Why Sonic X needs an uncut dub (and how it could work)

[Muglés]

4 hours ago, GentlemanX said:

Sonic X is a kids property, and the existing dub remains popular with the target demo for TMS, to the point where the existing Japanese version is currently not allowed to be released over here.

This is pretty much it. Regardless of how some of us may feel, all 78 episodes of Sonic X have been dubbed, is successful, and continues to serve the purpose it was originally created for even twenty years later. There is no reason from a business standpoint for anyone higher up to invest in a confusing new dub that would cost more money than it's worth.

[Polkadi~☆]

6 hours ago, GentlemanX said:

TMS doesn't even really want the Japanese version of Sonic X released in the US, let alone a redub. Sonic X is a kids property, and the existing dub remains popular with the target demo for TMS, to the point where the existing Japanese version is currently not allowed to be released over here. Why would TMS allow let alone fund a redub themselves when they aren't even willing to let the original version be released by a company that wants to do it for them?

I think it's important to note that TMS has still released the original uncut version themselves, on their official Japanese Youtube channel, and the entire series on Netflix in Japan and Korea.

They can release the original version, and have done so... in relevant markets. Why not for English speakers? Because we're not the market for that original version. The English dub is for English speakers, and anything else does not suit the market regardless of niche demand. This also appears to be the case with other titles, to a lesser extent; more adult titles will have both options, but the options are reduced with the lower the age of their target audiences.

[Rabbitearsblog]

Pretty much what everyone else stated.  Even though I would like to see the original Japanese dub of Sonic X, I can't see any need to redub the series right now.  For one thing, Sonic X was made during the Sonic Adventure era and therefore, took a lot of inspiration from Sonic Adventure.  Since the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is a lot different in tone now, ever since Sonic Colors, bringing back Sonic X right now would contrast heavily with the current tone and story lines of the franchise and I don't see SEGA wanting to bring back Sonic X if it clashes with what tone they have set for the franchise now.  There's also the fact that Sonic the Hedgehog is a kid friendly franchise and if they tried to redub the series to make it closer to the original Japanese dub, which had more violent and suggestive content, then it would clash heavily with the franchise's family friendly image and SEGA wouldn't want that to happen to the franchise.

And even if this series does get redubbed, you will still have people complain about the new dub and how it's nothing like the original dub, which is a problem that plagues both the Sailor Moon and Neon Genesis Evangelion redubs as there are still fans of the original dubs disliking the redubs to those series.

[Muglés]

1 hour ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

And even if this series does get redubbed, you will still have people complain about the new dub and how it's nothing like the original dub, which is a problem that plagues both the Sailor Moon and Neon Genesis Evangelion redubs as there are still fans of the original dubs disliking the redubs to those series.

This also happened with Dragon Ball Z. Funimation tried to be much more faithful to the original Japanese version with Kai, and general audiences that didn't know any better who were familiar with DBZ's dub didn't like the changes Kai made to be more faithful to the Japanese version and still preferred the original Z dub. Slowly but surely, Funimation regressed back to the tone of Z for subsequent Dragon Ball content because that's what general audiences want. There's no use in trying to please the hardcore fans of DBZ's Japanese version because at the end of the day, even if a perfect dub was made they'd fans of the Japanese version first, which they can get just by switching to the Japanese audio track, and the dub would always be secondary.

 

tldr; if this can't work for DBZ, it certainly can't work for Sonic.

[Blacklightning]

10 hours ago, GentlemanX said:

Why did you start a new topic when your last one is less than two months old and still visible on the first page of the sub-board?

Hi there! Believe it or not, you can actually use the Report function to bring this to our attention, so we can do things like lock or merge duplicate threads in the event of complete redundancy. You haven't done anything wrong - just thought I'd put it out there for future reference.

