He-Man (Japanese Anime Series)

He-Man (ヘマン) is a Japanese animated series produced by Shin-Ei Animation and Asatsu-DK. It has been running on TV Asahi since 1982.

Plot
The show takes place in 31st Century Japan (on the fictional planet of Eternia. Its lead character is Prince Hiroko (Adam in the English version), the young son of Eternia's rulers, King Randor and Queen Marlena. Whenever Prince Adam holds the Sword of Power aloft and proclaims "By the Power of Grayskull!" he is endowed with "fabulous secret powers" and transformed into He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe. Together with his close allies, Battle Cat (who undergoes a similar transformation from being Adam's cowardly pet tiger Cringer), The Sorceress, Teela, Man-At-Arms and Orko, He-Man uses his powers to defend Japan from the evil forces of Skeleton Kun (Skeletor in the English version), whose main goal is to conquer the mysterious fortress of the Big Castle (Castle Grayskull in the English version), from which He-Man draws his powers. If successful, Skeleton Kun would have enough power to rule all of Japan and possibly the entire world.

Anime Series
He-Man started out as a manga series in 1978, written by Tetsu Kariya. It was a very popular manga series, spawning merchandise and other consumer products over the late 70's and early 80's, so Karia pitched an animated series to TV Asahi in 1981, the network accepted it, and the show premiered on September 10th, 1982. A season of He-Man consists of approximately 52 episodes, and starts on the Friday following American Labor Day. Over 1,000 episodes of He-Man were made by the time it ended on August 26th, 2011. After a 1-year hiatus, He-Man was rebooted with a similar, but more modern looking art style with updated designs, new voice actors, and a new staff.

The 1982 series is referred to in some Asian countries as the Chikao Edition, named after Chikao Otsuka, He-Man's voice actor, or seiyou in that version, while the 2012 reboot is referred to as the Akio Edition, named after Akio Otsuka, He-Man's current seiyou, and the son of Chikao Otsuka.

English Adaptation
Around 1984, TV Asahi began an effort to market He-Man to the international market outside of Asia, referring to the series as "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe". The network, along with French representative Antenne 2 (Now France 2) and the then recently formed German representative RTL, commissioned California based Vitello & Associates Inc. (now known as Vitello Productions) to supervise the localization of the series for the French and German speaking markets in late 1984, and later in the English speaking markets in late 1985. From this version, other versions of the show would be adapted into other languages for South America and parts of Europe (with Spain being an exception, since it was being distributed by LUK Internacional, which now distributes the 2012 series in all of Europe, except for Germany, where it's distributed by RTL). The cast of this English adaptation included actors like John Erwin, Brian Bloom (who had his first voice acting role in it), Linda Gary, Alan Oppenheimer, Frank Welker, and others, the former of the actors voiced the titular character. All of the changes in the dub were approved by Shin-Ei Animation themselves.

Initially in the US, the series aired on NBC, which aired it from 1985 - 1987, the network aired 26 episodes before cancelling the series, despite high ratings. Eventually, the show resurfaced on Fox Kids in 1992, and the remaining 26 episodes of the dub, which aired in other countries between 1986 and 1989. 26 more episodes were dubbed over 1994 - 1995, the dub was eventually cancelled due to Linda Gary's death in 1995. Reruns aired until September 4th, 1999, afterwards, the show moved to Fox Family and aired there until it was renamed to ABC Family in 2001.

The dub was renewed in 2010 by Bang Zoom! Entertainment, with the show moving to Disney XD. He-Man is voiced by Rick D. Wasserman in this adaptation of the series, the reason for the recasting was because John Erwin was in his early 70's by 2010. Ironically, Alan Oppenheimer is 6 years older than John Erwin, and he reprises his roles as Skeletor and Man-at-Arms from Vitello's dub, but that's likely because he is a higher profile actor. 52 episodes were dubbed into this version, with 2 seasons consisting of 26 episodes each. The last episode in the dub is the same episode as the last one in the original Japanese version.

