#kristy damon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

commentaryvorg · 2 years

Text

Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 48 - The Ultimate Farewell

This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.

Original name ~ Dubbed name

Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon

Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda

Tohma H. Norstein ~ Thomas H. Norstein

Ikuto Noguchi ~ Keenan Crier

Professor Suguru Daimon ~ Doctor Spencer Damon

Sayuri Daimon ~ Sarah Damon

Chika Daimon ~ Kristy Damon

Kenji Noguchi ~ Kevin Crier

Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson

Yggdrasil ~ King Drasil

Craniummon ~ Craniamon

Dukemon ~ Gallantmon

Piyomon ~ Biyomon

Mercurimon ~ Merukimon

[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]

Marcus’s voice sounds kind of wistful as he reads out the title card for this episode, which, aww.

Masaru: “The power of humans…”

Agumon: “And the power of Digimon…”

Masaru & Agumon: “We’ll show him what we’re both made of!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “You know what time it is?”

Agumon: “My watch says it’s fightin’ time!”

Marcus & Agumon: “For humans, and for Digimon!”

This is almost exactly the same lines they said at the end of episode 47, but not quite, because Agumon didn’t mention his watch back then. (I will let him off for the usage of human terms, because he’s been in the human world long enough to know what a watch is by now.) But then, though the original lines I quoted here were word-for-word the same as the end of 47, there’s a few other brief words before it that also aren’t quite exactly the same, so, hey.

Probably Marcus’s Theme comes in (for what I assume is the last time) and takes its usual place as the dub equivalent of Provocation Infinity, yes, I approve.

The evolutions don’t happen with a fancy animation, so for the only time ever, the dub doesn’t use the evolution BGM for them. Funny, that.

King Drasil: “If you could not defeat me while engaged in Burst Mode, then why do you continue to fight in Champion mode?”

Slightly awkward that King Drasil refers to their current Champion levels as a mode. Regular evolution levels are not the same thing as Burst Mode’s “mode-change” and shouldn’t use that word.

Alas, it seems Probably Marcus’s Theme isn’t actually long enough to get through all of this fight scene, so it ended and switched to a different piece of action music, before we even reach the climactic part where Marcus tries to punch King Drasil and gets caught. The new piece of BGM is more ominous and shifts the mood away from a triumphant one, even as they’re still pressing their attack. The music doesn’t even cut out and switch to anything else until after that moment when they get caught and electrocuted by King Drasil’s vines. It’s like the BGM just put the mood-shift of this scene a minute or so earlier than it should have come; it’s weird.

Yushima: “Look! The Digimon are using all of their efforts to support the Digital World in our place!”

~~~~~

Yushima: “Look there. The Royal Knights have joined our side, trying to stop the Digital World from crashing down on top of us.”

Dub-Yushima may be correct, but I’m not sure how he knows this. From where he is, the Royal Knights aren’t visible, only the other Digimon who are helping to hold the worlds apart through beams of light. I’ve no idea how he could have got the memo that the Royal Knights are also helping now.

Yushima: “So that none of their fights are in vain… we must never give up hope!”

~~~~~

Yushima: “And I know Thomas isn’t giving up any time soon. We must all have faith in our friends and family.”

Yushima mentioning specifically Thomas – since he’s talking to Relena – gives this a more personal note in the dub, which I like.

Relena: “The Digimon are protecting us. They’re fighting for us. […] You can do it, Digimon!”

~~~~~

Relena: “Father, the Digimon. They’re getting stronger. They are! I can feel it! I can feel it! […] Father… I feel it!”

I have absolutely no idea how Relena can feel the Digimon’s strength in the dub. That’s not how it works? It’s kind of literally backwards to how it’s supposed to work, in which Digimon can feel the emotions of humans (whether they’re feeding off them or being influenced by them)?

Which really begs the question of why Relena flares up with DNA Charge here, because her simply feeling the Digimon’s power is not actually anything to do with what triggers a DNA Charge – aka, emotions. There’s no sense here that she’s consciously doing anything herself to try and will the Digimon on and give them the power of her emotions. It's a very weird way to present this.

Rosemon: “I can hear their voices rooting us on to victory!”

Except for Relena, who’s just feeling your power, somehow, without actually rooting you on. At least the rest of this moment gets across the correct impression that it’s humanity consciously willing the Digimon on, but, what the heck was up with Relena’s line, seriously.

So… I guess all of the Digimon are going to consciously feed off humanity’s desire to not die in order to have the power to fight back against King Drasil. Which I guess isn’t too terrible of a way for it to work in this context, but it does put the emphasis a bit less on humanity’s strength and a bit more on the Digimon for making the choice to use their power and do this.

Tohma: “But the power of cherishing our friends and our comrades… is infinite!”

~~~~~

Thomas: “But together, the combined power of all our friends and family is huge!”

It’s kind of cute that Thomas specifically mentions family here, given we’ve just seem glimpses of most of their families. (That might have been the dub’s interpretation of what was subbed as “comrades”, which was the word nakama, which can mean something like a found family but usually isn’t so literal about it.)

Slightly different emphasis in that he’s saying it’s the power of the friends and family themselves, rather than the power of the emotions from caring about them. Which on the one hand is perhaps more correct, in that it is all those other people’s own DNA Charges that are going to be helping here. But then that also reads a bit weirdly as if it’s only the people who are their friends and family who are contributing to this, as if every other human not in that category isn’t also helping.

Yoshino: “We want to stay with each other… Forever!”

