Space-Time Detective Genshi-Kun/Flint the Time Detective Episode 19 (18 for the Dub) Sub/Dub Comparison | Evil Spirit Moaiwa

Plot: Genshi, Sora and Tokio head to Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, in the 16^th century to retrieve the Space-Time Monster, Moaiwa.

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Title Change: Evil Spirit Moaiwa was changed to Moah.

Name Change: Moaiwa was changed to Moah.

They add an establishing shot of the research facility before showing Flint.

Genshi doesn’t count while Flint does. This change is fine if not welcome because you’re supposed to count to ten when you play Hide and Seek.

The original just says Moaiwa is in the ancient south Pacific whereas the dub says Moah is in 16^th century (when they leave, they say specifically 1560) Easter Island……Does 16^th century count as “ancient”? I don’t feel like it does. Additionally, during the extra bits always added before they head off on the Time Cycle in the dub, Dr. Goodman tells them specifically to go to Anakena Beach, which is where many moai reside. In the original, specifics on location are not given. Finally, Ptery says that the island is called Rapa Nui by the people who reside there (Polynesians). This information is also not given in the original.

While it is really cool that the dub has all this extra educational information, they kinda tarnish it by having Goodman ask them to bring him back “an egg or something.” He often asks for souvenirs, but how random to ask for “an egg or something” from Easter Island…

Pre-Posting Edit: I finally understand what the heck he was talking about there. Easter Island…he wants an egg…….Like an Easter egg……Ugh. Easter Island isn’t even meant to be called that until 1722 when Dutch navigator, Jacob Roggeveen would rename the island to that since he visited the island on Easter Sunday.

The overhead shot of the island was originally immediately after the group emerged from the time stream. In the dub, it’s after Sarah comments on how small the island is.

I can’t believe I have to note this, but, originally, Genshi’s fart (that was so powerful it shot him off his feet) is what caused the awful smell. In the dub, I guess it was Flint’s small burp.

Also, Sora originally asks what the noise was, in response to Genshi’s fart. In the dub, she says the ocean breeze smells nice until she smells Flint’s burp.

Name Plate removed:

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Originally, the shot of Genshi flying off was reserved for after was see Moaiwa full out. Then we got rewind effects on screen, Genshi’s fall being rewound, the shot goes close up to Genshi, watching as he eats his potatoes before falling back down. In the dub, Saban edits it so that Flint flies off when Moah emerges from the ground, then after he is shown full out, they reverse the footage instead of showing the rewind and closeup so it looks like a more natural fall. I actually like this change because the original had me thinking Moaiwa could rewind time for some reason for a second. Doing that effect, rewinding and showing that Genshi ate his potatoes before coming back down just seems like a needless waste of time. Just a few seconds, but still.

Why did they give that obviously very young kid such an old voice in the dub? He sounds like he’s going through puberty when the kid looks no older than five.

Genshi’s more upset that TP Lady ruined their potatoes than he is about threatening to take Moaiwa like Flint is.

They cut out TP Lady jumping off of Moaiwa and onto the Masked Man, probably because they end up laying down on top of each other.

They reversed and repeated the shot of the Masked Man putting his arm around TP Lady to lengthen the scene.

The kids originally say, “Divine Guardian!” “Lord Moaiwa!” In the dub, they say, “Moah fell over!” “He tripped on that stick!” He didn’t trip on Merlock’s cane, by the way. Merlock stuck the cane in the ground and it spooked Moah so much that he fell over.

TP Lady says her heart belongs to the Masked Man. In the dub, she tells Dino and Mite that Merlock knows how to really talk to a girl.

Sora questions what he means by saying she shouldn’t do anything dangerous. In the dub, she questions him calling her a lovely young lady.

Ammon tells Sora and Kyoichiro to get away from each other. In the dub, Bindi asserts that Merlock was talking about her when he said “lovely young lady.”

When TP Lady butts in, she says she agrees with Ammon and says they should be apart because no one deserves to be happy until she finds happiness with the Masked Man. In the dub, she just tells them to be romantic on their own time. This is, admittedly, nitpicky.

Name Plate removed:

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Name Change: Waruiwa is changed to Moah-con.

It’s so weird how they’re only now purely relying on Love-Love to calm the Space-Time Monster down. I’ve mentioned previously that it’s weird they don’t utilize Love-Love’s power more, and now they’re suddenly doing it out of nowhere.

Kyoichiro originally says how lucky Love-Love is to have Sora say such kind things to it. In the dub, Merlock tells Sora he’ll protect her even if Waruiwa gets everyone else. Admittedly, he does follow it up by saying “Not a good approach…” but yeah….Kyoichiro’s just distracted while Merlock said a pretty insensitive thing.

Ammon just yells Kyoichiro’s name after Sora yells at him. In the dub, she says “Who’s lovely now?”

