4Kids made the 2003 TMNT cartoon and various anime dubs, why did the TMNT cartoon seem darker then their usual anime dubs?

[The Overlord]

4Kids is a company with a reputation for draconian censorship in terms of anime dubs (editing out anything with violence and sexuality, removing Japanese references and replacing them with American ones) and yet they also made the 2003 TMNT cartoon, which was dark for a Sat morning cartoon on a major network at the time. Shredder is a mass murderer and Leo is actively trying to kill him (he tried to behead Shredder, which didn't work, doesn't mean he didn't try), Shredder maimed Baxter Stockman till he was just a brain in a jar and seemed to have content that wouldn't have flown in one of their usual anime dubs.

Why do you think 4Kids was more loose with restrictions regarding TMNT over their anime dubs?

 

[Low Spark of Lyman]

I remember reading that it had to with TMNT being an original production, unlike all the anime dubs, so 4Kids and Mirage, I think, were able to negotiate when it came to the dark aspects of the show. Since 4Kids didn't have a hand with the anime they acquired, they were far more strident in censoring them for the dub versions.

Of course, that was a while ago (that I read that). I wouldn't be surprised if that answer was just speculation and/or got overturned since then.

 

[Mostezli]

Basing off of One Piece in relation to TMNT:

• No blood ✔
• No suggestive attire ✔
• No Christ references ✔ (the cross)
• No smoking ✔
• No drinking ✔
• No realistic firearms ✔ (purple dragons had over-sized laser shooting glue guns, rpgs are extraordinary enough to pass censors)
• No cultural barriers ✔ (ninjas/samurais/karate have always been the extent of accepted Japanese influences)

It's a popular stateside cash-cow vs licenses to foreign imports (even if their merchandise was immensely trendy here). The execs may have considered they'd be making the next Jackie Chan Adventures, which they wound up doing anyhow after being forced to tone it down for TV-rating purposes. What they got instead for those 5 seasons was something aspiring to Disney & DC precedence.

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

To answer your question, it's because it was due to it being an original series from 4Kids than an anime dub and occupied the position once held by Power Rangers on Fox's Saturday morning slot in terms of being popular toyetic franchises.

 

[The Overlord]

Basing off of One Piece in relation to TMNT:

• No blood ✔
• No suggestive attire ✔
• No Christ references ✔ (the cross)
• No smoking ✔
• No drinking ✔
• No realistic firearms ✔ (purple dragons had over-sized laser shooting glue guns, rpgs are extraordinary enough to pass censors)
• No cultural barriers ✔ (ninjas/samurais/karate have always been the extent of accepted Japanese influences)

It's a popular stateside cash-cow vs licenses to foreign imports (even if their merchandise was immensely trendy here). The execs may have considered they'd be making the next Jackie Chan Adventures, which they wound up doing anyhow after being forced to tone it down for TV-rating purposes. What they got instead for those 5 seasons was something aspiring to Disney & DC precedence.

Ah, but let me take issue with some of that.

First I heard One Piece was foisted on 4Kids by Toei, who made them take it as part of a package deal. I think 4Kids knew it is was aimed at an older audience than their usual fare., but mistakes were made.

The only prominent human female character was April and for some reason, she wore a crop top, even in situations where that would make no sense. There is a scene where she is in a lab, with a lab coat and a crop top, its like the image for the ''Hot Scientist'' on TV Tropes:

Hot Scientist - TV Tropes

It not may be as fan servicery as the One Piece, but putting her in a crop top in setting where it makes no sense, seems to be putting fan servicey outfits over what someone should wear in that situation. I think that is suggestive attire, almost to point of defying logic in some situations.

I do not think the TMNT or Spinter are Christians, April may be, but that is never really said in the Mirage comics, so there wouldn't be any crosses regardless.

The TMNT are too young to be drinking, I think in the Mirage comics April would have the occasional glass of wine and Casey would have a beer sometimes, but that was not a huge part of their character. The biggest drinker from the comics is April's sister Robyn, who was very disorganized compared to April and she only appeared in one episode of the 4Kids series. Also, I am not sure I have ever seen anyone smoke in the Mirage comics, there was villain in the Archie comics who had a cigar, a vile villain named Mr. Null, who I think is interesting, but likely will not show in animation any time soon and is from a but that is a different continuity.

TMNT actually would occasionally mention something beyond the surface level in regards to Japan, like Shredder mentioning the conquest of Japan by the Tokugawa clan, heck that is something that is actually educational and interesting. Its more than they let into the Pokemon dub.