Incidentally, the dupe threads have been merged. Carry on. o3o/

[Rabbitearsblog]

19 hours ago, Muglés said:

This also happened with Dragon Ball Z. Funimation tried to be much more faithful to the original Japanese version with Kai, and general audiences that didn't know any better who were familiar with DBZ's dub didn't like the changes Kai made to be more faithful to the Japanese version and still preferred the original Z dub. Slowly but surely, Funimation regressed back to the tone of Z for subsequent Dragon Ball content because that's what general audiences want. There's no use in trying to please the hardcore fans of DBZ's Japanese version because at the end of the day, even if a perfect dub was made they'd fans of the Japanese version first, which they can get just by switching to the Japanese audio track, and the dub would always be secondary.

 

tldr; if this can't work for DBZ, it certainly can't work for Sonic.

Oh yeah!  I forgot all about Dragonball Kai.  I guess I was so used to Dragonball Z, that I didn't bother with Kai.

[Muglés]

4 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Oh yeah!  I forgot all about Dragonball Kai.  I guess I was so used to Dragonball Z, that I didn't bother with Kai.

Which is exactly why having more than one version out on the market is a bad thing, especially if there's a sizeable audience that is okay with or enjoys the original version which is the case for Sonic X.

[Ben Raven]

This thread is months old, but I wanted to add my two cents on it. While I agree that Sonic X getting a new dub that is faithful to the Japanese would be great, I realize that it is incredibly unlikely given current circumstances. I think we're lucky we were even able to convince Discotek to release the subtitled version on Blu-ray at all (which is still a win in my book). But I thought about something that I haven't seen too many people consider. What if an uncut English dub already exists?

The 4kids actor for Brock said a couple years ago that 4kids would dub the episodes as they were, and then send them to the network so they could give feedback on what to edit. That means that a pre-edited version of each dub was made and existed at one point, right? This is further evidenced by 4kids releasing actual uncut episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh, made an English cover of the Japanese One Piece opening (which I don't think they ever intended to use cause they never did that before), the number of inconsistencies with the dubs and edits (like Tails reading Vector's name on a handkerchief despite the name being erased), not to mention the multiple accounts over the years of people claiming to have seen English versions of scenes that supposedly only exist in the original. Perhaps some uncut episodes were aired by accident?

If these exist, what we essentially have is a high-quality version of Noah Lawson's fan-cut, only with the original actors. My main issue with the dub was always the music and edits more so than the voices, so I think it'd be great if these were still out there.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Uh. I really doubt that. I mean, maybe a pre-edit version of the series could exist, but it wouldn't make sense given how many international versions are based off the 4kids version, and I certainly don't believe they ever aired an uncut episode by accident. That would have been documented even back in the day. In all likelihood people are probably remembering other times they might've seen or heard about stuff from other versions of the show and thought they had seen them in the original, or even mixed them up with scenes from the real Sonic games being adapted at one point or another.

The best bet to getting an uncut English edition of Sonic X is to put the work in to gather multiple different versions of the 4kids edit and phase-cancel out the music, then redub (or AI-dub depending on how complicated a given line is no don't do that) the Japanese version with whatever needs to be changed. It's an achievement that Lawson got his edit done, but I find it positively unwatchable given how bad some of the fandubbers are and how every character sounds like they're in a wind tunnel (and how frequently you can hear the JP dub either underneath the characters or in any voice clip that isn't an actual word, such as screaming).

This would all take an inordinate amount of work for something that still isn't stellar (4kids's voice direction was just bad a lot of the time, honestly), but we can't put any bets on a secret good version of the show existing where we can't find it, and we DEFINITELY can't trust any of the official parties to release an uncut version for us, new or old.

[RyanDrummondFan2468]

On 12/4/2022 at 3:12 AM, Shaddy Zaphod said:

Uh. I really doubt that. I mean, maybe a pre-edit version of the series could exist, but it wouldn't make sense given how many international versions are based off the 4kids version, and I certainly don't believe they ever aired an uncut episode by accident. That would have been documented even back in the day. In all likelihood people are probably remembering other times they might've seen or heard about stuff from other versions of the show and thought they had seen them in the original, or even mixed them up with scenes from the real Sonic games being adapted at one point or another.

