4Kids Entertainment apparently up for sale

[Ferno]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-...elf-up-for-sale

Yu-Gi-Oh!, Shaman King license holder declines to comment on news report

The paidContent.org website for digital media news is reporting that the 4Kids Entertainment licensing and broadcasting company has put itself up for sale. According to the website's sources, 4Kids is discussing a "selective bidding process" with a few potential buyers. In the past, 4Kids adapted Pok

Edited September 7, 2009 by Ginko

[Tornado]

I'm personally not surprised if its true. To say nothing of the quality of their stuff, many of the companies of the licenced schlock that 4Kids made their money on find it cheaper to do dubbing in house than to outsource it.

And lets be honest here before this turns into a slag-fest: Other than One Piece, which was admittedly entirely their fault, how many recent shows did 4Kids have turned out bad after dubbing that weren't shit to begin with? Their single biggest property of the past few years has been Yu-Gi-Oh, and no amount of Bowlderizing takes away from how crappy that was in its native language. After that is probably Sonic X, and I can hear the collective groans at that property from the other side of the world.

Edited September 6, 2009 by Tornado

[Phos]

I hope this somehow ends up with Sonic games being dubbed by SoA. Compare the dubbing job Sonic has gotten from 4kids to the kind of stuff Sega's been doing in house with Valkyria Chronicles and Mad World.

Basically, 4kids has a policy of not allowing it's employees of working on stuff previously dubbed by 4kids. It has Sega kind of caught in a contractual gridlock where if they wanted to replace, say, Griffith, they would have to also replace fan favorite Mike Pollock. Even assuming that Sega doesn't want to replace the vocal cast of Sonic, 4kids going out of business might force them to. 4Kids is in New York, SoA offices are in California.

That is, of course, assuming that 4kids ceases to exist as a company, though I don't see anyone going out of their way to merge with them when they've been on a loosing streak for years.

[Solly]

I'm fairly sure 4kids going out wouldn't effect the changes in cast for Sonic. I mean, Amy Palant had stopped working with them back in 2007 and she's still the voice of Tails.

Didn't Mike Pollock once elaborate on the 4kids situation once?

[Candescence]

No surprise there, to my knowledge, Toei had single-handedly destroyed 4Kids' reputation in the buisness world back in 2006. By utterly flensing One Piece, 4Kids managed to take the most popular shonen franchise in Japan since Dragon Ball and effectively bury it in the West. Meanwhile, Viz learned from 4Kids' mistakes, produced Naruto with minimal edits, and discovered a license to print money. Needless to say, this infuriated Toei, who basically doused 4Kids' reputation in rotten excrement, which drove off all their business and led to the company practically abandoning anime entirely, and likely why the Pokemon Company took over the anime dub of Pokemon.

Considering how bad 4Kids' reputation is at the moment, them, merging or being bought out by anyone?

And lets be honest here before this turns into a slag-fest: Other than One Piece, which was admittedly entirely their fault, how many recent shows did 4Kids have turned out bad after dubbing that weren't shit to begin with? Their single biggest property of the past few years has been Yu-Gi-Oh, and no amount of Bowlderizing takes away from how crappy that was in its native language. After that is probably Sonic X, and I can hear the collective groans at that property from the other side of the world.

Hey, I like Yu-Gi-Oh, thank you, the manga at least is awesome, Yami Yugi sets a wanted criminal ON FIRE. WITH VODKA. I like Yu-Gi-Oh in general (though I dislike the dub), perhaps I should watch 5Ds some time, I hear it's actually decent, and I hadn't really watched GX beyond the second season much, but I hear it goes into Evangelion levels of disturbing, angst, creepiness, and provides what is quite possibly the most brutal and realistic Deconstruction of The Ace ever. Sonic X wasn't too shabby, IMO, though I guess it wasn't that great.

[Doctor MK]

Hmm... while I don't really care what happens to 4Kids as a company (not because of any mallice, merely because I'm not that interested in them), it shall be interesting to see how this affects Sonic, if at all.

Perhaps the dawn of a new voice cast will be upon us sooner than we think...?

Not that I have anything against the current voice cast. Griffith is steadily improving and Pollock has always been on good form. Is there no way that SEGA could keep the current cast, or some of them at least, should 4Kids cease to exist?

[Dark Qiviut]

Hmm, interesting. Didn't realize 4Kids was having a lot of financial problems.

Will 4Kids's possible demise -- if there will be -- affect the voice acting situation? I don't know, but I don't think it will. Amy Palant, who's no longer a part of 4Kids, is still voicing Tails. Plus, some of the Sonic games include VAs who aren't a part of 4Kids. I think the current VAs will be there to stay until Sega either doesn't want them anymore or if the VAs don't want to return.

