UnNews:Alfred Kahn's apology to the 4kids fans
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| Alfred Kahn's apology to the 4kids fans | 
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17 August 2012
NEW YORK, New York
In the year 2009, the long-cherished anime dubbing company, 4kids Entertainment, suffered from bankruptcy after they were caught giving away ad rights to other companies without Shueisha entertainment's permission. Afterward, they were believed to have completely disappeared into the shadows.
However, a special reporter of ours has managed to leak and reveal to us the final testament of the 4kids emperor, Alfred Kahn, that was supposedly broadcasted onto each and every 4kids subscriber's computer on the company's final day of business. It is believed that the speech hadn't originally been viewed by anyone, since 4kids had no subscribers.
The following is a transcript of Kahn's speech:
Ladies and gentlemen, nerds and otakus, I have some rather unfortunate news to deliver unto you. You see, 4kids Entertainment, our beloved company which has been hailed throughout the years as one of the greatest anime licensing companies there is by 5 year olds everywhere, has recently filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy following a damaging lawsuit with Shueisha over the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise (by the way, Yu-Gi-Oh is TOTALLY spelled correctly). We are unable to continue broadcasting anime on our respective networks and 4kids is shutting down. Now, before you all declare war on Japan out of sorrow for our loss, let me say just a few, okay, more like a couple hundred words on behalf of 4kids.
During its existence, 4kids Entertainment was a revolutionary company, despite only having two locations and owning no networks. Each one of us who came to work for 4kids had a dream in mind, to capture the brilliant animated series that glorified Japanese media and turn them into splendidly humorous saturday-morning cartoons. Although I'm sure the actors were just there to get out of waiting tables at the Cheesecake Factory. Anyway, I believe that we fulfilled that dream to its maximum potential, although I do wish that we could have localized more anime series, such as Bleach and Death Note. I've constantly been writing down my ideas for 4kids' versions using my dinner napkin, which I hold closely to my heart (especially when I begin to choke on a burger). Although 4kids cannot continue this goal any farther, I know that someone else will.
Now, some people believe that anime should not be edited for American releases. Especially companies like Funimation, who apply almost 100% direct translations to their dubs. Unbelievable. You see, Japanese anime feature many mature themes in their work, such as violence, sexuality, or inappropriate subject matter. The thing is, you can't just make an accurate translation to an anime for American kids to watch on television; kids in the U.S. are just a bunch of babies, and it's better to leave them that way than to introduce them to grown-up things like violence and death. Although Call of Duty is an okay game. As for sexuality, well, my wife would always ask why we always eliminated breast-lines on character designs at 4kids, to which I would reply, "Breasts? What are those? Ha ha ha ha!"
During my time at 4kids, I have to say that my favorite series that we dubbed was One Piece. Seeing as it was the most popular anime series of all time in Japan, we didn't even need to watch it first to know that it was perfect for us. Although we did face some production challenges, like censoring out the fighting and blood that were scattered across the episodes. It was quite a shock; we didn't think that a series about plundering pirates would feature so much plundering. However, we did a fine job in licensing the show, some of our best accomplishments being our creative name changes like "Zoro" to "Zolo' (just so people don't think it's that other swordsman bandit) and "Portgas D. Ace" to "Portgaz D. Trace" (an inside-joke on our tracing issues when making the McDonald's toys). It all just goes to show that you can make a good dub without actually considering what the author had in mind.
All in all, I want to thank all of you generous human beings for watching our shows. We've come a long way from the days where anime licensers would change all the character's names and rework the entire plot (actually, we haven't come far at all!). And I'll leave you with one parting message: don't trust the Japanese corporations! They're WAY less conservative than we are and those bastards sued us over our Yu-Gi-Oh! dub when we tried to control the property more than we had already agreed to do. Saiyonara, anime fans! It's been one heck of a decade!
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This article features first-hand journalism by an UnNews correspondent. |