The best bet to getting an uncut English edition of Sonic X is to put the work in to gather multiple different versions of the 4kids edit and phase-cancel out the music, then redub (or AI-dub depending on how complicated a given line is) the Japanese version with whatever needs to be changed. It's an achievement that Lawson got his edit done, but I find it positively unwatchable given how bad some of the fandubbers are and how every character sounds like they're in a wind tunnel (and how frequently you can hear the JP dub either underneath the characters or in any voice clip that isn't an actual word, such as screaming).

This would all take an inordinate amount of work for something that still isn't stellar (4kids's voice direction was just bad a lot of the time, honestly), but we can't put any bets on a secret good version of the show existing where we can't find it, and we DEFINITELY can't trust any of the official parties to release an uncut version for us, new or old.

4Kids wouldn't hand international companies an incomplete version both for the sake of consistency between regions and the fact that it would take more effort and money for other regions to create their own music then it would be for them to use the already completed 4Kids masters for the episodes.

Edited December 12, 2022 by RyanDrummondFan2468

[The Great Egg Emperor]

Well, a lot has changed since this thread was started.

For starters, we finally got a Japanese Blu-Ray of Sonic X, but also this happened.

The Digimon movies are getting uncut dubs, which is proof that anime aimed at kids can get redubs.

This has resparked my quest for an uncut dub of Sonic X.

We the fans must take action. 

Let Discotek, Sega, and TMS know that there is a demand for an uncensored dub of the series. Let the voice actors know that we want this dub.

If the Digimon movies can get a redub, Sonic X can, too. Let's show the world that we want an uncensored dub.

Discotek's website: https://www.discotekmedia.com/

Sound Cadence's website: https://www.soundcadencestudios.com/

TMS's website: https://tmsanime.com/

[Tornado]

But there's not. The Digimon movies are collectively a couple hours of content that were kinda butchered into a single movie that nonetheless ended up truly beloved by its American fanbase; which also acted as a complement to an actually good anime that launched an entire franchise. It is getting a redub presumably because Discotek's Digimon S1 dub Blu Ray that they carefully matched to the Japanese masters was just as successful as everyone hoped it would be; and they see an ability to capitalize on that with those movies being released as originally intended with a voice cast that across the board seems absolutely thrilled to be back. They even first announced it as a live trailer at Otakon and not as part of Discotek day.

 

Sonic X, even if it wasn't kinda shit for reasons completely unrelated to the dub it got, is 78 episodes long. Nothing that long is going to get a dub without outside funding (a Kickstarter or a promised spot on a TV schedule or being bankrolled by Netflix or Crunchyroll); and certainly not when it has one already that's for the most part serviceable considering the subject matter. The only thing Discotek would want to do something like that with is the OVA; which had a shitty dub by some ADV C-Team but it's basically impossible to get the rights to.

 

Put another way, the Digimon announcement got responses like this:

 

 

Nobody ever gave that much of a shit about Sonic X.

[JezMM]

Just to balance things out because Tornado clearly doesn't have that much fondness for Sonic X, but I personally am very fond of Sonic X...

 

Yeah Tornado's right, lol.

[The Great Egg Emperor]

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

But there's not. The Digimon movies are collectively a couple hours of content that were kinda butchered into a single movie that nonetheless ended up truly beloved by its American fanbase; which also acted as a compliment to an actually good anime. It is getting a redub presumably because Discotek's Digimon S1 dub Blu Ray that they carefully matched to the Japanese masters was just as successful as everyone hoped it would be; and they see an ability to capitalize on that with those movies being released as originally intended with a voice cast that across the board seems absolutely thrilled to be back. They even first announced it as a live trailer at Otakon and not as part of Discotek day.

 

 

 

Sonic X, even if it wasn't kinda shit for reasons completely unrelated to the dub it got, is 78 episodes long. Nothing that long is going to get a dub without outside funding (a Kickstarter or a promised spot on a TV schedule or being bankrolled by Netflix or Crunchyroll); and certainly not when it has one already that's for the most part serviceable considering the subject matter. The only thing Discotek would want to do something like that with is the OVA; which had a shitty dub by some ADV C-Team but it's basically impossible to get the rights to.

