Anime intros: Do you prefer original or translated/remade?

[DJ Omnimaga]

It depends for me. In some cases I prefer the translated version of a song. For example, I prefer the French version of Bruises by Train (which features Marilou) and the French intro to season 1 of Pokémon. Same for Robotech and for anime I prefer the French themes of Albator, MCOG and Judo Boy to the original Japanese themes.

I think in my case it has to do with the fact that back in the 60-80's, most Japanese anime themes used music that sounds like beach music from the 60's, american disco or even something you would normally hear at a marriage banquet.

I mean, seriously, compare this:


To this:


I much prefer the French version in this case. For stuff made after 1988 or so, on the other hand, that's often a different story...

[Duke "Tape" Eiyeron]

Oh man, you forgot THE french Harlock intro you need to watch!

[DJ Omnimaga]

This one is the best but I didn't mention it since I never could find the Japanese equivalent. The ones in my first post are from the 1984 series.

[Juju]

Ah yeah, Captain Harlock. 80s and 90s anime are quite not the same deal. I remember last Friday we were watching Harlock SSX in japanese with my anime club and we were all singing the French opening instead.

[Streetwalrus]

Haha these french versions are really cheesy lol. Not a huge fan of the japanese version either though.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Welcome to the 80's. Back then, super heros were very popular in France for some reasons and pretty much every Japanese super hero show that aired in France had the same lyrics.

This is one example:


Not that it's an anime but it's Japanese. But yeah IIRC pretty much any that aired in France where Bernard Minet redid the intro song has similar lyrics about how it's the greatest of all heroes and will save everyone. But again, Japanese people weren't any better because almost every hero looked like they were from the Sentai series.

Even the animes use the same lyrics lol (and on top of that this one uses the same instruments from the French DBZ intro)



EDIT: Lol in the video suggestions for this one there's a walrus-related video.

[Streetwalrus]

Lol, youtube suggestions are based on what you watch. I had some twilight force suggested on a star wars video.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Oh lol, but not all are I think.

[Art_of_camelot]

It really depends. In Yu-Yu-Hakusho, all the intros and endings were redone in English, and they did a fantastic job. Though, that whole dub is fantastic to be fair. Bubble gum crisis also redid all the Japanese music in English. This was actually an earlier dub where this sort of thing wasn't really done. They also did quite an impressive job. *edit* to be clear, they weren't exactly translated. The same background music was re done by new bands and the lyrics were adapted (in both examples). If the lyrics were literally translated, it probably wouldn't fit the music very well, so creative license was taken.