Anime is growing at quite a rapid speed in India. The growth of anime made many anime companies interested in this Indian market. These days, we can see many Japanese companies making Indian subsidiaries and promoting anime in India. But do you know the best way to capture new audiences and make them enter this beautiful world of anime? The answer is Dubbing.
Indian Dubbing Industry is reportedly estimated a $179 million industry by 2024-2030. Believe it or not, Dubbing is the gateway for so many audiences in a particular content, whether it is Marvel, whether it is DC, whether it is K-Drama, Dubbing is always one of the best strategies to increase content-watching audiences. We can also notice so many popular, anticipated, and even those animes to which the majority of audiences didn’t even hear their names are getting Dubbed in Hindi language and also other Indian Regional Languages like Tamil, Telugu, and so on.
The scenario of Hindi Dubbed animes has been very odd for a long time. Many hardcore otaku fans get angry on social media because they are not satisfied with anime dubs, whether it is about voice castings or whether it is about the feeling they are not getting from the particular anime. But that’s not an issue, as Dubbing is primarily used to attract new audiences, but the problem with the Indian Anime Hindi Dubbing Industry is “Quantity Over Quality Dubs ” which has been quite visible for years now. Many errors are spotted during dubbing which can include scripting issues, Audio Issues, characters’ weird dialogue delivery issues, and so on. So many anime dubs like Demon Slayer Season 2, Detective Conan, and so on. There are many popular animes affected by this quantity over quality dubbing work.
What if one of the most anticipated anime of Fall 2024 creating buzz among both new anime watchers and new anime watchers suffers a string of dubbing errors? Yes, we are talking about What went wrong in the Hindi dubbing of one of the most anticipated anime of Fall 2024, Dandadan or DAN DA DAN.
The moment when the Hindi Dub of Dandadan was announced, the fans were excited to try this anime as Dandadan is a very popular manga by Yukinobu Tatsu, and its fanbase is widely spread in the entire world, even in social media you can spot so many appreciation posts for the original mangaka and this great work. After getting adapted into an anime by the Animation Studio Science Saru, this manga gained more popularity, Science Saru’s animation attracted so many fans to this manga, and its uniqueness and the adaptation of this anime also impressed the manga readers.
The excitement was short-lived when the first episode of the series was released, sparking a buzz within the community. However, this initial enthusiasm soon turned to disappointment for many fans, as the dubbing errors were too obvious to ignore, resulting in a mixed viewing experience. In this article, we highlight some major points where the Hindi dubbing of Dandadan falls short.
The vOICE Castings
Voice Actors add soul to the series. Voice acting is undoubtedly a difficult job where voice actors have to dive deep inside the characters and show the emotions of those fictional characters which can impact the audiences too. The Voice Acting Cast of Dandadan did their best to deliver a great output. But the problem was not the voice actors, it was the castings. During the First episode of Dandadan, one alien gets introduction named Serpo tries to have sex with Momo and remove her “Banana” organ Serpo doesn’t have any females in their species, so for reproduction, they have to rely on cleaning. The problem was this Serpo Alien sounded more like a human, rather than an alien.
If you watch the Japanese version of this Serpo alien, his way of talking is different than the other humans and ghosts that are shown in the series, they sound non-human, eerie, and have a slightly robotic feel, but the Hindi Dubbing version made them sound like more a human than an alien.
Speaking of humans, the casting issues can be spotted in other characters too. Let’s take Momo And Ken, the main protagonists of this series. No doubt they did their best, especially Momo’s voice actor, undeniably their hard work and passion are visible, but despite of being hard work, one thing still remains weird, that both Momo and Ken are High School Students. Voice Actors indeed did their best job, but the vibe was off because they sounded more like regular people than high school Students.
