What I appreciate about this anime is how they did not baby the audience. These dogs were as human as their owners, & there were real consequences for their actions. It's very well grounded in reality compared to it's sequels.
They definitely didn't baby the audience! There are some very brutal and dramatic scenes, and you genuinely worry about the characters. By sequels, you mean Weed, Noah, etc.?
@@MilesTFBaxxter I didn't care for weed, but I watched the anime which was a very low quality adaptation. When they start fighting a frankenstein dog it broke my immersion a bit. Also there's wolves that summon tornadoes in the arc after Silver Fang's anime ended which is silly. It's fun but silly.
@@kennylauderdale_en I feel it may have started with the "spinning death kick" at the end of the anime, which came out of nowhere and was very shonen (and not at all needed for the story). Wolves summoning tornadoes sounds crazy! Hope to read the manga one day.
@@MilesTFBaxxter It is worth a read. Wolves were little hit or miss, but in my opinion they were still the most interesting and mysterious villains/allies in GNG. It was so much good wasted storytelling-potential!
As a Finnish, yes would say that happiest childhood memories where going to rent that ginga VHS dozens of time and still having the sobs and chills. Have tradition to watch whole season form uncut edition dvd in winter times, having great hygge time! Fun fact: bcs. of Ginga, as kid I was so scared to go to school at winter, when I lived near the woods and at 8AM yeat pitch black I was so scared that Akakabuto would come out of somewhere :'D I hope I'm not the only Finn who had this childhood little fear
There were actually some recent threads in the main Reddits for Norway, Denmark and Sweden about Silver Fang, and a surprising amount of people were sharing similar stories, like hurrying when walking through the woods as they were scared of Akakabuto. I love hearing people's childhood memories related to this amazing show - and glad to hear I wasn't the only one repeatedly renting the VHS tapes!
Finnish person here!! I think I first got introduced to this show when I was 6. I was at my aunts house, and she had the first vhs of it. I was never able to watch it because my parents told me it was too scary, but later, I think at 9 years old, I found the full movies on yt. I watched them all and I fell in love. Ever since then, I’ve been reading the mangas and the later shows/mangas in the Ginga series (Weed and whatever his pups name were) I absolutely love this series. It is my dream to sometimes meet the author. Tho the show did fucking scar and scare me I would watch it again❤❤ ALSO THE MUSIC OMFG I LOOOVE THE MUSIC
Not sure if they're available on RU-vid anymore, but great you were able to watch it on your own! Kids arguably need some high quality 'traumatic' media (it's often what we end up loving the most afterwards), and the music is definitely something.
I'm one of those Finns who grew up with this amazing anime. This will always be my favourite anime ever. Or if count 1990's Moomin series then it's strong second place. When it comes to Moomin that stuff is bedrocked to us Finnish kids. Haha! Everything about this anime is great. The atmosphere, storytelling, animation and the music everything is GREAT! Doesn't matter how many times I hear that intro I get hyped and chills everytime. With the smile on my face. Ah! I will never stop loving this anime!
It is kind of an amazing series, when you think about all the different elements. Everything is pretty much top notch - other than some of the Nordic dubs. The Moomins 90s anime is great too, for sure!
Your last version of pronouncing Hopeanuoli was almost spot on. More confidence pronouncing it and you are there. It means silver arrow (hopea = silver and nuoli = arrow). 🤠 I watch the Finnish dvd every year (I'm 34yo lmao). Sadly no Finnish dub in it, it was so bad that it was funny, but many scenes were cut on VHS finnish dub version. The DVD is uncut and the audio is original. Saddly there is high pitch VHS noise under the audio even in the DVD. I have made lyric version of the original intro and edit of the hq mp3 version on youtube. Maybe going to do some more one day 🤔
I found ginga through the early 2000s online and from there I've been in love with it ever since. Sadly I wish I could have been in the Nordic countries to get more available merch and what not, but you weren't kidding when there's like no coverage in other countries you stated. I live in Canada and I've come across the three dubbed mangas of ginga densetsu weed, I've gotten most next to all of my ginga stuff through eBay. Im glad this series means alot to others including myself
Not sure I'd say it "needs a remake"; the original is near perfect enough. But at the same time, would love to see how they'd execute it. They could also do other mangas in the Ginga series, or other mangas by Yoshihiro Takahashi. Several neat options!