Ototan says “No more erupting” after he plugs up Waruiwa. In the dub, he says he doesn’t think it worked and he thinks they have a problem.

They repeat Genshi and Waruiwa rushing towards each other a couple times.

TP Lady mostly blames their luck or the universe or what have you for their repeated misfortune while Dyna and Mite agree. In the dub, she blames Dino and Mite.

Dyna and Mite originally say they were right, he really was a soldier of the earth. In the dub, Dino asks if workman’s comp will cover their injuries from the volcano.

The kids originally say they have to protect the field. In the dub, they say they won’t abandon Moah because of everything he’s done for them. Admittedly, I kinda like the dub better. I get that they do have to protect this field because it’s their main or possibly only source of food, but it’s a little more touching that they don’t want to abandon Moah even though he’s the one causing the problem.

Ammon complains that Kyoichiro shouldn’t only be nice to Sora (he only drags her away from the volcano erupting – not Ammon or the children who are one foot away.) In the dub, Bindi yells that he shouldn’t run off on his own because it’s dangerous. The original, while mostly being meant as more whining from Ammon because Kyoichiro’s favoring Sora over her again, is better in this situation because, uh, yeah Kyoichiro. It’s pretty messed up to only run off with Sora when you have a trusted friend, several other friends and children sitting there about to get melted by lava.

When Ammon catches up to them, she berates Kyoichiro for not protecting her too. In the dub, she tells Merlock that Sarah’s just a big headache, which acts as a pun because immediately following this Merlock runs into a tree.

When Kyoichiro protects Sora from Super Mosbee, Ammon just yells his name over and over. In the dub, she tells Merlock that this is proof Sarah is nothing but trouble.

The dub omits mentioning that the tidal wave was caused by the earthquake.

They splice in a reaction shot of Tony before Petra and the others fly off.

When Dyna flies off, he says “Moaiwa, we don’t care any moai-re!” In the dub, they just scream, which is fine because that joke was awful, even though, oddly, it would work better with Moah than Moaiwa.

The reaction shot is taken from a scene immediately following that where Tokio tells Mosbee to freeze the tidal wave. When he looks back, he’s astounded to see Mosbee has de-transformed back to his normal state out of exhaustion. In the dub, everything but the reaction is removed.

Name Change: Super Moaiwa is changed to Moah Master.

Name Plate removed.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

In the original, it’s implied that Moaiwa created the moai statues. In the dub, Moah specifically summons these statues, calling them the guardians of Rapa Nui, as if they were underground the whole time, and Tony asks who made them and why. I greatly appreciate this change because this is another instance of the series making off like they created history. It completely erases the mystique and wonder of the statues and replaces it with “Oh a magical rock monster made them.”

While we don’t know exactly why the statues were carved, the strongest theory is that they were representations of the ancestors of the villagers, facing towards the village to watch over them (though a select group of seven were pointed towards the ocean presumably to guide travelers to the island.) They were considered sacred symbols of power and believed to encapsulate a person’s spiritual essence.

Interestingly, the statues were carved from tuff, which is solidified volcanic ash, giving Waruiwa’s power a bit more validity.

I want you to take note of the fact that they specifically don’t face the ocean….

The scene I’m discussing right now has Super Moaiwa summon dozens of moai to act as wall to protect the island from the tidal wave….and all of the statues are facing the ocean.

Additionally, while we also don’t know for certain how the statues were toppled (many have been set standing once more) accounts range from earthquakes to tribal clan conflicts to Christian settlers knocking them down as a means of erasing the religious icons from the area while they were trying to convert the islanders to Christianity. There’s no indication they were knocked over from a tidal wave.

Kyoichiro officially recognizes Genshi as his rival. In the dub, he praises him and says he’s a hero.

In the original, Ammon says she wants him to recognize her as his girlfriend. In the dub, Bindi says Merlock is her hero. In both versions, she still kisses him on the lips. Her crush on him is really getting unsettling.

Back in the lab, they double down on the change to history. Tokio says the islanders wound up believing the moai statues were the children of their divine guardian and that they inadvertently discovered the secret of the statues. Professor Yamato states that the islanders adopted the statues as guardians against tidal waves, which is also probably wrong. In the dub, they say they believe Moah really was the guardian of Rapa Nui, but they still don’t know where the statues came from or who made them and why. Dr. Goodman explains that scientists believe the people who used to live there made them, but there’s no way to know because the inhabitants of the island disappeared many years ago. Again, props to Saban for this change. Even though it’s not detailed (I don’t know exactly how much they knew about the moai in 2000, so I’m giving them a break here.) it is far more accurate and reasonable than the original’s explanation.

In the original, Yamato suggests playing jump rope. In the dub, Goodman just tells them to play outside and Moah says “I like to jump.” which sounds random.

