Netflix’s Neon Genesis Evangelion English Dub: The Impact and the Fallout

 

Not long ago, the anime community was preparing for the glorious return of Neon Genesis Evangelion to return to legal availability through the ever growing presence of Netflix. Aside from the sporadic release of the Rebuild films, the series had laid dormant in American licensing for quite some time, so to finally have a way of introducing it to new viewers was a potentially great move on the streaming platform’s part. However, once the show finally dropped, it became all too clear that this new version was as mismanaged as letting a fourteen year old boy pilot a monster with soul of his dead mother. So, let’s pick apart a few of the most outrageous screw-ups in this whole incident and how they can improve.

The Dub’s Problems:

1. The New Cast
This wasn’t very apparent at first, but the trouble seems to have started with the sudden announcement that the initial English Dub from ADV Films would be switched out for a new cast and translation. This in and of itself was not an issue, as many series have had to undergo redubbing to positive effect, such as Funimation’s redo of “The Vision of Escaflowne” and their take on Dragon Ball Z Kai compared to the original, so polishing up Evangelion’s decades old audio and questionable starting points wasn’t necessarily a bad idea.

Unfortunately, while ADV’s dub wasn’t the best, it still held a special place in most viewers’ hearts, not to mention that many of the actors who had been part of the original English voice cast had vastly improved their craft in the twenty years since the first release. This new cast wasn’t bad, obviously, but they seemed to lack much of the nuance that the first cast had. So, there was always going to be that feeling of disconnect for returning audiences for this new group of people in the shoes of the old.

2. Lost in Translation

With the new cast also came a new translation of the dialogue. This was another thing that was probably inevitable if the show was going to be introduced to newer audiences. After all, the initial ADV dub came out in the late 90’s, when anime dubs were far less advanced and polished than they are now, so some clean up was going to have to come at some point. But again, the problems arise in what they thought was supposed to be cleaned, and this case, that ended up messing with very significant characterization. Specifically in the key but late character of Kaworu Nagisa, who is notable for being very blunt and straightforward with his romantic love towards main protagonist Shinji Ikari towards the end of the series, which Netflix translators seemed to take as nothing more than platonic. This is the most egregious example, but there are plenty of minor mistakes that end up souring the experience for many returning viewers, made worse by the fact that this is the only legal way of viewing this series unless you own the out of print DVDs.

3.Fly Me to the Moon

But the most glaring change amongst all of these would have to be the removal of the show’s Ending Theme, a karaoke version of Bart Howards’ “Fly Me to the Moon” which has become synonymous with the franchise. The version is still available on Japanese Netflix, which points to this being a licensing issue that American Netflix simply didn’t want to pay for, not knowing how much of an important puzzle piece this song was and still is to a genuine Evangelion viewing experience. In its place, they decided to leave a track from the soundtrack which, while unsettling, doesn’t fill the hole left by this iconic track. While those jumping into the show for the first time may not be aware of this, it is nonetheless a major mistake in removing it.

What Netflix Can Do:

I’d love to say it would be as simple as scrapping this dub, getting back all the old actors and redoing it all from scratch, but that seems easier said than done. Ideally, I’d like for this new cast to be able to retry this version with a better and more accurate version of the script, but it’s hard to say how much Netflix is willing to budge on this. Probably the simplest change they could make to appease fans would be re-adding the multiple versions of Fly Me to the Moon back into the audio as a sign of good faith, but I have no idea how much that would cost. I’m pretty flummoxed with how Netflix is fumbling what should be such an easy slam dunk for their anime catalog, especially when they’ve had pretty solid hits in the past, but it’s starting to become clear that may have not come from their handling it specifically. But what’s for certain is that Netflix mustn’t run away from the chance to make this right. Hopefully they and the fans can meet on common ground over a nice glass of Tang, and make a product that fans old and new can enjoy properly.