I’m getting a little side tracked here, but I really need to write this out. What’s up with Germans and foreign multimedia?

I don’t know why I know this, but at some point I became aware and this knowledge haunts me. There are several approaches to localization when it comes to foreign media: original audio and subtitles, dubbing the dialogue in your language, keeping text and signage in the original language or drawing localized text on top of the orginal video, etc.

For Sailor Moon, originally a japanese animated TV-series (based on a manga series) there are many approaches. I’ll focus on the first opening sequence of the show, which has been localized in several different ways.

The original Japanese opening

As a baseline for this comparison, below is a YouTube video showing the original opening sequence:

More reasonable localizations

The Swedish version has a fairly faithful translation of the Japanese song, and keeps the original video as well - but gets a little creative by hiding the japanese text with some credits and then displays the title afterwards.

The (US?) english localization has a more action-oriented feel to its visuals, and actually changes the song - but still keeps “the feeling” of the original opening.

The German localization

Then there’s the German approach…

Here we also have much of the original video, but the Japanese title cards are hidden by showing some other “B footage” instead, afterwards returning to essentially the original video again.

But the song has been entirely replaced with a very upbeat techno-esque song. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a bop, but it sure changes the experience from the original.