Fast forward to 11 PM EDT, I raced home in order to get the fix I so desperately needed. Since I knew I was not going to be home during the scheduled broadcast, I made sure to utilize my TiVO to record Naruto. As soon as I entered the house, I flung my shit down the stairs and ran for the television. My mind was obviously too preoccupied with the upcoming joy that I failed to realize that I just threw my laptop down the stairs. It was alright though, because Naruto was coming to make all my troubles go away. I quickly threw my sister off the couch and told her to go somewhere else to watch her garbage TV programs. I had no reason to be courteous, because it was the night that would issue in a new era of anime in the United States. I sat down on the couch, and pushed play on the remote. I was finally at peace when the program began.

To say that I had high hopes for the American release of Naruto was an understatement. I was convinced that Viz Media was going to handle this property correctly, and Naruto would be the new shining example of how to broadcast an anime series properly. I knew there was no way that Viz Media could go wrong with this show. The series was already huge even before any talk of licensing in the United States came about. Viz promised to stay true to the source material, and promised to cater to the already legions of fans already in existence. Well, all of my hopes and dreams for Naruto were dashed in the span of one hour.

I watched episodes 1 and 2 of Naruto that night back-to-back, and I was disgusted. What has Viz done to this beautiful series?! I am not even sure where to begin. I guess we should start with the English voice acting. If I were to describe the English voice acting in one word, I would say that it is “nauseating.” That’s right; I thought the Naruto English dub was nauseating. The majority of the voice actors failed to deliver the lines in his/her character’s proper tone. Naruto’s English voice was very raspy and lacked the energy that such a character would require. Naruto is an energetic, unpredictable young boy. Why were his lines delivered with such little energy, and somebody please explain to me why he must sound like Charlie Brown?! In case you didn’t catch it the first time around, please watch the show again and listen carefully. Naruto sounded exactly like Charlie Brown!!! Naruto was not the only character to receive poor voice acting; Iruka was also a victim of this crime. Iruka is Naruto’s first teacher and mentor, and is very kind and caring. I don’t understand why Quinton Flynn (English voice actor for Iruka) decided that Iruka’s lines should be delivered in a very wacky manner. Flynn gave Iruka a generic cartoon voice, which is the complete opposite of Iruka’s personality. The madness doesn’t stop there, every single girl (Sakura, Ino, Hinata, etc) appears to have that stupid generic ditzy blonde giggly annoying as Hell Americanized anime girlie voice. Why do these distribution companies think that this generic voice for female characters is actually good quality?! Did somebody one day write a rule book for distributing anime in the United States and write that all female characters must sound annoying?! Could somebody point me in the direction of this person so that I may dismember him/her?! I really hate that voice style. It NEVER fits the character’s personality. These female characters are very complex individuals with actual dreams and feelings that surpass this cartoonie female stereotype that dates back to the 1930s. With all the advances in women’s rights over the past 85 years, I would hope that Viz Media would get their act together and stop portraying women to be mere stereotypes in their dubs. These were merely examples of the atrocities committed by Viz with their poor excuse for an English dub. I also was not too crazy about Kakashi’s voice. I know that he has not premiered in an episode just yet, but when Cartoon Network went to commercial, they played a clip featuring Dave Wittenberg as the voice of Kakashi. I was not impressed one bit, but I’ll wait for a full episode with Kakashi before I pass judgement.

There were actually a few bright spots in the Naruto English dub. I felt that Steve Kramer did a respectable job with the voice of the Third Hokage. He was merely pretty good, but when compared to the rest of these joker voice actors, he gets a B in my book. Colleen O'Shaughnessey did a great job as the voice of Konahamaru. She really nailed the young child’s personality. I would have declared her the best voice actor of the bunch thus far, but she was completely awful as the voice of Ino. So, O’Shaughnessey gets a C for her performance. The best voice that I have heard thus far comes from a non-main character, Mizuki!!! How fitting that the best voice actors don’t even appear in every episode? Michael Reisz performs Mizuki’s voice in the first episode, and I thought it was done rather well. The tone and delivery actually fit Mizuki’s personality and character. Too bad that was the last we see of Mizuki. It just seems like Viz wasted a quality voice on such a minor role. We also have Steven Blum as the voice of Zabuza to look forward to in future episodes. For those of you unfamiliar with Blum’s work, he spectacularly voiced Spike Spiegel in the English dub for “Cowboy Bebop,” as well as worked in a plethora of additional anime series (ie: Mugen in “Samurai Champloo” and Roger Smith in “The Big O”). He is probably the best American voice actor next to Mark Hamill, and deserves the recognition.

Before I leave the discussion of the Naruto English dub, there were two points that I wanted to touch upon. I was very annoyed and aggravated by the way every voice actor in the series pronounced Naruto’s name. If you watched the episodes, you know exactly what I am talking about. Everyone pronounced Naruto’s name as if they were sounding it out very slowly and stressing every syllable. “NA-ROO-TOE” was the exact way it was pronounced. They were pronouncing the name so slowly that I felt like I was being taught how to read for the first time or something. It wasn’t like it was a one time mistake, it was pronounced this way throughout both episodes. If they were having so much trouble pronouncing the name, they should have just pronounced it with an American accent, “Na-ROO-Doe.” In fact, whenever they went to commercial, Steven Blum (voice actor for Tom, the Toonami mascot, and voice actor for Zabuza in upcoming Naruto episodes) would pronounce the name this way. It just didn’t make any sense. Another problem that I had with the dub was the translation used for Naruto’s catch-phrase, “Dattebayo!” Viz decided that the NEW Naruto American catch-phrase should be “Believe it!” I did not realize that Naruto has now become Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Jose Lima. For those of you that do not know, Jose Lima has always used his catch-phrase in interviews and with teammates. Can you guess what Jose Lima’s catch-phrase is? You are correct, Jose Lima always shouts “BELIEVE IT!!!” in his Dominican accent. So now, every Saturday night at 9 PM on Cartoon Network, IT’S LIMA TIME!!!