 

 

 

 

Put another way, the Digimon announcement got responses like this:

 

 

Nobody ever gave that much of a shit about Sonic X.

I'm not giving up hope that easily.

I still believe that if we ask Discotek repeatedly and buy the Sonic X blu-rays, they'll finally listen.

And of course people give a shit about Sonic X, why did you think they didn't?

[Tornado]

3 hours ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

I'm not giving up hope that easily.

I still believe that if we ask Discotek repeatedly and buy the Sonic X blu-rays, they'll finally listen.

And people will have to buy an awful lot of Sonic X BDs to pay for that no matter how much they harass Discotek and voice actors and animation studios about it.

 

3 hours ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

And of course people give a shit about Sonic X, why did you think they didn't?

Not actually what I said, though the comparably short shadow that the show cast on the franchise as a whole beyond Kingdom Hearts memes and a solution for Sega to find cheap voice talent for half a decade is absolutely something we can argue about if you'd rather do that.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Discotek isn't even bold enough to make a proper high-def remaster of the series, nor even sell them outside of the US. If they can't muster up the confidence to even put these out in other English territories where X was big (IE - UK, Europe), what chance is there of them deciding to do a full-blown redub of a 70+ episode anime that doesn't even fit with the vision SEGA is currently pushing with the brand? 

[The Great Egg Emperor]

10 hours ago, Tornado said:

And people will have to buy an awful lot of Sonic X BDs to pay for that no matter how much they harass Discotek and voice actors and animation studios about it.

I don't understand why you are being so negative about it. It's best not to give up hope. It may take a couple of years, but I bet we will get a redub of Sonic X before the decade is out.

10 hours ago, Tornado said:

Not actually what I said, though the comparably short shadow that the show cast on the franchise as a whole beyond Kingdom Hearts memes and a solution for Sega to find cheap voice talent for half a decade is absolutely something we can argue about if you'd rather do that.

I was actually thinking that if the redub were to happen, the current games cast could dub the show, although it would be nice getting the old gang back together. A lot of the 4Kids actors are still active, after all. 

9 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Discotek isn't even bold enough to make a proper high-def remaster of the series, nor even sell them outside of the US. If they can't muster up the confidence to even put these out in other English territories where X was big (IE - UK, Europe), what chance is there of them deciding to do a full-blown redub of a 70+ episode anime that doesn't even fit with the vision SEGA is currently pushing with the brand? 

A slim chance, but there's still a chance irregardless.

[tailsBOOM!]

I initially assumed when I saw the date constantly that this was just a site update thing with all these notifications for a topic like this, but apparently not lol.  While everything has it's fans, I wouldn't see this happening for multiple reasons:

1. Sonic X is highly divisive due to it's lasting effects on the series (Especially in the area of characterization), and unlike the other divisive show for the series (SATAM), the fanbase isn't nearly as passionate about it. 
2. The Japanese version was way too adult for general audiences.  Swearing, gun violence (Instead of lasers) and sexual jokes and references would not cut it outside of Japan.  If something like that were to ever be pursued for a redub by them, it would probably be the lost Pokémon episodes due to it being the largest entertainment franchise in the world plus Pokémon has been known to license many adult collectors items such as the upcoming Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic (One look at it tells you all you need to know about the target audience) as well as those super expensive model Pokéball models (Again, clearly not aimed at kids).  So Discotek has little reason to pursue it.
3. The series is dated in a number of ways, as the series has moved on.  So outside of a collector's market that likely doesn't exist due to Sonic X not having the nostalgic value of other media in the franchise, SEGA has little reason to pursue it themselves.
4. Chris Thorndyke is easily one of, if not the, most hated characters in the franchise.  This normally wouldn't be a point for topics like this, but he's just that hated lol, plus he was a heavy focus throughout the series.
5. Discotek has 2 way more obvious Sonic things for them license out that would be both less taxing of a process and likely more profitable, being SATAM and the OVA.  The OVA even has the fairly recent discovery of the full version of "Look-a-like" that could be used as a bonus feature of some sort, something they tend to like doing.

