Post by Ace on Feb 18, 2015 14:20:08 GMT -7
A lot of Scandinavians – if not all – were mainly introduced to GNG through the cut versions of GNG. By cut, I mean they tried to make GNG kid friendly… yeeeah, it is a funny thought once you watched the uncut version. Obviously they cut harsh scenes such as the Iga-Koga suicide out, death of Akatora, Benizakura and some of Riki’s death. I remember being quite puzzled hearing Moss wish Benizakura could run by his side, when he had pretty much just joined the pack. Similarly, my favourite Kai brother, Akatora disappeared by the end of the series. Riki’s death was also partially cut; they had to include the goodbye between him and Gin, but Akakabuto never came back for a “final” scare. Instead, Gohei shot the bear, end of story. Funny enough, I remember as a child making the “logical” answer that Riki was somehow available to withhold the seriousness of his injuries, but once Akakabuto is dead, he merely collapses.
Aside from the more gruesome ends to some of the characters, some characters were quite simply never introduced; an example would be Hakuro. For some reason, the entire plot around episode 17-19 were cut out. I loved Hakuro’s design as a kid – I still do – but I always wondered who he was, because he seemed important… The Danish distributor released four VHS tapes with about 1½ hour on each, so they needed to cut something out.
As the links show, it was dubbed in 1990, but even though the voices skyrocket me on a giant nostalgia trip, they did have several of slip-ups…. Smith was at one point called ‘she’ by John before they jump into the sea heading for Shikoku. Concerning gender, the translators apparently shipped KurojakiXWilson, as Kurojaki refers to Wilson as ‘kære’ (dearest) when pleading not to throw Chibi off the rock. The actual line is: Kære, du må ikke! (Dearest, you mustn’t!). So even though Wilson’s voice is male, I always thought that Wilson must have been a female, why else would Kurojaki call him dearest? Wilson’s name was never used or mentioned, so naturally, the name never determined the gender. I am still puzzled by the fact that Smith turned into a girl at one point, when previously, Smith has been referred to as male. The dub also suffers from a somewhat regular switching of voice actors; I think Sniper had at least 3 different voice actors, pretty much every time he showed up, he had a new voice (his first had a cool growly German accent). Daisuke’s mother also suffered from that when Daisuke is asking for his father and a clearly light male voice replies that he is at a meeting with the other hunters.
To talk more about names: Gin is translated into Silver, yes, not the Danish word for silver, but the dubbers decided to stick with the English translation… mainly because it sounds cool. Aside from that all English names were retained such as Cross, Ben, John, Smith etc. Japanese names were translated literally, so:
Akatora = Røde tiger (Red tiger)
Chutora = Grå tiger (Grey tiger)
Kurotora = Sorte tiger (Black tiger)
Akame = Rødøje (Red Eye)
Some of the few characters that got to keep their Japanese names were the Mutsu generals, the tosa fighting dogs, the bears and humans.
A final note on the dubbing is that the Danes were pretty liberal about the cursing… Let me do a translation of the scene where Kurojaki talks to Akame before jumping into the fire:
Kurojaki: Rødøje! Du burde skamme dig! (Redeye! You should be ashamed!)
Akame: Herre Gud, lever du endnu? (Jesus Christ, are you still alive?)
Kurojaki: Du var bange for, at jeg ville overtage huset efter at have jaget jer væk herfra, så nu brænder du det af i stedet for. (You were afraid that I would take over the house after chasing you away from here, so now you’re burning it instead.)
Akame: Det er ikke sandt! Det er bare det, at nu er min rolle udspillet i det her hus. (That’s not true! It’s simply that my role in this house has played itself out.)
Kurojaki: Hold kæft! Hold kæft! Ved du ikke, at en kamp hunds pligt er at adlyde lederens ordre? (Shut up! Shut up! Don’t you know that a fighting dog’s duty to obtain the leader’s order?)
Akame: Men lederen er jo død for helvede! Men vi har hele tiden fulgt vor forfædres ordre… Jeg synes, at vi skal slutte den meningsløse kamp. (But the leader is dead, goddamnit! All the time we have followed our ancestors’ orders… I think we should end this meaningless battle.)
Kurojaki: Jeg vil ikke hører mere! Det her hus er hellige for os kamphunde, hvis det skal brænde, så skal jeg brænde med det. Jeg skal blive et med det hellige hus. (I don’t want to hear anymore! This house is sacred to us fighting dog, if it burns, I will burn with it. I shall become one with the sacred house!)
Akame: Han dør. (He’s dying)
One thing I find interesting is that the entire ninja-aspect has been cut out of this exact scene. As far as I recall, the Koga is only referred to as "Røde Hunde" (Red Dogs), but the fact that they're ninjas is not specified. One thing I noticed when re-watching the dub when the Iga scout first discovers Ben's group dragging the dead Iga to bury it, he says: så det var altså dem, som dræbte vores leder (so they killed our leader). The entire Iga-Koga arc always puzzled me as a child because it seems like the translators/dubbers didn't quite get the cultural references etc. from the arc and they decided to simplify the arc for the kids... which actually made it more confusing. I feel like the Iga-Koga arc must be almost impossible to dub for a child's audience... and you may argue that it shouldn't be translated for children.
So, the Danish dub was a bit of a mess, but a big part of my childhood. Hopefully you guys got a good chuckle out of this or at least a strange meeting with a foreign language.
If people are interested, I’ll happily try to find more interesting or cringe-worthy translations to do once in a while
I know I have the two first tapes as an .avi file somewhere on an external drive, so hopefully I can do some translations for earlier episodes... and fingers crossed find the awesome clip where Daisuke's mother turns into a transvestite. 
too bad they decided to use the same voice actor for the Danish dub of the cut version... he just sounds sooo old, especially in comparison to Cross' voice actor in the uncut version. I don't even know why the hell they decided to dub the cut version... GNG uncensored is something I would not recommend for kids. But I think the cut version did a good job at the dub; I definitely get the sense that it wasn't a huge big budget thing, but some of the voices fit really really well. 
