TFPrime cartoon special in Japan

[griffin]

Ordinarily this wouldn't be too news-worthy (posting about a Japanese screening of a Transformers cartoon, as we don't have any/many active JP members).

But the thing that caught my eye was the point of this late night 2-hour special. It apparently documents the differences between our (western) Airachnid character, and their reworked Airachnid character.

For those who have been around for a while, the reworking of female characters in the Japanese versions/dubbings, isn't new.
Airazor from Beast Wars was changed to a male in Japan, which meant for some creative re-writing of the lines between her and Tigatron.
And Over-Ride from TF-Cybertron was also changed to a male in Japan (as Nitro Convoy), but it is claimed to be a change on the Hasbro end from male to female.

So now in the TFPrime cartoon, the Hasbro version has a cold, callus, psychopathic killer... while the Japanese version is said to be "boy crazy" and unpredictable, and yet remains a Decepticon who vows to destroy Autobots.
Not sure how that works out, but it sounds too bizarre to take the charactero, or those episodes seriously...

In the Japanese dub of Prime, Airachnid's personality is completely different from her US interpretation. In the dub, she is a bubbly, giggling, high-strung chatterbox that is obsessed with collecting handsome boys as trophies. Played up as something of a female Pepe Le Pew, she constantly swoons over Jack, calling him her "hunk", her "darling", her "cutie Jack-chan" and various other lovey-dovey remarks as she amorously pursues him (even going so far as to sing love songs to him, mid-chase). While her sadistic qualities remain, she's played more like a creepy stalker girl than a vicious psychopath. Airachnid is dubbed by Ryōka Yuzuki, the actress who dubbed Beast Wars Black Widow and Animated Blackarachnia, and so many of the quirks she conceived for those characters (such as a habit of making a hissing tshaaaaa-- noise) are present. Likewise, the constant, incessant talking seems to be a throwback to the "adlibbing" prevalent in the Japanese dub of Beast Wars.

[GoktimusPrime]

Naviko - the Japanese version of the Predacon computer in Beast Wars, also had a similar "cutesy" personality, whereas the Anglophone version was cold and emotionless. Then there was D-Navi, the Predacon computer in BW Neo who was the drama queen (though that's not a dub).

Originally Posted by griffin

Not sure how that works out, but it sounds too bizarre to take the charactero, or those episodes seriously...

That's a widespread criticism that a lot of Japanese fans had of the Beast Wars Metals dub, where the dubbing became allegedly very silly (I've only ever seen JP dubs of Season 1 which wasn't quite so bad, but from what I've heard, the dubbing in BW Metals is quite silly) -- aside from JP fans not liking the Transmetals toys themselves, having a poorly dubbed show would've made things even worse. Little wonder that BW Metals didn't do so well in Japan. (-_-) Another reason why dubbing sucks... but some see it as a necessary evil when marketing shows at young kids. :/