Yeah no blood in this series, but Donnie did kill Shredder with a giant drill in ''Same As it Never Was'', he was an alien, but you get see him die. There was also an episode called ''Insane in the Membrane'', which just featured body horror, I think the network didn't let that one air, it did air in other countries, but still 4Kids made it and it's pretty out there, April kicks a rotting Baxter Stockman and dislocates his jaw.

The gun thing I can agree with, with all the recent gun violence in America, I doubt you will see realistic guns in kids cartoons any time soon. This is less of an issue in Japan, which has really strict gun laws.

 

[Fone Bone]

I loved that show.

 

[Mostezli]

Ah, but let me take issue with some of that.

First I heard One Piece was foisted on 4Kids by Toei, who made them take it as part of a package deal. I think 4Kids knew it is was aimed at an older audience than their usual fare., but mistakes were made.

The only prominent human female character was April and for some reason, she wore a crop top, even in situations where that would make no sense. There is a scene where she is in a lab, with a lab coat and a crop top, its like the image for the ''Hot Scientist'' on TV Tropes:

Hot Scientist - TV Tropes

It not may be as fan servicery as the One Piece, but putting her in a crop top in setting where it makes no sense, seems to be putting fan servicey outfits over what someone should wear in that situation. I think that is suggestive attire, almost to point of defying logic in some situations.

I do not think the TMNT or Spinter are Christians, April may be, but that is never really said in the Mirage comics, so there wouldn't be any crosses regardless.

The TMNT are too young to be drinking, I think in the Mirage comics April would have the occasional glass of wine and Casey would have a beer sometimes, but that was not a huge part of their character. The biggest drinker from the comics is April's sister Robyn, who was very disorganized compared to April and she only appeared in one episode of the 4Kids series. Also, I am not sure I have ever seen anyone smoke in the Mirage comics, there was villain in the Archie comics who had a cigar, a vile villain named Mr. Null, who I think is interesting, but likely will not show in animation any time soon and is from a but that is a different continuity.

TMNT actually would occasionally mention something beyond the surface level in regards to Japan, like Shredder mentioning the conquest of Japan by the Tokugawa clan, heck that is something that is actually educational and interesting. Its more than they let into the Pokemon dub.

Yeah no blood in this series, but Donnie did kill Shredder with a giant drill in ''Same As it Never Was'', he was an alien, but you get see him die. There was also an episode called ''Insane in the Membrane'', which just featured body horror, I think the network didn't let that one air, it did air in other countries, but still 4Kids made it and it's pretty out there, April kicks a rotting Baxter Stockman and dislocates his jaw.

The gun thing I can agree with, with all the recent gun violence in America, I doubt you will see realistic guns in kids cartoons any time soon. This is less of an issue in Japan, which has really strict gun laws.

If that package deal is the case, then they would have if they could have avoided some of those shows.
Maybe even get more western exclusive seasons of Ultimate Muscle.

Bare your midriff

Western Animation in particular seems to love this, since it's an easy form of Fanservice that the radar invariably misses.

My first impression was she was too cool for school or a disgruntled underpaid employee with that casual look and lab coat.

Well yeah, TMNT in of itself had less to restrict because those particular aspects were infrequent or nonexistent beforehand.

If the contextualized intention is to make the accepted mainstream concepts cooler, brief ancient history lessons don't count. It had to be a modern thing prominent in the East that would alienate Westerners like
"jelly-filled donuts".

That's the season they realized the show makers went too far and so they course corrected like no other. The following seasons are far & away more drastic than the average anime dub. They sat on the 5th season as long as they could and tried to hide it as much as they could, so I'm assuming it aired before Back to the Sewer because that season's production wasn't yet finalized.

 

[The Overlord]

If that package deal is the case, then they would have if they could have avoided some of those shows.
Maybe even get more western exclusive seasons of Ultimate Muscle.

Bare your midriff
My first impression was she was too cool for school or a disgruntled underpaid employee with that casual look and lab coat.

Well yeah, TMNT in of itself had less to restrict because those particular aspects were infrequent or nonexistent beforehand.

But at a certain point, we are merely talking about different creative choices a franchise makes rather than censorship, a different creative choice is not always based on censorship, its often based on creator preferences rather than censorship.

For example, Marvel never seems to want Spider-Man to drink alcohol, I do not think that has happened in any comic, movie, video game or cartoon I have seen. That is not to say Marvel is opposed to alcohol consumption, alcoholism is part of Tony Stark's character in the comics, but Marvel has made Spidey a teetotaler, which is fine, people like that exist in the real world. At this point, Spidey getting drunk all the time would seem out of character.