Piyomon: “I want to live with Chika… and the humans, too!”

Gotsumon: “So do… So do I!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “We have the will to survive. We want to stay with our loved ones!”

Biyomon: “I wanna stay here in the human world with my friend Kristy!”

Gotsumon: “Me too! I wanna stay here!”

Yoshi’s line is slightly less ambiguously readable as if she’s also talking about humans and Digimon living together, like Yoshino could have been. Especially with Thomas’s line also being more specifically about friends and family, which is less possible to read that way. So it’s a little bit less linked to the lines the Digimon go on to have a moment later.

(Gotsumon’s “me too” is awkwardly timed as if he’s agreeing that Kristy is also his friend, which, bro, you haven’t even met her.)

Dukemon: “By staking the name of the honourable Royal Knights on the line!”

~~~~~

Gallantmon: “Our honour gives us strength, not the word of a King!”

I appreciate that Gallantmon’s line is a bit less generic and more specifically stressing the part where he’s rejected King Drasil’s authority. I can’t help but raise an eyebrow at the idea that he ever had any honour while he was murdering humans on his king’s orders, though.

Yggdrasil: “Unable to compute! Unable to compute!”

~~~~~

King Drasil: “Cannot compute. Cannot compute.”

These bits have been almost exactly the same, but one thing I miss is the change in tone as things escalate – note the exclamation marks or lack thereof. Yggdrasil was starting to sound almost emotional, frustrated and desperate at the thought that it might be wrong about this. But King Drasil sounds equally as monotone here as its earlier uses of this line.

Masaru: “You’ll… never understand!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “You can’t, huh? Then I guess you’ll never understand!”

This might seem the same, but there’s actually a difference in emphasis. Marcus is arguing that King Drasil will never understand simply because it can’t understand right now. Which is a bit of a close-minded thing to assume. Masaru wasn’t making any specific reference to that and was therefore assuming this more generally, because of the kind of selfish callous asshole he already knows Yggdrasil to be.

Masaru: “It’s true that we fight a lot over stupid things, and sometimes we even hate each other. From your point of view, we might have evolved in the wrong direction. But…!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “It’s true that best friends fight each other sometimes, even over little stupid things! But if you think that just because humans and Digimon fight means everything has to be destroyed, you’re wrong!”

In the original, it was possible that by “we fight”, Masaru simply meant humans fighting each other. It’s not inappropriate for Marcus to make it specifically about humans and Digimon, given that at this point King Drasil is trying to erase both of them. Him citing best friend fights specifically is cute, in that them fighting doesn’t mean they don’t belong together as best friends, though his wording doesn’t quite emphasise that point as much as it could.

Masaru: “And the Digimon… give us both dreams and courage!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “And Digimon give human beings hope… that anything is possible!”

Marcus’s line here is a little less generic! Believing that anything is possible is a somewhat more Marcus/Masaru-y sentiment, and it is true that he’s been especially a believer of that since he met Agumon.

Masaru & Agumon: “There’s no limit to how far we can evolve!”

~~~~~

Marcus & Agumon: “Ha! We’re friends, and together we make the ultimate team!”

As much as I agree that they’re Friends, it feels a bit weird to be emphasising that in this moment? It feels like it’s putting the focus entirely on just these two and their individual friendship, like it’s solely their power that’s able to trigger Agumon Burst Mode and defeat King Drasil, when it really shouldn’t be. I suppose it could be read like they’re talking about Digimon and humans in general being friends and the ultimate team, but it’s easy to miss that, if that was the intent.

I do in theory like the idea of them bringing their dorky phrase of “ultimate team” and using it to refer to humans and Digimon in general, though! Perhaps if this had been worded as more like “humans and Digimon make the ultimate team!”, it’d be more unambiguously read that way.

King Drasil: “Cannot compute! Cannot compute!”

Okay, now, King Drasil sounds more emotional in this line. Took it a bit longer to reach that point, though.

Oh, poor dubbers. Because Agumon Burst Mode does not have a conventional evolution animation, I guess they’re not allowed to use the evolution music to give it the appropriate feeling of triumph? We’ve just got one of their generic action pieces. Which is a shame, when this had Believer in the original, and the evolution BGM is the best equivalent of that.

Yggdrasil: “I-Impossible!”

~~~~~

King Drasil: “Cannot compute! Cannot compute!”

In this moment, as Agumon Burst Mode smashed through its body and it realised just how destructible it actually was, Yggdrasil dropped the computer thing and went back to being openly emotional about things in its wording (if not in the voice it was using), which was kind of neat. King Drasil is still being a computer, meanwhile, albeit still in an emotional tone.

Yggdrasil: “This is inconceivable! The probability of you defeating me is…”

~~~~~

King Drasil: “Fatal error! The probability of you beating me was zero percent! Fatal error!”

Japanese is vague enough that the tense in which Yggdrasil said that second sentence is ambiguous without it actually finishing the sentence, so I suppose it could have meant to say it in past tense like King Drasil does. But I did kind of like the way it could potentially be saying it in present tense, and it doesn’t finish the sentence because it doesn’t want to admit that suddenly the probability of it being defeated has become quite high, actually.

(It also hasn’t actually fully been defeated, as King Drasil’s past tense implies, given that it’s about to bail the heck out of its destroyed outer body and try to escape.)

The shot of Masaru’s fist cracking the surface of Yggdrasil’s crystalline but humanoid face is cut. I guess that’s a little more reasonable as something that might have seemed too violent, compared to most punching shots they cut out.

Agumon: “What is this place?”

Masaru: “Heaven? No, of course not…”

~~~~~

Agumon: “What is… this place…?”

