worthy quote from Ash:

"They mostly live in Minnesota!"

Fairly sure that everyone who didn't live in the US or that didn't have some knowledge of the NFL were scratching their heads on that one. It's far from the most obscure reference but I've always felt it ranked up there.

I can however do you one better in regards to the American Pokémon dub.

As I'm sure many of us know the series eventually lost the original VA's once 4kids stopped dubbing it. A one point a new character is introduced to which Jessie says "It's a meeting of old and new." The kicker? The new character was voiced by Rachael Lillis....the ORIGINAL VA for Jessie.

[DivineAll]

My personal favorite hilariously bad dubbing comes from a show called Duel Masters. Basically, think Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series before it even existed.

I'm being serious here. Duel Masters was basically Magic The Gathering with an anime that resembled Yu-Gi-Oh! with Abridged Series Tropes before LittleKuriboh came along. (Sorry for the bad quality.)

[classy_cat18]

I remember watching that show when it was on Cartoon Network. And it did seem like a gag dub.

[Telume]

I thought Rave Master dub was pretty stupid but, that's just me.