Known fully as "4KIDS Entertainment", it is rumored that 4KIDS is made up of former Rankin-Bass employees (known for classics like the claymation Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer). Once they broke off of Rankin-Bass, they became an anime dubbing company. Their first property was Nintendo's Pokemon, which quickly gained the company massive amounts of fame, and, of course, money. They soon went on to get Cubix, Yu-Gi-Oh, and, eventually, they bought out Saban's FoxKids Saturday Morning Block and transformed it into their own FoxBox (now known as "4KIDS.tv").
They are a company to the core, and as such, care about one thing alone: the bottom line. The Bottom Line for 4KIDS is profit. They will seek maximum profit in any way whatsoever. Usually, this involves drastically altering the anime license they have - re-writing all the dialogue, re-composing all the music, and generally editing the content so heavily it's difficult to comprehend what the show was originally like.
They are a company to the core, and as such, care about one thing alone: the bottom line. The Bottom Line for 4KIDS is profit. They will seek maximum profit in any way whatsoever. Usually, this involves drastically altering the anime license they have - re-writing all the dialogue, re-composing all the music, and generally editing the content so heavily it's difficult to comprehend what the show was originally like.
One of the worst cases of this is One Piece; a show featuring lots of graphic violence, centered around Luffy - a boy who battles his way to become the King of the Pirates. 4KIDS has turned this show into an embarassment, all for the Bottom Line.
by The Lost Skeleton August 12, 2005
Get the 4KIDSmug. The butcher of animeThe make the show more American friendly so they are
offended when the see some thing on the tv program that
they find upsetting I live in America and I getting a little sick
of all the changes in anime that 4Kids makes when they
get it licensed over here. I hae got all my comp isp address block
try to fix Wikipedia’s definition for them but had it changed back to what
it said originally. If you are a major hater of this company then you know
what I am talking about when I say 4kids must crash and burn to the ground
and have to major fine for ruining great anime when they tried to make them more
American friendly. If this is America where we have freedom of speech and so on
What is wrong with a little upsetting tv. If you do not like whats on just change the
Channel.
offended when the see some thing on the tv program that
they find upsetting I live in America and I getting a little sick
of all the changes in anime that 4Kids makes when they
get it licensed over here. I hae got all my comp isp address block
try to fix Wikipedia’s definition for them but had it changed back to what
it said originally. If you are a major hater of this company then you know
what I am talking about when I say 4kids must crash and burn to the ground
and have to major fine for ruining great anime when they tried to make them more
American friendly. If this is America where we have freedom of speech and so on
What is wrong with a little upsetting tv. If you do not like whats on just change the
Channel.
4Kids have decently ruined Ojamajo Doremi by calling it Magical DoReMi and absolutely butchered it with the dubing and translations.
by Al-mal May 12, 2008
Get the 4kidsmug. by Hypermega November 9, 2004
Get the 4kidsmug. A shitty dubbing company that enjoys turning good anime into piles of crap. The people at 4kids don't care about the fans of the anime that they are dubbing and only care about making more money for themselves. They take anime that has mature content and turn it into a kiddie show. Because of 4kids, the anime One Piece is the most looked downed anime in America. They replaced One Piece's good humor with unfunny and childish puns, removed all blood and death, changed some of the characters' names, changed guns to super soakers, replaced the awesome background music with music that will make you want to puke, replaced the opening with idiotic rap, and took out a bunch of arcs that will later become important to the story.
4kids also ruined Tokyo Mew Mew. They changed the name to Mew Mew Power because, according to 4kids, Japan doesn't exist. All of the characters' names are changed and some scenes are removed. Tokyo Mew Mew is about protecting the environment and love, but 4kids removed the whole "protecting the environment" part and made Mew Mew Power be about an annoying love sick girl.
In every anime that 4kids has touched, they removed all Japanese writing and food and made the setting not in Japan, but in America. According to 4kids, little children will be traumatized for life if they as so much as take one look at Japanese culture. In conclusion, 4kids needs to burn in Hell and let better companies dub anime the right way.
4kids also ruined Tokyo Mew Mew. They changed the name to Mew Mew Power because, according to 4kids, Japan doesn't exist. All of the characters' names are changed and some scenes are removed. Tokyo Mew Mew is about protecting the environment and love, but 4kids removed the whole "protecting the environment" part and made Mew Mew Power be about an annoying love sick girl.
In every anime that 4kids has touched, they removed all Japanese writing and food and made the setting not in Japan, but in America. According to 4kids, little children will be traumatized for life if they as so much as take one look at Japanese culture. In conclusion, 4kids needs to burn in Hell and let better companies dub anime the right way.
4kids leader: Oh, look! There's a very popular anime in Japan called "One Piece!" Let's get the rights to dub it!