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Overall, this episode was one of the most enjoyable based purely on how much action and tension there was. Not only is Moaiwa a unique Space-Time Monster in that it’s so large in its base form and massive in its bad and super forms, but the fact that Waruiwa is such a powerful and huge creature that can cause volcanic eruptions just by slamming into the ground over and over is really cool. A volcanic eruption is certainly one of the most dangerous things to happen on the show to date, if not the most dangerous. Him being able to regenerate and break apart and control his broken body parts was also awesome.

It was also nice to see Super Mosbee again, and it was awesome to see him do something as incredible as freeze an actively erupting volcano. Having both of Moaiwa’s transformations in today’s episode was pretty cool, although I think this would have been a good time to have Love-Love transform….

While it was kinda out-of-the-blue, I also liked how sweet Genshi and Ototan were being to each other this episode. They’re always kind to each other, but they were constantly having cute moments today for some reason.

Additionally, Saban did quite a good job with this episode barring some vocal oddities and a few weird lines.

There were some negative points, though. We never really learn what base level Moaiwa’s power actually is besides jump/till fields with its jumping. I also don’t understand how Moaiwa’s jumping tills fields considering jumping on soil is kinda the opposite of tilling. I don’t know why Moaiwa has such a thing about jumping either. It’s based on a statue, which can’t jump….Also, while its bad transformation does have the awesome power of being able to crumble apart and put itself back together, it can’t really use its volcanic eruption power unless it’s right by a volcano, but that’s very minor, especially since we’ll probably never see Waruiwa again.

Super Moaiwa was pretty cool, even though the design is kinda……weird. Why doesn’t it have a mouth, exactly? Its power is also weird. It just….makes moai statues? How are those helpful? I had to stretch my suspension of disbelief pretty far just to believe they’d stop a tidal wave. I can’t see how they’d be helpful anywhere else.

The villagers were also an odd situation. Why were they all children? Where were the adults? Are they entirely reliant on sweet potatoes for food? They just seem so fiercely protective of their field that I have to imagine it’s a significant part of their food resources at least, even though seafood is right there. Why don’t they find it more of an issue that Genshi ate their massive pile of potatoes? According to a quick Google search, it takes about three months for sweet potatoes to be fully grown. It’s definitely not a quick fix. Also, while this information was discovered long after this episode aired, Polynesians on Rapa Nui did indeed eat sweet potatoes. I feel I should still ding them a bit there because there’s no way they could have known that was accurate back then, but it doesn’t matter.

Then, of course, there’s the issue with changing history. I can forgive Saban entirely for not being too detailed with their explanation about how the moai were created or what their purposes were. Even now while we have more information and can make numerous deductions, we can’t really say entirely for certain, but the original was just stupid. I don’t like when this show rewrites history like that, and in such a lazy manner. It was literally just that this Space-Time Monster randomly had the power to create the moai…..and it did. They didn’t even get that much right because they made a big to-do out of showing them in the entirely wrong orientation. However, Moaiwa was BASED on the moai, wasn’t it?….So….???

Finally, Kyoichiro was just awful in this episode. He’s a Space-Time Detective too, but he didn’t seem to care much at all about anyone but Sora. He does this a lot, but children were about to get melted to death in lava and he didn’t give a crap.

Next time, we meet Space-Time Monster Elekin in Edo era Japan alongside Hiraga Gennai. The plot already sounds confusing, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, I suppose.

…..Previous Episode

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Tokyo Mew Mew/Mew Mew Power Episode 11 (10 for the Original) Sub/Dub Comparison

Plot: The Mews find the fifth member of their group – Mint’s idol, the famous Zakuro Fujiwara. She’s seemingly going around and fighting Chimera Animals on her own, but she won’t admit that she’s the mysterious Mew. When they finally catch her in the act, they, especially Mint, are crushed when she vehemently refuses to join them.

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They remove a small scene with a close up of Kisshu where he says “She must be it…”

They remove a short scene of a church and Zakuro praying because religion. And here we gooooooooooooooooo!

Really love how, even when the characters are reading something out loud, the text still gets removed. ♪ Just take a look, it’s in a book, it’s somehow-knowing-what-blank-boxes-and-shapes-say rainboooooooooowwwwwww.♪

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Another short shot of Ichigo, hoping the picture’s not of her to avoid being outed to Aoyama, is removed.

The scene with matching up the cutouts is the same, for the most part, and I’ll get to that in a minute, but I do have to mention that it’s not a good way to ‘prove’ that the girl in the photo is none of them. The pictures would have to be taken from the same distance and the end result would have to be in the same resolution in order for it to even start to count in comparison.

Anyway, one stupid and just meanspirited change occurs when Pudding’s comparing Lettuce’s picture. In the original, she says Lettuce is too curvy to be the girl. Which…I dunno if she’s saying she’s fat or if she’s saying she has big hips and boobs.

