The Old School Otaku Lounge

WELL, to be fair, Viz wasn't the only company that covered the original title cards of anime. Back in the day, this was a common thing because not every company had access to clean/textless/creditless prints of titles they were publishing because the original animation studio didn't have them readily available. If you look at some of ADV or Central Park Media's old releases, they too covered up title cards so they could put English ones on them (in fact, I have the first 2 old seasons of The Slayers that suffered from this. I haven't picked up Funimations re-releases of them, so I dunno if they left them in tact or what--I assume they would?)

This was back when American anime companies were trying to appeal to non-anime fans in hope of selling more copies of things, so they tried their hardest to Westernize things as much as humanly possible...which I guess included making sure each episode had an ENGLISH title card. (Dunno why this was such a big deal for, say, the subtitled versions as well, but whatever.)

So, I don't completely blame Viz for it--they did that to all of their releases, too, not just Ranma. I vaguely remember Maison Ikkoku also suffering from the same problem. I think the only company I remember not doing that was Animeigo...they were really good about keeping Japanese title cards intact, and keeping all Japanese text on-screen instead of trying to cover it up with subtitles or captions. They were one of the only companies that owned up to the fact that "YES, THIS WAS FROM JAPAN. SOME PARTS AREN'T GONNA BE IN ENGLISH. HERE'S SOME FOOTNOTES ON THAT." instead of trying to "Westernize" everything. I always appreciated that.

lol, ok sorry, I kinda went on a tangent there XD;;

Oh I know about all of that! I just meant after all these years I'd like to see a completely uncut and unedited Ranma 1/2 release. I don't want to imply that I am ungrateful for the Viz releases, because I love them of course. And eventhough I don't agree with the choices made now that I realize them as I'm older, I am very thankful they released it at all, and in full.

Animeigo is one of my favorite translators, like ever. I wish more people did what they did. I always felt we were at this point with anime where we can just, leave it be. Not everything has to be westernized, but I understand more why it was done in the past.

usamimi wrote:I think the only company I remember not doing that was Animeigo...they were really good about keeping Japanese title cards intact, and keeping all Japanese text on-screen instead of trying to cover it up with subtitles or captions. They were one of the only companies that owned up to the fact that "YES, THIS WAS FROM JAPAN. SOME PARTS AREN'T GONNA BE IN ENGLISH. HERE'S SOME FOOTNOTES ON THAT." instead of trying to "Westernize" everything. I always appreciated that.

Yes! AnimEigo's releases were always the closest to a "by fans for fans" fansub-style effort. Just leave the Japanese intact! We don't want to see some crappy still-image placed on top of the original as it was intended to be seen!

Oh, ok, sorry! I guess I misinterpreted what you meant, lol
I dunno if Viz still does that, since I haven't watched a ton of their more recent releases...I think now that most Japanese anime companies are more used to Western companies picking up their titles, they make clean versions more readily available. I want to say that Inuyasha had their original title cards, just with new text instead of being completely covered up. Over time (and now with the ages of digital editing), it's probably a lot easier.

It's funny how now you can watch Crunchyroll or Funimation streaming and it's not a big deal to companies to try to cover every piece of Japanese text like it once was...heck, to get titles out faster, sometimes they don't even have translations of the op/end songs at first. Newer releases are a LOT more like fansubs now, lol. It's kinda funny, if you think about it.

I really do wish Animeigo still regularly translated anime...it's like they've kinda given up, now that they have so much competition. Really a shame. :/