Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 7: Dubbed in Filipino?!?

September 1, 2005

The unthinkable may happen.

Come October 2005, Animax-Asia is introducing Filipino dubs! Yep, you heard it right.

Filipino is the national language of our country. Anime on local television is normally shown with Filipino dubs, obviously, removing the original Japanese voices and replacing them such that the program can be accessible to the masses. You can say that our reaction to this kind of activity is very similar to how U.S. handles anime. Some anime get good dubs, others get poor dubs. Generally, Filipino dubs are rather well accepted.

Anime is getting more and more popular in this side of the world, to the point that Animax-Asia was launched in 2004 as the first 24-hour cable anime channel in Asia. Well, we all know the story afterwards. Subtitled anime become dubs, some non-anime programs surface, and a lot more programming quirks left the fans complaining all the time. And now, their new trick up their sleeve to garner bigger audience (or rather, prevent losing audience because of Hero TV, more on that later) is introducing Filipino dubs to their ever growing multi-language anime lineup!

Again, Animax-Asia has a separate Philippine feed exclusively for Philippine viewers, and that’s how Animax just loves us. I tend to think that we are their biggest audience (read: source of income) in Southeast Asia because of the immense popularity of anime in our country. This move by Animax seems to cater to the masses, getting more audience classes (as per their ‘anime for everyone’ slogan) and cultural divides. At the same time, this seems to be an pre-emptive move to compete with Hero TV, the all-Filipino cable animation channel that will be fully launched this October. This upcoming channel is reportedly gaining ground, maybe because Naruto is in the lineup. More importantly though, anime fans will have even more choices. We already have Cartoon Network and Animax-Asia, now with Hero, anime has just become so widespread, you can’t deny it anymore.

You’ve been waiting for the catch, so here it is. I’ve been complaining for almost seven episodes about Animax-Asia’s English dubbing, right? Animax-Asia’s Filipino dubbing now opens a new debate and divide. Purists who want their subs have another reason to complain, because Filipino dubs will eat airtime further, having fears of having less subtitled anime yet again. Evidence of this seems to surface even nowadays because the 6:00PM Saiyuki Reload timeslot is now in English dub (it used to be subbed before). Here’s a bigger news. The first anime premiere that will feature the Filipino dubbing is… be surprised, Initial D Fourth Stage! Nope, they did not show any Initial D prior to this. That alone is an outrage, isn’t it?

Recently news about some of the local voice cast of Initial D Fourth Stage have been introduced. Takumi Fujiwara will be voiced by Matteo Guidicelli, a young and popular kart driver over here. Kyoko Iwase will be voiced by Angel Locsin, a beautiful and very popular actress, widely known for the Darna live action series (Darna is our equivalent of Wonder Woman). She says that she likes the PS2 Gran Turismo games, and so she’s kinda hyped up to voice Kyoko I guess… Let me tell you that it’s kinda rare that news like this surface over TV and newspapers, let alone anime news. I guess Animax-Asia is heavily hyping their one-of-a-kind move.

As I said, this becomes a new dynamic in this ever-ongoing anime debate. Even now, fans may be just oh so furious that Animax-Asia has just become trilingual (Japanese, English, Filipino). As debates go on, I’m just here monitoring in the sidelines. I don’t watch Animax-Asia anymore, for various reasons, but once in a while I tune in for a random anime episode treat or two. Whether a dubbed or subbed episode, I don’t care anymore, as long as it doesn’t annoy me too much. Come October, which will premiere Initial D Fourth Stage, I’ll definitely watch and find out how good is their first Filipino dub offering.

I’ll be waiting for Angel Locsin’s voice too. She’s beautiful isn’t it? I’m not too sure about her voice though, and I don’t even watch Darna…

TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 1: The end of Animax-Asia? Too sudden!?->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 2: Cardcaptured.->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 3: Trying to Adjust->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 4: Towards the 1st Anniversary->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 5: I gave up on Animax-Asia->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 6: One year since->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 7: Dubbed in Filipino?!?->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 7.5: Initial D Filipino Stage->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 8: More Pain->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 9: Now in blue->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 10: Fake Revival->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 11: Something New->]
[Animax-Asia… Dubbed in English – Episode 12: Red with anger->]