A Note About the 2010 DVD Rerelease

Mar 7, 2010 9:45 AM

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Jan 2008

537

Recently, Disney has reissued KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE along with MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, CASTLE IN THE SKY, and PONYO. This new release has a lot more extras than its previous counterpart, mainly in the way of interviews with Miyazaki, and even the whole "interactive" WORLD OF GHIBLI map.

However...

If you happen to be a fan of Disney's dub as it was released on video in 1998 and on DVD in 2003, a warning should be made: the English version has been modified.

When Disney dubbed the film back in 1997, there were quite a lot of extra lines, mostly in the way of Phil Hartman's Jiji, who adlibbed most of his dialogue, to good effect IMO. All those extra lines are gone in this new version, and so are the occasional embellishments to Joe Hisaishi's musical score. Even the Sydney Forest songs which serve as the OP and ED theme have been reverted to the Japanese originals. While this brings the dub closer to the Japanese version, it may cause controversy for people who grew up on it. Probably the only change I would agree with is the removal of Jiji's last line in the film ("Kiki, can you hear me?", as it was added in at the end), and some parts of the embellished score contributed by Paul Chihara, if not all of it, but otherwise, I would hardly change an already delightful dub just to appeal to the purists who never liked it in the first place and probably won't even watch said dub anyway.

Whether it's worth double-dipping for the extras is up to the customer.

Apr 5, 2010 9:27 AM

JTurner

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Jan 2008

537

Pallid said:
There are several Ghibli films I've been meaning to add to my collection, and Kiki is one of them. I just wanted to say thank-you for the caveat. I for one love the old Kiki dub (the nay-saying "purists" be damned), and would have been mightily pissed had I purchased the film only to discover the dub had been altered without any option to watch the original Disney dub as I so fondly remember it. Since I care little about the extras, I will be sure to buy the 2003 DVD release now. Again, thank-you.

Castle in the Sky's dub has undergone similar alterations, too; a lot of the extra dialogue is gone, but so is its most powerful element--the rescore by Joe Hisaishi. Apparently they wanted to appeal to the purists, but I personally think Disney should have included its "original" version as an option for that DVD too. Needless to say, I'm holding onto my 2003 DVD copies. (If there was only an option to swap the bonus discs for the 2003 DVD with the 2010 ones, it'd truly be special.)

Sep 16, 2010 3:18 PM

tommytanker36

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Sep 2010

yeah i noticed that on my kikis delivery service and castle in the sky dvds

Jun 3, 2011 8:58 PM

D4wGhosty

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May 2009

the alteration are good and all, but i grew up on kiki and found the alterations insulting

Nov 17, 2011 11:58 PM

Holysnap

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Apr 2009

Even though i'm not extremely opposed to the way the dub was before, I think it is a very noble decision of disney to change it to be more like the original. I did feel like this dub was too disneyfied and jiji was just too much. the film just doesn't need it

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A Note About the 2010 DVD Rerelease

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