In 2000, “Fuji Television” released the anime adaptation of the “Ghost Stories” manga series. Before that series was made, the manga was originally turned into a four-part movie series that got nominated for a Japanese Academy Award.
Despite all the renown garnered by these first two interpretations, “Ghost Stories” is primarily known for its infamous English dub from 2005.
Anyone knowing even the slightest bit about anime or any other foreign media like “Squid Game,” “Parasite” or even “The Platform” has seen dubbing firsthand. Dubbing is the act of translating media from one language to another by having voice actors read a character’s dialogue in post-production. This process makes it where more people can watch a movie or show with more ease and keep viewers from reading subtitles.
The main issue of jumping languages is some things being lost in translation, which can have the same lines being completely different compared to the original script.
That’s whatever. Not a big deal, but what happens when a dubbing production completely disregards the source material and goes rogue? Well, that’s exactly what happened during the production of ADV Studios’ “Ghost Stories” English dub.
The original story follows a group of five school kids unraveling the mysteries of a nearby haunted schoolhouse that has been abandoned for years. Each episode, they discover a new ghost, learn more about it and defeat it by the end of the episode.
When ADV Studios obtained the rights to the script, producers told the voice actors to do “anything it takes to sell the show.”\ Their only restriction was to keep the basic premise and character names the same, but apart from that, they had complete creative freedom.
This led to a ridiculous product, slam full of crude humor, pop culture references, fourth wall breaks and iconic line reads. I guarantee you that you’ve seen or heard something from this show before. There are thousands of YouTube compilations, Tik Tok sounds and more surrounding this show.
The English dub was released on Amazon Prime earlier this year and is absolutely worth a watch. You can tell how much fun the English voice actors had in the recording booth when you watch this. It is a super enjoyable show to turn on if you need a good laugh. I highly encourage anyone with Amazon Prime to check it out.
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