Marcus: “I don’t know… The Digital World…?”

Obviously we can’t have a reference to something like heaven in our kids’ anime, and certainly not the notion that they might have died, either, gasp, so instead Marcus just somehow thinks this glowing white void could be the Digital World. Uh, sure.

King Drasil’s voice in this scene, while not computery, is still androgynous, like it was while it was being computery. I’m not sure if it’s the same voice actor, but it might be. It certainly is distinctly different from the voice it had the last time it wasn’t talking like a computer, which was that deep masculine voice that just screamed EVIL. Hmm, it’s almost like King Drasil was always more than just Unambiguously Evil Villain Dude and never should have had that voice in the first place, huh?

Luckily, King Drasil is the one character in this series that the dubbers can plausibly give multiple different voices to, thus covering their screwup when they realise they made a terrible voice casting choice in the first place due to not watching ahead. Alas, poor Falcomon.

Yggdrasil: “Why do you wish to live together in one world?”

~~~~~

King Drasil: “Why do Digimon and humans wish to live together in one world?”

Very slight difference here, in that Yggdrasil was only asking about Masaru and Agumon’s personal desire for this, whereas King Drasil is more asking Marcus and Agumon for an explanation as to why all humans and Digimon want to live together. On the one hand, it’s not exactly true that all of them actually want that just yet, but on the other hand it’s kind of neat that King Drasil has been convinced enough to believe that might be the case, even if it doesn’t understand why!

Agumon: “We can’t learn to appreciate each other if we’re scared of getting hurt.”

Masaru: “Agumon…” [to Yggdrasil] “You know, ever since I met this guy, I realised that by talking with these fists of mine, I could come to understand the other person no matter who they were.”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That may be true, but the Boss and I are still friends even though we fight sometimes!”

Marcus: “That’s right. You know… even humans don’t always see eye to eye, but… they can still wind up being friends. You just have to be willing to work for it!”

Agumon’s original point about forging friendships being worth it even though they inherently come with potential conflict is still here in the dub. But, of course, we can’t possibly keep Masaru’s distinctive point about communicating with and understanding people using his fists, they’ve removed that from (almost) every other moment it came up. Turns out that point’s pretty relevant to the overall theme of the series as well as to Masaru’s character! Buuuut, not in the dub.

(King Drasil actually knows full well that humans don’t always see eye to eye with each other; one dub-specific thing it complained about regarding humans in an earlier episode was all the wars they have.)

Yggdrasil: “I see. Then I shall lay myself to rest once more and watch over you.”

~~~~~

King Drasil: “Very well, then. I shall lay myself to rest and protect you from afar without any further meddling.”

Huh, King Drasil’s giving them a slightly better deal here, saying it’s going to protect them. Yggdrasil only said it would watch over them, which doesn’t necessarily constitute doing anything to protect them. Seemed like complete 100% non-interference from Yggdrasil.

Also kinda surprised that King Drasil is willing to admit that it was doing a lot of “meddling”. I guess protecting them from afar, even though that still involves interference with the world in some way, doesn’t count as that…?

Yggdrasil: “Whether or not a world shared among humans and Digimon becomes a reality… will depend on your abilities.”

~~~~~

King Drasil: “I don’t know if a world can exist where humans and Digimon live together in harmony, but if it is to become a reality, then it will be completely up to you.”

King Drasil kind of makes a point of sounding more doubtful here. Yggdrasil only really said the thing about “it’s all up to you” as a way of stressing that it’s personally going to stay the hell out of this.

Marcus still protests like Masaru did as King Drasil up and leaves, but he has slightly less reason to, since it did at least say it would protect them.

There appears to be a commercial break at the end of this King Drasil scene, which means that Yoshi’s voice calling for Marcus to wake up doesn’t actually overlap with the end of the scene like Yoshino’s did, because that’d probably be weird just before a commercial break.

Agumon: “You guys…”

Gaomon: “You’re awake!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Nnngh… is it time to eat?”

Gaomon: “…He’s fine.”

A bit more flavour to Agumon’s waking up in the dub, which I like. I am amused by Gaomon’s teasingly-affectionate logic of “he’s thinking about food, he must be okay.”

Ikuto: “The dimensional barrier is restored!”

Falcomon: “It looks like they were able to safely isolate it from the human world!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “The digital barrier has been completely restored!”

Falcomon: “We were successfully able to separate the two worlds!”

“We” did that? As in, just the DATS group themselves? …How, exactly? I’m pretty sure the only way this makes any kind of sense is if King Drasil did it, which isn’t precisely we. I guess this might be the dubbers not quite piecing together how this could be possible, and so they just kinda shrugged when it came to adding a subject to this line.

Dukemon: “Your Digisouls… have awoken a miracle!”

~~~~~

Craniamon: “Your powerful DNA Charge helped create a miracle.”

Hm, this pinged me as off in the dub even though it turns out it’s basically the same in the original. Maybe it was the fact that it was subbed as Digisouls, plural, that made it easier for me to read the subbed line as being about humanity’s Digisouls in general, whereas it sounds like the dub’s talking about just Marcus’s DNA Charge, which was not all there was to it.