4kids worker: But sir! This anime has blood, violence, a good plot, and Japanese stuff in it! We can't show this to our audience!
4kids leader: Don't worry! We'll just butcher it by removing everything Japanese, giving the characters really bad voice actors, and removing all blood! The kids will never notice the difference! We'll make lots of money because we are greedy bastards!
4kids worker: But sir! This anime has blood, violence, a good plot, and Japanese stuff in it! We can't show this to our audience!
4kids leader: Don't worry! We'll just butcher it by removing everything Japanese, giving the characters really bad voice actors, and removing all blood! The kids will never notice the difference! We'll make lots of money because we are greedy bastards!
by Nekoshojo27 March 3, 2008
Get the 4kidsmug. Evil company based on destroying anime like SONICX,POKEMON,YU-GI-OH,etc.We must stop them for the sake of human kind as for now we must plan for our attack on ther base in New York
by CHOAMAN August 23, 2003
Get the 4kidsmug. by Grave JokerSX June 21, 2009
Get the 4kidsmug. Simply put, 4Kids Entertainment is an excellent example of corporate lapdogs who care nothing about what they produce or how it affects their viewers. Instead, their only real concern is what animes to market next and earn them their undeserving paychecks.
Aiming more towards younger audiences, they take japanese animation and Butcher it, until they feel they won't lose any money by being sued for "inappropriate" content. They continually market the animes they aquire to their limits by creating every possible toy, card game, or anything they can sell to little kids. In an attempt to make each anime as profitable as possible, they skip many parts of good anime series and try to get to the most marketable characters, letting the plot only make up a small part of the anime's actual intrest percentage.
By moving forward in an anime very quickly, it allows them to cut whole episodes at a time to get to marketable points, such as cute characters or a new toy idea from an item that plays an important role. Unfortunetly, 4Kids does not seem to care much on the plot side of the story, since their cuts of whole episodes tend to make items "apear out of nowhere", which actually were explained during a cut. Important scenes on character development are also not necessary to 4Kids, unless that character is very sellable.
Notorious not only for its direct-plot cuts, 4Kids also plays a hand in making sure our youth are completely oblivious to real-life occurances, such as someong being cut can bleed or someone being shot can die. In some of the more fight-prone anime that 4Kids has adapted, all blood has been edited out. (Personally, I don't see why they're teaching our youth that when you are stabbed with a knife, you do not bleed.) Guns are usually either edited out entirely, or airbrushed to look more like Super Soakers and Cork Guns. Any references to religion are also taken out, but this is a bit more understandable. Now there are also problems with the idea of death. This happens in many Animes, including One Piece and Yu-Gi-Oh!(which have been licensed by 4Kids), to some pretty important characters, and every child SHOULD know that everyone dies eventually. 4Kids, in their attempt to keep our children pure and innocent, changes all death scenes and leads us onto the idea that the character was "taken away" or "mysteriously disappeared".
The most amazing edits I think I've seen from 4Kids would be from the anime One Piece. (I'm using this anime, because it's clearly not a little kids show when viewed in Japanese.) All references to cigarettes and cigars are taken out. One of the main characters, Sanji, is a chain smoker and never is seen without one, so they changed it to a lollipop. Captain Smoker, who is obvious by his name as to be a smoker, carries around 2 cigars in his mouth constantly. Those were edited out completely, and his name was changed to "Chaser", but the main thing that 4Kids missed, was he always has his mouth open from talking with the cigars. Obvious, no? Also, any alcohol is taken out and airbrushed to be a different color. 70, 80 year old men are having a party in a bar and all drinking "Juice", and our children are supposed to believe this? There's also that any references to the Marines, including the english word printed on the boats and hats of the Marines, were all taken out and replaced with "Navy".
The absolute, most astonishing edit ever from OP, had to be when they changed the little black boy to be white. In all ways, no matter how you look at it, it's just wrong. Is 4Kids suggesting that all anime characters have to be white? They've said in their defense, I believe, that it had to do with the idea of the little black boy being represented as a slave? Now to me, this really doesn't fit. They've ruined all of the dialogue and plot, so instead of making the boy have better lines and a better part in the scene, they make him white to stop all fingers from pointing at them?
All in all, 4Kids is simply a marketing machine who does not care about good anime, unless it sells to kids. They'll do whatever it takes to make money from what remains of good animes, and make sure that our youth are as innocent as possible, never knowing what death or pain is.
Aiming more towards younger audiences, they take japanese animation and Butcher it, until they feel they won't lose any money by being sued for "inappropriate" content. They continually market the animes they aquire to their limits by creating every possible toy, card game, or anything they can sell to little kids. In an attempt to make each anime as profitable as possible, they skip many parts of good anime series and try to get to the most marketable characters, letting the plot only make up a small part of the anime's actual intrest percentage.
