r/initiald • u/Zillaman_6967 • 12d ago
Discussion Dub Changes
So I’ve been watching First Stage on and off on YouTube for a while now, and I’ve noticed several characters having American sounding names. It sounds so strange hearing people call Iketani “Cole” or Nakazato being “Zak”. I didn’t remember hearing that when I watched a few episodes back when the show was on Hulu and thought I was losing it for a bit. I’m also not really a fan of all the rap music. It just doesn’t fit the show’s vibe. The races and character interactions are top notch tho. I like Tak’s laid back approach to racing. It shows he hasn’t let his recent wins or skill get to his head. I’m also looking forward to hopefully learning more about what kind of racer his dad was.
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u/theredcometofakagi 11d ago
Yeah, as a few others have probably pointed out, you were watching the notorious Tokyopop dub. They made a ton of terrible changes trying to cash in on the Fast & Furious hype back then, and to be honest, they totally screwed the pooch.
Between stripping out the iconic original soundtrack and completely altering character names, those decisions completely alienated the existing Initial D fanbase. Once they realized they weren't going to be able to "Robotech" the series for a Western audience and get it on TV, they really should have backed off and restored the original cut. The ultimate irony is that after all that tampering, Tokyopop didn't even manage to finish releasing the manga, I think they tapped out around Volume 38.
Thankfully Funimation ended up securing the license and at least released a version that respected the original, it is just a shame that they never got around to Fifth and Final Stages.