By: Raven
We have read quite a lot of interesting articles about the
DIC (the North
American dub of Sailormoon), we have never watched any of
the DIC episodes
and only three specials of the original Japanese version
and the Ami special
too, so we want to tell you a little bit about the version
we have watched,
the German dub of Sailormoon.
First of all we are lucky because they have broadcasted all
regular episodes
(not the three specials from the 4th season and not episode
89) and the three
movies (but not the Ami Special).
Hitoshi Doi's summaries gave us the opportunity to compare
the original
episodes to the German dub versions, so we were able to
spot differences. No
dub is perfect and the German dub isn't either. Here are
our complains about
what we have missed and what has been changed:
Names:
They (the producers of the German dub) put the first name
first (not the
second name as it is in the original Japanese Version), the
called Usagi
"Bunny" and Rei is written "Ray". They used various names
for Beryl like
"Perillia" or "Periglia". If your translate the German
names of the Amazon
Trio into English you get "Falcon's Eye" and not Hawk's
Eye.
Transformations and Attacks:
In the original version every transformation phrase
contains the words "make
up", it seems that the translators were not able to find
out the true meaning
of the phrase, they translated it "mach auf" which means
"open", so
Sailormoon's first transformation spell is "Macht der
Mondnebel, mach auf!" -
it can be translated as "Power of the Moon Fog, open!". All
other senshi also
use the powers of their "planetary fogs" - the "Mars Fog"
for Sailormars,
the "Mercury Fog" for Sailormercury and so on. Their
transformation phrases
do never change no matter what kind of henshin pen or stick
they use.
The attacks do also sound funny or strange. Sailormoons
first attack is
called "Mondstein, flieg und sieg!" - "Moonstone, fly and
win!", no matter
what kind of stick, rod or staff Sailormoon has there is
always something
that should "fly and win" or "win and heal" (Moonhearts,
Light of the
Silvermoon, and so on....) except the first scepter (there
she calls "Power
of Moon heal him/her!"), Mercury's first attack is "Soap
Bubbles, fly!", the
most boring attacks are the ones of Uranus, Neptune and
Pluto. Their first
attacks involve glowing energy balls so the translators did
an easy job and
called them "Neptune, fly!" "Uranus, fly" and "Pluto, fly"
(only Pluto's
attack has got some more words, it starts with "Pluto, send
me the fire from
the depth.").
Male or Female?
I must admit that if it were not for the many pages about
the original
version, I would still believe Zoisite to be female because
he has got a
female voice, and Nephrite talks about him calling him a
"pretty young
woman"....
I was also sure that Fish Eye is female, because he has
a female voice too
and others sometimes talk about him using the terms "she"
or "her", finally
there was the episode with the fashion designer and there
was no way they
could go on hiding the fact that Fish Eye is a man and not
a woman....
Lovers or Friends?
Haruka and Michiru do love each other; the translators
first try to change
this into a very close friendship by editing some
dialogues. There are still
enough hints left for most viewers to find out that they
are more than just
very close friends, but the makers of the German dub
carefully deleted most
hints that they have sexual relationship too, as to be
found in the dialogues
at the end of episode 106 and in episode 167.
Other Translation Mistakes:
The translators did not know how to translate various
Japanese names, for
instance Usagi is eating daifuku mochi in episode 30 - they
translate them as
"delicious somethings" or the nikuman. Usagi is eating in
episode 4 are
called "Krapfen" (a typical German kind of food).
One of the worst mistakes happens in episode 146: Usagi
wants to show
Princess Rubina the fireworks at the festival and Luna
comments that Usagi
often does treat important things carelessly. In the German
dub the cat
comments that they should follow Usagi because Princess
Rubina may think that
all German are as crazy as Usagi - a very silly mistake
because everyone
knows that Usagi is Japanese and not German.
Songs:
There are lots of great songs in the series but in order to
save money the
makers of the German dub decided not to translate most of
them (we do hear
parts of the melodies in the background but there is no
singer). We have 200
episodes and three movies but only 10 songs. They even cut
the beginnings of
the three movies (and the endings of two of them) so that
they didn't need
intro/ending songs for the S-Movie and the SS-Movie.
Further the intro song
to the whole series changed only twice and they never used
the original song.
The second version of the intro song is sung by a group
called "Super
Moonies", kind of a techno sound, their text has only about
five or six lines
and is repeated over and over again... terrible!
Intro/Ending Sequence:
What would you think if you see an intro with only Moon,
Mercury and Mars -
an intro where Queen Beryl appears? Everyone would think
that now an episode
from the very beginning of the series would follow. But
everyone would be
wrong - you are going to watch episode 134, 89, 28, 200....
or which episode
ever.
At the beginning after Jupiter had appeared we hoped to see
her in the intro,
but it never happened. After Venus had joined the team, we
hoped that they
would show her too, nothing changed. After the end of the
first season, we
waited to see a new intro for new villains but there wasn't
any. They never
changed the intro!
And the ending was always the same too. They show a
shadow of Usagi
standing under a tree; you hear a part of the intro song (a
slower version)
and that is all. The ending is about 20 seconds long and it
never changes.
Well, we are not ungrateful, we are happy to have seen the
German dub, but we
are also happy to have learned about the original series so
that we know what
was really going on. We have to thank a very good friend
for sending us the
subs of the three specials and the Ami special, otherwise
we would never have
heard the original voices and Mamoru's Japanese voice
sounds much better than
his German voice does.
Comments on this article can be sent to: Raven.
