Plot: Ichigo has neglected her summer homework, and school starts back up tomorrow. As she rushes to get it all done in time, she finds herself faced with a ton of distractions, no one willing to help her out, and Taruto with a new Chimera Animal.
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The shot of Ichigo and Aoyama on their date is just of them walking together. In the dub, they’re on the roller coaster, and the dialogue is also changed to reflect this.
They remove the wiping transitions for simple cuts.
While still in the ‘summer is awesome’ montage, we see Ichigo and the others in their yukata at a festival catching goldfish, followed up by a shot of Ichigo looking ‘spooky’. After that, we see chibi-Ichigo flying through the air as she gushes over what a great summer it was. This is all removed because Japanese culture and…..no reason for the last one I suppose.
After the title card, we see Ichigo running in circles in her room lamenting that summer is over. This is removed.
As Ichigo cries about the end of summer, we see Japanese text in rock form fall on her head. If I’m not mistaken, that’s supposed to read as ‘August 31st‘ (8th month, 31st day.) which I suppose is indicative of the end of her vacation. In the dub………………………………………………………*sigh* Ya know, I took a rather long break from these comparisons……I come back and I see…..
Tater tots.
Yup, since 4Kids can’t be arsed to just friggin’ write ‘August 31st‘ in rock text above her head, they draw a bunch of rock-ish tater tots to fall on her head instead. Her dialogue is also altered to set up this fantastic joke by listing off crappy things she hates about school, one of which being tater tots.
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Obviously none of the Japanese text on Ichigo’s books is kept.
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Also, the small text on the books behind her school books is completely wiped clean. Give 4Kids some credit for changing it instead of just painting it away.
Because 4Kids places their theme song in the middle of this scene instead of at the beginning of the episode like the original, we get a shot of Ichigo’s house before we see her running in circles again.
Ichigo just basically says she’s screwed as she cartoonishly floats to the ground. Zoey points out the fact that this is happening by saying “I’m a leaf falling off the tree of procrastination.” In addition to being a dumb joke, ‘procrastination’ is yet another word 4Kids shouldn’t be expecting their target audience to know if they don’t even believe they have the reading level of a stick of deodorant.
Okay, 4Kids, remember that stuff I’ve been telling you about in regards to the ‘missing the forest for the trees’ thing? Well, surprisingly, you kept in this scene with Ichigo dressing up in traditional clothes, in a traditional Japanese style house and sipping tea…..yet, you erased the Kanji on the wall.
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Ichigo just glances to her pile of homework because she remembers it on her own. In the dub, Zoey tells herself to feel her energies focusing, and then we hear some bored sounding guy’s voiceover talking about kinetic energy, which makes her glance to her homework.
Ichigo just keeps muttering “What to do” over and over as she imagines sinking into murky water. In the dub, Zoey again points out the visual gag by saying she’s sinking in a pool of her own laziness and the fish of shame will nibble at her rotting…well, she doesn’t complete her sentence, but it’s safe to assume she would’ve said ‘corpse’.
Ichigo calls her friend Moe for help, which is reflected when we see the name on her phone. Zoey calls…..’The Megster.’ 4Kids….stop. Stop. Just stop. You’re making a fool of yourself whenever you try to act like you know anything of what kids actually say and do. Go take some Metamucil and watch your stories, but stop. Please.
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Also, Ichigo merely asked for help with her homework not to copy it.
Unreadable text on the back of Ichigo’s phone is removed.
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Zoey: “So, listen, I’m a bobo.” A….bobo? What?…..I know I didn’t mishear that……A bobo…..Wait. You mean a DODO? You guys can at least proofread or catch this in recording/editing for god’s sake.
Again, Ichigo asks for help with her homework while Zoey asks to copy it.
Ichigo also asks if it would inconvenience Miwa to go to her house immediately. While Zoey says the same thing, she also asks if there’s a boy at Mimi’s house.
