Funimation Edits Joke To Remove Light Sexual Humor In ‘BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense’
In their continuing tradition of altering the scripts of original anime productions during the dubbing process, Funimation has changed a line in their dub of BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense to remove a grade-school level sexual joke.
BOFURI follows Kaede Honjō, a brand-new player to the fictional VR MMORPG NewWorldOnline, in her adventures as her in-game avatar Maple (JP: Kaede Hondo, EN: Megan Shipman) in which she has focused every single available skill point solely into defense. In episode 2 of BOFURI, “Defense and Friends,” Maple enters and takes third place in a battle royale style event. In a post-game interview conducted by the game’s mascot Dorazu (JP: Sakura Tange, EN: Monica Rial), a nervous Maple feels embarrassed after tripping over her words.
In the original Japanese version of the interview, Maple makes an accidental double-entendre by stating that she took a “pounding” in the arena before becoming embarrassed at her word choice. In the English Dub, Maple instead mixes up the words “hoppy” and “happy,” as seen in these clips provided by Twitter user Cozy Gamer Gimp:
Is Funimation’s new standard “no fun” or “no jokes allowed”? Because they took a joke, and then dubbed this scene in BOFURI as not a joke… it was really dumb. #Censorship pic.twitter.com/7ryvQOQOkf
— Cozy Gamer Gimp (@GrumpyCatterman) February 15, 2020
Which do you think is funnier? Is Funimation trying to remove anything slightly ecchi? This is the same prudish censorship religious right wingers pushed in the 80s and I hated it then too. pic.twitter.com/Eu9EnpbGGG
— Cozy Gamer Gimp (@GrumpyCatterman) February 15, 2020
Here’s the different translations below beginning with the Japanese:
“Original Japanese:
Dorazu: Let’s kick off our interviews with our third-place winner, Maple!
Maple: Huh? Uh, um…
Dorazu: Anything to say about the event?
Maple: Um, uh…I took a pounding but I liked its.
Crowd: Did she just trip over her tongue?
Crowd: She sure did.”
And here’s the English Funimation dub:
“Dorazu: Let’s kick off the interviews with our third-place winner, shall we? Here’s Maple!
Maple: Uh..uh…
Dorazu: What are your thoughts about the event?
Maple: Oh uh…well, it was tough but I’m hoppy. Oh!
Crowd: Did she just say ‘hoppy’?
Crowd: Sure did.”
While both sets of dialogue and performances convey the same emotions, the original dialogue presents more reason for embarrassment than the dub version does.
As of writing, Funimation has not publicly given an explanation for the edit.
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