In the dub, she says the girl can’t be her because she doesn’t have ‘Grandma hair’ like Bridget. Where the hell did that come from? ‘Grandma hair’? Lettuce’s hair looks fine in terms of style. Straight with two long thin braids has never been known as a ‘grandma’ hairdo as far as I know. And her hair is green, not gray or blue or anything, so I have no clue what this is even indicating nor why Kiki would be a little brat.

The shot of the girls thinking about who the girl could be is shortened.

Text is removed from the back of the magazine.

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Dubbed:

Text is removed and replaced on Mint’s fanbook. Also, I still find it just so insanely convenient that she happened to have that with her when they discovered Zakuro. (Sorry the screenshot’s not spot on. The shot is moving, and that tends to mess up the screenshots in the dubbed version, so I had to take it when it stopped. The text above Zakuro’s head is gone for the record.)

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Dubbed:

After Bridget calls Corina’s book/magazine thing a fan obsession book, Zoey says this; “I thought only boys bought these.” Okay, there’s two reasons why this line is weird. First, what does that mean? Only boys can be big enough fans of someone or something to buy a fanbook about it?

Second, considering the subject here…..does she mean……like….in a porny way? Like this is Corina’s secret dirty book of Renee pictures? Because there are already plenty of hints in the original that Mint has a crush on Zakuro without that.

To push this even further for some reason, Zoey asks if it’s Corina’s and she says “No, some guy left it on the table the other day.” In the original, she just admits she bought it, but purely on a whim.

Wow, they even left in her heart eyes and crush-like gushing over Zakuro. Give 4Kids this much, they’re definitely not Nelvana because this would be on the cutting room floor in a second.

Huh, they also left the shot of Zakuro in the ‘profile’ scene alone despite the fact that it looks like Zakuro has no shirt or bra on.

But hey let’s ruin all of 4Kids’ good, if not somewhat creepy, work in this past minute for getting the details of Zakuro in her profile completely wrong.

Zakuro was born on September 6^th and is a Virgo. The dub has her birthday at December 3^rd and lists her as a Sagittarius.

Zakuro is 172cm tall, which is roughly 5ft 7in tall. Renee is listed as being 6ft 1in tall, which would just be a horribly jarring state of proportional error if you paid attention to her beside the other Mews.

Zakuro weighs 49kg which is roughly 108lbs. Renee is listed as being 130lbs.

Zakuro knows French, English, German and Chinese. Renee knows Spanish, French, Japanese and Portuguese. I will give them props for mentioning the dreaded J word, and actually swapping it from English to J word, but there’s no reason to change the rest.

Zakuro is a model and an actress. Renee seems to be a singer and actress (possibly model too) with nine #1 hits and other popular songs.

In addition, whereas Mint is gushing over her features like her black opal hair (uh….it’s purple…??), glittering sapphire eyes, and legs as white as platinum (Okay, come on, she can’t not be in love with Zakuro.) Corina talks about her perfume line and gushes about how much she wants to meet her and be her.

Oh thanks for shoving some of the Mew Mew motto in my face during Corina’s little fan splurge. Really enjoyed that.

Akasaka says it might be a coincidence set up by God that someone who Mint adores may be the fifth member. This is omitted.

There’s a scene shift of a better drawn Kisshu (You can always tell it’s a somewhat important episode when they kick up the budget.) talking with Deep Blue about his latest failure in reference to the scene at the start where Zakuro destroys the fish monster. He then says he has an even better idea – to use her to destroy the other Mews. This scene is not supposed to occur until after the scene with the woman being saved from the bat Chimera Animal by Zakuro. I guess they shifted it to make it for a better scene to end on before the dub-only commercial.

The girls are merely auditioning for a joint America and Japan produced musical that is starring Zakuro. In the dub, they’re auditioning for ‘Real Talent Paris’ – a TV show that sounds like America’s Got Talent where Renee is acting as a guest judge. Must be a stupid talent show if all of the contestants are merely singing and dancing….then again, that is a good chunk of reality talent shows these days…

Also, the sign is changed to reflect this.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Because of this change, Mint’s remarks about hopefully getting the part of Zakuro’s little sister are changed to telling Bridget to stay focused since they’re only there to see if Renee’s a Mew Mew.

Ichigo just thinks of being famous. Zoey says she’ll start a hat line called ‘Luscious Lids.’………That is just horrible name.

To make the fantasy of her and Aoyama more intimate and dramatic, she calls him Masaya in it. Since Mark is always called Mark, this can’t be mirrored. Though, I guess she could’ve called him ‘darling’ or something.

Name Change: The director of the musical, Junyano Koshiba, is splashed with French-ness and named Monsieur Lepain, a renowned French fashion mogul.