HOLY CRAP! THEY LEFT IN, DIALOGUE-WISE NO LESS, THAT SHE’S IN OKINAWA! They could’ve said ‘California’ or ‘Hawaii’ and easily got away with it in that shot, but nope. They kept it in. I would be more proud of them if not for the fact that I’m pretty sure they left it this way purely because they made it clear that she traveled, which sometimes makes it acceptable. But still they could’ve merely said ‘Japan’ as a whole instead of leaving in the exact area.
Aw, 4Kids lost their brownie points from earlier by removing the text entirely from the books as we pan by.
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That means I have to make the joke I was going to make earlier. Ahem. Well, no wonder she’s having such trouble with her homework!
Also, for some reason beyond my understanding, they change the panning direction. In the original, the shot is moving from right to left (back of the books to the front) In the dub, it’s from left to right (front to back). Confusion levels rising.
While Ichigo says, as she floats to the floor yet again, that it’s her fault that she’s in trouble, Zoey says, as she points out the visual gag yet again, that she’s flapping in the breeze of doom and failure.
Scene swaps, yay! The scene originally continues with Ichigo contacting Moe again for help, with her finally caving in at the end. In the dub, they cut straight from Zoey floating to the floor with a scene of the aliens eating shaved ice, so let’s tackle that first.
There’s a banner behind Kisshu in this shot with the kanji for koori (shaved ice in this context). This is changed to saying “Home sweet home.” Right, ‘evil’ aliens would totally have a ‘Home sweet home’ banner in their house.
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Kisshu then asks Taruto about the shaved ices they’re eating. Dren asks what Tarb was thinking by not installing an air conditioner in the new base he built. Also, as a slight note, Taruto talks about how he created a field to help keep them hidden while Tarb talks about all the trees he cut down for the lumber for their new house.
There’s two reasons as to why this is noteworthy. 1) They despise the destruction of their planet in the exact same means as chopping down trees. The original aliens may be hypocritical and ‘evil’ but I can’t see them condoning land clearing like that. 2) Taruto is the plant guy. Why would he specifically feel perfectly fine with knocking down tons of trees for lumber?
We get a lame presentation (and yes it’s an actual presentation) about the environmental reasons for the summer heat. Global warming, greenhouse effect, humans suck, where’s Captain Planet when you need him etc. etc. This is kept the same, but there’s another slight difference in Kisshu/Dren’s reaction. Originally, he just says that humans need to refrain from messing with things such as the ozone layer. Dren says they need to destroy the humans before they destroy the planet they’re trying to steal from them. I just feel like the last part of that line was tacked on to again make the aliens less sympathetic.
Taruto points out that the humans do have some good things as well, and he directs our attention to the jangling wind chimes. The boys all enjoy the sound while Pai just remarks that it’s boring. Tarb says that he wants to start the annihilation of the humans by starting with the Mew Mews. A shot of Taruto looking at the chimes is removed and Dren suddenly butts in to mention the cool breeze.
The rest of the scene plays out roughly the same with the only difference being Taruto pointing out that they’re using the heat as an excuse to skimp out on work while Tarb says he’ll tell Deep Blue that they’re slacking off.
The thing with Kisshu being confused about rock, paper, scissors is also the same, but Pai doesn’t mention anything about a ‘Daily Human Report’ that Dren should be reading……And, really, doesn’t that sound like something an alien in a Looney Tunes cartoon would have to read? Hey, guys, don’t miss that intense article on Rock, Paper, Scissors in the Daily Human Report. Next week, I hear they’re doing a piece on the cultural significance of Hopscotch.
They remove a shot of Kisshu in slow motion realizing that Pai and Taruto have thrown paper and rock. I have no clue why. In both versions, it’s clear that he cheated (He waited several seconds before putting his hand down. I know this shot was in slow motion, but it’s completely unreasonable to believe Taruto and Pai didn’t see that Kisshu paused before putting his hand out.) Was that a time cut or something?
