4Kids DOES have good VA's, but sometimes they go a little overboard in stereotyping a character. Like Bokuto no Ryu's italian/spanish/whut? accent, or some of Terry's 'Texan talk' (don't get me wrong, Terry was done well, they just sometimes overdid the way he talked).
I liked what they did with TMNT's roles, and they did well with Zoro's voice in One Piece; heck, the VA's even many Funky Cops seem a quarter decent sometimes! If there were only minor problems like that, I could live with 4Kids...
But they change SO MUCH STUFF in some of thier shows, like you said. The most major surgery done to a show has been OP so far as I know. Removing blood and weaponry, cutting episode arcs that were actually part of the series and had meaningful parts (filler eps I can forgive,
but they got rid of LITTLE GARDEN! *fumes*) I don't know as much about Yu Gi Oh and Mew Mew Power, but I've heard they chopped that up too (couldn't they have kept the name Tokyo Mew Mew? C'mon, it's IN TOKYO!). It seems like anime gets the brunt of thier snipping....now they're bringing in stuff like Viva Piniata? 4Kids' age limit just went from 7+ to about 4+.
I have alot of respect for Funimation in this regard. Sure, sometimes they miss on the dub VA mark (my poor Kuwabara...*sniff*), but for the most part, they get it right matching a good voice to a good character. They're keeping the swears in thier dialogue, and when they put out DVD's, they give uncut versions with the blood and swears and original japanese for those who might want to have the untouched version of the show. They've good jobs on FMA, YYH, and even Detective Conan for the most part...4Kids usually pretends the show didn't exist before they got thier grubby hands on it, which makes me wonder why the creators would hand their masterpieces over (if they any say, that is)?
.....Oh god, Loonatics. Canada finally got that this fall via Teletoon; I wish we hadn't. My poor childhood has been hacked, chopped, and turned into a radioactive "Batman Beyond on crack" knockoff! *dies*
Edited by Chibibee, 08 September 2006 - 06:46 PM.