Craniummon: “You were magnificent, Daimon Masaru. You are without a doubt our true saviour!”

~~~~~

Gallantmon: “You were magnificent, Marcus Damon. You are without a doubt, a true legend of the Digital World.”

(For some reason, the dub swapped around which Royal Knight got these lines, not that it matters.)

That word “saviour” in the original line is the same word that the Holy Capital’s citizens used for Suguru, which was translated as “legend” in the dub. The dub actually remembered this and kept the same translation here, drawing the same connection as in the original!

Masaru: “Thank you, Royal Knights.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Thanks so much. You guys rocked, too!”

Heh, I enjoy Marcus being more gung-ho about thanking them.

Ikuto: “Dad… Mom…”

~~~~~

Keenan: “Mama… Dad…”

Ah, lip-flap meant that they had to find something two syllables long for Keenan to call whichever parent he addressed first. He did also call Frigimon “Mama” when she died, so maybe this is a reference to that?

Ikuto: “I’m home!”

Kenji: “Welcome home, Ikuto.”

~~~~~

Keenan: “I’m home!”

Kevin: “That’s right. You are.”

This seems similar but hits different in each version because of the difference in the episode 27 scene it’s calling back to. In the original, Kenji was teaching Ikuto the stock Japanese family phrases used for this sort of occasion, and now he’s actually using them. In the dub, they couldn’t really do that because English doesn’t quite have that sort of thing, so instead Keenan said “Me home” (even though he kind of wasn’t yet in that episode) – and now he really can feel like he's properly at home with his parents, now that it’s all over. It still works in the dub’s version! I like it.

Tohma: “Relena…”

Relena: “Thank goodness, Brother… I’m so glad you’re all right!”

~~~~~

Thomas: “I missed you.”

Relena: “You’re safe! I was so scared… I didn’t know what to think!”

Relena continues to sound more grown-up in the dub, in that she’s articulating her feelings better. Thomas saying he missed her is very cute! I bet he misses her all the time when he’s not able to be with her because all of the other stuff he’s busy with, aww.

Tohma: “Father…”

Franz: “Thank you, Tohma.”

Tohma: “Yes, Dad.”

~~~~~

Thomas: “Father…”

Franz: “I want to… thank you.”

Thomas: “Well… you’re welcome!”

The dub missed the opportunity to have Thomas call him “Dad” for the first time here! That’s a shame. It’s not even lip-flap’s fault; there’d totally have been a way to fit it in there.

Gotsumon: “It sure is great that everything worked out!”

Yoshino: “What are you doing here?”

Gotsumon: “Hey! Hey, don’t say that! I did my best, too!”

~~~~~

Gotsumon: “We did it… we saved everyone!”

Yoshi: “And just what did you do, exactly?”

Gotsumon: “What, are you kidding? I was the back-up plan in case something went wrong! It’s not my fault I wasn’t needed!”

As much as flailing around making excuses like he totally helped when he actually did nothing at all is very in-character for Gotsumon… give him credit, he did help a little? He was one of the many Digimon helping to hold the worlds apart through the power of humanity’s DNA Charge near the end, so he was contributing.

Satsuma: “You’re safe, Kudamon.”

Kudamon: “Yes. It’s all thanks to Masaru and the others.”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Welcome back… my old friend.”

Kudamon: “I guess recruiting Marcus Damon worked out after all.”

Apparently Kudamon’s still thinking about how he wasn’t so on-board with Sampson recruiting Marcus in the beginning? I am surprised the dub remembered enough to call back to that, but I guess that’s neat! Sampson calling Kudamon his old friend is also cute.

(Though he is putting it all down to Marcus, rather than mentioning the others as well.)

Chika: “Mom!”

~~~~~

Kristy: “Mommy!”

This one is actually not caused by lip-flap, because we don’t see Chika’s mouth move for this line, so this is just the dubbers making the free choice to have her call her mom that in this moment. It does work reasonably well, since they’ve just been in so much danger.

Sayuri: “I believed that Masaru and Agu-chan would protect you.”

~~~~~

Sarah: “I never stopped believing that Marcus would be able to make everything turn out all right.”

This is a little more broad – believing that Marcus would fix everything, not just protect Chika from harm – but it’s still very cute and appropriate that Sarah would have believed that, aww.

Masaru: “I couldn’t bring Dad back with me…”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I’m sorry, I tried, but I couldn’t bring Dad back…”

It’s basically down to having some spare lip-flap, but I do like Marcus mentioning that he tried, even though he couldn’t manage it. Of course he tried.

Sayuri: “I was prepared for that.”

~~~~~

Sarah: “I had a feeling you’d say that… but I’m prepared.”

The way Sarah says this is ever so slightly backhanded, making it sound a bit more like she just expected her son to fail. I hope Marcus doesn’t read that into it.

Sayuri: “That man… Suguru-san has become the wind blowing through the Digital World.”

~~~~~

Sarah: “I still feel that one day he will return to us.”

…Uhh, okay, so I guess this isn’t nearly such a big deal for Sarah, because apparently she didn’t read Marcus’s bad news as implicitly telling her that Spencer died. Whoops, you might want to clarify that, Marcus. (Except of course he won’t, because this is the dub. And also because Spencer’s about to show up alive anyway, but shush.)