The rest of the scene past Kisshu and Pai leaving the porch is removed. Pai looks back at Kisshu and thinks, for a guy who said he knew nothing of how Rock, Paper, Scissors worked, he played astoundingly well. I actually don’t mind this cut because it’s stupid to say that someone plays a game of pure luck well. That’s like saying someone’s good at slots. The only way you can really be ‘good’ is if you’re lucky or cheating.
Now back to the stuff from before with Ichigo, she’s sitting there trying to do her homework while berating herself for being stupid enough to put off doing her homework until last minute. Zoey’s prattling off a bunch of stuff about geometry. This continues throughout much of the scene.
The rest plays out basically the same, but the ending is completely changed. Originally, after Ichigo’s speech about friendship, Moe pops into frame yet again to say she’s not happy, but eventually she agrees to help Ichigo, and Ichigo rejoices before we cut to the scene with the aliens. In the dub, They repeat her blubbering animation after Megan yells at her, freeze-frame on Zoey as she’s making her speech and have the phone play a recording indicating that she’s been disconnected. Zoey then falls over on the desk and sighs before continuing with a scene that is supposed to occur later.
This means, dun dun dun, scene swap. And scene deletion as a bonus. This part where Ichigo falls over and laments isn’t until a scene with Taruto has passed and we get our first commercial break in the original. Also, it skips over a small scene with Ichigo’s mom asking her if she’s finished her homework since she’s just chatting on the phone and laughing.
They changed the name on Ichigo’s phone to—for the love of God…. THE MIMSTER?! Seriously?! She uses the same terrible nickname device for both of her friends…..Either Zoey’s being made out to be an incredibly lame teenager or 4Kids is trying to make me vomit.
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Another paint edit changes her default screen to reading ‘Tom’. Are you sure he’s not the TOMSTER? Also, while no name is given to this person in the original, they clearly have a female voice. Since the shot of the phone is just the same over and over, I’ll just give you guys the screenshots of the dubbed versions for these cell phone changes.
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The girl merely asks if Ichigo wants to go swimming, and Ichigo politely declines. In the dub, Tom is given a ‘surfer dude’ voice and asks Zoey if she wants to go to a laser show because it will be “A-W-E-some” I don’t know why he stopped spelling that halfway through, I’m just glad he stopped talking. Also, Zoey very rudely basically tells him to shut up and hangs up on him.
By the way, 4Kids really is being lazy because you can clearly see hiragana on some of the buttons on Zoey’s phone.
A guy calls this time, asking the same thing about the pool, and Ichigo declines again. The phone is painted again to say ‘Sasha’ (The SASHSTER!) and she’s given an equally annoying valley girl voice as she tells Zoey about a two for one sale at Q and U whatever that is. Zoey also again rudely declines.
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The phone is changed to ‘Mark’ now. I would say he’s the ‘Markster’ but I kinda want the screen to read ‘The Marker’. That way I could finally link Mew Mew Power to Dead Space.
Yes, I have been wanting to do that.
The…Mark…. 😦 : 
Ichigo’s line about talking to her mom instead of directing what she said to Aoyama is kept the same, but why would you want your boyfriend to think you were being a rude brat to your mom?
Half of the conversation between Aoyama and Ichigo is removed. He talks to her about seeing a movie, and asks to meet in front of the train station. While the train station line was at the end, it’s still basically the same. However, when Ichigo realizes the situation, she starts freaking out.
She starts stuttering, and Aoyama asks if she has other plans, because he can go by himself if she does. She runs around in circles stammering some more before asking Aoyama if he’s done his homework yet. He asks if she hasn’t finished it yet, but she lies and says she has before accepting his invite and ending the call. All of this is removed for no reason I can think of. Also, the removal of the rest of this scene really makes it seem like Zoey hung up on Mark right after he mentioned the train station. Rude.
In addition, the movie’s not given a title in the original. In the dub it’s ‘Better Never than Late’ which is supposedly a comedy, but sounds like it’s depressing to me.
