Happy April Fool's Day 2016! from Ryu Taylor, Dub Lover

Episode Statistics:

Japanese Episode 001: It’s Here! The Pink Visitor!
American Episode 001: Kirby Comes to Cappy Town
Japanese Air Date: October 6th, 2001
American Air Date: September 14th, 2002

In the far reaches of outer space, a pink creature is awakened by an alarm on its spaceship, which takes it to Planet Popstar. On said planet, an evil monster is eating the sheep from a local village. King DeDeDe and his servant Escargon deny the claims of there being a monster doing such a thing. The villagers consult their guardian Kabu, who informs them that help is on the way, and this help is a warrior named Kirby. Soon, a spaceship lands, and out comes the pink creature, who turns out to be Kirby. King DeDeDe is immediately suspicious of Kirby and attacks him with his hammer, sending him down a crevasse. Two local children named Fumu and Bun, accompanied by their friends Lololo and Lalala, go down to see if Kirby is okay. Fumu slips and falls down into the crevasse, but Kirby catches her before she hits the ground. Kirby then wanders off and discovers Pupu Village. The children introduce themselves to Kirby. Then suddenly, King DeDeDe attacks again! Fumu and Bun come to Kirby’s rescue and drive the king away for now. Later that night, the Mayor of Pupu Village hosts a banquet to welcome Kirby to his village. Kirby inhales the entire banquet and runs off as Fumu, Bun, Lololo, and Lalala follow. They discover the remains of the dead sheep and then hide in a shed where Sir Meta Knight, accompanied by his servants Sword Knight and Blade Knight, finds Kirby, confirming a mysterious prophecy. From King DeDeDe’s castle, an explosion is heard, and Kirby goes toward it. The king and Escargon are attempting to fix Kirby’s spaceship. While doing so, they discover the Warp Star, which the king steals. He then turns on a mysterious system to complain to a mysterious salesman about the monster he ordered. The salesman assures him that the monster’s true power will be revealed soon. Just then, the king falls under a strange spell originating from his miniature octopus pet, the very pet he complained about. Kirby walks in on this, and is pummeled by the possessed king. The tiny octopus grows to its true size and begins destroying the castle. Kirby comes to the rescue and after a rough start, gains the upper hand by inhaling the monster’s babies. When he does the same to another batch of babies that are on fire, Kirby copies the ability to become Fire Kirby, and then kills the monster. The mysterious salesman and his shadowy boss are impressed by this. The next day on Popstar, Kirby prepares to leave, but is shot down by King DeDeDe. Kirby decides to stay.
________________________________________

Thoughts
This show needs more love. I don’t know how it got to be so underrated (and even outright despised among some Kirby fan sections), but generally, this show is much better than it’s given credit for.

Like many a Japanese cartoon series, the formula is set up on the word “go”: Dreamland kids have an adventure, a monster attacks, and Kirby fights the monster. Every now and then, it’ll be different, but that’s how things generally go in this show. It’s simple, but it works.

“Pikachu’s Rescue Adventure” may be my favorite overall 4kids dub, but strictly in terms of their Japanese TV series dubs they’ve done, my favorite of those would be this one right here: “Kirby of the Stars”, known in America as “Kirby – Right Back At Ya!”. The dub’s title is corny, but that doesn’t reflect the high quality of most else about this dub. Not to mention that 4kids managed to dub the entire show. Yes, all 100 episodes were dubbed. So, on that note, I’d say this dub was a success.

On the downside, this dub aired in 2002 and beyond. I classify that as a downside because those years were 4kids Entertainment’s downfall years. 2002 was basically their Waterloo. This particular dub is even more of a paragon in that regard, as it came out mostly unscathed despite all this. Of course, there are still some 4kids-isms in this dub, though not too many of those are in this first episode.

Kirby keeps his Japanese voice, for the most part.

Music Edit
Not even one track of the original Japanese background music score is kept in the dub. The dub rescored the whole show from the ground up. Those of you who know me well know that I don’t consider this a bad thing. So, instead of getting on my soapbox and coating the room in the aroma of Dawn, I’ll instead just speak facts.

The original Japanese soundtrack, composed by Akira Miyagawa, runs a wide gamut of moods and tones. There are action tracks, solemn tracks, joyful tracks, you name it. In general, I can describe this soundtrack as being calm. Much like the games, the show’s soundtrack is simple and calm. There are also occasions where the show will use music straight from the games themselves. Not a remix, mind you, but an actual track from a game. That’s a nice touch.

The dub soundtrack was composed by 4kids alumni Ralph Shuckett, Manny Corallo, and John Siegler, as well as Wayne Sharpe, John VanTongeren, Louis Cortelezzi, Rusty Andrews, and Peter Scaturro. Quite a team, huh? Much like the Japanese soundtrack, the dub soundtrack also runs a wide gamut of moods and tones, and have tracks to suit each of those. Whereas the original soundtrack was calm and simple, the dub soundtrack is energetic and, well, not simple, but not complex. None of this new music connects to the games, but despite that, there’s still memorable stuff to be found in this soundtrack. And also, I consider this soundtrack to be the second-best thing 4kids ever composed, topped only by the soundtrack of “The Power of One”.

