Niboru and the Dream Machine

Niboru and the Dream Machine is a Japanese children's comedy fantasy suspense OVA that was animated by Toei Animation and aired on Fuji Television in spring 1987. This OVA was based on an obscure children's picture book of the same name that was released in 1979.

Plot
Niboru is a normal 8-year-old kid who always is unlucky, gets into trouble and gets bullied by his friends a lot. But one night, Niboru finds a machine that can let him dream about anything he wants, but then, he and his friends get sucked into a dream and has to go one a long adventure to get back into the real world.

Reception
The OVA has contained mixed to positive reviews in Japan, due to the animation and the magical atmosphere. Although, the first two English dubs had decent reviews from critics and fans alike, the Nelvana dub contained negative reviews and was disliked by many fans of the OVA, while its French Canadian dub recieved better reception. The reason for the hate on the Nelvana dub was because of the writing and the voice acting. On the bright side, though, lots of children love the Nelvana dub due to the silly writing and Marlowe Gardiner-Heslin's witty voice performance as Niboru. Due to the amout of hate the Nelvana dub got, its airing on Canal Familie recieved low ratings, and they rarely re-air it to this day.

Trivia
It is unknown who voices Niboru in the Channel 5 English dub of the OVA, but according to the voice director, he mentioned that they hired a young man to voice him.

Niboru was voiced by a woman in the Pioneer dub, while Kyoto was voiced by a woman in the Channel 5 dub, and Shizuku was voiced by a woman in the Nelvana dub.

The Channel 5 dub was made in 1998, while the Pioneer dub was released in 2000, and the Nelvana dub was made in 2003.

In the Nelvana dub, Niboru's voice sounded nothing like his voice actor, instead, he recieved an unexpected high-pitched voice that sounded similar to Stan from South Park.