Sonic X – Strange Localization: 1969 Chateau Latour vs Salami

Today I look at something that always perplexed me since I watched Sonic X in Japanese so long ago, and it has to do with a localization decision by 4kids.

4kids is no stranger to silly cuts and edits to the anime they bring to the west, as you can find plenty of articles and videos about online dealing with Pokémon and One Piece.

Obviously, they change things that they deem inappropriate for their English audience which is usually younger (or deemed less mature) than their Japanese counterparts.

Sonic X is full of cuts, but this one is just the strangest to me:

In Episode 14, “Chase the Hero Sonic!” (Eiyuu Sonikku wo Oe! 英雄ソニックを追え！), the President’s aide aims to keep the press entertained while waiting for Sonic to appear to an event he had set up. One of the methods he uses to get them to stick around is by offering them quite a bit of fancy (and alcoholic) drinks.

In the 4kids, first he appears with… well Orange Juice. So that makes sense, an unnecessary edit I suppose (could have simply passed it off as something else instead of editing it…) But fine.

Then this is where it gets odd. Later he offers a “1969 Chateau Latour” as a fancy drink for them…

…but what is it in English?

Salami.

Why? Why Salami? How does that even make sense?

It gets silly in the next shot, where he is offering to pour the drink in Japanese…

…he’s “pouring?” (offering?) Salami in English…??? Who holds Salami like that…?

What?

This decision was always very, very strange to me. Considering the other cuts, why have this at all?

For some instances, the drinks were purple in the episode.

Usually, this allows localizers to get away with “grape juice” as an excuse, which at least works better considering the lack of editing needed and slightly more believability.

I would love to see how the board (or translators) sat around and reached the decision to throw in salami as the solution to what to do about the bottle he’s holding, though…

It makes it even stranger that, by the end of the episode, everybody is passed out drunk by the time Sonic gets there…

–which in English is still shown, though without the drinks.

…meaning that Orange Juice + Salami = passing out drunk… I guess they were going for a “they fell asleep out of boredom” thing (or maybe a carbohydrate overdose?). Why is that guy in the bottom left still blushing then?

Just such a strange, strange thing to me… it really made the entire episode very strange. I would have loved to hear the reasoning behind salami as opposed to simply grape juice or something else…

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And that’s that. If you would like to see more of these sort of brief comparisons, feel free to leave a comment or suggestion (or email me under “Contact”).