Well, let’s start with the cross removals. Zakuro always wears a cross necklace. In the dub, the sides are removed, leaving a stick.

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Dubbed:

Ichigo just stammers in Zakuro’s appearance. Zoey says this insanely dumb line; “How cool! She’s wearing sunglasses!” Yes, plain black sunglasses. The peak in high fashion. Now available from your local Wal-Mart.

An external shot of the building is removed because they didn’t have their commercial at that time.

They remove a shot of Pudding spinning plates and Ichigo getting angry at her escapades.

Despite making the English dude French, they keep in his first lines as English. I guess this might make sense because he’s addressing people that he knows speak English. Better than approaching a native in a foreign country and expecting them to know your language.

The director guy’s assistant doesn’t say anything about his therapy in the original. He just apologizes to him.

They remove a shot of Ichigo bowing in apology to the producers.

This line’s changed, but I find it funny for some reason. In the original, Ichigo says to just make her, Pudding and Lettuce leave since they were at fault, and the director’s assistant says no. In the dub, Zoey says “For what it’s worth, I really like your handbags!” and then the assistant says “He doesn’t make handbags!”

Oh and yeah, just as the other American person spoke broken English, same with the supposedly American character here. I give Zakuro a pass because it’s her secondary language, but when you have characters who are American, get native English speaking VAs or at least people who are fluent. I especially love when he says “It seems to me like they’re wasting my time.” because he drawls so much on ‘time’ like it’s ‘tiiiiiimeee.’

Because of the commercial, they replay the shot of the others girls and of Zoey speaking.

Zakuro starts speaking English after she takes off her sunglasses. In the dub, she doesn’t start speaking French until after she sits on the table.

Also, Zakuro politely calms the other assistant down whereas Renee rudely says “I don’t think I was talking to YOU.”

Prize line; “To me it seems very ridiculous in a STRANGE.” And yeah, that’s the entire sentence. He’s not cut off or anything, that’s all he had to say. Just beautiful.

As for French guy, well, I didn’t speak much Spanish and I speak even less French. I honestly have no clue of how they’re doing on that front. I do think the stereotypical French accordion music is a bit much, though. Why don’t you use that fancy digital paint to put a beret on his head while you’re at it?

And, as before, the subtitles are unreasonably huge, and they are going really fast because of how few words they can keep on the screen with that big font. If you don’t think kids can read, don’t believe they can speed-read.

They remove another short shot of Zakuro telling the assistant that the auditions will resume after she does a performance….This is weird writing. Why exactly does Zakuro need to do this? I mean, he says it’s to set an example for the other girls, but uh….that seems really weak.

I would like to formally congratulate whoever was in charge of editing Zakuro’s necklace because I purposely watched the teeny tiny itty bitty cross during her fast paced dancing and dammit they stuck to that edit. That must’ve been a digital paint bitch. I salute you for your efforts Mr or Ms. Digital painter. I’m sorry your bosses were xenophobic, textphobic, religion phobic old fogies.

Can I just say how stupid it is for Mint/Corina to go off like that in front of a whole group of people babbling on about the Mew Mew stuff? She reveals more in the dub than she does in the original, but either way that’s stupid. She could’ve blown their whole cover with that.

Again, Zakuro, while being blunt, is far more polite about rejecting Mint than Renee is. Renee even calls Corina a psycho. Also, her bitchy dialogue doesn’t even make sense. She has a bunch of girls constantly pestering her about her being a member of their superhero club? She must attract a bunch of really misguided fans.

Some still-screens are removed after Zakuro leaves the stage, but they leave in the first still screen making it seem really awkward when transitioning into the next scene.

A shot of Mint looking out the window is removed.

Shirogane’s a little blunt in merely saying that he supposed Zakuro couldn’t have been the Mew then. Elliot’s a straight up asshole saying that’s what happens when one stuck up brat looks up to another.

Okay, look, I badmouth most of the characters for one reason or another, Corina most of all because she IS a stuck up brat, but when dealing with the actual characters in the show, this is just cruel, and even Shirogane wouldn’t be that crass about her situation. He even laughed about her calling Corina a psycho. Why are so many of the characters in the dub made out to be obnoxious dickheads? This episode is particularly bad in that regard.

Mint says she forgives Pudding for what she did and mentions sadly that it’s not her fault. In the dub, she also forgives Kiki, but she says ‘it’s not your fault my life no longer has meaning’. I would say this is 4Kids being as subtle as a rock to the face again, but I also think they’re overdramatizing it.

Ichigo asks Lettuce if she thinks Zakuro really isn’t the fifth Mew Mew. Lettuce responds that, if she’s not, then the girl in the picture is still a mystery. In the dub, Zoey asks Bridget why Renee would deny being a Mew Mew. Bridget then asks why she’d want to give up her great career to be a freak, work in a café and fight aliens.

