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Why were some JPN song adapted for the dub and not others?

matt0044

matt0044

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(note: this is not a hate thread)

I was watching the episode where May returns to Sinnoh, meeting Ash at Valor Lakefront, and was floored when I heard the instrumental version of "I Won't Lose-Theme of Haruka/May" was left in yet confused why. And when I rewatched "Jirachi Wishmaker" I heard that the song "Make A Wish" retain the JPN lyrics for the second verse and chorus when the first were rewritten for English. There were others during the 4kids dub.

But why those songs, I've always wondered, when they've replaced many others. Do they want to retain the original BGM or no?

Thoughts?
 
Another example might be 「ロケット団よ永遠に」 "Team Rocket Forever", sung in several episodes including "The Song of Jigglypuff" and "Go West, Young Meowth". In this case, it's just too catchy to replace, not to mention the horrendous amount of editing they'd have to do to synchronize the video to a different song.
 
I did always think it's weird that songs like OK!, Advanced Adventure (in the 4Kids era), and Dawn's Theme (in the TPCI era) would always be kept even though there's no relevance to the English dub since they weren't used as the theme songs.

I mean, it's cool, whatever. But it's just super confusing.
 
matt0044 said:
(note: this is not a hate thread)

I was watching the episode where May returns to Sinnoh, meeting Ash at Valor Lakefront, and was floored when I heard the instrumental version of "I Won't Lose-Theme of Haruka/May" was left in yet confused why. And when I rewatched "Jirachi Wishmaker" I heard that the song "Make A Wish" retain the JPN lyrics for the second verse and chorus when the first were rewritten for English. There were others during the 4kids dub.

But why those songs, I've always wondered, when they've replaced many others. Do they want to retain the original BGM or no?

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I was speechless too! I couldn't believe it got in...

There was also this really pretty piece played when May fought Zoey in their Contest Battle. If anyone knows the name of that/where to find it, I would be truly grateful.
 
Hinokou said:
I was speechless too! I couldn't believe it got in...

There was also this really pretty piece played when May fought Zoey in their Contest Battle. If anyone knows the name of that/where to find it, I would be truly grateful.
Click to expand...

That's an unreleased piece from the Lugia movie, unfortunately. Somebody tried making a rip of it here, if you want to listen. There is also another version that was used in the movie that's also unreleased.

I wish they were on the soundtrack... They're two of my favorites!

Edit: XD I hope this is the piece from that battle that you were talking about.
 
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Blue_Drifblim said:
Hinokou said:
I was speechless too! I couldn't believe it got in...

There was also this really pretty piece played when May fought Zoey in their Contest Battle. If anyone knows the name of that/where to find it, I would be truly grateful.
Click to expand...

That's an unreleased piece from the Lugia movie, unfortunately. Somebody tried making a rip of it here, if you want to listen. There is also another version that was used in the movie that's also unreleased.

I wish they were on the soundtrack... They're two of my favorites!

Edit: XD I hope this is the piece from that battle that you were talking about.
Click to expand...

Blue Drifblim yes! Bless you! This is why I love forums! Thank you so much!!!
 
I just find it weird because most dubs like this give the soundtracks an overhaul. Why not go all or nothing?
 
a lot of it is licensing, actually. the music must be approved/aka purchased before it would be allowed to play in an episode overseas. without the license it would effectively mean the dub is streaming music illegally.

as far as what's chosen to be adapted, i'd wager that the cheaper songs/most common leimotifs/really outrageously awesome songs are the ones that are chosen to be kept.

chiisaki mono ---> make a wish is an example of all three. i can imagine it was pretty cheap because chiisaki mono was the debut single of its (14 year-old!!!!) singer, Asuca Hayashi and obviously it was EVERYWHERE in the Jirachi movie. compare paying for a debut single from a kid to paying for a single from a more established band/artist like crystal kay, sukima switch, shoko nakagawa, or even sowelu.
 
In the case of Chiisaki Mono/Make A Wish I think it's more of a it's too embedded into the story to replace it thing.
 
Music licensing is a complicated process with a lot of variables, so the results tend to be somewhat unpredictable. Songs may be replaced for a variety of reasons, including cost, time issues (rewriting a song for a different language can take considerably longer than writing a new one), and the differences in the audiences. Trying to come up with a unified explanation is generally a losing effort.
 
Aestivate said:
a lot of it is licensing, actually. the music must be approved/aka purchased before it would be allowed to play in an episode overseas.
Click to expand...

Doesn't TV Tokyo do that anyway? Or is it only for TV Tokyo, and not for any dubbing agencies (4Kids, TPCI, Warner Bros)?
 
as i recall, dubbing agencies have to buy their own licenses, just like how they have to pay for distribution O:
 
Aestivate said:
as i recall, dubbing agencies have to buy their own licenses, just like how they have to pay for distribution O:
Click to expand...

So it's quite different to, say, Disney movies being dubbed into Japanese, as Disney/Buena Vista would have an in-house team for the dubbing and local distribution.
 
The Japanese music in Pocket Monsters isn't free for TPCI to use, that's true. But you know what? Neither is the Japanese music in any of the other Japanese cartoons being released by FUNimation. Or Viz. Or Disney. Or any other company that wants to release the English version of a Japanese cartoon in the U.S.

Music licensing is not a problem unique to TPCI. But replacing the score with American-made music, in the year 2014? That is, for the most part, unique to TPCI.

Wanna know the real reason the music gets replaced in the dub? Because TPCI likes getting royalty money for the music that they make. The English dub is based off the Japanese version but then every other Western country's dub is based on the English version. The French dub is a dub of the English dub. The Spanish dub is a dub of the English dub. The German dub is a dub of the English dub. Nobody else deals directly with Japan; if a non-English speaking Western country wants to air Pokemon, they have to go through TPCI first.

If the people in New York create their own music, in-house, then they can charge the foreign distributors royalties for using their music. The more music they replace, the more money they get to charge the Spanish and the French and the Italians and the Germans and whoever else. Leaving in all the Japanese music isn't smart for TPCI, financially, because then they wouldn't be able to make as much money off the show.

The reason TPCI bothers keeping any Japanese music at all is probably because they have some clause in their contracts dictating that they keep at least X% of the Japanese music that they can't get out of.

The movies most likely require different contracts and so that's why those tend to not have any replacement music in them.

There's also the whole "we change the music for artistic reasons" (that's the line 4Kids used to use back in the day) that's probably a little bit to blame as well.
 
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But why do some episodes like "The Semi Final Frontier" include zero dub exclusive tracks? Did they just... forget?
 
If I had to guess I'd say they probably have a per-season quota that they were falling short of so they had to have an episode with no replacement music.
 
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