Dub-Induced Plot Hole: Difference between revisions

*** And when the dub was continued by a different company, one of the later episodes of ''SuperS'' finally mentioned the name "Endymion"... except that anyone who was unfamiliar with the original version was not going to know where this name came from all of a sudden.

** Several plotholes popped up because episode 42, the episode that covered Minako's backstory, was dropped. This episode showed the team desperately searching for an entrance in their area to the Dark Kingdom, as well as establishing that the sun was slowly being covered by sun spots, heralding the return of Queen Metaria. They find the entrance at the end of the episode, leading directly to their first assault in Episode 44. There was also another scene of Mamoru being brainwashed and Metaria actually possessing his body, thus explaining why it was so hard to get through to him when he fought with Sailor Moon in the last episode. Since all of this is missing from the dub, the Sailor Scouts are just running into the Negaverse with no explanation, making one wonder why they didn't do this before considering how just one episode earlier, they were willing to make a [[Deal with the Devil]] to get Serena inside. There is no explanation for why Sailor Moon's abilities don't work on Mamoru anymore, though Beryl makes a remark that she put a better spell on him (creating a new plot hole - why didn't she just use that spell ''from the start''?!). There are also numerous shots of the sun in the last episode of the dub (all shots from the combined 45-46) that show the progression of the sun spots. These are left as random, unexplained images in the dub — they never bothered to explain why they were showing images of the sun getting blacked out.

** Another instance cropped up when somebody forgot that the final two episodes of the first season had such alterations made to it. The Japanese version of Episode 46 had a brief scene in the middle of the episode where Mamoru's mental conflict of trying to undo Metaria's brainwashing was shown in his mind as himself in a hospital bed struggling to remember who he was (mirroring his original amnesia over his past before he lost his parents). Usagi, in her school uniform (not as Sailor Moon) appeared and promised she would help him. This scene was, in the dub, used at the end of the episode instead and presented as an event that actually happened, which caused any number of plotholes — such as, why was Darien in the hospital and everyone else from the same fight okay despite everyone suffering grave injury? And how come just one episode later, despite Serena introducing herself to him in the hospital and apparently forming a friendship, do they act like they barely know each other?

*** [[Sailor Moon Abridged]] plays with this a bit:

{{quote|'''Ail''': Queen Beryl was right about Earth '''An''': Who the f*ck is Queen Beryl?}}

** A particularly amusing plothole involves Kaolinite's alias, Kaori. In the dub, when Serena/Usagi visits Dr. Tomoe, she is surprised to see Kaolinite (Kaori Night in the dub) there. In the original, Tomoe says that she is his assistant, Kaori, so Usagi is relieved. In the dub, however, the assistant is ALSO named Kaori Night, prompting Serena to say "I thought she was the evil Kaori Night, but she must be someone else!". Epic [[Clark Kenting]].

** A smaller example is that in the ''S'' season, [[Dub Name Change|Amara and Michelle]] are always calling Usagi "Serena-moon-face-girl", which is not only a stupid insult but it was long before they actually knew Serena was indeed, [[Sailor Moon]].

** An epic plot hole comes in the English dub of episode 96 ("Lita Borrows Trouble"). Lita is riding in a car with Amara and Michelle and this comes up:

{{quote|'''Lita:''' How'd you guys meet then?

* In ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'', [http://mmpu.smuncensored.com/ep13.html Masaya chases Ichigo], who is running away in fear that her [[Secret Identity]] has been exposed. He finally stops her by calling her by her first name instead of her last. In the dub, however, he'd ''always'' called her by her first name, so she just stops for no apparent reason.

** And Bu-ling''/''[[Tokyo Pop|Pudding]]''/''[[4Kids! Entertainment|Kikki]] [http://mmpu.smuncensored.com/ep7.html lives in a shelter] now because she can't live alone... until they show [http://mmpu.smuncensored.com/ep20.html an episode with her house]. Even though it is explained in the dub by Minto''/''[[Tokyo Pop|Mint]]''/''[[4Kids! Entertainment|Corina]] that they had made a mistake in thinking that she lives in a shelter, it was still blatantly obvious that the writers only saw a few episodes at a time and didn't sit down and watch the entire show.