Ya know, Bridget, if you never became a ‘freak’ you’d never have this great circle of friends as opposed to that nice trio of bitches you had as “friends” before. Since when do you find this life so deplorable anyway? And thanks to Bridget being bitchy now too, though in a different way, that means only three characters in the dub, Zoey, Wesley and surprisingly Corina are the only ones who haven’t been complete assholes at one point in this episode. That’s just awful.

Akasaka and Shirogane nod to each other quietly whereas Wesley and Elliot just stare at each other. NODDING IS NOW A 4KIDS NO-NO. EVERYONE UPDATE YOUR RULEBOOK!

Oh great another transformation mashup. There goes my Lettuce transformation comparison again….

However, I can note one thing I never noticed from the mashup – Lettuce’s scenes are mirrored for absolutely no reason. Unless she transforms into a car in it. I wouldn’t know. I NEVER SEE IT!

And you know something else?

I supposedly never will.

I was flipping through the Mew Wiki for information, and on Lettuce’s page it says the dub never once shows her transformation full out because she’s ‘naked’ through most of it.

That’s just stupid. Put your digital paint powers to good use, 4Kids. Don’t rip off the fans of Lettuce just because you’re chicken. Sailor Moon was able to show their transformation sequences, so can you. Next episode that they transform in the mashup, I will show all of the scenes that are missing from the mashup in the dub as this will merely have to count as the actual transformation comparison.

Oh great, dub Ichigo says the motto before they even get to the place where the bad guy is so they couldn’t have heard it. Great job. I really think 4Kids just edited that onto the typical transformation mashup scene to save time. And how lovely to have that motto in my face (GET IT!?) twice in one episode. At least the first time didn’t add the final line.

It’s hard to tell but a cross is removed from the front of the church.

Mini-Mew: “There, Zoey! Inside the creepy dark place!” It’s called a church…Or maybe it’s Dracula’s castle. Hell if I know in the dub.

The girls are informed by Shirogane and Masha that the fifth member is being attacked. The girls aren’t aware of this in the dub, merely that a predasite is attacking.

They remove a shot of the stained glass windows even though I don’t see any religious symbols on it.

They don’t announce that it’s Zakuro until they actually see her take off her hat and transform. In the dub, they know before she even turns around.

Also, a closeup shot of her cross necklace is removed.

A cross on top of the church is removed. (Hint: it’s near the left tower)

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Dubbed:

A cross on top of the alter is changed to a spike.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Oh but now they show the window! Hey, how about making sense for a change?

HAHA, 4KIDS MISSED THE CROSS IN THE SCENE WITH THE BIRDS! Should’ve put the necklace guy on that!

Since the cross on top of the altar was changed to a spike, it looks like Dren is standing on a spike. Ouch.

In the original, Kisshu plans to kill Zakuro in order to ensure that she doesn’t team up with the Mews. In the dub, Dren makes off like Renee’s now a part of his team.

While I thought this would mean that Dren would take her silence as defiance in the order to attack the girls and then attack her for it, he just mutters off poems for some reason and sends the crows to make her more powerful.

Oh hey at least I get one transformation sequence to compare today.

Zakuro’s Transformation Comparison: Zakuro’s awesome electric guitar theme is changed to pop-song-ness. 😦 Also, they don’t include her saying, what would be in the dub, ‘Power Pendant Activate’. They also cut out the shots with lip flaps since they make her say nothing for some reason.

Zakuro in front of the DNA strands is removed.

A shot of Zakuro’s hands is removed.

They speed up the shot of Zakuro running to the camera on all fours.

They don’t remove her final shot? Well, I guess it’s just flowers and a moon as opposed to the gold things the other girls get but still.

Renee: “EAT THIS, CROWS!” Yeah, eat my poorly written dialogue, crows!

Kisshu states incredulously that she turned all of the Chimera Crows back to normal at once. In the dub, Dren makes this pun “Careful, Renee. Wouldn’t want to get crow’s feet!’

A close up shot of Zakuro’s ZaCross Whip is edited to remove the sides since it’s meant to be a cross shape. Since you didn’t get a good view in the first episode, here ya go.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

They shorten and I think speed up the shot of Zakuro’s attack where we sift through several shots of her transitioned in her eye.

No attack name change note here because she doesn’t say anything when she attacks. She just goes ‘Huuhhh HA!’ For the record, it’s Ribbon Zakuro Spear.

I’ll give 4Kids credit for actually explaining their made up plot about Renee supposedly joining the Cyniclons. It’s because she wanted to lure him there to kick his butt. Great plan that resulted in you not even trying to capture him or anything.

Zoey: “How cool, she single-handedly defeated Dren!” Yeah, I’ll complain about that in a minute. Thanks for reminding me.

