The combination of anime and comedy is a match that had been made in heaven a long time ago. Almost every mainstream anime series featuring hilarity in some form or the other. However, some shows truly go above and beyond when it comes to delivering a comedic masterpiece. The anime series Ghost Stories is a great example.
People who watched this series in Japanese will definitely be confused by the satirical tone of the English dub, which is simply bizarre in every sense of the word. The entire script changed, making the show feel more like an Abridged series. The background of this show's infamous English dub is the stuff of legends, with the following pieces of trivia being particularly notable.
10 The Anime Was A Massive Failure In Japan
Ghost Stories might be a cult classic in the West, but that's solely due to the eccentric nature of its dub. The story seems fairly unremarkable on first viewing. Most of the Japanese audience apparently echoed this sentiment, as the series bombed.
Ghost Stories was a massive failure in Japan. In fact, it's quite remarkable that this series managed to secure a dub at all after its lackadaisical performance. In fact, the Japanese airing was so unsuccessful that...
9 Animax Gave Almost Full Creative Freedom To ADV Films
ADV Films — the studio behind the dubs for popular shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Elfen Lied — dubbed the failure that was Ghost Stories. Animax was so displeased by the performance of Ghost Stories in Japan that when they gave these rights, they placed almost no creative restrictions when it came to the dub.
They only had two guidelines when producing the dub. The names of the characters should remain the same, and the manner in which ghosts are defeated shouldn't be tampered with. Aside from that, everything was fair game.
8 Animax Pleaded With ADV Films For The Series' Success
Animax was quite desperate to turn Ghost Stories into a hit in the West. It clarified this fact quite clearly with ADV Films when the latter gained the rights to the dub.
Aside from the two guidelines mentioned above, Animax also mentioned a third point. They wanted ADV Films to do everything in their power to turn Ghost Stories into something entertaining. The cast was more than enthused at this point, but the real turning point of this dub is detailed in the next entry.
7 Steven Foster Lit The Fire That Led To This Legendary Dub
The director of the dub, Steven Foster, was incredibly happy to hear about the nature of Ghost Stories' localization. Since his studio pretty much had free reign over the script, he decided to create something unique.
This eventually led him to direct one of the most unusual dubs of all time. For one thing, voice actors had a great deal of freedom when deciding on their own lines. Speaking of which...
6 The First Voice Actor To Arrive Got Improvisation Rights
With Foster's vision, the stage was set for Ghost Stories to have a tongue-in-cheek manner of dubbing. In this vein, ADV Films had a rather unique manner of approaching how it went about the dubbing for each given episode.
The tone of the script for each episode was decided by the first voice actor to come to the studio on that day. The other actors would then brainstorm on the script and how it would incorporate this tone into the episode.
5 Almost All The Dialogue Is Ad-Libbed
Given how Ghost Stories didn't have a set script, it goes without saying that a lot of the dialogue in the series is ad-libbed. This is a huge part of what gives the series its unique flavor.
Almost every scene in every episode involves the voice actors exaggerating their personas. They bounce hilarious lines off each other in a bid to make the most meta, side-splittingly hilarious content possible in an anime dub.
4 It's Arguably The Progenitor Of Abridged Anime Series
In the modern anime landscape, the term "abridged" is mainly used in reference to TFS. They popularized this term with their hilarious and legendary Dragon Ball Z Abridged series, which is easily one of the most popular fan-made interpretations of Dragon Ball Z's story.
However, what most people may not realize is that the concept of an abridged anime series existed long before the golden years of TFS. In fact, Ghost Stories was the first attempt at attempting a hilarious spin on a serious anime story. This makes the dubbed version of this show a landmark achievement in the industry.
3 Audiences Hated The Dub When It Came Out
Of course, not all was sunshine and roses for the Ghost Stories dub when it came out. Most reactionary takes at the time vilified the show for featuring an odd dub that didn't remain faithful to the source material at all.
It took a while for Ghost Stories to finally find its audience. However, it became a cult classic in the process, and a treat for any fan that wanted to watch a genuinely hilarious anime.
2 Animax Made A More Faithful Dub Later On
Animax did end up giving the go-ahead on a dub that would absolutely butcher the source material. However, they later decided that perhaps a certain group of people would have actually wanted to watch a faithful adaptation of this series.
A few years after the first dub, Animax greenlit a dub that would seriously interpret the events of Ghost Stories. This dub is now so rare that finding a copy of these episodes can prove to be quite a royal pain.
1 Wanting To Incorporate The Infamous Mel Gibson Rant
The Ghost Stories dub was notorious for referencing various events of the time. It turned into an ode to American pop culture in 2004-05. However, people who watch this show will notice that one hilarious moment from this time period doesn't appear in the show: the infamous Mel Gibson rant.
Greg Ayres — the voice of a Jewish character in ADV Films' interpretation of the show — regretted the fact that the Mel Gibson rant happened after production was wrapped up for the dub. Otherwise, this rant would have been a major part of the show's humor.