The Simpsons is one of the most popular shows in the world and holds the honour of being
the longest-running American scripted primetime television series in history.
The show is known all over the world, with many countries having their own localizations
and dubs to match their languages.
The same is true for Japan, which, up until 2008, had its own dubbed version and, following
2008, its own subtitled version.
The vocal talent includes Tōru Ōhira, who players Homer Simpson and is also well known
for being the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars home video releases.
And in case you wondering how Homer says Doh in Japanese - here it is!
The Japanese translations are generally kept very accurate to the originals.
One particularly interesting point to take a look at, though, is how the localization
handles the show's representation of Japan and, also, the occasional times that the English
version uses the Japanese language itself.
A good example of this is episode 175, In Marge We Trust, and its Mr Sparkle side story.
In this episode, Homer finds a detergent box from Japan, with what appears to be his face
on it.
This sends him into a confused panic and he ends up ringing the detergent's manufacturer
in Japan for an explanation.
Now, as mentioned, generally the translations will be kept pretty accurate but during this
phone call to Japan, we can find a small change made to the Japanese version of the show.
In the English version, the employee who picks up the phone passes the phone over to another
worker and says that "he speaks English", presumably due to the language barrier.
The Japanese version, interestingly, changed this to not Homer speaking English, but "being
American", they also didn't change the subtitles at all on the bottom of the screen.
Following the phone call, Homer gets sent a video tape from the company in the mail.
This video tape is some sort of promotional video for Mr Sparkle and is extremely over
the top and, in the English version, is dubbed in pretty bad Japanese.
The pronunciations are off and it's also been wrote in a way to make it sound as wild as
possible.
This would like rub the Japanese audience the wrong way and so the Japanese version
has a new dub to make it sound much more natural, although keeping a similar sort of meaning.
The show's depiction of Japan has also seen an episode completely pulled in the country
due to fear over causing offense.
The episode in question is episode 226, Thirty Minutes over Tokyo, which sees the family
visit Japan and getting into all sorts of crazy adventurers.
The scene that caused the episode to be pulled shows Homer pick up the Emperor of Japan and
throwing him across the room into a box full of sumo thongs.
Due to this, the episode has not only never been aired in Japan, but it's also completely
skipped in the DVD releases too.
There is one other episode that's not available in Japan and this is episode 236, Little Big
Mom.
In the episode, Lisa pulls a prank on Homer and Bart whilst they are asleep, painting
them with green paint and then making them believe they have leprosy.
Due to Japanese cultural issues regarding leprosy, the episode has never aired and is
also skipped in the DVD releases.
According to Shari Ross Altarac, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on "The Adaptation
of U.S. Television in Foreign Markets", the episode was pulled due to:
"Former segregation laws [remaining] a sensitive topic in Japan, where litigation of leprosy
cases and charges of human rights abuses by the Japanese government have ensued."
Despite all of the effort given to the Japanese version though, the show has never achieved
much success in the region and this is something that drives some of The Simpsons team crazy.
Mike Reiss, who's been a writer for the show ever since the first series, spoke about this
in a 2017 interview with Variety.com.
In the interview he was asked if there's anywhere in the world where The Simpsons hasn't caught
on and, he replied: "There is a funny aspect to “The Simpsons”
in that they have a liberal stance and an anarchic stance, but they also want world
domination.
It drives some people [at “The Simpsons”] crazy that the Japanese don’t watch our
show.
We cannot get them interested.
Japan is the biggest market in the world that we haven’t conquered.
I think: ‘why do you care?
We’re not Alexander the Great, we’re just a cartoon show!"
So, what Western shows *do* the Japanese public like then?
Well, in a 2016 survey 10,000 readers voted on their favourites, with 50 options to choose
from, and The Simpsons wasn't even considered to be listed as an option.
As for the top 5 spots, we have Happy Tree Friends at number 5, Sponge Bob at number
4, Transformers at number 3, Powerpuff Girls at number 2 and Tom and Jerry and the top
spot.
During the early 2000s, The Simpsons were actually most well known for their sponsorship
of the Japanese fizzy soft drink C.C.
Lemon.
C.C.
Lemon is a lemonade-like drink which contains real lemon juice and boasts to contain 35
lemons’ worth of vitamin C. During the show's sponsorship, you could find
the yellow skinned cast on various commercials, merchandise and advertised in streets on things
like buses.
And all of this was to promote the drink and not the show.
In fact, during the early 2000s, the show was said to be most well known for the drink
and not the show itself.
C.C.
Lemon is also in the top 5 most popular soft drinks sold in Japan.
Another notable sponsor is Mister Donut, a donut fast food franchise with more than 13
hundred stores in Japan.
In 2007, the brands collaborated together in a series of commercials for The Simpsons
Movie and this signified a big marketing push that the studio made for the movie's Japanese
success.
Alongside this sponsorship, The Simpsons Movie saw the studio recast all of the Japanese
voice actors for a more famous cast.
This was an attempt at rebranding the show and trying to make it more popular, however,
this decision proved to be very controversial.
Whilst the show isn't very popular in the country, the niche audience it does have could
be seen as very hardcore and fans did not respond well to the actors being recast.
Fans grouped together and started a blog with a campaign titled "Give Us Back The Original
Dubbing Artists!"
The site was updated daily for months, with information about the situation and various
forms of protest and activism, trying to get the studio to change their mind.
Unfortunately for fans the movie went ahead with using the new actors, but, they did manage
to convince the studio to create a brand new dub using the original actors for the DVD
release.
The original actors also expressed a large amount of gratitude, seeing how devoted their
fans were.
Following the movie's launch in 2007 though, things then started to take a different direction,
which continues up until the present day.
Season 15 in 2008 was only broadcast in Japan with subtitles and there was no dubbed version.
Since then, no dubbed version has been broadcast, meaning it's been without a dub for 10 years
now.
Furthermore, during this period of absence, several notable members of the Japanese cast
have passed away, including the voice actor for Homer Simpson.
The show does continue to be broadcast in the country though, with season 28 currently
being broadcast with subtitles on the Japanese channel Fox Sports and Entertainment.
The Simpsons are also well known in the West for their appearance in other media, such
as the many video games that have released over the years.
In Japan however, not many of these games have been released in the country.
There were a few exceptions during the early 90s, such as The Simpsons arcade game, the
original Game Boy's Escape From Camp Deadly, as well as the SNES' Bart's Nightmare.
The latter two are also notable for giving the characters extra fingers on the Japanese
box art.
This is due to the publishers being concerned over a stigma that Japan is perceived to have
over 4 fingered characters, with this possibly resembling the Yakuza's practise of cutting
people's fingers off as a form of punishment.
Aside from the early 90s though, The Simpsons games haven't been typically released in Japan.
The Simpsons Hit and Run was released in Japan but only for the Xbox and not PS2 or Gamecube.
Furthermore, this was a special "World Collection" release, that's sold at a reduced price but,
with the exception of the manual, is entirely in English.
It appears that, despite the huge impact the show has had in most other parts of the world,
The Simpsons will continue to remain a fairly niche franchise in Japan for the foreseeable
future.
And with there no longer being a Japanese dub, its historic lack of popularity in Japan,
as well as its continued lack of promotion, it's unlikely that this will be something
that will change any time soon.
What are your thoughts on the Japanese version of The Simpsons and what would you like to
see us take a look a look at next?
Let us know in the comments below and please consider hitting that subscribe button, if
videos on localization like this are something you're interested in.
Until next time, thank you for watching!