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She's a Man In Japan: Difference between revisions
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*** What, so they just sit there in hammerspace and talk while they're transformed?
** The Russian dub of ''Sailor Stars'' left the Starlights as they were (male in civilian form, female when transformed -- with two sets of voices, even)... and added the same quirk to poor Haruka, who was voiced by a man in civilian form. The best part is that this change made no sense: Haruka was already acknowledged to be female (''and'' in relationship with Michiru) in the third season, which was translated several years before by a different company; apparently, the new translators were not familiar with the previous translation -- let alone the ''original'' -- considering [[Inconsistent Dub|how many names and spells were screwed up in the transition]].
* Ruby Moon in ''[[
* In ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'', Iori (Cody) is male in Japan and in America, but in Portugal, they accidentally thought he was female, and "she" referred to "herself" as a girl for the whole series. Needless to say, [[Distant Finale|the epilogue where they showed him all grown up]] got some strange reactions.
** The German version of Renamon from ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' is male. ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'''s [[Spell My Name
*** Renamon's genderswap was even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] (sorta) in one episode. "He" explained that while Digimon can be gendered, they don't have biological sexes. Rika's mother then replied that "he" looks very feminine.
*** The Spanish voice actress for Renamon sounds blatantly male, producing confusion about her gender for a while. After evolving into Sakuyamon, though, it would be hard to picture her as a guy again...
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** Fandom has debated whether Digimon like Floramon and Biyomon changed genders when they evolved into more feminine-looking forms. And there are fans who insist that Patamon is female.
** The Filipino dub of ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'' mistook Daisuke's older sister, Jun, for a male (likely because the name "Jun" is commonly a boy's name in the Philippines and because of the rather androgynous body types of most young females in the series) and gave her a male voice actor in her first appearance. All succeeding episodes, however, rectified this, with no explanation at all as to the sudden change in voice gender.
** The ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' dub played with some of this, as it included a <s>LordKnightmon</s> [[Spell My Name
* Nitro Convoy from ''Transformers: Galaxy Force'' became the female Override for the dub ''[[Transformers Cybertron]]''. They also did this with a generic motorcycle refugee; her Tfwiki.net article even has a link to this page.
** In the Hungarian dub (translated from the English version, not the Japanese), Override started out as a male, but no one noticed the weirdness because of the gender-neutral pronouns. Then Bud referred to "him" as a "chick" at one point. The show took a long break without any new episodes airing, and when it continued, [[Inconsistent Dub|Override became female, and likewise, other characters also received new voices]].
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** This is made even more ridiculous by the fact that this was a direct-to-DVD dub, which usually serves as an (additional) point of getting the people who already have the fansubs to buy the DVD. Needless to say, the dubbing company did not even care enough to redub the wrongly-dubbed parts after [[The Reveal]]. Would've costed money, you know...
* In ''[[Naruto]]'' Yashamaru, Gaara's androgynous uncle that [[Half-Identical Twins|looks like his mother]] was made a woman in the Italian and Polish version of the manga (though apparently not the anime). Of course, in the versions where he wasn't changed, the only real way to actually know he was male was when either a character referred to him as such (especially the manga, where you couldn't even tell his gender by his voice).
** In Japan, Yashamaru was voiced by the same guy who did Kazuki in ''[[
** The "-maru" kind of gives it away. If you know Japanese naming conventions.
** Supposedly Shiore, the grass ninja from the Chunin exam that {{spoiler|was really Orochimaru in disguise}}, was changed from male to female in the English dub (he/she definitely ''did'' have a [[Mary Elizabeth McGlynn|female voice actor]]). This is hard to say, as Shiore said little, was talked about little, and is ''incredibly androgynous''.
** Incredibly, the decidedly female-looking Kurenai spoke in a male's voice at her first appearance in the first Hungarian dub. The second dubbing team payed more attention.
* Levin, the androgynous [[Camp Gay]] mechanic from ''[[
* The Filipino ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' dub (renamed "Ghost Fighter") is rather infamous for this. Originally, Kurama was thought to be a girl, dubbed by a female voice actor, and named Denise. They [[Hand Wave|hand waved]] it later, by explaining no, his name's really ''Dennis'' and he impersonates a girl while in the human world -- then this is, apparently, never spoken of again. Worse was [[Old Master]] Genkai, dubbed as Master Jeremiah, and thought to be a man. It must have been strange when ''he'' suddenly turned into a [[Megumi Hayashibara]]-voiced (okay, not in the dub), pink-haired young girl.
