Redditors recently noticed a pretty big name change in the Arabic dub of the anime My Hero Academia – and they’re not complaining.
A Reddit post titled “Arabic MHA Spacetoon Renames ERI to “REI” in Season 4″ has been popular since it was revealed that the character Eri in My Hero Academia has been renamed into Rei. While some have argued that this is an example of censorship, the majority of fans seem to agree that this change is for the best, as Eri, in a Syrian Arabic accent, appears to mean “Con my bastard”. The name change was first mentioned in the anime’s fourth season trailer that aired on the YouTube channel “Spacetoon go”. Spacetoon broadcasts to millions of viewers in the UAE, Indonesia, Ukraine and Syria. You can check out the trailer below, where “Rei” can be heard at the 1:16 mark.
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This was naturally hilarious to many anime fans, who shared other localized name changes that were probably for the best. For example, Brazilian fans brought up the Portuguese dub of Star Wars, which renamed Count Dooku to Count Dookan due to the original name’s proximity to a vulgar term.
Changing Eri’s name isn’t the most controversial dubbing choice in the anime industry. The official dub of the popular Ghost Stories removed a lot of the original script, replacing it with dark humor and self-referentiality. The completely fabricated line “Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?” from Ghost Story is ranked 10th on 10 famous dub quotes that differ from the original Japanese. However, it was the English dub of Naruto that received the ire of many fans of the franchise, creating an entire era of children screaming “Believe it!” — is markedly different from the original Japanese “Dattebayo!” While most of the major dubbing changes in recent years, such as My Hero Academia, were made to maintain the anime’s appeal, others, especially in previous decades , is said to have hindered public perception of anime for many years.
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My Hero Academia fans can watch the English dub of the series on Crunchyroll, which includes all six seasons. The website describes the series: “Izuku has dreamed of being a hero his entire life—a noble goal for anyone, but especially challenging for a kid without superpowers. That’s right, in a world where 80% of the population has some kind of superpower.” With ‘super powers’, Izuku was unlucky enough to be born completely normal. But that wasn’t enough to stop him from enrolling in one of the most prestigious hero academies in the world.”
Source: Reddit, YouTube