Edited September 6, 2009 by Dark Qiviut

[CreamyBagel]

Pokemon was awesome until 4kids stopped dubbing it. It was the only thing they got right.

4kids haven't really been dubbing anything decent for a while now. The last hit they had was probably Yugioh/GX and Sonic X and since then they've steadily been declining. I don't think the VA situation will be a problem since the cast are under contract anyway.

Edited September 6, 2009 by CreamyBagel

[AdventChild]

Meh, 4kids have bad rep ever since the One Piece dub, and they rarely show anything good nor distribute anything good. The only good shows would probably be Pokemon (well,

), TMNT, and Yugioh, but the rest is just crap and so-so at best. Not to mention have some of these shows are full of lame @$$ puns, have half decent VAs, and obtain idiotic dialogue.

The big problem for 4kids was definitely trying to dub anime again b/c of One Piece full of editing that strays away from the original, mostly. Also, 4kids might not get the memo that anime is NOT always kid oriented, and usually have something for the whole family like some foul language for the teens, some partial nudity for the adults, death, etc. If an anime is full of stuff inappropriate for kids or at least nearly have half of it in its content, then it probably not the wisest idea to make it kid friendly esp. when you're going to cut episodes/sagas out and edit the hell out of it.

But at least, with 4kids out of the anime scene, we could at least have Funimation and Viz Media to take care most, if not all, of the dubbing (as they have already been). As for the VAs affecting the Sonic games, I don't really mind, just hopefully Sega have better VA replacements (or make Sonic as the silent hero) once the 4kids cast aren't needed anymore.

[Dreadknux]

4Kids death seems inevitable as it happens -- all I know is that its UK counterpart, Jetix, has been replaced by a new Disney XD channel (which is toss). I can safely assume that Disney have gobbled Jetix up because Disney XD is playing some of the programs that Jetix had exclusive airing rights to (Pokemon Battle Dimension for example).

EDIT: Researched more -- Disney have owned Jetix since 2001, this is simply an exercise in assimilation.

If Disney end up swallowing 4Kids, then it'd be a rather ironic turn of events since Disney already own the rights to SatAM, Underground and possibly AoStH (not sure about AoStH actually, they were all by DiC though so I'm putting 2 and 2 together to hopefully make 4 and not 22).

EDIT: Having said that 4Kids are the studio itself and not just a channel, so dunno about them. Who knows. I am curious, as someone said earlier, about the implications towards Sega in all of this. What about the company's Sonic merchandise contract, which still gives Jetix a firm grasp of merchandising rights in Europe? Does Disney own this now, or will Disney scratch the contract? I'll have a word with Sega to find out.

[Chris]

If Disney end up swallowing 4Kids, then it'd be a rather ironic turn of events since Disney already own the rights to SatAM, Underground and possibly AoStH (not sure about AoStH actually, they were all by DiC though so I'm putting 2 and 2 together to hopefully make 4 and not 22).

I think you're right about that. The Disney channel here used to air SatAM and AoStH years and years ago, and they generally won't air anything outside of Disney's own publishing rights.

[Kevin]

What will be interesting is what will happen to the CW4Kids Saturday morning block since it's the last "major" Saturday morning cartoon block here in the US. Something tells me that its death is inevitable since Saturday morning blocks aren't as big today as they once were years ago. I'm not sure how it's currently doing in terms of ratings though.

Nonetheless, 4kids death seems inevitable since they've been slipping further and further behind lately. As for Disney acquiring them, it's hard to say, but I wouldn't rule it out either. I too, am curious on how this would affect Sega in terms of the Sonic franchise.

[TheSoulPurge]

Will the 4kids contract be broken?

[Blue Blood]

Nobody knows yet. It all depends on how things work out. The contract may be broken, or it may stay intact. Then there's also the issue of contracts between voice actors themselves.

[Tombi]

Nobody knows yet. It all depends on how things work out. The contract may be broken, or it may stay intact. Then there's also the issue of contracts between voice actors themselves.

Well 4Kids has been credited at the end of all of the recent Sonic games for their actors, but SEGA have no problem hiring their own actors for other characters. The agreement was a lot clearer back when games like Shadow The Hedgehog were coming out and they were able to use the entire Sonic X cast; but now you only see about five actors reprise their role per game (Who also just happen to voice the series' most important characters), and even when other Sonic X characters are back in the spotlight they just get somebody else to voice them. (Mario and Sonic is a good example of lots of this.)

