Dubbing to English

The Graz / Ocean Cut
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"Ronin Warriors", the English dub of Samurai Troopers, may easily be the most faithful translation of any anime television series in history. The few changes are only perceptible to those fans of the original Japanese series who really knew what to look for.

Graz Entertainment purchased the Samurai Troopers series and co-produced its dub with Ocean Studios. Ocean hired the voice actors and edited the audio.

The only change in the music was the theme song. The title sequence in the Graz cut was created by Graz to replace the Japanese opening. The new sequence flashes /roninhome/images from the series with the new Ronin Warriors logo appearing on-screen a few times. The new theme song is an original guitar-and-drums tune with a couple of brief vocals, and a voice-over by the narrator, David Kaye, explaining the basic plot line of the series. All of the music heard during the actual episodes is the same music from the Japanese version, just quieter in the scenes with the most dialog.

Most sound effects are the same as in the Japanese version. Every crash and thump is the same, including those heard during transformation scenes. However, they are louder or softer in some places, to fit the demands of realistically inserting English dialog.

The dialog is close to the original. Most of the characters have new names. The most important exceptions are Ryo and Kayura, who kept their original names in the English dub. All of the locations in Japan have new names. The names of the yoroi are close translations of the original names, such as Rekka, which means "Wild Fire", and was renamed Wildfire.

The visual content of the series was not changed at all. Graz made no cuts. Allow me to repeat for those of you who realize how rare this is -- Graz made NO CUTS. American syndication requires a specific length for each program, so some episodes were sped up or slowed down imperceptibly, making a difference of only a few seconds per episode.

Graz sent 20 tapes, each containing two episodes, to Ocean Studios to have the audio altered and re-dubbed. Graz had already placed the program segments in this order:

Opening Sequence
Stinger
Commercial Break
Stinger
Recap (only in Episodes #3-10)
EPISODE (first half)
Stinger
Commercial Break
Stinger
EPISODE (second half)
Stinger
Commercial Break
Stinger
Credits

When the dubbing was finished, the series went into post-production, and was finally sold to television stations all over the United States to be aired in July and August of 1995.

By mid-September, most stations had dropped Ronin Warriors from their program schedules. Many Ronin fans quickly diverted their interest to Sailor Moon, another anime series that in some cases filled Ronin Warriors' time slot.

In Fall 1999, over four years after its original airing, the Graz/Ocean cut reappeared on Cartoon Network's afternoon anime show, Toonami. The show's opening was replaced by a 30-second collage of scenes and quotes, typical of Toonami programs. As a result, no additional cutting was deemed necessary by Cartoon Network.

The Sci-Fi Cut
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In the Summer of 1996, the Sci-Fi Channel announced plans to air Ronin Warriors in the Fall. The episodes were shortened to fit in the time slot with the amount of commercial time typical to most US cable channels. This was the Sci-Fi format:

Opening Sequence
EPISODE (first fourth)
Commercial Break
EPISODE (second fourth)
Commercial Break
EPISODE (second half)
Credits
Commercial Break

The Sci-Fi Channel did cut the episodes. The most frequently cut scenes involved flashbacks or moments of reflection. The armor transformation scenes were also often accelerated.

((Some of the information is slightly out of date now, but most of the general information still is accurate.))