When the 2012 reboot premiered, there were petitions on various websites to TV Asahi to make an English dub of it. In 2015, Bang Zoom! Entertainment posted a tweet on their Twitter page showing the cast for the 2012 series and announced that an English dub was in production. The dub premiered in the Fall of 2015 on Disney Channel. A second season aired the following Fall. The dub ran for two seasons, including one 26 episode season, and a 13 episode second season. 13 more episodes were scripted, but not recorded, because Rick D. Wasserman wasn't available, but they have been dubbed in the German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Latin Spanish dubs, which have the intro and music score from the English dub. The German DVD release for the second half of season 2 contained a Japanese audio track, but no English audio track.

A redubbed Japanese version with the English music score exists. Chikao Otsuka says that he remembers recording a version of the English intro with his narration, and he (along with everyone else who worked on the original Japanese version) was actually pleased with the results of the English translation, that the producers asked TV Asahi to make a redubbed Japanese version. The redubbed Japanese version of the "Erwin Edition" (seasons 1 - 6) has been made available with Dutch subtitles when the anime was released in the Netherlands, though later the series was dubbed into Dutch when Fox Kids launched there. The redubbed Japanese version of the "Wasserman Edition" (seasons 7 and 8 of the 1982 series, and both of the 2012 series) started airing on Disney Channel Japan in early 2017, all episodes except for the second half of the second season of the 2012 series are bilingual in English and Japanese. All seasons are available on Hulu in the US as "He-Man (Sub)".

Bang Zoom! Entertainment originally intended to license their dub of He-Man to European countries outside of Iberia, but by 2015, LUK Internacional was already distributing the series in all of Europe outside Germany, so the latter made their own English dub of He-Man. It is a dead straight translation where the show's location is kept in 31st century Japan, while all of the warriors use their English names, humans, like "Hiroko", keep their Japanese names. When British viewers saw this version on Boomerang, they were asking questions like "Since when was He-Man set in Japan?" and ""Hiroko"? Isn't his real name "Adam"?". Unlike Bang Zoom! and Vitello's dubs, the episodes are all in Japanese broadcast order with no skipped episodes (with the exception of SPECIALS, like "The Beginning", which is 3 parts, though it was dubbed into the Castillian Spanish dub). He-Man is voiced by Russel Wait in this dub. Despite the dub's attempts to be faithful to the original Japanese version, the dub is criticized for poor voice acting and lip-syncing.

1982 Series

 * The intro uses footage from OP 1 (Hiroko's introduction / transformation), OP 2 (He-Man walking to the screen), ED 2 (Shots of villains on Castle Grayskull background), and ED 4 (Footage of He-Man's allies)
 * The slow-paced music score was changed to a fast-paced music score that would appeal to Western audiences.
 * The title cards don't have He-Man reading them, but either he or a narrator does read them in some foreign dubs
 * The Orko eyecatches are used as break bumpers at the beginning and the end of a commercial break as opposed to the next part of the episode starting after the commercial break.
 * Any footage of Man-At-Arms physically abusing Orko was removed
 * The fart sound effects were removed.
 * In episode 2, the footage of Teela as a baby was altered so that she would be wearing a diaper and a bib to cover her penis and boobs respectively.
 * Moral segments were added as a suggestion by the FCC. In the seventh season, they were replaced by parodies of Japanese commercials (but the text is in English, and they are spoken in English), sometimes featuring two different 15 second ads for the same product / place / company / website / etc. in a row, just like on Japanese TV.
 * Japanese signage has been translated into English
 * Japanese yen notes are replaced by US dollar bills
 * Fade to black transitions have been added to most of the episodes.
 * Some episodes have several minutes of footage cut, for example, "The Ancient Mirror of Avathar", an hour-long special is only 22 minutes long in the English version, at Power Con 2013, Rick D. Wasserman confirmed that the 22 minute cut was all that was dubbed, and an uncut version doesn't exist, there is a 2-part version in German, though.