Sayuri: “Even if we can’t see him, I’m sure he’ll always be watching over us from the other world.”

~~~~~

Sarah: “I’m just sad that he wasn’t able to watch you grow up. He loved you so much, and he would be very proud of you, just like I am.”

This is a really freaking cute sentiment, though! Aww, of course his dad would be proud of him. The dub really can do these cute heartfelt moments quite well when it wants to.

Masaru: “Dad… Dad!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “It’s Dad… It’s Dad!”

More lip-flap cleverness with the “Dad” syllable discrepancy!

The whole dad-reunion scene gets Probably Marcus’s Theme: Heartwarming Piano Edition as BGM, I approve.

Masaru: “You’re really… You’re really my dad, right?”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Don’t mess with me… Is it really you this time?”

The dub line makes it even clearer that this isn’t just about his disbelief at his dad being alive, but that, after King Drasil, he doesn’t want to get it wrong again.

Suguru: “Yeah. The one and only yours truly.”

~~~~~

Spencer: “It’s me. The one and only Spencer Damon.”

For once, the dub keeps Suguru’s dorkily over-the-top dramatic phrasing of things. Spencer’s delivery is a bit more subdued than Suguru’s was, though.

Suguru: “Yggdrasil restored me to life.”

~~~~~

Spencer: “As a gift to you, King Drasil brought me back to life.”

Specifically for Marcus? Did it not occur to King Drasil that maybe it ought to do this as a favour to Spencer himself, who’s the person it had really screwed over the most?

Suguru: “Chika! You’ve sure grown big.”

~~~~~

Spencer: “Kristy! You’re taller than a tree!”

I mean, she’s literally not, Spencer, that’s overselling it. Slightly odd way to comment on how much she’s grown. His delivery is adorably proud, though.

Chika: “Dad… Dad! Dad!”

~~~~~

Kristy: “Oh, Dad… Daddy… I missed you!”

Aww! She did, didn’t she, even though she never truly knew him in the first place.

Sayuri: “Dearest…”

~~~~~

Sarah: “So did I.”

And it’s cute that Sarah then also gets to agree with this sentiment instead of just addressing him!

Suguru: “Sayuri… I’ve caused you to worry.”

Sayuri: “Don’t leave us any more, okay?”

~~~~~

Spencer: “Sarah… I’m sorry… So sorry.”

Sarah: “Just… don’t ever leave without us again, okay?”

It’s a little weird that she’s specifically not asking him to leave without us. That makes me feel like she’s imagining him taking another trip to the Digital World, but only if the whole family comes with him? I mean, that would be adorable, but also I think it’s a bit beyond Sarah to really think of that yet, given how the Digital World is still so strongly associated with the fear of losing her family, to her.

Sampson: “The missing… have returned after ten years.”

Thanks to lip-flap, Sampson has a weird awkward pause here in his line, which hilariously sounds like he’s realising exactly as he says it that this makes no sense at all. (Which is a goof from the original, of course, I’m just amused at how the dub line makes it come across.)

Kudamon: “We were able to defeat Yggdrasil. However…”

Gotsumon: “For us, we’ve just lost our God. Everyone is upset and confused.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “Because we defeated King Drasil, more problems have come up.”

Gotsumon: “The Digital World is in chaos now that they’ve lost their leader. The Digimon are confused.”

I complained about this a little in the original, that it shouldn’t really be the loss of Yggdrasil that causes problems in the Digital World when most Digimon didn’t even know it existed. But at least Kudamon wasn’t necessarily saying that there are only problems because of this, even though Gotsumon apparently thought so.

The BGM score for this scene where the Digimon announce they’re going back is weirdly ominous, whereas in the original it had a more reflective, sad vibe.

There’s another commercial break between this and the next scene, so we sadly don’t get the immediate cut from Marcus being angry to him punching Agumon at the park.

Masaru: “What’s this crap about leaving? You traitor!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “You’re staying right here! No more talk of leaving!”

I don’t like how Marcus is framing this like he has the right to order Agumon around and decide this for him. Masaru was angry and lashing out, but he wasn’t actually trying to tell Agumon he’s not allowed to leave.

Aaaand suddenly the BGM has become… a comedic one? Turning this heartwrenching scene about best friends expressing their pain at being forced to part ways into a silly haha comic relief thing, because there’s punching involved, I guess, so we’ve got to make it seem slapstick? No! Bad! I do not approve!

Marcus: “You’re more than my best friend, you’re like a brother to me, so why would you wanna leave?!”

This line is basically the same, but it hits different in the dub, where Agumon never actually called him anything that meant “brother” in the first place. It means more for Marcus to say this in that context, where them being like brothers wasn’t already kind of an established thing!

…But it also unavoidably hits completely different when it’s happening over this silly comedic music, making this sound like we’re supposed to see it as some kind of joke, what even, who decided the BGM for this scene, this was the worst choice. (The original BGM was actually just silent at this point! The dub had no reason to put anything here!)

Agumon punching Marcus in the face is flash-cut, because of course. One last hurrah for Team We Can’t Have Punching In This Anime About Punching.

Agumon: “Even I want to stay with you forever, Aniki!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “You’re like a brother to me, too! I never wanna leave your side!”

Because Agumon has not called Marcus anything meaning “brother” before in the dub, he gets to add this here, which is also cute!

The comedic BGM cuts off around here, at least, thank god, but my god it should never have been there at all.

Masaru: “Then…! Then why don’t you just stay here?!”

Agumon: “I *can’t*!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Then why go? Just stay here with me!”

Agumon: “They’re closing the Gate!”

I really like how in the original Agumon responds to this question by desperately blurting out the root of this – that he feels like he can’t stay in the human world. Agumon in the dub instead just begins with part 1 of his explanation, instead of getting right to the heart of his feelings on this, which gives it less impact, and also less reason why Marcus shifts to a more shocked expression upon hearing this one sentence.

Agumon: “I’ll just be one big *nuisance* who spends his entire time sleeping and getting fat on Sayuri’s fried eggs!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “I’ll just be a waste of space! Splitting my time between sleeping and eating your mother’s fried eggs!”

This is almost the same, but Agumon in the original had this bitter emphasis on the word nuisance that isn’t there in the dub. (Part of that’s thanks to the Japanese word order, though – that word is actually at the end of the sentence the way it’s structured in Japanese, which helps.)

Marcus: “A… Agumon!”

Marcus somehow still sounds kind of angry here? Why would you sound angry at hearing your best friend and near-enough-brother talk about how he feels like he’ll be nothing but a waste of space in your own home, what even.

Agumon: “I want to keep having adventures with you, Aniki!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “I wish we could go on forever having adventures, but I just have to go!”

The way Agumon phrases this in the dub, he’s making it sound like he would keep having adventures if only he stayed with Marcus, but he has to go for… some other reason. Whereas in the original, the point was that he wants to keep having adventures but he can’t have that in the human world, and therefore with Masaru, any more.

(Oh, finally, some appropriately sad BGM, thank you. Matches with when sad BGM kicked in in the original. Still mad about the comedic music earlier, though.)

Masaru: “Well… Even I… Even I want to be with you! I want to keep running wild with you everywhere until I die!!!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Fine, then go! Who needs ya! You don’t even belong in this world anyway! Go back to the Digital World where you belong! …”

Marcus’s tone is very different here! He’s angry and lashing out and pushing Agumon away instead of desperately blurting out just how badly he doesn’t want to say goodbye either. It’s clear enough that he’s doing it out of anger to cover up how he really feels – and his voice begins to break into tears towards the end, which is pretty painful, but it sure hits different.

The dubbers even edited the shots a bit to work better with this changed mood. The last sentence of this line in the original is over a shot of Masaru on all fours, hanging his head with emotion, but that wouldn’t work so well with Marcus’s anger, so instead the dub cuts that out and just has a shot of the dark clouds overhead.

Masaru: “Go to the Digital World. This world is too small for you. Go back to the world you belong in.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I only wish… I was going with you. I can’t even imagine this world without you. The Earth is gonna seem like a really cold place when you leave.”

The moods have kind of swapped around now! Masaru was, while not nearly as overtly angry as Marcus in the previous line, being rather bitter in tone. But now Marcus is showing his sadness and pain, sounding like he’s crying or at least on the verge of it.

(I can’t help but think that Marcus outright saying he wishes he was going with Agumon ought to make him realise, sooner than he’s actually going to, that… hey, nothing’s stopping him doing that?)

Agumon: “Aniki…”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Aww, Boss…”

Agumon in the original sounded sad, but potentially not for Masaru and more at the fact that Masaru was pushing him away like this. Agumon in the dub is clearly feeling sad for Marcus, who’s literally crying right now. Which makes it work a little less well that he then turns and walks away from this instead of trying to say anything else to comfort him. That made more sense when the scene ended on Masaru putting up an emotional barrier and pushing him away – Agumon was the one who ended the scene crying in the original, not Masaru.

Marcus’s voice actor was really on-point in this scene, for the somewhat different emotional direction he was given with it. Agumon’s dub VA, meanwhile, was fine I guess, but didn’t tug at my heartstrings nearly as much as his original VA’s performance.

Gaomon: “My Master…! Is no-one else but you.”

Tohma: “Gaomon…”