Scripting Issues Which Even Affected The Plot
Voice actors can sometimes feel odd in dubbing to many people just because they have the habit of English Voice Actors or Japanese Voice Actors. It won’t have too much effect on someone who is watching the show for the very first time. But what is one thing which will affect new watchers too? Of course, the Scripting. The scripting of Dandadan is very weird. Dandadan is rated R-17+ (violence & profanity) anime so it definitely script should definitely be like that. But scripting is too weird that it tries to hide exploit things and say some exploit things at the same moment.
For Example, In episode 1, when Ken goes to the Cave to see Ghost, he encounters Turbo Granny who takes away his weenie and makes him cursed. But in Hindi dubbing very weird thing happens, During the interaction between Ken and Turbo Granny, in Japanese and English Verison, Turbo Granny says “Let me suck your weenie” but this line changed in Hindi dub to “Tum mere saath joh chaho, woh kar sakte ho” (Translation: You can do whatever you want with me). I can understand many people will say this exchange is not that bad, but when Momo got kidnapped by Serpo, they clearly used the words like “Sex”, “Banana”, “sleeping together in a room but you have to pay for it”, etc.
It doesn’t have any effect when these things are said randomly and have no importance in the actual story, but in the case of Dandadan, it is literally part of its plot. Turbo Granny takes away Ken’s Weenie and curses him so that Momo and Ken both try to figure out how to defeat Turbo Granny and get Ken’s thing back. In the Hindi dub, they said in the first episode itself that Turbo Granny took Ken’s Balls instead of his weenie, but the funny thing is later in the story of Dandadan where Turbo Granny gets defeated, then it is revealed that she is actually alive and this time she cursed Ken’s Balls instead. In the Hindi dub, they brought Balls in the First episode itself which were supposed to come later in Episode 5 and Ken’s Balls are also essential for its plot.
Even with this confusion error, some more scripting errors are spotted during this Dub. Sometimes, the dialogue is too big that characters are not saying something in animation but dialogue is heard in the background. In some places, there are some lip-syncing errors too. In Episode 1, Momo calls Ken, “Okarun” which is false, as Ken gets the “Okarun” name in Episode 2 of this series, in episode 1, Momo actually calls him “Occult.”
A Weird Echo in the Background
Along with the scripting errors, there are many errors spotted in Background Music and Editing. Just like we discussed in the previous point about Lip-syncing and dialogue delivery when a character is actually not saying anything. Along with it, there are some weird background echo that anyone can notice while watching the Hindi dub of Dandadan.
During many scenes, a weird echo is noticeable, especially when characters are talking in school. This echo effect comes out of nowhere when characters are delivering dialogue, but at the same time, when Ken visits the abandoned tunnel, the echo effect is gone which should have been there as the cave was abandoned.
Well, in the end, these dubbing errors did affect the viewing experiences of the fans and made them feel let down. Every company indeed wants to create a good business in India and its market. But some Hindi dubs have way too many errors that one will never recommend Hindi dub to others. Some people can even recommend English dub but Hindi they won’t. The thing for voice castings can be ignored for once, but what about the scripting and editing issues that change the plot and disturb the whole vibe of the anime they are watching?
4-5 Years back, there were fewer Hindi dubs which were available for the fans but now the scenario is different. Many companies are interested in India which led to the rise of Hindi Dubs. But do we really want Hindi dubs or quality Hindi dubs? The choice is of the fans at the end of the day, what to watch and what to not watch but right now, India really needs Quality Hindi Dubs, which definitely will not accepted by everyone but acceptable enough to make some Japanese language anime fans too, to recommend watching anime in their native languages.
India has nailed so many dubs in the past for example Shinchan, Doraemon, Kochikame, Ninja Hattori, Idaten Jump, etc. These dubs are so good that so many anime fans still talk about it now. So ya that’s it for this article, If you are still reading this then Thanks for Reading. Comment down your opinion on what you think about Dandadan’s Hindi dub and the scenario of the Indian Anime Dubbing Industry. We will be back with more awesome content on this website, So don’t forget to Bookmark our website for more updates!
Perfectly written