And for another dose of ‘Everyone in the dub’s an asshole’, Zakuro just says she doesn’t need friends. Renee tells the girls they’re all freaks. Nice, bitch. Also, they’re freaks for what reason exactly? The powers? The animal traits? The outfits? The fighting aliens? Cuz you have those too, darlin’.

Yet when Zakuro actually does get insulting with saying girls like Mint are annoying, the dub has her say forcefully that she’s merely not interested in joining their team. I will never understand these people.

Ah, because we have a storyline that wasn’t all wrapped up in 30 minutes, 4Kids puts To Be Continued… at the bottom of the screen. Is that the first time they’ve done that in this show? I don’t remember.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Zakuro’s so powerful that she’s easily been beating Chimera Animals all over town, transformed a flock of Chimera Crows back to normal just by the light of her transformation, and she went hand to hand with Kisshu and a Chimera Animal at once and took them out easily. All by herself, mind you…

So…..why is she not the leader again? Call it Tokyo Bark Bark, it would work. Especially considering that she’s a wolf and thus would fit a leader role perfectly and they, ya know, eat cats. Plus, I hate that she’s this powerful, yet she’s not much better than the other Mews in terms of role when she actually does join the Mews because she’s not the leader.

Zakuro is abrasive, and I can’t remember really enjoying her character that much. She was kindhearted and mature, but I never really grew to really like her a lot.

I’m not even sure how much I liked this episode, to be honest. The dubbed version is just awful and full of so much meanspirited garbage it’s just more annoying than usual to watch.

Next episode, Mint mopes about Zakuro not joining the group and then Zakuro joins the group.

…Previous Episode

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Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf Review

Plot: Brothers Terry and Andy Bogard are out with their martial arts master and father one day when, suddenly, their father is murdered by his old nemesis, Geese. Terry and Andy both make a pact on their father’s grave that they will train for ten years and return to take down Geese.

Ten years go by and the brothers have reunited, prepared to take on Geese. Before they do so, however, the secret technique of their school must be passed on to either Terry or Andy. They decide to enter a martial arts tournament in order to decide who will inherit the technique, but before they can decide a victor, Geese breaks up the party. Will the brothers defeat Geese? Who will get the secret technique? Is it true that this same story has been told 3 trillion times before and better?

Breakdown: Fatal fury truly suffers from poor pacing. With a recycled plot, semi-poor dialogue, inconsistent martial arts portrayal, and a boring story, it’s not looking very good for this movie.

This isn’t even a full hour long. That’s a fairly significant problem. The story may not be good, but it’s a story that would need at least an hour and a half to tell correctly.

Before we get to the details, let’s tackle the “I don’t get this” stuff. First, does the anime really expect us to take a villain named ‘Geese’ seriously? I was expecting associates named Ducks, Herons and Pelicans under the gang name ‘Waterfowl.’

Secondly, exactly what kind of realm is this world? They do nothing but regular martial arts for the first 40 minutes. Then we get introduced to the secret hurricane fist, which looks like Goku acting like Taz. Then we have Geese shooting off chi blasts like the ki blasts in DBZ. In addition, this is very obviously a world with guns. Several characters get shot in this. I know this is a martial arts flick, but…why not shoot them? If you want them dead so badly and don’t give a damn about honor or finding worthy opponents, why not shoot them? You tried to before. Wounded one. Why not do it again?

There are other minor things, but they’re not all that important.

Now onto the breakdown. Terry and Andy are with their master and father on a day out. Their father, Jeff, is with a group of young kids and buys a flower from a young girl. Suddenly, Jeff is attacked and killed by his old rival, Geese. Geese flees the scene (Must’ve been chicken)

along with the young flower girl. Terry and Andy later make a pact on Jeff’s grave that they will train for ten years and then return to avenge their fallen father.

Ten years go by and we meet Terry again. Annndddd *fast forward* blahblahblahblahblahunimportantBSblahblahblahTheflowergirlfrombeforeisnowanadult,guesswherethisisheadingblahblahblah. Terry and Andy reunite and meet up with their master. They have to decide who gets to learn the secret technique of their school as it needs to be passed on before Master Tung dies. They can’t decide, so they enter a martial arts tournament in order to determine who gets the technique…..why they couldn’t have just had a fight is beyond me, but whatever.

Geese learns of this and decides to kill Terry. He sends the flower girl from before, Lily (Get it? Because she had a flower….??), to poison Terry. Again, perfectly usable guns. You have no qualms against using them. Police apparently don’t exist….gun.

Lily, however, can’t do it because she’s fallen for Terry. Damn, that was quick. Are you by chance related to a Disney Princess? Terry kisses her (You almost poisoned me? Lay one on me, sweet stuff!) and goes off to the tournament. Geese finds out that Lily failed in her mission and decides to, get this, SHOOT HIM.