So yeah, I'm not sure either - but considering we're only talking a few actors here; I could see SEGA just hiring them without the 4Kids middleman; provided there's no extra trouble. As for my opinion on this; I figured it would come sooner or later seeing just how far in importance 4Kids has fallen since dubbing Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. I'm sure they'll get a few offers, but I doubt it will be anything that could break the bank. We'll see how this transpires I suppose.

[Eternal EX]

Pokemon was awesome until 4kids stopped dubbing it. It was the only thing they got right.

4kids haven't really been dubbing anything decent for a while now. The last hit they had was probably Yugioh/GX and Sonic X and since then they've steadily been declining. I don't think the VA situation will be a problem since the cast are under contract anyway.

You serious? I thought they were dubbing yugioh 5D's. But does that also mean that sonic's VA's are gonna be affected to??

Edit: I didnt read the post above me lol

Edited September 7, 2009 by Black suit Shadic

[Sean]

Eh, I care way more about ADV being shut down, although apparently their licenses are being scavenged or something.

[Phos]

I'm fairly sure 4kids going out wouldn't effect the changes in cast for Sonic. I mean, Amy Palant had stopped working with them back in 2007 and she's still the voice of Tails.

Didn't Mike Pollock once elaborate on the 4kids situation once?

The idea is that if the 4Kids is no longer in business, they'll either have to find a new company to do the dubbing or do it themselves. I don't think there are any other dubbing companies in the New York Area, so unless the remaining 4Kids actors are willing to move to California, I kind of doubt that they'll be

Eh, I care way more about ADV being shut down, although apparently their licenses are being scavenged or something.

Yeah, ADV did one of the best dubs ever with Excel Saga, and I'm saddened to see them go.

[TheGerkuman]

again b/c of One Piece full of editing that strays away from the original, mostly.

If editing that strays away from the original was a bad thing, Samurai Pizza Cats would've never become the hit it was. The problem was that the edits were badly done, and mostly to appease the censor board. I like dubs being different from the original, as long as the edits are done well and it improves the experience; but a lot of dubbers are either bad at it, or make a totally faithful dub that no-one outside the culture can enjoy.

That's my view anyway.

[Aquaslash]

Last I checked, Jazwares now owns the merch rights to Sonic, hence all the non Sonic X stuff we've been seeing like Metal Sonic, Werehog and Sonic with Caliburn.

EDIT: As for 4kids, good riddance to bad rubbish. Honestly, only one of the shows that they've done has been worth watching (TMNT), but that's obviously not enough to save them)

Edited September 7, 2009 by Aquaslash

[Ebby]

Well, I really hate anything done by 4Kids so I'm happy to see this! (The Sonic X dub sealed my fate with them)

But still, I never saw it coming.

[CreamyBagel]

You serious? I thought they were dubbing yugioh 5D's.

Yeah I heard it sucks :/

[Dark Qiviut]

Yeah I heard it sucks :/

I watched 5Ds for a while. It was interesting, but I eventually lost interest. Someday, I will go back and rewatch it.

I used to be a 4Kids-basher myself, but seeing all the irrational hatred towards it really put me off, and I jumped off the bandwagon. I didn't like all of its dubs (One Piece, Sonic X: Season 3), but they're not a bad company. And most of their edits were mandatory to maintain a TV-Y7 rating, prevent having soccer moms from coming after them, and not be pulled from the air as punishment for violating FCC laws.

I did like the Yu-Gi-Oh dub a lot and prefer that more than the other media, especially the manga. And I'm one of the few in the GX fandom who likes the dub and HATES the original. Blame the poor execution of seasons three and four for this reason.

Will the 4kids contract be broken?

Technically, 4Kids and Sega don't have a contract. All 4Kids did was provide a voice acting studio for Sega to utilize. Just like what another user already said, Sega'll likely keep them even if the VAs aren't affiliated with the company anymore.

[CreamyBagel]

4kids aren't perfect but at least they responded to fan demands of an uncut Yugioh DVD, shame that didn't last long.

[iStep]

You know like Dark Qiviut said, even I was part of the bandwagon. But after seeing most of there dubs I jumped off. See, I never liked Sonic X because it wasn't even that good (BOTH Us and japan sub) The JPN made it look like Sonic was some teen show with them cussing and knuckles going into that club, but the US one made me hear the first time of the 4kids VA..which I didn't like back then.

Another dub I watched was magical DoReMi (yes I saw a magical girl dub.) It felt more of a kid friendly and I liked the dub pretty much. It taught me about friendship (Which I already known but heck, every show I almost seen had a moral so..) and it pretty much made 4kids a pretty decent dubbing company.