Mmm, really interesting thing I found...
I was reading the whole english changes from that episode from that website and comparing it to
Digimon first episode in castillian spanish.
Its really, really strange what the spanish translations did with the spanish version here. Animes are usually translated directly from their Japanese version in Spain, except Pokemon and from the looks of it, Digimon... except that for Digimon seems they worked this time with both the american and japanese scripts.
For starters all the music remained unchanged (OP and ED had a spanish translation of "Butterfly" and "I Wish" respectively, funnily "Butterfly's" lyrics are completly changed explaining what the series was about instead of talking about love, while "I Wish" has a more literal translation). Score from the episode also came completely uncut from the japanese version, including using "Brave Heart" with the japanese original lyrics untranslated.
The spanish version uses the english nicknames given to the main character HOWEVER in lots of the dialogs they also use the complete Japanese names (Agumon usually calls Tai as Taichi for example and I remember clearly hearing characters say even their surnames a couple of times during the whole series), something the american version never does.
Digimons instead have their japanese names in spanish. Attacks are all translated from their japanese version, so no Pepper Breath here, but Llama Bebe (Baby Flame). Petit Fire (Blue Blaster) is strangely translated to Mini Fuego Zen (Small Zen Fire).
Dialogs are faithful to the american version (things like Tai presenting the characters at the beggining with him being an asshole, Digimons presenting themselves, Joe being a coward and not wanting to catch a cold, etc...), at least from what I see from the first episode, HOWEVER (again) any added dialog (shitty jokes out of nowhere, over explanations, phrases when not zooming that character, characters not moving lips but talking, etc...) are out. Some examples:
Tai does a surfing joke when the tidal wave engulfs them. Japanese version has the kids screaming for their lives, same as the spanish version.
Matt saying we need an helicopter, bugspray... all out from the spanish version.
Sora explaining how they seem to have evolved while the camera pans over the digimons... out also.
By the time in the first episode that the digimons fight against Kuwagamon, the dialogs start to look less like the american script and more like the japanese ones, and totally changing by the end of the episode (all the stupid dialogs the characters say during the victory sequence are out for example). The spanish version also adds the narrator from the japanese one instead of using Tai. All episodes from now onwards start and end with this narrator.
Digimon analyzers are voiced through the whole series, just like in the american version (japanese are not voiced), so thats something that stayed forever as the nicknames for the characters.
Any commercial cuts or fades from the english version dissapear in the spanish version, and its completly unedited from the japanese one.
Censorship is also out from the spanish version, and we got the japanese totally uncut. Had to look for episode 6 in that web to be sure, as it seems the first one that had an scene cut from the english series, looked for the spanish episode and the scene is intact. Also the songs the kids sing at the beggining of the episode are using the same game as they use in the japanese (not the "digimon eat, digimon fight" from the english version), with a funny addition, the last song they sing is La Macarena, not present in the japanese nor the english one, obviously lol Although the japanese version uses a popular japnese song sang in karokes, so the change is apt.
This big change in dialogs by episode 6 probably indicates that the spanish series was stopping to use, as more censor and invented dialogs occur, the american script to completly use the japanese scripts.
The thing is, its very strange that the spanish translation started as a version taken from the american one, as it never occurs in animes (as I said only exception is Pokemon), and instead of only using the english script they decided to mix them with the original japanese one (at least for the first episodes). That seems like doing double work and baffles me they tried that.
So yeah, pretty interesting, as im interested in the dubbing/translating industry and how different countries do their work.
Also it surprises me the need of the american version to add lines where they didnt exist, to crack a joke or do over exposition. It's probably as bad as changing the whole music and it's double the work for localisation. So WHY?
