Apparently 4kids dropped the license for Pretty Cure after years of holding onto it and doing nothing with it. I don’t know why 4kids let such an obscenely successful franchise out of its grasp, but I have my suspicions.
1) Pretty Cure’s primary audience is girls, young girls.
2) Pretty Cure is a fairly VIOLENT show aimed towards young girls that would have probably aired on a non-cable network like Fox or the CW, which cringes at too much violence in shows.
3) Anime licensing costs being what they were back when Pretty Cure was licensed, Toei probably cost them enough arms and legs to cripple the Hecatonchires.
Knowing what they did with Doremi, I’m not that sad to see it go, but Pretty Cure is the type of show that needs to be on a normal network to succeed. Here’s hoping someone else picks up the ball.
I’ve recently become interested in examining modern (mid-90s – present) dub anime openings to see how they correlate to the notion that children have very short attention spans that are gradually decreasing as time passes.
Note: If you’re looking for a point or thesis, there really isn’t any. All I present here is possible evidence.
I began by comparing dub openings to their original Japanese counterparts. This has nothing to do with quality of music (or lack thereof), so you won’t find me making any comments regarding the actual themes.
YOHOHO HE TOOK A BITE OF GUM GUM.
Okay, last one. I promise.
Aside from the difference in length (the common 1 minute, 30 seconds in Japanese openings is hardly ever reached), the biggest difference I’ve seen is in the rate at which imagery will flash on and off the screen. In the English openings, there tends to be a much higher rate of changing imagery.
I give as an example a Yu-Gi-Oh opening in English, and one in Japanese. They are both the “second” openings, but keep in mind the English dub has fewer openings overall. To keep from having the different songs influence you, I suggest turning down the sound.
English
Japanese
As you can see, the dub opening is just a lot more frenetic, eager to keep your attention with rapidly changing colors.
I next focused my attention on Pokemon, as it is perhaps the most famous of all dubbed anime for children. Interestingly, the English opening is actually not that much faster-paced than the Japanese one in terms of imagery. It’s certainly slower than the Yu-Gi-Oh opening and both of these shows are 4Kids shows (or at least Pokemon was back then).
English
Japanese
But what about the idea that children’s attention spans are getting shorter? I took a look at every dub opening of Pokemon, and I noticed that over the years the Pokemon openings have actually gotten shorter.
The first few openings were 1 minute long.
Then it dropped down to 45 seconds per opening.
Now, the most recent openings have been 30 seconds apiece.
I know the examples I provided were primarily from 4kids, but keep in mind that the most recent Pokemon openings were dubbed by the Pokemon Company itself, so it’s not something exclusive to them. There’s also the realization that a lot of kids watching Pokemon today were not even alive when the series began airing in America. Just what has spurred this diminishing of time devoted to Pokemon openings? The Yu-Gi-Oh openings (including GX) are 1 minute long. Is it because the show is meant for a slightly older audience?
OGIUE MANIAX 