Cut Uncut: An Oxymoron?

Editorial by Chris

May 30, 2000

This rant is unlike any other I've done so far. Thanks to promotion by Dale, our site was brought to the attention of the editors of the anime page at About.com. They visited our website, and they were especially pleased by my mad ranting. They requested that I write a rant for them, and I did. This is my first rant on request, and hopefully there will be more. Below is the rant as it was posted on About.com during the Memorial Day Weekend.

Recently, there seems to be a new debate being waged among anime fans. For years, we have endured subtitled vs. dubbed, fansubbed vs. commercial, and VHS vs. DVD. Now, we have to deal with this new potential flame war: the cut uncut controversy. What exactly is cut uncut? If you think it sounds like an oxymoron, you're right, it is one. People are now claiming that products marketed in the US as 'uncut' are still edited from the Japanese version. The two titles that have sparked this debate are the home video release of Dragonball Z and the television broadcast of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

The claim is what we see is not the same as the original Japanese versions. This statement has several problems. Does 'cut' refer to actual footage or dialogue? If it is footage, then that is obviously the case with Dragonball Z, which is heavily edited.If 'cut' refers to dialogue, then the problem becomes harder to solve. I assume that the majority of fansub watchers do not actually speak Japanese. They buy their fansubs off the Internet or through their anime clubs. I've seen plenty of fansubs, and I know enough to conclude that there are good, accurate translations, and there are bad ones. The problem with claiming the dialogue is not the same as the Japanese, is that they're relying on the fansub as their source. A fansub is not a commercial translation. For example, fansubbers of Dragonball Z are infamous for freely adding profanity to spice up the story. That is simply wrong. Adding jokes or comments into a translation is almost as bad as FUNimation cutting up an episode. The argument is then meaningless because fansubs are not 100% perfect translations. Another series that brings up translation issues is Gundam Wing. With the recent broadcast on Cartoon Network, many fans are comparing the US version to their fansubs, and surprisingly they find differences. This is something that cannot be helped.

If any comparison is to be made for such an argument, it should be between a commercial subtitled version and the commercial dubbed version. Fansubs are not a good source because the translator is not a professional. Besides, with a language like Japanese, one statement can be translated several ways, and any minor differences in two translations are a result of that. Those differences do not mean that a series sold in the US is 'butchered' as many fans like to say. A few dialogue changes in Gundam Wing is not the same as the hack-and-slash jobs behind Robotech or Voltron. A translation, no matter how well done, can never be exactly 100% the same as the original. I've seen some translations that would qualify as 99.9%. For some fans, this just isn't enough. Ultimately, this debate is pointless, as is sub vs. dub and all the other aforementioned debates in the world of anime fandom. Anime is here for us to enjoy, not to argue over. It's sad how many people have forgotten that.