Once Terry and Andy have, predictably, met in the ring, Geese’s sniper takes aim. Andy’s fighter friend, Joe, decides to take the bullet for them and is shot in the shoulder. Before the sniper can make a second shot, however, the power goes out. When the power returns, all three are gone. Geese sends his men out to find them.

Lily leads them out of the building. They lock themselves in a room and drop a ladder out the window. Lily forces each of them to go ahead of her and, shocker, she gets caught by Geese who promptly pushes her/chi blasts(?) her out the window.

Terry holds the remarkably unbloody Lily in his arms as she dies and he yells to the heavens. (*sigh*) Master Tung shows up and drives them away, but is mortally wounded by Geese in the process. The doctor claims Tung might not even make it until morning.

Andy runs out of the hospital and meets up with a remarkably mostly-recovered Joe. They go off to avenge both his father and Master Tung. Terry stays behind at his Master’s request, and Master walks outside like nothing and teaches Terry the move in like two seconds. (Seriously, it’s just “Here’s the stance” “Okay” “Feel the chi of the earth” “I can’t do it!” “You must!” “Okay” *does it* “And then unleash it!” *does hurricane thing* “Wow Master, thanks for showing me—oh hey you died….Oh hey you died in a completely impossible position. Okay…” Takes place over the course of maybe a minute and a half. Not kidding.) Terry then goes after Andy and Joe.

Andy and Joe arrive at Geese’s place and defeat two of his lackeys. Andy and Joe face Geese himself, who, oddly enough, doesn’t seem to show a lick of martial arts talent. Seriously, in both his fight with Terry and Andy he just seems to stand there, dodge and shoot energy blasts from his hands. Geese blows Andy away with one shot and no effort. (Sorry, Andy. Apparently the writer doesn’t like you)

Terry shows up, and Andy passes the baton to Terry (As if he had a choice). Terry faces Geese and this is, by far, one of the most disappointing endings I’ve ever seen. Well, ‘disappointing’ might be the wrong term. ‘Disappointing’ usually implies that you were look forward to something….Lame. Yes, lamest ending fight ever.

Terry faces Geese and uses a move quite similar to the Gaia Crusher from G Gundam called the Power Wave – because that’s an imaginative name. Geese easily dodges and teleports behind him. Terry tries to recover with another move called the Burning Knuckle or something (Wait, first the Gaia Crusher, now the Burning Knuckle(finger?) Come to think of It, wasn’t there a tornado move in G Gundam too?)

Geese catches his attack and palms him in the chest. Then Geese shoots a chi blast at him. Terry, however, blocks it with his hands. Terry’s losing confidence, but decides to use the secret move on him. Geese is shocked (really?) by him using this move. However, Terry’s move is not good enough to defeat Geese. Oh, did I say that? I meant to say “Terry forgot to stop dicking around and actually put his all in that last move.” He does it again and this time it defeats Geese.

I know I make that sound somewhat interesting, but, again, this all takes place in like a minute. After the battle, Andy, Terry and Joe go to Jeff’s grave to put flowers on it. They decide to part ways. Joe goes off to train harder for the championship. Andy goes off to become stronger than Terry due to the fact that Master chose Terry over him. Terry goes off the train as well to get deeper roots or whatever he said. The end.

All taking up a total of about 46 minutes. Bad pacing. So bad. The entire movie is so damn predictable. Even if you’ve never seen a movie with this kind of plotline, you can predict everything that happens.

Of course they’re gonna want revenge, of course they’re gonna train, of course Terry is going to be chosen, of course Terry’s gonna fall for little miss flower, of course little miss flower’s going to die for the sake of mangst, of course Andy’s gonna fail etc. etc. etc. There is nothing you haven’t seen in this movie.

Usually that can be made up for in old action shlock like this with cheesy fun, but there’s not even that much of that in here. The fighting moves aren’t even all that impressive. I still don’t even understand how being spun around a few times and thrown into pond can kill a master of martial arts.

The anime might have been better if it focused more on the brothers and their relationship/rivalry more than the other BS, but even then it wouldn’t have been very original or interesting.

Bottom Line: If you’re not bothered by movies like these then maybe you should give it a watch. 40-some odd minutes isn’t that much to sacrifice. It’s not god-awful, but is it poorly paced, poorly written and cliché as hell.

Art and Animation: The art isn’t that awful and the animation is fairly decent.

Music: Typical 80’s-esque fight movie music.

Additional Information and notes: Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf (Not even sure what that title means…) is based off the Fatal Fury game series. This movie was produced by NAS and directed by Hiroshi Fukutomi. The English dubbed version is available from ViZ.

Runtime: 45 Minutes

Year: 1992

Recommend audience: Mmm, some murder, a little swearing, blood….Eh, 13+

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