4Kids Entertainment

[pysic]

4Kids Entertainment. The name that strikes fear into the hearts, souls, bodies, and minds of the anime fans. 4Kids Entertainment kills anime. Actually, that's an understatement. They don't just kill it. They murder, assassinate, shred, massacre, and annihilate it. Just recently we all learned that 4Kids had obtained rights to Pretty Cure, and we were already almost planning a funeral for it. (May you rest in peace, Pretty Cure. May your death be quick and painless.) So, just why exactly do we hate 4Kids Entertainment so much? No, I'm not defending them (I said that because some will interpret that last sentence as defending 4Kids. I would never even think of doing that). There truly is no way to justify what they do to anime.

So, why exactly do we hate them? Because they so massively edit and destroy our wonderful animes, right? While that is part of it, that's not why. I've discovered 3 main reasons why we hate 4Kids.
1) They Americanize anime.
2) They edit the hell out of anime till its harmless, and utterly devoid of calories, like a can of Pepsi One.
3) They take anime made for mature audiences and make it fit for 3-year-olds to watch.

Americanizing anime is like making an angler fish fit to live in the Sahara Desert. It just doesn't work. When you Americanize anime, it looses what makes it anime and becomes nothing more than another cookie-cutter American cartoon, done in anime style. What exactly is 4Kids afraid of, that kids will see a character eating an onigiri and be so scared of an unfamiliar food that they'll never watch the show again? Well, 4Kids Entertainment, I have news for you. American audiences aren't afraid of rice balls. While it's true that they'll understand cookies, sandwitches, doughnuts, or popcorn balls better, they're not going to be afraid of an onigiri just because it's not an American food. What exactly are they thinking?

Now, let's move on to the editing. 4Kids censors every single little thing so it won't scare the little kids, whether the series was made for kids or not. Pokemon was made for kids. Shaman King was not. Some of the things they edit will be completely pointless, such as an edit in Yu-Gi-Oh where they reversed the order of cards in Yugi's hand. And the purpose of that was...? They'll also change an entire soundtrack. How exactly did they come up with that bad rap-song-wannabe that they used as the One Piece theme song? I'd like to know what drug they're smoking/drinking/using. Whatever it is, it's certainly illegal.

Now for the biggie. Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece, Shaman King, Tokyo Mew Mew, and others were not made for kids (they were meant for kids in japan, that dosnt mean that they are suitable for kids in the US based on censorship regulations). And yet 4Kids thinks it's perfectly acceptable to take material aimed at mature audiences and cut it up so much that a 5-year-old can watch it and not be traumatized. But, in the case of One Piece, they've edited it so much, that it's doing a disservice to kids. I'm surprised there hasn't been a news report yet of kids getting into fights with knives, then being surprised and saying "But Zolo didn't bleed!" They've completely cut out every instance of death, while Sesame Street had an entire episode dedicated to explaining death. They cut out every instance of alchohol, and often replace it with juice. You don't get drunk on juice, any kid can tell you that. Let's think of our favorite ladies'-man kicking chef for a moment. Part of Sanji's character is that he smokes. They went and replaced his cigarette with a red tootsie-pop. And yet whenever he takes it out of his mouth, he always holds it just outside his mouth between his index and middle fingers, and it looks like he's blowing smoke, but without the smoke. Any kid who has seen a smoker before would be able to figure out that that's what Sanji is doing. Also, think about Looney Toons for a moment. Cigars are not a rare sight. And then there's the navy with their super-soakers. Oh, so it's okay for Elmer Fudd to have a hunting rifle, but it's not okay for the Navy to be armed with actual artillery? I don't see how that works. Neither does anybody else I've talked to, anime-illiterate parents included.

4Kids is vile, evil, and disgusting in the eyes of an anime fan. They take respectable animes and turn them into nothing more than another American cartoon with no character building, no real plot, and no more of the depth that we all love about anime. Maybe someday 4Kids will be able to correct their mistakes. Maybe they won't. Maybe we'll hate them forever. Even if they do change their ways, we'll never forget the things they did. What 4Kids does to anime is the equivalent of what the US did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 2. That may be a little harsh, but 4Kids deserves it. There is no justification for 4Kids Entertainment. With what they do to anime, things would be better off had the anime never come over to the United States. Well, the most we can do is pray that 4Kids Entertainment will one day see the light and change its ways.

[best at games]

lmao, I argee with that, just as I did when you posted it on my forums.