Streamline Pictures
-From Rage Quitter 87's Fist of the North Star site

Streamline Pictures were a company who used to import anime, dub it into English and then release it on video in America. Founded in 1988, one of their earliest releases would prove to be their most popular: Akira. Generally speaking they released three or four titles per year. 1991 saw them release an English dubbed version of the Hokuto no Ken film, which had originally been released in Japan in 1986. The company is now out of business.

Contents
1) Fist of the North Star
2) Other releases



Fist of the North Star


The English dubbed version of the 1986 movie was released on video in America sometime in 1991. It was success for the company, and for many people was a first exposure to Japanese animation. However, in the years gone by the quality of the translation has been called into question. Many lines from the original Japanese script were changed for the dubbed version, making the story more confusing in the process. For example:


-In the Japanese version, Raoh tells Ryuken he plans to conquer the heavens. Ryuken attempts to stop him. In the English version, Raoh mentions nothing about his plans and just wants to fight Ryuken to prove his strength. However, Ryuken tells him that "power without perception is spiritually useless and therefore of no true value" and "do what you must Raoh, but never set foot in this dojo again", as if he wants his student to go out and kill people! The two still fight though, making his words somewhat useless.


-When Raoh tells Ryuken that Ken has been defeated, Ryuken says "Nani?!" (What?!) in the Japanese version. In the English version, he just says "Your point?" like he doesn't even care.


-In the Japanese version, after Ken kills Zeed, the narrator explains a little bit about the Hokuto Shinken style. In the English dub, this was replaced with silence.


-Just about any fighting style name was removed from the English dub -so Rei never names his style (Nanto Suicho Ken) and any move names were also removed -so Uighur yells "TAIZAN RYU SENJO BEN" when he does the move in the Japanese dub. But in the English dub, he shouts "I'll slice you into dog meat!"


-The English dub also does the traditional thing of early to mid 1990's anime dubbing by having swearing where there was no swearing before, although it thankfully doesn't go that overboard with it.


-The English version tries to make it look like Ken beats Shin with his single punch -Ken never asks Shin who gave him those wounds like he does in the Japanese version.


-The lyrics for "Purple Eyes" were removed for the Streamline Pictures version.


There were also a couple of changes/errors with some of the character names. Yuria was changed to "Julia". Zeed was mistranslated to "Zender". Ryuken is actually spelt Ryuken in the Streamline version credits, but Raoh's voice actor, Wally Burr, mispronounces it as "Raiaken". Jackal was never named in the Japanese version, but he is in the English dub.


List of Streamline's Fist of the North Star releases:

Fist of the North Star
Released: 1991

Streamline's video release of the movie, whilst I've never seen it myself, my understanding is the transfer has a red tint to it so it doesn't look that great. As well as being dubbed into English, the logo shown at the start of the film is obviously now different compared to the Japanese version.
Fist of the North Star
Released: 1991

This video was released also in 1991, I guess. It has a new cover featuring Kenshiro, Raoh and Rei, but other than that the video is the same as the previous release.




Other releases


Until they stopped in 1997, Streamline released many dubbed and licensed many different animes, here are some of their highlights:

Year of release
Japanese title
English title
1988
Akira
Akira
1989
Majo no Takkyūbin
Kiki's Delivery Service
1992
Rupan Sansei: Kariosutoro no Shiro
Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro
1992
Kyūketsuki Hantā Dī
Vampire Hunter D
1992
Sazan Eyes
3×3 Eyes
1993
Yōjū Toshi
Wicked City




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