* In the ''Sonic X'' dub, when Robotnik's base explodes as a result of Chaos Control, Amy asks, "What is that?" leading Knuckles to reply, "It used to be Chaos Control.". In the original Japanese, he just says "Chaos Control...". The original is referring to Chaos Control as the power of the emeralds, but the dub seems to use it as the name of Robotnik's base.

** This mistake pops up again. When Robotnk tries to convince Knuckles that Sonic is evil, during a flashback, he talks about how Sonic attacked, invaded, and destroyed Chaos Control, as his base goes by on screen. The first can be excused by having it be be the effects of a warped/subverted form of Chaos Control, this example makes much less sense.

*** Although it's entirely possible that he was sort of sarcastically alluding to a threat of jumping, which seems like something a [[Smug Snake]] like Kaiba would do. If not this, the holograms (especially with the new system they were using, which was ''extremely'' realistic compared to the others, could have blown him back.) It's been shown that the same thing happens, causing peoples hair to be moved as if they were in intense wind when certain things happened during a duel.

** Kaiba's difficulty in translating The Winged Dragon of Ra's effects certainly qualifies. In the original manga and anime, every character who summons the Winged Dragon has to recite a hieratic text in the process, so Kaiba runs a rapid computer translation effort, in an attempt to figure out what the card does and how to properly use it. In the dub, however, characters summoning the monster simply have to recite a rhyming poem, and Kaiba STILL has to run his desperate translation. There was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it handwave that there was more than just the chant printed on the card, and that extra stuff was what Kaiba was trying to translate.

** There's also the matter of the name of Yugi's alter-ego. In the original, he was called "Yami no Yugi" (among other nicknames), meaning "Dark Yugi". Some dub media referred to him as the shortened version "Yami Yugi", and the dub itself took "Yami" and treated it as the character's proper name for season two, with several characters using it. This caused problems because the final season has them searching for his true name "{{spoiler|Atem}}". This was also the case in Latin America. His name was always "Yami Yugi". They attempted an [[Author's Saving Throw]] and failed miserably by removing all mention of "Yami" as his name in the third season and having them go back to saying they don't know who he really is. In season three he's mostly just called "pharaoh" or "Yugi" for the sake of convenience.

*** Worse was when Yami Yugi first said his name to be "Yami", he also said "I've been called many names. ''Pharaoh'', Yu-Gi-Oh, Yami..." Notice "Pharaoh" as one of the names he gave. Then in the next season, he is shocked to learn that he's the spirit of an ancient pharaoh!

* In ''[[Pokémon Special]]'', it is far more common to give your Pokemon nicknames. In the first arc of ''[[Market-Based Title|Pokemon Adventures]]'', nicknames were all but ignored. This made a problem in the second arc, as Red's Pikachu, Pika, now with an expanded role, seems to have suddenly gotten one out of nowhere and everyone acted like it always had one. What more, [[Inconsistent Dub]] is in full effect, as Red's ''other'' Pokémon still aren't called by their nicknames and Yellow keeps switching from using her Pokémon's real names and nicknames. Even Pika.

** In the first Johto arc of ''[[Pokémon Special]]'', Crys is [[Dope Slap|slapped across the face]] by her mother after [[Heroic BSOD|breaking down because she can't capture like she used to]]. ''[[Market-Based Title|Pokemon Adventures]]'' changes this to a firm glare, yet leaves in the shocked expressions on the faces of Crys's Pokemon, Crys's shaking and her holding her face a few panels later. It makes no attempt to explain why Kris is holding her cheek after being glared at.

*** [[Epileptic Trees|Maybe Sinnoh is in the Southern Hemisphere?]]

* Somewere between volumes 4 and 5 of the Tokyopop edition of the ''[[Togainu no Chi]]'' manga, the translators noticed that the character they'd been calling "Nicole Prumier" was actually supposed to be "Nicole Premier". Since this was [[Meaningful Name|plot-relevant]], they had to change it midstory.

