Re-written Songs, Music, and Dubbing for Anime / 8: Cultural Strategies of Anime’s Re-dubbing in Italy, France, Germany, and Spain

This chapter explores the stories of anime dubbing in the four major European markets: France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. In these countries, foreign audiovisual products are usually adapted and revoiced; anime are no exception. Furthermore, these national markets, and especially France and Italy, have been importing anime for about forty years, hence the chapter mainly focusses on these two in order to identify patterns in the history of anime dubbing in Europe. In fact, other European countries either do not usually dub foreign audiovisual products, preferring subtitles, or have seen a relatively late and scarcer diffusion of anime, also due to the fact that in the last two decades, anime consumption has moved to the internet thanks to streaming platforms and communities of fansubbers and enthusiasts. The chapter describes the most typical cultural policies, production procedures, and artistic choices that have shaped the local dubbings of anime in the surveyed countries, and is, in this sense, a first comparative approach to a topic that has not been thoroughly explored in this way in the literature before this volume.