Ichigo just asks herself what she’s going to do about her homework as she imagines sinking into a swamp. Zoey decides to play ‘point out the visual gag’ again and says she’s ‘swamped’.
Back to the scene with Taruto, they trim a bit of the establishing shot and that’s about it.
After that scene, in the original, we cut to the scene of Ichigo procrastinating that we already covered in the dub, so let’s hop straight to their date.
Text is painted off of the road in front of the train station.
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The text reads as ‘Basutei’ which means ‘Bus stop.’
Also, though you really can’t read it, there’s Japanese text above the train station that is also painted away.
And they painted off the also unreadable text on the posters in the background as Ichigo runs by.
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Ichigo and Aoyama depart politely. Zoey interrupts Mark in the middle of saying goodbye to quickly run off while saying “Okay bye!” Because being rude makes all characters better.
No person is given blame for busting the water pipe, whereas Kiki is blamed in the dub.
Also;
Elliot: “Unless you know how to fix an aerator.”
4Kids, I’m no plumber, but even I see the issue in that sentence. Aerators have nothing to do with busted water pipes. They are those little fixtures that screw onto faucet heads to aerate water and prevent splashing. Keywords being ‘screw onto’ which means, yes, she probably could fix an aerator in mere minutes, actually. With her bare hands. In fact, even if the aerator was broken, smashed to bits even, that probably wouldn’t even cause a drip let alone a huge flooding leak because the actual faucet would not be broken; just a fixture that attaches to the faucet.
And why do you need all those pipes and wrenches, ones so huge even, for fixing an aerator? And why do you need pipes anyway if the main issue is the faucets? Just replace the faucets.
Hey 4Kids, I can fix this line for you.
“Unless you’re a licensed plumber.”
“Unless you have experience in replacing pipes.”
“Unless you replace lines that made sense with lines that don’t. Because originally Ichigo asked where the aliens are and Shirogane merely asks what she’s talking about.”
The selections of the Mews in regards to Ichigo’s homework are as follows;
She can’t rely on Pudding because she’s merely in junior high and probably can’t do high school work. In the dub, she can’t rely on Kiki because it takes her an hour to make minute rice. (Guess she forgot that Kiki does all the cooking for her siblings, so she must be at least somewhat competent as a cook.)
She can probably rely on Lettuce since she’s supposedly good at plenty of things. In the dub, she can rely on Bridget because she has a t-shirt that says ‘Me + Math = Love.’
She can likely rely on Mint because she has private tutors. Zoey just says ‘no comment’ when she gets to her.
Zakuro’s is basically left alone.
When she asks Mint for help, Mint agrees so long as she pays 800 yen for each subject. Ichigo declines and states that she’s not an idiot but….it’s not really that much, is it? 800 yen is almost $7.00. She likely has…what? 5-6 subjects to tackle? That’s 4000 or 4800 yen or roughly $34.00-41.00? That’s really not that bad considering her situation and the task at hand.
In the dub, she starts listing off a bunch of different stuff that she can do for her as payment, each of which starting with ‘for the rest of your life’. She lists off things like calling her Queen Corina, making her tea everyday etc. Zoey sarcastically declines by saying right after she does that she’ll sprout wings and fly to the moon, which, considering the world they live in and the fact that the person to which she’s talking sprouts wings on a regular basis, doesn’t seem as unlikely as it usually would.
When she asks Lettuce for help, she declines and says that she believes people should do their homework on their own. She then apologizes over and over. In the dub, she basically says the same thing but she says she doesn’t believe in doing homework for other people or cheating….which Zoey actually isn’t asking as opposed to those times she asked her friends for help. She’s really just asking for help.
When she asks Akasaka for help, he says he’d love to but he’s been asked to participate in a Chef’s Food Tournament. In the dub, he’s been asked to judge a cooking contest by the ‘Divorced Women’s Club.’
