Urusei Yatsura May Have Bad News for English Dub Fans

Potentially, bad news for dub fans of the Urusei Yatsura 2022 anime. Anime fans have discovered the second season Blu-ray collection for the Urusei Yatsura 2022 anime listed on the Sentai Filmworks website. The collection is listed as having the third and fourth seasons, or cours, of the modern version of Urusei Yatsura. The caption next to the language section only shows Japanese with English subtitles, suggesting the collection will not have any English dub. Contrastingly, the first season’s Blu-ray collection has English and Japanese listed on the Sentai Filmworks website. Sentai produced and released an English dub for the show in 2023, casting multiple American voice actors like Jade Kelly, Nathan Wilson, and John Swasey.

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The dub for the first half of Urusei Yatsura was released on HIDIVE, allowing fans to watch an English version of the anime on streaming. The lack of an English language track in the listing has fans concerned, but it is possible the listing is a production error. Small errors like these are common among early production descriptions for projects. It would also be odd to only have half of the series dubbed and not the rest. Nonetheless, it’s possible Urusei Yatsura wasn’t successful enough to convince Sentai to invest in a dub for the second half. Dubbing an anime costs a lot of money, and if a company doesn’t believe it can earn back its investment, then it will not be worth making a dub for something it can’t make money on.

Urusei Yatsura‘s Complicated History with English Dubs

Urusei Yatsura 2022 is the latest anime adaptation of the manga series from Rumiko Takahashi, the mangaka behind Inuyasha and Ranma 1/2. There was a 1981 anime adaptation of Urusei Yatsura animated by Studio Perrot and Studio Deen. AnimEigo owned the licensing for the series in North America from 1992 to 2011. Discotek Media now owns the North American distribution rights for the 80s anime. There have been several dubs for the 80s version of Urusei Yatsura, including an AnimEigo-produced dub in 1995, an Animax dub in the 2000s, and a new dub for the films released in the 2000s. Typically, these new dubs would feature a different cast and behind-the-scenes crew.

One of the most notorious dubs is the BBC Choice dub from 2000. CBR covers how the BBC dub was a gag dub of a few episodes of the 80s series, featuring British cultural references and jokes that weren’t in the original text. The dubbing wasn’t well received and had never been released on home video. When Discotek released Blu-rays for the 80s Urusei Yatsura anime show, none of the discs contained any of the English dubs. Nonetheless, re-releases of the Urusei Yatsura films on Blu-ray have English dubs.

Was the Urusei Yatsura Listing a Mistake?

Despite what sub-only watchers may claim, English dubs are vital for anime. English dubs ensure a series reaches a much larger demographic, specifically those who have difficulty reading or understanding a different language. More people are inclined to watch a series if they can view it in their native language, and if an anime is not released in English, then fewer people will watch it. That’s why same-day dubbing is a huge part of the anime industry, and why multiple companies invest so much to have their anime released in English for American consumption.

Production listings can often be wrong, using outdated information about a product before anything becomes official. The important thing is that the company has a page for consumers to interact with and potentially click on the pre-order button. Unfortunately, though, despite being part of anime history, Urusei Yatsura 2022 may have simply not been the anime blockbuster Sentai Filmworks was hoping for. Given the heavy capital of dubbing production, there’s a very real possibility the company couldn’t justify producing a new English dub.