In Funimation's old dub of Detective Conan ("Case Closed"), they localized everything to fit a generic American setting, from the names of people and places, to cultural references.
When Shinichi's (Jimmy's) rival, Heiji (Harley) appears, they localize his Osakan background, but don't really stay consistent. The first few times, they mention he's from a fictional city on the West Coast. Then, by the episode where the main characters visit his hometown, they settle on Alberta, Canada, making him Canadian.
This is of course, despite the fact that the visuals very clearly show Osaka, and they don't even bother to name any specific Albertan landmarks. One could argue that it's just some random city named "Alberta," but according to the dub's ADR director, Caitlin Glass, they intended to use Canada for his background.
RecallsĀ Caitlin Glass, āCase ClosedĀ was also the first show I did anyĀ ADRĀ directing for. Somewhere around episode 120 I did a handful of episodes, mostly revolving around the character we called Harley Hartwell (originally Heiji Hattori), Jimmy Kudo's rival. He's supposed to be from Osaka, so there's the rivalry between Tokyo and Osaka as well in the original version. Because of the localizing, our Harley was placed in Canada! I didn't have the actors give the incidental characters accents or anything, but an 'eh' or two might have made their way into theĀ dub, just saying.ā ā "The One Truth, And Nothing But the One Truth: An Oral History of Case Closed"
Given the absurdity of trying to take, what is shown to us, as a distinctly Japanese city, and saying it's America, let alone Canada, I've made a compilation of the few times they localized Osaka/Kansai in the TV anime.
As an addendum, when Funimation dubbed the first six movies, they stuck to a more accurate script, keeping the changed names, but the setting and cultural references mostly Japanese. The third film, "The Last Wizard of the Century," partially takes place in Osaka, and Heiji and Kazuha (Kirsten) are part of the group. However, in the film, Osaka is just Osaka, not Alberta or anything else. For more information, see this blog on dub changes.
stormborns
2087
gracieabrams
romaincrisis