** The Kurama thing was apparently figured out in a scene where he rips his shirt open, revealing a very flat male chest. Apparently the fact that he's always running around in a BOY'S uniform never caught their attention.
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* CLAMP has a thing for genderless characters; the angels in ''Wish'' are genderless too, so long as the translated languages had genderless pronouns. Other times Kohaku was referred to as female ([[Tokyo Pop]]) or male (French Canadian?). Confusing the whole bit is the presence of the tightly-dressed cat demons, who look distinct from them and are very clearly female.
** The Spanish translations of ''Wish'' and ''[[RG Veda]]'' have turned the androgynous characters (Kohaku and Hisui in the former, Ashura in the latter) to feminine, too.
** Interestingly, Kohaku appears in the Japanese anime for ''[[Kobato.]]''. Kohaku's female seiyuu has a VERY feminine voice and the animation is far less ambiguous than the manga artwork.
* [[Tokyo Pop]] made another mess when Quiche ("Kish") in ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'' referred to Tart as a "witch" in his first appearance. Given the male villains' revealing uniforms, an open top had unfortunate implications, so it's lucky that he was reverted to a boy when they figured it out.
* More fun with [[Tokyo Pop]]. In his first appearance, ''[[
** [[Tokyo Pop]] also fixed the error in Kazuki's introductory volume for later printings, making the original printings with the errors somewhat of a prize in the fandom, if just for the comedic value.
* And yet more from [[Tokyo Pop]]! In their translation of ''[[Gundam SEED Astray]]'', primary antagonist Rondo Ghina Sahaku is referred to as "she", "bitch", and "sister". No points for guessing Ghina's gender in the original manga. Their official website even refers to Ghina as "androgynous", which is technically true, but comes off as justification for their mistake. Amusingly enough, the official Japanese website quite distinctly marks Ghina with a male symbol, and voiced adaptations is played by the same person who played ''[[Zeta Gundam]]'' protagonist Kamille Vidan - [[Irony|who was himself mocked for having a girl's name]].
* Apparently due to a mistake, Kouhei and Youhei Tanaka from ''[[The Prince of Tennis]]'' are girls in the Latin-American dub.
** This is especially amusing, considering PoT isn't well-known for girl characters to begin with.
* Snake from ''[[Demashita!
** Used with Little Arturo and one of the Amoeba Boys, who are male in the original American cartoon, but girls in the anime.
* This was a problem for some time with Zophise (Zofis) in ''[[Zatch Bell]]''. Lack of gender-specific pronouns, a feminine countenance and a female VA in the anime caused many scanlations and fansubs to assume Zophise was female, but [[Word of God]] set the record straight - Zophise is male.
* The Cat King's main messenger in ''The Cat Returns'' has a distinctly female voice in Japanese and a distinctly male voice in English. The cat's appearance seems to be modeled loosely on an archetypal Japanese female servant, but the character's clownish function in the movie must have seemed better suited to a male in America.
** In the English dub of ''[[The Cat Returns]]'', the cat servant Natoru is male and voiced by Andy Richter, but in the original Japanese version and most other dubs, the character is female, although the character does behave rather flamboyantly in the English version.
* Many European translations of ''[[
** In the original American dub of ''[[
{{quote| '''Frieza''': You left the seat warm. How nice.}}
** This, like every other aspect of the show, is made fun of in [[Dragonball Z Abridged]].
{{quote| '''Krillin''': That thing's a guy?!}}
** Speaking of [[Dragon Ball Abridged]]: {{spoiler|Dodoria, male in the series, was turned into a girl for the abridged series. Unlike these examples, though, this was [[Played for Laughs]] to invoke [[Dropped a Bridget On Him]]. (And also because the 'canon' reveal of Frieza destroying Vegeta's home planet was already common knowledge in the abridged series.)}}
* In an episode of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]!'' Yugi mentions that the card he finds most similar to himself is Maha Vailo, which he refers to as a male (and is dubbed with a male voice when it's used later in the show). In Japan, however, the creature on the card is female, a fact which Yugi admits to being embarrassed about.
