I make a lot of posts about the pedestaling of the American English dub in the fanbase and the fact it tends to be shoved down the throats of people who aren’t asking for that (I absolutely do not ask people to disown it or anything, just to be more conscientious about others around them who have good reason to have concerns), but I think one of the biggest ones I really want to address is that some of the “jokes” it makes are actually pretty disturbing from a cultural sensitivity perspective, and for those particular jokes it’s really uncomfortable to hear people praising those for how much more hilarious they are when it’s actually that kind of thing.
I’m not talking about the fact that said dub covers up several aspects related to Japanese or Asian culture (that’s of course an inevitable part of localization), but the fact that said dub often takes those aspects and makes a mockery of them to levels that go beyond the call-a-rice-ball-a-jelly-donut level. For example:
Two scenes from 02 episodes 22 and 25 where curry and peas on rice respectively are made into “gross cafeteria mystery food” jokes. The above are easily recognizable to anyone familiar with those, and it’s not exactly a comfortable feeling to see those labeled as something you should be treating like gross sludge.
There’s also one point where they make an MSG joke, when the stigma against MSG is a racist myth perpetuated to make Chinese and other Asian food seem filthy – an especially unnerving comment to see out of a localization of an anime from Japan, where commercialized MSG originates.
The reason I’m making this post is that there was a tweet where a Japanese fan found cups that resembled the ones used for the oolong tea in Our War Game! and got Westerners QRTing them memeing about “beef jerky shakes” because of Digimon the Movie, which is really not a good look in front of the OP who noticed and made some tweets about foreign insensitivity about Asian tea after that (mistaking barley tea for whiskey, etc.), and also pointed out that the real-life Suntory oolong tea bottle was in their picture and yet people still had to make jokes about it being beef jerky shakes. You really do have to consider that it’s kind of uncomfortable to see this kind of thing treated like it’s equivalent to “some weird impossible bizarro drink” because oolong tea is either too foreign or not funny enough, and so while I’m not trying to completely tear down the dub or anything, please at least have more conscientiousness about the fact that this is ultimately only a single localization, and that for people who are at least a little disturbed by this kind of thing, it’s not comfortable to have this thing forced down your throat as “superior because it’s funny”.
Basically, I’m just asking to please be conscientious about this issue, especially since it’s not 1999-2001 anymore.