~~~~~

Gaomon: “We will [meet again], sir, I promise. …You’re my best friend, Thomas.”

Thomas: “…Same here.”

Gaomon’s a bit less adorably loyally Dog about this, but this is still extremely cute! Look at them calling each other their best friends, aww.

Lalamon: “But… it made me feel a bit relieved. Because you’ve become stronger.”

Yoshino: “That’s not true, Lalamon.”

~~~~~

Lalamon: “I’m actually kind of relieved. To see how strong you’ve become.”

Yoshi: “Yeah, I’m strong – when *you’re* here.”

Yoshino denied being strong at all, but Yoshi’s willing to admit that she is strong if only thanks to Lalamon’s presence (and still implicitly thinks she isn’t on her own).

Yoshino: “Lalamon!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “Oh, Lalamon! I’m gonna miss you so much!”

Lalamon: [half-muffled from the hug] “I’m gonna miss you too!”

Aww, they are, aren’t they! (They’ve been together for over ten years, gaaah.) More good friendship additions.

The BGM’s shifted away from the sad one and into something which isn’t nearly as bad as the comedic one or anything, but it’s like… homely and cosy and doesn’t give the bittersweet vibe that these scenes ought to have.

Kudamon: “This place relaxes me the most.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “I like coming to this shoulder when I wanna be alone.”

Heh. “Alone”, he says. Little liar of a weaselscarf. It’s cute.

Satsuma: “Me too.” [he chuckles]

Kudamon: “So even you can laugh.”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Heh. ‘Wanna be alone’.”

Kudamon: “I’m glad to see you still have your sense of humour, Sampson. I’ll miss that laugh.”

Apparently in the dub, Sampson does have a sense of humour, whereas in the dub, Kudamon’s teasing him about the fact that he usually doesn’t. If Sampson does, it must be something he only ever showed in private with Kudamon, since the DATS members sure never saw it. Which is pretty cute, actually!

Yushima: “Kamemon, drink your milk.”

Yep, this stuff they’re drinking which is making Kamemon’s face red is definitely just milk, no alcohol here, kids.

I forgot how adorably derpy Kamemon’s dub voice is, since we hear it so little.

Yushima: “Kamemon. Sometimes the moon looks as if it’s changed shape, but it really stays circular all the time. Come back any time. I’ll always be waiting.”

