12 replies to this topic

[TheNinja]

Ultimate Muscle just started airing in Japan on the 7th.
From what I'm reading on the Japanese fan message boards, they are _pissed_ that Meat is missing the "Niku" hiragana on his forehead!
Apparently the new (Japanese) theme song and opening suck also, so they say.

BTW, TV Tokyo has a page up for the new show:
http://www.tv-tokyo....main_index.html

Attached Files

•  ninja01.gif   6.15K   32 downloads

[YoshiAngemon]

Anything we can find? But I think it has to do with the fact that Ultimate Muscle's SECOND season was supposed to be for America first!

[TheNinja]

Yeah, you're right, it was for the U.S. first, and they're not making any secret of that either. On the Official Kinnikuman site it gave 2 reasons the Americans gave the Japanese for why the head-kanjis are missing:
1) Kids might think they're tattoos, and they don't want to encourage that sort of thing. (I wonder if Tattooman will ever show up, then?)
2) They're afraid that it might encourage kids to write on their foreheads with markers.

Personally, I always thought it was an attempt to de-Japanize it, but I guess not.

They're also a little unhappy that Legox looks different from the manga and is called Blox (yes, he's called Blox in the Japanese dub also.) I assume it was done so as not to get sued by Lego. Also PriClun(Photo-Pat)'s name was changed to Printman. I have no idea why unless the name of those photo machines, PrintClub, is copyrighted as well.

[Rokk]

On the Official Kinnikuman site it gave 2 reasons the Americans gave the Japanese for why the head-kanjis are missing:
1) Kids might think they're tattoos, and they don't want to encourage that sort of thing. (I wonder if Tattooman will ever show up, then?)
2) They're afraid that it might encourage kids to write on their foreheads with markers.

Jeez, do they think American kids are really that stupid? Eh, maybe they are.

[SlickNichXenon]

Right...and they just conveniently forgot to edit out the K in Terry Kenyon's forehead...yep. They so want to make it less Japanese which is hillarious since Kid was parading around with octopus dumplings in a square dish (not typical American arena food you know).

[Ridureyu]

On the Official Kinnikuman site it gave 2 reasons the Americans gave the Japanese for why the head-kanjis are missing:
1) Kids might think they're tattoos, and they don't want to encourage that sort of thing.  (I wonder if Tattooman will ever show up, then?)
2) They're afraid that it might encourage kids to write on their foreheads with markers.

Jeez, do they think American kids are really that stupid? Eh, maybe they are.

Yes, they are.

Well, a good portion of 'em.

[YoshiAngemon]

I'd probably faint if I end up getting the mark of Ultimate Muscle on MY Forehead administered by a tatooist. I'd even end up with migraines, headaches, and a lot of PAAIIN!!

[ultramantaro]

It would hurt. plus if they mess it up you're screwed!

[Ramses]

Toei's standards and pratices at work folks:

they usualy LET slip ups like this happen. They do all the corecting in the English version and they forgot to added back into the Japanese verson. Notch another one for these fools.

I swere,sometimes I think their studio is full of trained monkies doing all the work.

you know,I didnt really notice the difrences you mentioned till like...now

[Drtooth]

Personally, I always thought it was an attempt to de-Japanize it, but I guess not.

Acutally, this is accurate. They deleted not only Meat's !=< sing, but they whent over and photoshopped over characters like Kinkotsuman, That big chinned guy from the chojin olympics (He's called Ikemen McMadd over here), the chairman, and a bunch of others because it won't seem so Japanese, making it culturally ambiguous. I do not know why. I mean, they do have Mount Fuji and beef bowls in tact.... plus they never edit out Kinnikuman's Niku mark... odd.

This is information that came strait from the American voice dubber of Meat, Mike Pollack. Oddly enough, they did manage to leave all japanese forhead markings on production shots, toys, and trading cards.

I don't get the logic behind it, but hey... I don't get a lot of things.

What's the Japanese theme song like? Not like ours, is it?

[TheNinja]

It's _not_ a mistake on Toei's part. In the Japanese series they were drawing the forehead kanjis and they were being erased here Stateside by the American distributor.
For the new "U.S." episodes, the Americans ordered Toei not to draw the forehead kanjis because it was "a pain to erase them".
Apparently adding kanjis in after animating is much harder than erasing them.

I haven't heard the new theme or seen the new opening myself, so I can't comment on it. The CD-Single comes out on the 21st.

Attached Files

•  nikucd.html   3.95K   18 downloads

[Drtooth]

It's _not_ a mistake on Toei's part. In the Japanese series they were drawing the forehead kanjis and they were being erased here Stateside by the American distributor.
For the new "U.S." episodes, the Americans ordered Toei not to draw the forehead kanjis because it was "a pain to erase them".
Apparently adding kanjis in after animating is much harder than erasing them.

Yeah... that's what I said. In fact, in the first o the new episodes, when Kid Muscle sings his gyu-don song, they replaced the kanji character for gyudon with little cow figures. In the US dubb of the older episodes, these are edited out.

[TheNinja]

I just noticed on the Japanese sites that the show is airing at Wednesday, 1am in Japan. That's not a very good sign. I wouldn't expect it to be popular enough to generate merchandise.