* Tigrerra from ''[[Bakugan]]'' is subjected to this trope, which becomes painfully obvious when "she" becomes Blade Tigrerra. also, Ingram from the New Vestroia series has a female voice despite a clearly male body, which can only suggest that while the second series was being animated, Ingram was intended to be male, but was made female to seem like more of a successor to Skyress, Shun's former partner
** Ingram's situation was made WORSE when s/he evolved into Master Ingram...with a male voice to boot! Fixed but broken at the same time!!
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* [[Ambiguous Gender|Potentially]] Crona in ''[[Soul Eater]]''.
** Specifically, Crona is intentionally of [[Ambiguous Gender]], yet is referred to with male pronouns in the official English releases of the manga and anime. In both cases, the translators acknowledge that Crona is supposed to be of either gender and admit that they themselves don't know which could be the right one, but because [[Abusive Parents|only Medusa has the jurisdiction of calling Crona "it"]], they had to pick a gender because dodging pronouns would lead to some very awkward sentence structure.
* In the original ''[[Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
* The Latin American dub of ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'' did this to Souji Okita, who the translator apparently didn't realize was a real historical figure.
* Inverted in the Hungarian dub of Bleach, which accidentally turned Kiyone into a man for the first few episodes she appeared in. A gay man. They eventually corrected this after noticing what the fans have been nagging them about for weeks: She's got boobs.
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* In various translations (such as the Spanish ones) [[Terry Pratchett]]'s Death from the [[Discworld]] series was given female pronouns, usually due to Death being personified as female in many countries (which in turn is because "la mort" is a feminine noun). This has mostly been fixed in the translations of his more recent books.
** The French translations of the earlier books all feature a footnote [[A Worldwide Punomenon|pun]] about Death being male because he's a necessary evil<ref>''"la Mort est mâle, car c'est un mal nécessaire"''</ref>; the French words for "male" and "evil" sound the same. In later books, though, the footnote is still here, but basically saying, "Yes, Death is masculine. That's just the way it is."
** The Spanish translation of ''[[Discworld
* In the Italian translation of ''[[The Ancestral Trail]]'', the (female) Guardian of Insects Kika was changed to a male.
* A rare case of this happening within the same language: John Benson's 1640 edition of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare's sonnets]] messes about with them considerably, including changing a few pronouns so that the sonnets adressed to the Fair Lord were now adressed to a woman, turning the borderline [[Ho Yay|homoeroticism]] into straight-up love poetry.
* The Young Adult version of [[Clive Cussler]]'s Iceberg removes the fact that one of the [[Villainous Crossdresser|female villains is a actually a transvestite]]. The other one is a Post-Op Transsexual.
* In [[Soviet Russia]] (and most likely in Russia to this day), Bagheera the black panther is female, in both the book and the movie of ''[[The Jungle Book (
* Likewise, Owl ("Sova" in Russian) from ''[[Winnie the Pooh]]'' is female, for similar reasons.
* In the Italian translation of the ''[[Harry Potter (
* Following that pattern is the March Hare in [[Alices Adventures in Wonderland]] who is female in the Spanish version of the novel. A lot of times, when a language does not have gender-neutral pronouns, an animal will be referred to as a "he" or "she" depending on the "gender" of the word of the species if gender is unknown or does not matter.
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* The female Yellow Rangers in many of the ''[[Power Rangers]]'' shows were guys in the original ''[[Super Sentai]]'', presumably changed to try to avoid [[The Smurfette Principle]]. (The most noticeable clue to this fact is that while the Pink Ranger tends to have a skirt, the Yellow does not.) In fact, ''[[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger|Zyuranger]]'''s Tiger Ranger, who became the first ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|Mighty Morphin]]'' Yellow Ranger, was, by a funny fluke, named ''Boi''. This hasn't happened since ''[[Power Rangers Wild Force|Wild Force]]'', though, because the Japanese ''Sentai'' series have been putting two girls in the cast more frequently these last years, as well as the fact it was becoming increasingly difficult to try to pretend that the morphed males were actually females.
** The occasional [[Monster of the Week]] has been voiced as the opposite sex of its Sentai counterpart, the most major recent example being ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]'''s Crazar. Also, the [[Power Rangers Mystic Force|Snow Prince]] was a woman in [[Mahou Sentai Magiranger|the source material Sentai]].