Obviously nothing is impossible if the money is there... but realistically it just isn't.  

[The Great Egg Emperor]

24 minutes ago, tailsBOOM! said:

1. Sonic X is highly divisive due to it's lasting effects on the series (Especially in the area of characterization), and unlike the other divisive show for the series (SATAM), the fanbase isn't nearly as passionate about it. 

That doesn't mean it still doesn't have it's fans.

32 minutes ago, tailsBOOM! said:

 

1. The Japanese version was way too adult for general audiences.  Swearing, gun violence (Instead of lasers) and sexual jokes and references would not cut it outside of Japan.  If something like that were to ever be pursued for a redub by them, it would probably be the lost Pokémon episodes due to it being the largest entertainment franchise in the world plus Pokémon has been known to license many adult collectors items such as the upcoming Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic (One look at it tells you all you need to know about the target audience) as well as those super expensive model Pokéball models (Again, clearly not aimed at kids).  So Discotek has little reason to pursue it.

There are adult-target Sonic things out there. First 4 Figures, for example.

41 minutes ago, tailsBOOM! said:

The series is dated in a number of ways, as the series has moved on.  So outside of a collector's market that likely doesn't exist due to Sonic X not having the nostalgic value of other media in the franchise, SEGA has little reason to pursue it themselves.

Dated, but not forgotten.

42 minutes ago, tailsBOOM! said:

Chris Thorndyke is easily one of, if not the, most hated characters in the franchise.  This normally wouldn't be a point for topics like this, but he's just that hated lol, plus he was a heavy focus throughout the series.

Ok, I can't argue with you there.

43 minutes ago, tailsBOOM! said:

Discotek has 2 way more obvious Sonic things for them license out that would be both less taxing of a process and likely more profitable, being SATAM and the OVA.  The OVA even has the fairly recent discovery of the full version of "Look-a-like" that could be used as a bonus feature of some sort, something they tend to like doing.

So why not do both those and the uncut dub?

44 minutes ago, tailsBOOM! said:

Obviously nothing is impossible if the money is there... but realistically it just isn't.  

Kickstarter exists.

[juiceDpunk983]

14 hours ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

And of course people give a shit about Sonic X, why did you think they didn't?

Yeah. I care about Sonic X alot. Plus, it's actually better than what the games shat out for more than 10 years. The way the franchise changed put me off the series, It's only starting to get back to normal with Frontiers. I'd love to see this get a redub. Might actually remind Sega what the brand is supposed to be, good and not scared to be different. Colours to Forces isn't what the brand should be. X and the early 2000s is.

[Tornado]

2 hours ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

I don't understand why you are being so negative about it. It's best not to give up hope. It may take a couple of years, but I bet we will get a redub of Sonic X before the decade is out.

The reason I'm being negative about it is because you're actively calling for people to group together to harass even voice actors (who would have nothing to do with the process in the first place) to try and get a 20 year old mediocre anime that already has a dub to have a less mediocre dub (assuming that even if all of those parties were interested that the licence owner would even allow it).

 

 

 

 

And that's, again as pointed out to you in the starting days of this thread, an important factor. Sonic X's quality wouldn't be dramatically changed by a really good dub. Even though it wasn't as good as their Pokemon dub and had some horrendously miscast/directed voice talent working on it, 4Kids didn't butcher Sonic X like they did One Piece and they didn't censor it as much as they did Yu-Gi-Oh.

1 hour ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

That doesn't mean it still doesn't have it's fans.

There's a difference between the fans of divisive show SatAM (extremely outspoken, extremely passionate, have dominated all conversation about the show for 30 years now) and the fans of divisive show Sonic X (like the show more than most people do, largely can ignore the singular reason it was hated even when it was new).