Likewise, in Japan crosses are seen as ''cool and creepy'' and in the US they are ubiquitous unless a character is pretty religious, you wouldn't have them wearing a cross just to be cool.

The gun thing is more obvious censorship, but that is does reveal a real dividing line in the amount of gun violence in the US vs. Japan, if the US did not have this recent uptick in gun violence, we would see more realistic guns in American cartoons now, IMO.

TMNT and One Piece are very different franchises from other, so its hard to compare, One Piece levels of fan service are tricky in a franchise where a lot of the cast are not human and that level of fan service does not always serve the story the creators want to tell. Heck, I think the 2014 TMNT film was criticized for making April too much of a fan service character in that film.

If we wanted to compare the direct source material, the One Piece Manga with the darker TMNT comics (mainly the Mirage comics, which the 2003 cartoon was based on, but I think the later Archie comics and IDW comics had some interesting takes), I think we choices made in regards to writers preferences, rather than censorship.

If the contextualized intention is to make the accepted mainstream concepts cooler, brief ancient history lessons don't count. It had to be a modern thing prominent in the East that would alienate Westerners like "jelly-filled donuts".

I do not think anime or American cartoons with Japanese elements in them, are necessarily trying to be cultural ambassadors for Japan. With both Japanese and American animation writers, they will tell the story they want, with the cultural references they are familiar with.

I think 4Kids trying to censor Japanese elements from Pokemon is bad, but I did like the historical stuff from the 2003 TMNT cartoon, because I like history.

That's the season they realized the show makers went too far and so they course corrected like no other. The following seasons are far & away more drastic than the average anime dub. They sat on the 5th season as long as they could and tried to hide it as much as they could, so I'm assuming it aired before Back to the Sewer because that season's production wasn't yet finalized.

Fair enough, still 5 seasons of this content are not bad and it was somewhat daring for a company like 4Kids. Perhaps ''Insane in the Membrane'' getting pulled by network scared them. The same thing happened to the Real Ghostbusters, network executives thought the show was too scary for kids, so they had the creators pull back on the horror elements and focus more on Slimer, which ruined the show and led to it being canceled.

I remember reading that it had to with TMNT being an original production, unlike all the anime dubs, so 4Kids and Mirage, I think, were able to negotiate when it came to the dark aspects of the show. Since 4Kids didn't have a hand with the anime they acquired, they were far more strident in censoring them for the dub versions.

Of course, that was a while ago (that I read that). I wouldn't be surprised if that answer was just speculation and/or got overturned since then.

I think 4Kids dealt with Peter Laird directly and he wanted something similar to BTAS in terms of adapting the Mirage comics to animation, while Toei just foisted One Piece on 4Kids and did not seem to care what they did with at first, as long as it got to the US market.

 

[Low Spark of Lyman]

I wasn't the one who specifically brought up One Piece, but okay.

On another note, if 4Kids didn't have much of a problem with Winx Club*, then I really don't think they saw the 2003 version of April as too suggestive.

*Also an import/dub, albeit not from Japan

 

[The Overlord]

I wasn't the one who specifically brought up One Piece, but okay.

On another note, if 4Kids didn't have much of a problem with Winx Club*, then I really don't think they saw the 2003 version of April as too suggestive.

*Also an import/dub, albeit not from Japan

I know but I was illustrating a point, that Laird cared more about what 4Kids did with his property than Toei did with their property, which may be the key difference.

 

[Low Spark of Lyman]

I know but I was illustrating a point, that Laird cared more about what 4Kids did with his property than Toei did with their property, which may be the key difference.

I see, but might that have been the case with many, if not all, of the other anime 4Kids acquired?

 

[The Overlord]

I see, but might that have been the case with many, if not all, of the other anime 4Kids acquired?

That is my point, I think Laird was more willing to hold 4Kids feet to the fire than most of the Japanese producers, at least at first. Eventually they got mad at 4Kids handing of their properties and took them away and Laird sold TMNT to Viacom and let them do whatever they wanted with it.

 

[Low Spark of Lyman]

That is my point, I think Laird was more willing to hold 4Kids feet to the fire than most of the Japanese producers, at least at first. Eventually they got mad at 4Kids handing of their properties and took them away and Laird sold TMNT to Viacom and let them do whatever they wanted with it.