* Back when Saban's name was still attached to ''[[Dragonball Z]]'', great pains were taken to remove any references to the fact that Freeza and his men were killing the Nameks by removing bodies in screen, cutting scenes of the killings as well as one of Gohan burying one village, editing the dialogue to refer to them as though they were still alive ''and'' adding random grunts and moans whenever a pile of dead Namekian corpses were on screen. They didn't even bother with the usual [[Never Say "Die"|"next dimension"]] excuse; they simply pretended that the Nameks weren't dead. This doesn't become so much of a plot hole until they finally get around to wishing all of those killed by Freeza back to life, but it was still utterly ridiculous.

** According to the dub of the Android arc, Dr. Gero was the leader of the Red Ribbon Army who Goku had apparently spared long ago and "General" Tao wanted nothing more than world domination. The Red Ribbon Army was led by '''Commander Red''', Goku never met Gero in his childhood and Tao Pai Pai was a '''''mercenary''''' that couldn't care less about world domination. [[Sequel First|When they later dubbed Dragon Ball]], they didn't even attempt to [[Hand Wave]] this instead ignoring it completely.

** The French dub (And all the ones that spawned from it) have this on spades, because of [[Macekre|how terrible it was]]. An example? They never call Vegeta or Freeza by name during a lot of episodes, until they suddenly do and Krillin knows how both of them are called because... he just does. Until then Freeza was "the tyrant" and ''every other bad guy'' is "the enemy" (and still are called that for the whole Namek arc). Talk about confusing...

** The word "Android" was used in place of a more ambiguous Japanese word meaning "artificial human". The English dub initially changed 17 and 18 from human [[Cyborg|cyborgs]] to purely machine, but reversed it when they realized that in later episodes, Krillin and 18 had a daughter.

** In ''[[Transformers Headmasters|Headmasters]]'', Scorponok manages to [[Earthshattering Kaboom|blow up]] both [[The Red Planet|Mars]] and Cybertron. In the English dub of the final episode, Fortress Maximus mentions that they can rebuild Mars, a line which wasn't in the Japanese version. In ''[[Transformers Victory|Victory]]'', which is set about 15 years later, Earth apparently has a massive mining operation on Mars - but if Mars could be rebuilt, why does nobody ever mention Cybertron?

** In ''Galaxy Force'', a mysterious black hole appears next to Cybertron and sucks the planet in; however, in later episodes, characters walk around on the surface without difficulty. When it was redubbed into ''[[Transformers Cybertron|Cybertron]]'', the situation was changed to Cybertron just being perilously close to the black hole. Unfortunately, the translators also decided that the black hole was formed from the death of Unicron at the end of ''[[Transformers Energon|Energon]]'', making ''Cybertron'' a sequel, while in the Japanese continuity it was unconnected to any previous series<ref>Takara has since declared that ''Galaxy Force'' is in continuity with ''Super Link''. It's best not to think too hard about ''Transformers'' [[Continuity]]</ref>. This meant a lot of [[Canon|canonically]] dead characters suddenly appeared alive and well (explained as a result of the Unicron Singularity messing with the space-time continuum) and the Autobots not being familiar with combination, despite the fact that this was a frequent occurrence in ''Energon''.

** Since then, the series has been turned into a full [[Time Skip]] series of the franchise, with Lilo having gone to college being responsible for Stitch leaving and the two reuniting years later where Lilo is now a mother with an identical looking child.

* In the first English adaptation of [[Science Ninja Team Gatchaman]], known as [[Battle of the Planets]], the producers were sent episodes of the anime out of their natural order and decided to dub and translate them as they came. However, this method of dubbing produced quite the plot holes, especially when it came time for them to adapt certain other episodes. Whether you watch this version in Sandy Frank's suggested order or the original Gatchaman order, things just do NOT add up either way. Especially if you're Mark's "friend"/mentor/{{spoiler|father}} Colonel Cronus and they can't decide if you're alive, dead, or the circumstances of your death.

