The Tale of the Stolen Credit.

The Studio Ghibli film, ‘The Tale of the Princess Kaguya’, is now available on Blu-ray in the UK via StudioCanal. It’s a fantastic movie, and one I encourage everyone to see. There’s no point in me pouring superlatives over it because just about everyone who’s written about it has done that already, and it’s every bit as wonderful as they say. Instead, I’ve a complaint about this Blu-ray, and some other releases of Ghibli films here in the UK.

‘Princess Kaguya begins with a series of title cards crediting the cast and key crew. So, if you’ve decided to watch the film with the soundtrack dubbed into English, you get credits for dub actors Chloë Grace Moretz; James Caan; Mary Steenburgen; and so on, alongside the Japanese crew, and director Isao Takahata. All accompanied by Joe Hisaishi’s gorgeous music. The text during the opening has been altered from the original to reflect the version of the film you’re watching. And that’s just fine by me.

But if you prefer to watch the film in its original language, it will still begin with that exact same English-cast-crediting opening. That’s definitely not fine by me.

It happens again at the end of the film. The credit roll has been replaced by a new version with English job titles, and romanised names, but the dub cast is presented as if it is the only cast. Every member of the dubbing crew is given a credit at the top of the roll. While the original Japanese actors you’ve been listening to are only acknowledged via a subtitle track, briefly flashed on screen, having been left off the new roll. This strikes me as incredibly disrespectful, both to those actors, and to the audience who want to see the film as it was originally released.

This issue isn’t limited to this particular film. No matter what language you are watching ‘Ponyo’ in, the American cast is loudly credited at the beginning, and end of the film. The British dub cast of ‘Arrietty’ receive the same treatment in that film.

There’s no reason for it. When I saw ‘Princess Kaguya theatrically in the UK, it had the original credits in Japanese (with subtitled translation,) so it’s not as if the footage doesn’t exist, or got lost in transit.

To see how this should’ve been handled, look no further than ‘Laputa: Castle in the Sky’ which uses alternate angles on Blu-ray so the viewer is given the credits appropriate to the soundtrack they’re listening to. Why couldn’t that be done on these other titles? I ask this because the entire Studio Ghibli collection, including Laputa, is distributed in the UK by StudioCanal UK (formerly named Optimum.) Why was it possible then, but not now? And, if someone feels it’s important to credit dub staff, but not the original actors, why have all the titles in the collection, other than those I’ve named, been presented with their credits in Japanese with subtitled translation?

It’s my understanding that the production committee of an anime work needs to give approval to every detail of western releases. From subtitle tracks, to dubbing, to packaging, and advertising, it all gets signed-off on. So I find it hard, in the case of ‘Princess Kaguya, to believe that the representatives of Studio Ghibli, Dentsu, d-rights, Hakuhodo, KDDI, Mitsubishi, NTV, TOHO, and Walt Disney Japan (55 people- all of whom receive named credit) all looked at this, and thought “yeah, that’s ok.”

I have no idea what legal rights performers have over credits in foreign territories, but I definitely think some basic moral errors have been made here. And, as a nerd who’d rather see films as they were made, I feel a very little bit ripped-off to not be able to do that.

That’s all I wanted to say, thanks for reading.

Yes, I know this is a small thing to be complaining about, but what’s the Internet for if a geek can’t moan about a relatively microscopic aspect of a somewhat niche corner of cinema? So, if you want to call me out for airing my first-world problems you can save your breath, because I already know.