This question kinda ties in with Naruto; I know you said Naruto was a lot of work and had a lot of notes, is that because of the emphasis on trying to keep it close to the Japanese version?
Compared to Digimon, a rather unknown franchise in the US at the time, Naruto already had a rather significant (and considerably purist) fandom. Was there a specific focus on appeasing those fans by keeping it close, and what are some differences in the directing and producing those kinds of dubs?
With your background in writing, I'm sure you probably prefer the freedom of being able to write what you want based on the footage more than the original script, but are there ever times when you feel like you may be doing a disservice to the fans, or alienating the purists? Are there times when you can just tell that some fans won't be happy with a particular change, or are you focused on writing for the new target audience, whatever it may be?
As a hypothetical follow up, Savers (like Tamers) is considerably more mature than Adventure, and the lead character is a delinquent with a particularily foul mouth and a streak of violent temper. Regardless of how the dub really turns out, would you relish the chance to write for older Digimon characters, with more mature humor and serious themes, or would you prefer to work on it in a more "kid friendly" way?
You know, it really always depends on the Japanese company how far they will let you stray from the original. Some shows go way off (BoBo-Bo), and some say stay as close as possible, right down to the voice casting, trying to get sound alikes as close as possible to the Japanese actors (Naruto to a point). And yes, the closer they want to stay to the original the more notes there will surely be. I don't know why these particular companies want to stay close, so I don't know why Naruto stays close, but if I were to guess, I would say any show with a pre-existing fan base, like Naruto, must be doing something right, so why not follow the original formula. Like you said, FOX KIDS had nothing to lose with Digimon because no one knew about it. So they wanted something that would compete with the big boys. But a lot of it comes down to viewership too. Digimon was on a major network with a lot of affiliates, so they had to produce something commercial for the 11 million fans watching every week. Cartoon Network just doesn't have that kind of reach, so they have to cater to the niche audience, which is the catagory the purists fall into.
Now when you're reaching 11 million viewers, and only 50,000 are purists, then you can understand why the purists aren't catered to on a show like Digimon. But frankly, no, I never cater to purists or the commercial viewer, because the only person I cater to is the boss. If they want it close to the translation, that's what I do, and if they want it way off, I do that. That's my only allegience. Now with YouTube and DVD, everyone gets the version they prefer anyway, so what's the big deal? And no matter what, you can't satisfy everyone.
And as a hypothetical follow up, sometimes I would like to entertain a more adult audience, but there's nothing wrong with the audience I have now.