Video Edit
Generally, each episode in the original version opens as follows: opening theme song, first scene, title card. The dub’s order is: first scene, opening theme song. Basically, the dub’s theme song goes in the spot where the original would put the title card. And no, the dub never uses title cards.

This episode, however, does something else other than the general steps I just listed. This first episode originally began with the scene of Kirby’s spaceship taking him to Popstar. Then, after the title card, the scene of the octopus monster eating the sheep is shown. The dub’s order goes like this: monster eats sheep, theme song, commercial break, and then space scene.

From then on, both versions go in the same order.

Sound Edit
The sheep make a sound corresponding to the Japanese onomatopoeia for said animal in the original version. The dub changes that to a sound corresponding to the American onomatopoeia.

Name Changes
As expected from a 4kids dub, a huge majority of the cast gets their names changed. It tends to be the game characters who keeps their names, so this list won’t include those cases. Anyway,

Fumu --> Tiff
Bun --> Tuff
Escargon --> Escargoon
Cabinet Minister Parm --> Sir Ebrum
Memu --> Lady Like
Lololo --> Fololo
Lalala --> Falala
Customer Service --> (Wasn’t actually given a name, but dub fans nickname him “Frontman”. Also, I think Nintendo Power’s comics called him “Salesguy”)

I should note that from this point on whenever I’m not transcribing original Japanese dialogue, I’m using dub names for everyone except Customer Service.

Dialogue Edit
Tiff and Tuff stand up to Escargoon’s spurning the villagers’ complaints.

Fumu: Why won’t you listen to them for a minute?
Bun: That’s right! Stop being bossy!
Escargon: It’s that insolent Fumu and that shrimp Bun. You should remember your place.

Tiff: How do we know you’re not lying again?
Tuff: Yeah, like you usually do?!
Escargoon: You have no right to speak to me that way. Your parents should slap you silly.

Listed because of this being where we learn the manes of two of the show’s lead characters in the original. Tiff’s name is revealed about a second later in the dub, while Tuff’s name isn’t said until about eight minutes into the episode.

Also, Escargoon’s threat to issue death penalties to the villagers is changed to a threat to jail them for two weeks.

Paint Edit
Here’s an edit this dub is pretty well-known for making.




From camo to water-pistol, Dedede’s tank/jeep is painted over. Also, the handle on the front is moved to the underside half of it, probably to make room for Dedede's logo on the front. This happens every time the vehicle is onscreen.

Cut


As Dedede drives up to Kabu, the dub cuts out this scene of a villager getting up. Most likely a time cut.

Side Note
That little “juuuh!” sound Tiff makes when everyone finds out that Kirby is less that they thought he’d be was retained from the original version.

Sound Edit
When Dedede knocks Kirby down the cliff with his hammer, the original Japanese sound effect (which I can’t put into words) is replaced with a western-cartoony bell-like “CLUNK” sound effect heard in many an American cartoon.

Dialogue Edit
Character introductions abound.

Fumu: Hey you, don’t you like us? I’m the daughter of the Cabinet Minister. Call me Fumu.
Kirby: Fumu. Fumu!
Bun: I’m her little brother, Bun.
Kirby: Bun.
Lololo: We’re the servants, Lololo…
Lalala: …and Lalala!
Kirby: Lololo, Lalala?
Bun: Oh, so he does understand us!
(All laugh)

Tiff: My parents work for the king, and we live in the castle. In case you were wondering, my name’s Tiff.
Kirby: Name Tiff. Name Tiff!
Tuff: And I’m her brother, Tuff.
Kirby: Tuff.
Fololo: And we’re their friends Fololo…
Falala: …and Falala!
Kirby: Fololo, Falala?
Tuff: Guess Kirby must be a baby warrior!
(All laugh)

At this point, Fololo’s (who, along with Falala, are the only game characters to get their names changed in the dub) dub name was the only one who wasn’t introduced before now. Also, this is one of the very rare cases where Kirby gains a dub voice. In this case, it was necessitated by the other leads gaining dub names.

And Pupu Village is renamed Cappytown.

Cut
During the introduction scene, half a second is cut from Tiff’s introduction. Likely a time cut.

Side Note
Although I love this dub, I have to question why in the world Sword Knight has an Australian accent and Blade Knight is mostly unintelligible.

Paint Edit
Here’s another edit that shows up in every corresponding occasion.




Holy Nightmare Corporation is called Nightmare Enterprises in the dub, by the way. I actually like the dub background on Customer Service’s screen better. I don’t know… the original one is pretty generic.

Sound Edit
The Warp Star’s low power “alarm” sound effect gets an extra “beep” added to it each time it flashes. Oddly, the original sound effect can still be heard. Also, when it powers back up, the original “twinkle” sound effect (which is also still audible) is replaced by a techno-like sound of some kind.

Dialogue Edit
End of the episode. When Kirby decides to stay in Dreamland after his ship is shot down, he says his name three times in excitement in response to Tiff asking him if he wants to stay. This is dub-only.

Final Thoughts
This episode was dubbed well, but it gets better later on. Actually, I think the fourth episode is the best of this whole series in both languages, but it’s off to a great start here.

I’ll end this by citing a few things:

The Japanese dialogue I transcribed are from a fansub (not sure if I can disclose which one, though), which I also got the JP screencaps from.
The general layout of this guide was heavily inspired by Dogasu’s Backpack. Hopefully I copied nothing else from there.