And not long after came a phoenix: 4Licensing Corporation. Not sure if I'd call that a coincidence.

 

[Mostezli]

But at a certain point, we are merely talking about different creative choices a franchise makes rather than censorship, a different creative choice is not always based on censorship, its often based on creator preferences rather than censorship.

For example, Marvel never seems to want Spider-Man to drink alcohol, I do not think that has happened in any comic, movie, video game or cartoon I have seen. That is not to say Marvel is opposed to alcohol consumption, alcoholism is part of Tony Stark's character in the comics, but Marvel has made Spidey a teetotaler, which is fine, people like that exist in the real world. At this point, Spidey getting drunk all the time would seem out of character.

Likewise, in Japan crosses are seen as ''cool and creepy'' and in the US they are ubiquitous unless a character is pretty religious, you wouldn't have them wearing a cross just to be cool.

The gun thing is more obvious censorship, but that is does reveal a real dividing line in the amount of gun violence in the US vs. Japan, if the US did not have this recent uptick in gun violence, we would see more realistic guns in American cartoons now, IMO.

TMNT and One Piece are very different franchises from other, so its hard to compare, One Piece levels of fan service are tricky in a franchise where a lot of the cast are not human and that level of fan service does not always serve the story the creators want to tell. Heck, I think the 2014 TMNT film was criticized for making April too much of a fan service character in that film.

If we wanted to compare the direct source material, the One Piece Manga with the darker TMNT comics (mainly the Mirage comics, which the 2003 cartoon was based on, but I think the later Archie comics and IDW comics had some interesting takes), I think we choices made in regards to writers preferences, rather than censorship.



I do not think anime or American cartoons with Japanese elements in them, are necessarily trying to be cultural ambassadors for Japan. With both Japanese and American animation writers, they will tell the story they want, with the cultural references they are familiar with.

I think 4Kids trying to censor Japanese elements from Pokemon is bad, but I did like the historical stuff from the 2003 TMNT cartoon, because I like history.



Fair enough, still 5 seasons of this content are not bad and it was somewhat daring for a company like 4Kids. Perhaps ''Insane in the Membrane'' getting pulled by network scared them. The same thing happened to the Real Ghostbusters, network executives thought the show was too scary for kids, so they had the creators pull back on the horror elements and focus more on Slimer, which ruined the show and led to it being canceled.



I think 4Kids dealt with Peter Laird directly and he wanted something similar to BTAS in terms of adapting the Mirage comics to animation, while Toei just foisted One Piece on 4Kids and did not seem to care what they did with at first, as long as it got to the US market.

I am mostly looking at in terms of what the network had to tend with. The fact that TMNT isn't known for alcohol, smoking, or religious iconography meant that they didn't have to worry about that in the first place...unless for w/e reason they were adapting the 90s movie where they had smoking child soldiers.

In the US, any cartoon with Christ imagery nets a TV-MA rating. I don't doubt the same applies with those other elements.

You'll find those things that had to be censored in One Piece in a ton of other anime aimed at the same age group (preteens). It wasn't a matter of if the character was human or not.
It's what they were allowed to show on a Saturday morning block.
^See also, the "Americanization" being so it can be distributed internationally.
That's why 4kids typically stuck with toyetic shows when they imported from Japan and the stuff for slightly older kids were western-based. YuGiOh would be the one toyetic series that had its feet in both.
Toonami got the rest of those "other anime" and its programming aired in the afternoon or primetime.

And here's the thing with TMNT or BTAS or Gargoyles or etc., every network lets a select few push their boundaries given the high demand for supplying those exact shows.

 

[Terror of Death]

For some reason a little of westerners consider Japanese fiction to be more harmful/obscene than their own. 4kids allowed TMNT to often get away with stuff that had a zero tolerance policy towards when it came to their anime. The script would sometimes include words like murder, die, kill, blood, but in anime it would always be changed destroy or injure. Characters in TMNT could be killed or maimed whenever the writers felt but when it came to anime they had to explain the person was captured, knocked out, or recieved some vague punishment. No weapon except for guns were off limit in TMNT but in anime they were often digitally erased or covered in a glowing light. Hits were not allowed to connect or would be replaced with stars and flashes. The list goes on and on.

You see this a lot in the videogame industry where anime games are constantly censored for the tiniest thing but dozens of American games show depictions of violent and sexaul content that are way more graphic. Stuff like GTA, Call of Duty, God of War, Assassin's Creed & Mortal Kombat would be edited to hell and back if they were ever replaced with anime designs, even with a M rating.