Alright, I think I have bashed Viz enough, and maybe I’m going to take a break from the bashing to actually talk about what Viz did correctly. I must admit that Viz did an excellent job when it comes to keeping the look and feel of the series in tact. The character names were kept the same as the original series. Not a single character name has been changed in the American version. This is a significant step in the right direction, as it has become common practice for the character names to be Americanized (ie: Cardcaptors….yuck, I feel dirty mentioning it). I’m extremely happy that Viz kept their promise to not change the character names. I was also amazed to discover that Viz kept all of the in-show music the same. This was huge for a lot of Naruto fans, for the background music in the series was beloved by many. The background music sets the tone for every scene, so we should be grateful and applaud Viz for maintaining such a key component of the series. Unfortunately, not all of the music in the series was left unchanged. As expected, Viz changed both the beginning and ending theme of the series. Knowing that the main target for the series in the United States would be children, I was aware that the original Japanese opening and ending themes would be met by opposition from these children. The opposition would be in the form of lower ratings. So, I am able to allow Viz to slide on the theme songs, though I will miss Akeboshi’s “Wind” as the ending theme. Another important aspect of the series was the names of the jutsu techniques. I felt that Viz did the best they could do with this situation. Viz simply translated the Japanese jutsu technique names literally into English, and it worked very well. So, instead of Naruto shouting “Kage Bunshin no Jutsu,” he shouts “Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu.” All of the other techniques appear to follow this template. One technique that I was shocked to actually see included in the series was Naruto’s “Henge no Jutsu,” or “Sexy no Jutsu.” I had this technique pegged for elimination from the show due to the main demographic being so young and impressionable. I guess due to the frequency of Naruto’s use of this technique, it would have been very difficult for Viz to remove it. Regardless, I still give Viz a lot of credit for keeping the technique in the series.

Now it is time to discuss what Viz edited out of the show. This is very hard to discuss after only two episodes, especially since I anticipate a good amount of content to be cut from future episodes. In the first two episodes, Viz removed the nose bleeds associated with being stunned by the “Sexy no Jutsu.” This is a bit disheartening as it hints that Viz could edit out the blood during fight sequences in future episodes. This was the only major edit from the original version in the first two episodes of the series. Due to the scheduled broadcast time, the Naruto series is forced to fall under strict rating guidelines. The ratings guidelines will dictate what can be shown and what needs to be edited. As the series moves forward, I am sure that there will be plenty of instances where Viz must cut out a scene or two or three. They will definitely need to edit the language from time to time, as the Naruto series is known to use a swear every now and then. Any edit made during any of these episodes should be included on the DVD uncut. So we at least have that to look forward to.

On a whole, I was very disappointed with the effort that Viz Media put forth in bringing Naruto to American television. The English dub was obviously neglected, and there doesn’t appear to be much chemistry between the actors. The tone and delivery of the lines by the voice actors clashes with their existing character personalities. I had high hopes for the dub, because Viz kept promising that they would be very respectful to the original source material. They kept their promise in some aspects. Viz does do a great job in maintaining the names and some of the integrity of the original series, but it is not perfect and they changed the opening and ending themes for the series. I also understood Viz wanting to be respectful as meaning they would take extra care when casting the voice actors, but apparently that was not the case. In fact, the majority of the voice actors worked on “Zatch Bell,” another Viz property. I should have known when I saw that the majority worked on “Zatch Bell” that this dub would probably be just as bad. It has become painfully obvious that this version of the Naruto series is aimed at boys ages 6 to 14 years old. In fact, this was the demographic that showed the highest ratings boost for the new Toonami addition. So, unfortunately, for the rest of us not in that demographic, we are left aside to sit patiently and await the uncut DVD releases. Supposedly, the uncut DVD releases won’t occur until a few months following the initial American DVD release. So we have a long time to wait for uncut Naruto DVDs. Speaking of Naruto uncut, during an interview with GATV, Adult Swim’s programming manager, Kim Manning, was asked about the possibility of Adult Swim ever airing Naruto uncut during their late night block. Manning responded as saying that Adult Swim would love to show Naruto uncut, but since Naruto is being marketed to children, it would be very difficult to try to also pass it as an adult show as well. So, it is definitely a possibility, but don’t count on it.

So, that about wraps it up for this addition of the Cocaine Cowboy Corner. I hope you enjoyed my thorough look at the Naruto anime series premiere on Cartoon Network. Though I may not be too keen on its current American condition, I am happy that Naruto has finally made it stateside, and will continue to support the series. Naruto’s arrival in the United States opens the door for tons of Naruto merchandise to flood the market, and we will finally be able to buy the many many Naruto video games without having to pay import prices. If you did enjoy Naruto on Cartoon Network, I encourage you to not be embarrassed and to continue watching the show you love. I’ll leave you all with my ratings of the first two episodes of Naruto on Cartoon Network.

Dub: D+

Animation/Art: B

Music: B-

Overall*: C