~~~~~

Yushima: “Kamemon. Though we may be as far apart as the moon and Earth, the connection between us will always be strong. One day the Gate may be reopened, and I’ll be right there waiting for you.”

Yushima’s metaphor was apparently too metaphorical for the dub, so they changed it into something a bit more straightforward in meaning (while still being about the moon).

Oh god, Falcomon’s voice. This isn’t a scene about two adorable kids who are best friends having to say goodbye, it’s this old, posh butler saying goodbye to the kid he looks after. It can never read the same way, purely because of that voice. Gah.

Keenan: “Me thinking, and I decide…”

Why is Keenan still sometimes using an incorrect “me” and a correct “I” in the same sentence, nobody would mess up their grammar like this.

Also, he shouldn’t really be framing this like he’s made a calculated decision to go to the Digital World with Falcomon, because he ought to already know he needs to stay with his family and just be wistfully voicing the fact that part of him wishes he could go with Falcomon anyway.

Falcomon: “No, Keenan, you can’t. You have to stay here and get to know your family.”

This is basically the same line, but it hits different because Falcomon’s voice makes him sound like someone who’d naturally be wise enough to decide something like this selflessly for the sake of Keenan’s family. It hits a lot harder when it’s coming from someone who sounds like a kid, and so he’s being surprisingly thoughtful and selfless about this!

Falcomon still ends up crying too, but, again, it unavoidably hits different because he sounds like an adult ghhhhhhh

Tohma: “He must not want to say goodbye.”

Sayuri: “Masaru…”

~~~~~

Thomas: “I guess he doesn’t want to say goodbye…”

Sarah: “It’s hard for him…”

Aww. I like the sense that Sarah gets it, that Marcus is bad at Painful Emotions, and especially bad at saying goodbye to family members indefinitely.

Agumon: “Stupid Aniki…”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Fine! Forget him, then.”

Ouch, Agumon’s tone and wording are being a fair bit harsher and more lashing out than he was in the original!

Miki and Megumi’s Digital Gate-opening spiel doesn’t have any noticeable emotion in it, like it did in the original.

Agumon: “Aniki! … Aniki!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Hey, you’re here! … Bye, Boss.”

Agumon’s feelings here in the original were technically ambiguous, but given the excitement in his voice – and the fact that, by the second “Aniki”, Masaru had leapt into the Dive chamber wearing a huge backpack – he was clearly realising this meant that his Aniki was coming with him after all. But apparently in the dub, Agumon somehow hasn’t figured that out yet from the context clues, and is simply happy that he’s going to get to say a proper goodbye?

Masaru: “Like hell I’ll ever say goodbye!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Stuff your goodbyes in a sock!”

I approve of the dub translating the spirit of Masaru being so gleefully gung-ho about not saying goodbye.

I enjoy the upbeat adventurous tone of the BGM here in the original a lot, but the dub’s BGM here is… kind of nondescript by comparison.

Yoshino: “Who knows when you can come back if you go now!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “What happens if they decide to never open up the Digital Gate again?”

Really, Yoshi? You’re really willing to accept the possibility that they might never open it, and you’ll never see Lalamon again? Come on. Yoshino was never saying anything to suggest it’d never be opened again, just that Masaru didn’t know how long it’d be.

Masaru: “Who cares! I’m gonna enjoy travelling through the Digital World no matter how long it takes!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I have to go! With Merukimon gone, who’s gonna keep an eye on the Digital World?”

Um, what? Why is this of all things Marcus’s apparent biggest reason for wanting to go? Not because he can’t bear to be apart from Agumon and wants to keep having fighty adventures with his best friend, but just because he thinks he of all people needs to be a replacement for Merukimon??? There are plenty of other powerful Digimon who could fill Merukimon’s shoes – the Royal Knights, anyone? And it’s not like Merukimon was that important of a global figure in the Digital World anyway. Is the dub still clinging to their ridiculous nonsense fact that Merukimon was supposedly the ruler of the entire Digital World, even though that’s been explicitly contradicted by King Drasil’s existence for ages now? What the heck even.

The only way this makes any kind of sense is if Marcus is just saying this as an excuse because he doesn’t want to mention his real reason that he just wants to keep being with Agumon, but, like, why wouldn’t he say that, come on.

Also, he just completely nopes on acknowledging Yoshi’s comment that he might never be able to come back. But then, that is a pretty Marcus thing to do, so.

Suguru: “Go there and polish up your manliness!”

~~~~~

Spencer: “You go back and keep the peace.”

Of course we can’t have the manliness, so we get this instead. I guess it’s fine and fair enough for him to want Marcus to keep the peace, but it is different and less dorky compared to Suguru wanting him to grow as a person and just keep having adventures and manly fights, like he did when he was stuck there for years.

Marcus: “Let’s go, Agumon! Now we can always fight together, side by side!”

Yes, Marcus, it’s almost as if this is the real reason you want to go with him and it doesn’t need to have anything to do with Merukimon, what even was that.

Agumon: “Aniki!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Yippee!”

While original-Agumon gave the most adorably delighted exclamation of his aniki’s name ever, dub-Agumon… kinda sounds a bit silly with this here. It just comes across like “oh, yay, fun,” and not “oh my god I’m so glad I don’t have to say goodbye to my best friend indefinitely after all.”