* The [[Hellsing]] manga says that nobody knows where [[Church Militant]], Alexander Anderson is from. The English anime dub opened a hole by giving him a very obvious Scottish accent (or Northern Irish, to some), making it sound like those who say this have never heard of the places corresponding to those accents.

* In episode 44 of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood]]'', Bido recognizes the reincarnated Greed by his voice. In the dub, the second Greed has a different voice actor than the first and the two sound almost nothing alike. This could be justified in that Bido recognizes the second Greed through his Ultimate Shield and catchphrase <ref> The English manga even has Bido recognize the simlarities between the "condescending laugh" of the first Greed and the second, so he might have recognized him there too.</ref>

* In ''[[Yotsubato|Yotsuba&!]]'', when Fuuka asks what Yotsuba's adoptive father is, Yotsuba goes and asks him. He says he's a ''honyakuka'', or translator. Yotsuba comes back and calls him a ''konnyakuka'', someone who makes konjac gel. In the ADV Manga version, however, she says he's a "trainspotter". This is all well and good... until 17 chapters later, when Fuuka seems to be under the impression that he knows a lot about ''konjac'' for what looks to readers of this English translation to be no apparent reason.

* The last episode of ''[[Hamtaro]]'' to be dubbed ("''Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Games''") and aired onto North American television was ACTUALLY a special from ''at least two seasons ahead'' of where the series currently was. The special was dubbed to go along with the 2004 Olympics. However this didn't change the fact that there were a TON of new characters that [[Remember the New Guy?|the Ham-Hams just seemed to "know."]]

* In the Latin American dub of ''[[The Addams Family|Addams Family Values]]'', the joke about Fester's name meaning "rot" is kept even though his name has been changed to Lucas.

* In Russian dub of Robocop, the plot-relevant line "You are fired" ({{spoiler|which leaves the [[Big Bad]] unprotected by the Robocop's directives}}) was translated as, approximately, "You've got burned up".

* According to the Hungarian dub of the first ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' movie, Saruman apparently perfected fighting ''against'' the Uruk-Hai. The dub contained a handful of such bloopers (not all of which got corrected for the DVD), ditto for the second movie, but by the third, the translator finally got just about everything right.

* [[Prince of Space]] wasn't immune to enemy weapon fire in the original Japanese, but picked this up sometime during the conversion to English. Neatly explains why he keeps dodging, doesn't it?

* The Philippine dub of ''[[Kamen Rider Kabuto]]'' removes a scene in the first episode where a pickpocket just barely misses slashing Tendou's throat with a knife. The rest of the scene is unchanged, so Kagami says "You almost got killed!" apparently out of nowhere.

* The syndicated version of Scrubs will occasionally shave of a piece of the episode for whatever reason. This ranges from the removal of a single line "SUCK IT, BITCH!!" to the removal of ''an entire climax''. So sometimes, His Story will end with Dr. Cox growing closer to JD for literally no reason.

 

 

* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' has two very famous examples. Firstly, the more common one: When Celes asks Locke why he saved her in the Japanese Super Nintendo version, he says that he abandoned someone when she needed him. But in the revised Game Boy Advance version he says, "because I’m tired of standing by and doing nothing while I lose the girls I like." Which is it, Square? Either they have the hots for each other or they don't. And the other is a more recently known one through Kotaku. When the party finds Setzer in the second half of the game in SNES, he says that the Empire's made him a rich man, yet in the GBA version he says the Empire's been bad for business.

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'', aka ''Rekka no Ken'', is a prequel to ''another'' game that didn't come out over here. In particular, the game ends on what would appear to be an unexplained cliffhanger that was in fact a setup for the plot of the game that came before it.

* English adaptions of ''[[Bonanza Bros]].''<ref>except for the brothers' ''Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing'' profile, which reverted to the Japanese backstory</ref> claim the [[Villain Protagonist]] thieves are just testing security systems or helping police recover evidence. This doesn't explain why your character appears in prison clothes complete with ball and chain on the game over screen.

* In ''[[Lunar Silver Star Story Complete]]'', Working Designs mistranslated "Mel governs Meribia" as "Mel founded Meribia."