By moving forward in an anime very quickly, it allows them to cut whole episodes at a time to get to marketable points, such as cute characters or a new toy idea from an item that plays an important role. Unfortunetly, 4Kids does not seem to care much on the plot side of the story, since their cuts of whole episodes tend to make items "apear out of nowhere", which actually were explained during a cut. Important scenes on character development are also not necessary to 4Kids, unless that character is very sellable.
Notorious not only for its direct-plot cuts, 4Kids also plays a hand in making sure our youth are completely oblivious to real-life occurances, such as someong being cut can bleed or someone being shot can die. In some of the more fight-prone anime that 4Kids has adapted, all blood has been edited out. (Personally, I don't see why they're teaching our youth that when you are stabbed with a knife, you do not bleed.) Guns are usually either edited out entirely, or airbrushed to look more like Super Soakers and Cork Guns. Any references to religion are also taken out, but this is a bit more understandable. Now there are also problems with the idea of death. This happens in many Animes, including One Piece and Yu-Gi-Oh!(which have been licensed by 4Kids), to some pretty important characters, and every child SHOULD know that everyone dies eventually. 4Kids, in their attempt to keep our children pure and innocent, changes all death scenes and leads us onto the idea that the character was "taken away" or "mysteriously disappeared".
The most amazing edits I think I've seen from 4Kids would be from the anime One Piece. (I'm using this anime, because it's clearly not a little kids show when viewed in Japanese.) All references to cigarettes and cigars are taken out. One of the main characters, Sanji, is a chain smoker and never is seen without one, so they changed it to a lollipop. Captain Smoker, who is obvious by his name as to be a smoker, carries around 2 cigars in his mouth constantly. Those were edited out completely, and his name was changed to "Chaser", but the main thing that 4Kids missed, was he always has his mouth open from talking with the cigars. Obvious, no? Also, any alcohol is taken out and airbrushed to be a different color. 70, 80 year old men are having a party in a bar and all drinking "Juice", and our children are supposed to believe this? There's also that any references to the Marines, including the english word printed on the boats and hats of the Marines, were all taken out and replaced with "Navy".
The absolute, most astonishing edit ever from OP, had to be when they changed the little black boy to be white. In all ways, no matter how you look at it, it's just wrong. Is 4Kids suggesting that all anime characters have to be white? They've said in their defense, I believe, that it had to do with the idea of the little black boy being represented as a slave? Now to me, this really doesn't fit. They've ruined all of the dialogue and plot, so instead of making the boy have better lines and a better part in the scene, they make him white to stop all fingers from pointing at them?
All in all, 4Kids is simply a marketing machine who does not care about good anime, unless it sells to kids. They'll do whatever it takes to make money from what remains of good animes, and make sure that our youth are as innocent as possible, never knowing what death or pain is.
One Piece excerpts:
Luffy's Most Used Attack
Japanese Version: "Gomu Gomu no Pistol!"
4Kids Dub Version:" Gum Gum Blast!"
Character/Place names/changes:
"Zoro" is changed to "Zolo"
"Vivi", pronouced Veevee, is now VihVie
"Captain Smoker" is now "Captain Chaser"
Whiskey Peak is now Misty Peak.
Laboon the Whale is now an iceberg.
Accents(Just a few major ones):
Sanji-
Jap: Sanji is a ladies man, so he understandably sounds lightly deep and seductive, while pertaining a bit of a smoker's voice.
Dub: Sanji sounds like he's never breathed out of his nose and has something furry in his throat.
Alvida(slim version)-
Jap: She sounds as beautiful and corrupt as she looks. Very devious.
Dub: She has a very very southern accent.
Robin-
Jap: Her voice is very light and noticibly sharp.
Dub: Another harsh southern accent..
Luffy's Most Used Attack
Japanese Version: "Gomu Gomu no Pistol!"
4Kids Dub Version:" Gum Gum Blast!"
Character/Place names/changes:
"Zoro" is changed to "Zolo"
"Vivi", pronouced Veevee, is now VihVie
"Captain Smoker" is now "Captain Chaser"
Whiskey Peak is now Misty Peak.
Laboon the Whale is now an iceberg.
Accents(Just a few major ones):
Sanji-
Jap: Sanji is a ladies man, so he understandably sounds lightly deep and seductive, while pertaining a bit of a smoker's voice.
Dub: Sanji sounds like he's never breathed out of his nose and has something furry in his throat.
Alvida(slim version)-
Jap: She sounds as beautiful and corrupt as she looks. Very devious.
Dub: She has a very very southern accent.
Robin-
Jap: Her voice is very light and noticibly sharp.
Dub: Another harsh southern accent..
by akumu July 8, 2006
Get the 4kidsmug.