The dub’s opening wouldn’t really work as music to play over the epilogue, so instead, we get the Next Time On music, which I guess is probably the best thing they had for this purpose?

Oh my god, puberty-Keenan’s voice sure is a thing.

Thomas has just won some unspecified “Medical Prize”, rather than specifically the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Him being nineteen is still mentioned by the TV announcer. Does this mean it’s been five years since the events of the series, or just three? Who knows! Take your pick.

The news articles Miki and Megumi are looking at list his name as “Thomas H. Nordstein”. …That’s. That’s not how you spell Norstein, guys. It has literally never been pronounced with an audible “d” in there. How do you get this wrong. And deliberately, at that! It’s on three separate bits of edited text – in Relena’s name, too! That’s not a typo; someone legitimately thought that was how you spell their surname! Oh my god, dubbers, please try caring just a tiny bit.

Either that, or his name canonically is spelled Nordstein in the dub, with a silent D for no reason, and I’ve technically been spelling it wrong every time I’ve written “Norstein” in a dub commentary. But also no, shut up, I haven’t.

Yushima: “Well, well. It’s still noisy here as always.”

~~~~~

Yushima: “That’s our Yoshi. Always scaring the fish away.”

Not only did Yoshi’s police car zooming past scare Yushima’s fish away, apparently she... makes a habit of doing this to him, somehow? Ooookay then.

The bit at the very end with Marcus and Agumon in the Digital World uses the evolution BGM (the Ultimate-level one), which… I guess kinda works for it? They didn’t get a chance to use that BGM anywhere else in this episode because there were no regular evolution animations, but looks like they found somewhere to squeeze it in anyway.

Masaru: “Those who disturb the peace in the Digital World… this street fighter, Daimon Masaru-sama, won’t forgive you!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Anyone caught fightin’ in the Digital World has to deal with me, Marcus Damon, the ultimate justice of the peace.”

Marcus apparently isn’t calling himself an ultimate fighter any more, even though this’d be a good time to have that in place of “street fighter”? I guess he really is leaning into that “keep the peace” thing to the point that he’s even made that part of his self-proclaimed title. I do like that they somewhat managed to keep the spirit of the self-sama in how bombastic he sounds about it.

However, I am rather iffy about the fact that he apparently does this to anybody caught fighting, full stop. Not people who are disturbing the peace in particular, like these two gangs of Digimon are doing, but just… literally any fight ever? Nobody’s even allowed to fight for friendly sport and competition, like Marcus himself so enjoys doing? Or for self-defence, if someone’s threatening them? Seems a bit hypocritical that he’s going around stopping any Digimon from simply fighting… by fighting them.

Overall differences

There’s a lot of subtle changes here, but nothing too dramatically different, for the most part.

It’s only very slightly so, but the climax of the fight is a little bit more focused on just Marcus and Agumon’s friendship than on the bond between Digimon and humans in general, which, though I love their friendship, isn’t quite the real point here. There was also that one weird line from Relena about her feeling the Digimon’s power (how), instead of showing that she’s willing the Digimon on with her Digisoul.

A lot of the lines in the cute family and friends bits are made even cuter! The dub’s often pretty good at that sort of thing. Though they did miss the opportunity to have Thomas call his father “Dad” for the first time, which the original did.

Why was there the comedic music there for the first half of Marcus and Agumon’s heartbreaking goodbye scene, that was the worst scoring choice ever, I am Mad about it. You do not take a scene like that and try to present it as a joke! No! (There’s also a bunch of other BGM choices that make some other scenes hit a little bit different, but none of them nearly as bad as this one.)

Once the BGM has stopped being terrible, the emotions in Marcus and Agumon’s goodbye scene are also switched around a bit compared to the original. While Masaru started out anguished and heartfelt and then degenerated into bitterly pushing Agumon away, Marcus begins with angry lashing out but then degenerates into open anguish and actual crying. In the original, Agumon ended the scene crying, while in the dub, Marcus is the one in tears at the end. It mostly works fine either way, but it does kind of beg the question of why Agumon just up and leaves Marcus like that – it makes more sense why he left in the original when Masaru was bitterly telling him to go.

And then, what even was that bit about how Marcus has to go to the Digital World because he needs to replace Merukimon. Not only does it not make sense that he of all people would need to do that, but why on earth would that be his primary reason for going there instead of the part where he wants to keep being with Agumon forever.

The only reason I can think of for why the dub did this is that they really felt like they had to shoehorn in some reason that Marcus needed to go to the Digital World, in order to justify his choice. They didn’t want to let him do it simply because he wanted to, simply because it’s the most Marcus choice to make in this situation and so what other reason does he even need? Because the dub’s narrative has never been okay with letting Marcus just be himself.

See, this isn’t really about this specific episode’s changes so much as it’s an overarching dub thing, but – that bit in my summary for the original episode’s post where I gushed about how much I love the way the narrative never tells Masaru not to be himself? Yeah, Data Squad has tried its best to be the complete opposite of that. It’s constantly presented Marcus as wrong and bad for being the way he is, and that’s one of the things I hate the most about how they treat him. I honestly think that if the Data Squad writers had had control over how the ending actually went, there’s a high chance they’d have written it differently so that Marcus stayed in the human world, just so he could learn to be a Normal Person like is obviously supposed to be better for him, right.

#digimon #digimon savers #digimon data squad

20 notes · View notes