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doodlingwren · 4 hours ago

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@t4tadrienette tags BECAUSE I NEED TO DROP THE WHOLE ITALIAN DUB LORE

I’ve already explained some things in an older post of mine, but it was quite short so I might as well add some more stuff.

AND YES. There’s a lot to unpack… 😂

I suspect the anime dub was based on the French version, although in an article I’ve read the dub director (Enrico Carabelli) said they translated from English [ various sources : x | x | x | x ].

Forget for a moment the fact that a bunch of teens sounds like a group of 30 year olds who have two mortgages on their back. They apparently have a Masters of Art in Liberal Studies with a focus on Italian Literature because they keep quoting poets like Dante or Giacomo Leopardi or Ugo Foscolo!

Okay, jokes aside, the writer that translated and did the dialogue writing adaptation (Stefano Cerioni) went for a more “original” approach that, if everything, made even more memorable and iconic the Classical Series. Hadn’t been for the dignified and courtly way the characters express themselves, I doubt it would have become so iconic. Still today, it's "cavalieri" and not "saints" for Italian fans.

To be fair, I need to add that most of these changes had been made because… they didn’t have a choice. When I said they had the script in English, I mean they had just SOME lines the characters were saying without any other context (on top of the missing lines, only a few episodes had the intro that explained what was going on). And most importantly, they had one day to translate and dub the episode because the next one it would have gone on-air. This also explains why in some occasions a line from an episode contradicts what was said in a previous one. Couldn’t they use the manga? Well, the first edition made by Granata Press was published after the anime was aired (July 1992 versus March 1990), there was no way to know where the plot was going!

In short to make up for the missed context they had to add something and that’s the reason for the literature quotes (erm. making stuff up). Were those additions faithful to the original? Not really, no. But the STYLE they had is UNSURPASSABLE: the acting alone gave such an emphasis that in the end it didn’t matter if what they were saying was correct or not. And this was thanks to the incredibly talented voice actors: despite the fact that the characters change voice actors quite a number of times during the series (ex. Aries Mu had throughout the whole animated series six different voice actors) or the same actor portraying different characters, what was missing was successfully supplemented by their skills.

Besides... since they are Knights and not Saints, all the talking like medieval knights actually makes sense here.

This is because of censorship, a violent cartoon could not be related to the Christian religion. It’s the same reason why the title “Pope” was changed to “High Priest” (Gran Sacerdote), because a villain could not be associated with the word “Pope”.

As in many anime or animated products from Japan from the 80s-90s, Italy generally changed the names to some more “Italian sounding ones”.

Often it was made to allow people to recognize the characters more easily (there was the common misconception of “all cartoons are made for kids”, while some are actually for a more mature audience) and for merchandise reasons. As far as I’m aware, back in the days the animated series were imported thanks to some Toys Factory who wanted to sell dolls, action figures, games and other merchandise in Italy (for Saint Seiya, it was Giochi Preziosi). It was in fact easier for parents to remember names like Phoenix or Andromeda rather than Ikki or Shun!

There are a few ways to do it!

Saints are simply named after their constellations or their stars in Italian:

Shun is Andromeda, Shiryu is Sirio, Seiya is Pegasus etc.

Saints have their names changed in their constellation but in English: Aphrodite is Fish, Shura is Capricorn etc.

YES, some characters got more lucky than others. Shiryu gets to have his own name while Seiya has just the name of his Constellation. This becomes a bit weird if you consider that they are called like this even before obtaining their Cloth!

Exceptions also exist.

Aldebaran got the Italian name for his constellation (Toro). And very funny, Saga is known simply as Gemini, while Kanon keeps his name without any problem. I don’t know why.

Another way was to change them for assonance:

Aiolia becomes Ioria

Mu is now Mur

The last way is to simply change the name completely:

Aiolos is Micene (don’t ask)

Hyoga is Crystal (DON’T ASK)

Shaina is Tisifone

Marin becomes Castalia

Lizard Misty is checks notes… Eris…?

Most of them can only confuse people, especially if you started by reading the manga, which usually keeps the original names (except for some cases).

To be honest, I do like some of these name changes, such as Shaina: Tisiphone is one of the Erinyes, better known as the Furies, Goddesses of Vengeance in Ancient Greek mythology (considering her first appearances… yeah… it suits her very well). Oh, in Greek Mythology, this goddess fell in love with a mortal but was rejected, so her hair turned into a poisonous snake that bit and killed her.

I really liked the Italian Dub, although I am too young to be part of that generation that grew up watching the series on television! But, if you want my personal take, the Italian anime translation should be considered its own thing. I know that even in the original Japanese version the anime and the manga are quite different, but the Italian experience can only be seen for itself.

Saint Seiya, from a pure fandom/meta pov is just fascinating.

Most people have very little consideration for the source material. The lore is mainly builded on 8 specific spin offs -none canon. The show has so much inconsistency that you have to play pick and choose about practically anything. Ages and power systems are basically stickers on a notebook, misplaced and scraped off every new trimester. There are somehow fights on what is canon or not. One of the characters sole existence ledd to the introduction of the term “yaoi” to the world. The girls in the manga are all 16 and terribly written. It’s considered as one of the most iconic shōnen ever. The older fandom is split on either the ones that accuse the new adaptations of “turning the show woke” or the ones that is like “in retrospect they were all kind of gay”. There is so much South American content about that saga it might rivaling the Japanese one. The French part may or may not be a cult for an obscure parody that is the backbone of the entire French anime parody game. The name “knights of the zodiac” definitely comes from European fans trying to guess the og name. It also, funnily enough, makes more sense on the long term than Saint Seiya. Every 10-20 years the USA will make a weird remake that always flops. It was considered a kid show in the 80s, and is still in the collective unconscious of some countries. The author’s favorite part of the fandom is The Gays.

Everything about this serie is a mess from point A to point ω. I love it.

#feathers queue #wren text tag #saint seiya #adding more lore to prev tags. Hope you don't mind 💖#also I love the Italian Fandom bc 90% of the time when I check their forums or videos are always dissing on who's stronger #AND IT'S ALWAYS between Shaka and Saga or Shaka and Mu #and I want to break my silence here. I DON'T CARE #any StS could be god itself but Usagi/Sailor Moon would still be able to kick their ass and kill them like nothing. It's time to move on 🙏#also @mxs-space. Do we even have a decent canon source of canon material to work on begin with? 🤨#tbh that's the fun part. You could put anything in those plot-holes and it wouldn't matter at all

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doodlingwren · 5 hours ago

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