** And now ''[[Power Rangers]]'' is headed towards an interesting conundrum involving this, thanks to ''[[
== Myth And Legend ==
* Avalokitesvara, the (male) Bodhisattva of compassion, is known as the female Gwanyin in China and Kannon in Japan.
** In the classic Chinese novel ''[[Journey to
** So in the TV series ''[[Monkey]]'', Kuan Yin is played by a man with a woman's voice, even in the English dub. It's even lampshaped: 'Kuan Yin? Her with the five-o-clock shadow?'
** Actually, looks the Bodhisattva Guanyin has ambiguous gender at least in China (also, see the statues in Buddhist temples in China).
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== Video Games ==
* In the ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' franchise Birdo is... confusing. In Japan, Birdo was a male [[Cross Dresser]] named "'''Catherine'''". The US manual description says "He thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He'd rather be called 'Birdetta'." (The last tidbit was ultimately removed). This gave gamers the impression that Birdo was in fact transsexual, an impression that has stuck ever since (in fact, the European ''Super Mario Strikers'' website still refers to Birdo as male.)
** Also in the Japan game Captain Rainbow, Birdo was arrested for [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|using the girl's room]]
** Which just raises more questions (like where the eggs were coming from)!
** Nintendo's official position now is that both are female, [[Retcon|and always have been]]. ''[[
*** Apparently no one's told the writers of ''Nintendo Power'' about the company's official position... From issue #250 (January 2010)
{{quote| At once a male crossdresser and a female love interest for Yoshi, Birdo is an enigma, and determining his/her gender is one of life's biggest questions. Then there's the fact that Birdo shoots eggs out of his/her mouth...hole...thing.}}
*** And then you get the somewhat subtle subtext in the Popple/Birdo partnership in ''[[Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
** In the extremely strange Nintendo game ''[[Captain Rainbow]]'', ''''Catherine'''' is quite clearly transsexual, and gives you quests to help her prove to prospective male dates that she's a girl including ''finding her missing vibrator''.
** This is possibly confused by the fact that Birdo's voice clips in Super Mario Advance were recorded by a female voice actor. And that the green Birdo sounds like a drag queen.
* Poison the "punk" girl member of the Mad Gear Gang from ''[[Final Fight]]'' who later becomes Hugo's manager in ''[[
* In the Japanese version of ''[[
** The [[Word of God]] confirms that Serenade is a sort of perfected being without a sex.
** In the Megaman NT Warrior manga, Serenade is referred to both as "he" and "she".
** Technically, as a computer program, Serenade wouldn't have a gender.
* ''[[Wild Arms
** Amusing is how the [[Strategy Guide]] just alternates using "he" and "she" when referring to Caina.
* In the original ''[[Bloody Roar]]'', the fighter Fox is a rather masculine woman or a rather feminine man, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're playing on. Fox is male in Japan, remains male in the US release, but becomes female in Europe.
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* Spinni from ''[[Kirby|Kirby: Squeak Squad]]'', who is female in the Japanese manual, but male in translated versions.
** Speaking of Kirby, Coo the Owl is female in Japan, but male in America. (it says so on the Kirby Wiki)
* Rumors still persist that ''[[
** He was dubbed with a male voice in Dissidia (both in japanese and in English), so unless that's not being considered a canon affirmation of his gender, he's male.
** [[Viewer Gender Confusion|Let's take her to Thamasa.]] Also, we never learned Quina's gender, so s/he and {{spoiler|Vivi}} could be the first same-sex marriage in ''Final Fantasy''.
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* The character Harpuia in ''[[Mega Man Zero]]'' looks feminine and has a female voice actor. No pronoun is used for him in the first English game, so many Western players wondered if he was supposed to be a woman. Capcom USA -- unaware that the character would soon become more important -- basically said "why not?" They realized their mistake before translating the sequels, but for a while it was actually [[Word of God]] that Harpuia was female, and many casual players still think so. (It's grounds for a [[Gannon Banned|Gannon-Ban]].)
** Cubit Foxtar from ''Zero 3'' is also worth mentioning. The Rockman Zero Remastered CD confirmed him as an effeminate male, but the English translation of ''Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works'' he is stated to be female. If anything, him really being a man makes more sense in a way, as Kitsune (the fox spirit on which he is based) were often said to take the forms of beautiful women to lure travelers away.