 

1 hour ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

There are adult-target Sonic things out there. First 4 Figures, for example.

You're missing the point. The issue he's referring to is if a Sonic show, one that has already existed for home release as part of a kid-targeted IP for 20 years now, suddenly comes out with a new release of the same show except now Eggman comments on how great Rouge's boobs are.

 

1 hour ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

Dated, but not forgotten.

It's not even in the top 3 of Sonic cartoons in that regard, I suspect.

 

1 hour ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

So why not do both those and the uncut dub?

Because even the OVA, which would in all honesty needs a redub, isn't even an hour long. Sonic X is 78 episodes.

 

 

 

And, again, the OVA getting a rerelease at all would be significantly more valuable to far more people than Sonic X getting a new dub; which is why Discotek has tried to get it in the past.

 

1 hour ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

Kickstarter exists.

You're not getting a successful Kickstarter out of "let's slightly improve the quality of Sonic X in the US market." The Dirty Pair Kickstarter, a campaign for a much better show with a much more passionate fanbase that had humongous influence on the entire anime industry and basically started anime fandom in the United States, had an initial goal of $275,000. Dirty Pair, compared to Sonix X, is:

• 1/3rd as long
• Has a regular cast of all of three characters
• Notably and conspicuously never had a dub to begin with, despite attempts to make one in the past and being considered the best part of the franchise and everything else in the franchise getting one.
• Was never released on Blu Ray before and it actually has an HD master to work from.
• Was being done by Nozomi Entertainment, which was vertically integrated into RightStuf
• Isn't part of a currently used IP with very stringent and confusing content mandates that the show no longer fits inside.
• Is explicitly a show targeted at adults and was always a show targeted at adults; and not a show aimed at children that in Japanese had a bunch of swearing and gun violence and sexual content.

 

53 minutes ago, juiceDpunk983 said:

Yeah. I care about Sonic X alot. Plus, it's actually better than what the games shat out for more than 10 years. The way the franchise changed put me off the series, It's only starting to get back to normal with Frontiers. I'd love to see this get a redub. Might actually remind Sega what the brand is supposed to be, good and not scared to be different. Colours to Forces isn't what the brand should be. X and the early 2000s is.

Great. You and Egg Emperor can front the half million dollars between the two of you.

Edited August 14 by Tornado

[juiceDpunk983]

14 minutes ago, Tornado said:

You and Egg Emperor can front the half million dollars between the two of you.

Actually made me laugh haha. Yeah I see your point about this being almost impossible to get a redub. Tbh I'm ok with the current dub, plus there's the Japanese version so I'm happy.

I just want a new series of this more than a redub, or at least have the brand go back to the early 2000s tone which what Frontiers did. The people who want the colours era stuff have the reborn Classic Sonic anyway for the games.

[GentlemanX]

17 hours ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

Stuff about Digimon movies getting dubs etc.

@Tornadoalready went over any details dubbing three Digimon movies (125 minutes) vs. 78 episodes of Sonic X (roughly 1911 minutes) added to everything I've already discussed in this topic, so I'm just going to follow up by adding the Discotek team's responses to this post on twitter.

In other words, it's just not happening.

[juiceDpunk983]

What's the Sonic X fans done to get that response? I ask cos I'm not in the fandom besides this website, so I'm not in the loop with stuff, I don't bother with social media besides YouTube.

Also, what are the chances of a new series instead? I know we have Prime but it's not as good as X.

[tailsBOOM!]

18 minutes ago, GentlemanX said:

@Tornadoalready went over any details dubbing three Digimon movies (125 minutes) vs. 78 episodes of Sonic X (roughly 1911 minutes) added to everything I've already discussed in this topic, so I'm just going to follow up by adding the Discotek team's responses to this post on twitter.

In other words, it's just not happening.

Dude probably wishes they could react with the "Unamused" reaction to them like he did everyone here  

Jokes aside, this should hopefully  settle it, especially since a lot of the points we made here were echoed there lol.