When she asks Shirogane to help, he puts up two fingers, indicating he’ll help her. She gets excited but he clarifies that the two fingers are indicating 2000 yen for each subject. Okay, now that’s a bit too steep, especially for someone who is probably richer than Mint. He says since he’s doing work that it’s only right that he gets paid, plus homework is something you should do on your own.
In the dub, she doesn’t know what to make of him putting up two fingers and he says he’ll charge $2.00 per question. She asks why ‘Elly’ (ugh) would do that, and he says he’s just teaching her a life lesson.
As Ichigo imagines herself trying to keep her head above water, she just repeats “No” over and over. In the dub, Zoey does the same thing she’s been doing with every visual gag and says she’s drowning.
Unreadable text on the sign behind the crowd is removed.
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In that same panning shot, the words ‘Café M’ are removed from another sign.
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It’s a good thing, too. They shouldn’t try to steal Cafe Mew Mew’s gang name.
During the transformations in the original, only the very endings of the girls’ transformations are kept, except, of course, for Ichigo who only has it slightly edited to fit the music. In the dub, we get the same mashup we usually get, this time with ‘Supernatural’ as the accompanying theme.
Ichigo and the others wonder why Taruto created such a tame Chimera Animal and claim he’s just trying to be annoying. He actually agrees and says he didn’t come to fight, plus it’s too hot out, so he’ll just go home. Mint then points out how odd it is that he’d do something so unnecessary and admit it straight out.
In the dub, Zoey complains that Tarb is getting in the way of her doing her homework, and Tarb says it’s not his fault that she put it off until the last minute….which he honestly couldn’t have known. Then Corina points out that Zoey was just lectured by a little twerp.
The Chimera Animal doesn’t have a name in the original. In the dub it’s the Psycho Cicada.
Those scenes with the girls being hit by those blades looks so awkward. The art looks crisper yet the animation is blatantly cardboard cutout-y.
Ichigo points out the main point of origin of the noise, which Pudding clarifies is the wings. Zoey says “Oh great” and Kiki asks if she was being sarcastic.
As they’re being attacked by the sonic waves, Zakuro points out that they won’t last much longer. Renee says the sound is “Worse than boy bands.” Hahaha, Oh 4Kids, you truly know how to connect with the children.
Ichigo says she can’t put up with the attack anymore because she has to do homework, so she starts attacking. Zoey seems like she’s sacrificing herself to the thing because if he doesn’t finish her off, her teachers will so it doesn’t matter. Then she starts attacking anyway.
Most of the dialogue at the end is basically the same, but the dub makes off like the girls are assholes. They’re practically mocking Ichigo the entire time, making sarcastic comments and acting snotty about the fact that Ichigo will never finish her homework with all the Chimera Animals roaming around now, and Renee comes off like she’ll hurt Zoey if she refuses to help.
Ichigo again begs for help while Zoey flat out asks for someone to do her homework for her.
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Well, that episode was…..boring. Hell, even the enemies were just screwing around for the sake of screwing around. There was no real tension because who honestly cares if she gets her work done or not? It is her fault she never started until the day before school starts back up, and I’ve seen this scenario happen way too much in shows just like these to not know that even if she doesn’t do it in time there will be no mention of it ever again.
It’s just filler for the sake of filler. It’s not like it was building up to some big joke or anything either. All it amounted to was Ichigo overcoming a powerful noise just to get back to her homework.
And I know the obvious message of this episode is procrastination is bad, but she was legitimately trying to get her work done. Ichigo was anyway. Zoey not as much. People kept bugging her and no one would actually help when she asked. The one part that I can say was her fault was agreeing to a date with Aoyama in the midst of it all and maybe getting carried away while talking on the phone. If there’s any other message here it’s ‘If you make a mistake, your friends will leave you high and dry and laugh at your expense.’
Next episode, Ichigo’s annoying friends fall for Akasaka and Shirogane.
…Previous Episode
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The Anime Madhouse 