* While all classes in ''[[
** Not when they go White Wizard and (in the original) sport pecs that rival the Warrior and Black Belt/Monk.
** ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'' probably helped to cement this as [[Fanon]], as well.
*** Or, you know, the fact that every leading White Mage since ''[[
* Cupid in ''[[
* In the NES and the more common US arcade version of ''[[Legendary Wings]]'', Michelle Heart and Kevin Walker were replaced with two generic male characters.
* Ne Zha from Koei's ''[[Houshin Engi]]/FengshenYanyi'' series is a male in the Japanese games, but became a female in ''[[Mystic Heroes]]''. Might be due to his [[Dude Looks Like a Lady]] affair and to add another female to the main cast.
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== Western Animation ==
* The Canadian/American ''[[Transformers]]: [[
* The French dub of the original ''[[Transformers:
** So ''[[Fridge Brilliance|that's]]'' where [[Transformers Animated|Starscream's]] [[Opposite Sex Clone]] came from.
* Gobots characters, Crasher, Smallfoot, Spay-C, Snoop, Vamp, and Pathfinder were not female in Japan, but ''[[Challenge of the Go Bots]]'' convinced fans that they ''were'' female in the American storyline.
** To clarify, Tonka's Gobots toyline was based on models from Bandai's ''[[Machine Robo]]'' toyline. ''[[Machine Robo]]'' had its own anime series, but it had nothing to do with Hanna Barbera's ''[[Challenge of the Go Bots]]''. The ''[[Machine Robo]]'' anime came two years after ''[[Challenge of the Go Bots]]'' was first aired in the United States.
* Sakko in ''[[Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!]]!'', [[Villainous Crossdresser|an evil monkey]] who cross dresses, has been reported to have been turned female in a few dubs to other countries.
* Rusty the diesel in ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'' ended up being female in the US Narration of season 9. Hit Entertainment attempted to get around this claiming that Rusty's gender had never been stated and [http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/26/magazine/sunday-february-26-1995-gender-watch-sex-of-a-new-machine.html?scp=3&sq=britt+allcroft&st=nyt an article] from 1995 indicates that when the books were adapted Rusty was to be genderless. This didn't stop the UK narration of season 9 from using "he" and some fans have argued that the original books called Rusty "he".
* Similar to the Rusty example above, Azrael in ''[[The Smurfs]]'' was given female descriptors in the original ''Spirou'' stories and Peyo's books. They made Azrael male in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, but in a bizarre twist, the gender switch was made canon!
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** It does, however, make the lyrics to "Hotel California" even weirder.
*** Thankfully averted in Spain, where Tails managed to keep his English name (and gender). But he's still [[Cross-Dressing Voices|voiced by a woman]].
* The Brazilian dub of ''[[
* Spanish-language dubs of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' originally referred to Nermal (whom, for some reason, was [[Dub Name Change|Dub Name Changed]] "Telma") as ''gatita'', the word for a female kitten. It was finally changed in the later episodes.
* You know "[[The Ant and
* In the Latin American dub of ''[[X Men the Animated Series]]'', Callisto was mistakenly portrayed as a man during her second guest appearance. For her third guest appearance, she was once again voiced by a female voice actress.
* In the Mexican dub of [[Chowder]], Ceviche is referred as a girl in the character-introducing episode "The Apprentice Games", anyways is referred as a boy in later episodes. The character design...well...doesn't help.
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* Essentially every ''[[My Little Pony]]'' in the first cartoon, except for six or so Stallions who popped up for one episode, were girls. In order to add more gender diversity to the cast certain European countries made certain ponies into boys, typically the ponies with lower voices.
** Generally, in every language thet has gender-specific adjectives, stallion toys are referred to with feminine ones.
** The Polish dub of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
* The Hebrew dub of ''[[Ka Blam!]]'' turned June into a boy, "[[Dub Name Change|John]]". Why? Absolutely no reason at all.
** Unless you add vowel points, both would be spelled the same way in Hebrew (this is the English-phonetics "John," obviously, not its original Hebrew Yoḥanan), and "John" is a much more common name. So it's possible someone just saw it in print and made an assumption.
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