When I was a kid I had VHS #1 and #3 and my friends had the #2 and #4. In Finland this is absolutely HUUUUGE. Bigger than Naruto, One Piece or even Dragon Ball. Even my dog is an akita🥰
The danish covers make them all look like just a big happy family, haha! Uncle Akakabuto is worried about the kids on the snowmobile. Awesome video! Silver Fang was such an exciting show to watch as a kid. I hadn't seen anything as violent or graphic before. It felt like we were watching something kids weren't supposed to watch, which just made it even more exciting. PS. Love the art in the Video Rental part!
Perhaps the Danish covers are set in an alternate timeline where Akakabuto never lost his eye and is just a friendly mountain bear. Hoping to eventually get my hands on the rest of them; they need to be preserved for future generations. It's a great series, definitely stays with you if you grew up with it. Similar to e.g. Animals of Farthing Wood or Moomin. Has some darkness and drama that you didn't often see in kids' entertainment. It's a shame the series wasn't released in more countries. Thanks again Bonefoot, I'm glad that you liked it!
@@MilesTFBaxxter Animals of Farthing Wood was last shown in Finland on early 2000's. I only have some vague memories about it, but the dub was not so good. Moomin is as big as ever in Finland even today, but a commercial channel got the proadcasting rigths for it without the original finnish dub, so the younger generation need to survive with a lower cost dub of it. I only hope they have it on dvd or something.
I first learned about this show on RU-vid back in the mid to late 2000s when I was in college. And boy this show was quite a wild ride. In a good way that is. It has everything a good show should have; memorable characters, deep story telling, drama, and hardcore action. Pretty intense series for the 80s. Since then, this show has earned a special place in my heart.
I stumbled upon this video. First off, hello fellow norwegian! I remember renting videos back in the days too, I however when visting Denmark was able to buy the whole DVD set for Silver Fang (the uncut version you showed even!) and haven't looked back since, still have it on my shelf to this day! Im happy to see others talk about this obscure anime that took the north by storm. I recall having seen it at a friend's place looong ago in dub and we sat there watching one of the episodes. Then I re-found it online and was able to truly enjoy it. Ah... what I'd give to experience that again!
Nice, a fellow Norwegian VHS renter! 👊 I remember they had stacks of the uncut Silver Fang DVD box set at Fona 2000 in Denmark (which is now defunct), for only 100 DKK. Was a fun surprise stumbling over them! Should have bought more... It's too bad it's starting to fade into obscurity here in Norway. Seems Finland is the only Nordic country where they're actively keeping it alive; the author, Yoshihiro Takahashi, even had a signing in Helsinki just a few weeks ago. I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
I found this series fansubbed, and I LOVED it. It is still one of my favorites even now. So many people never got to know about it! Also, that stage show? Didn't know I needed that in my life. It's AWESOME!
Yeah, it's a shame it wasn't properly released (or aired) in more countries. Fortunately people do occasionally stumble over it online and decide to check it out for themselves.
It's also very popular up here in Greenland, most of late 80s and early 90s kids was their first anime, my uncle gave it to me as present when he came back from education in Denmark, so naturally I got the Danish dub. I was just a small kid and I was hooked. The music, the violence, it stuck with me ever since then and luckily my cousins got all the VHS tapes, so I get to watch the rest of it. (Edited) And the covers of Danish VHS tapes that I've seen was not like the versions you showed xD it was like the Swedish versions
That's very neat! I must admit, I'm very unfamiliar with Greenland. Do you know if it was ever for sale there at stores, or were all copies "imported" from mainland Denmark? And you know if it was popular beyond yourself and your cousin? And yes, I have found out that there are Danish releases of Silver Fang that uses the Swedish designs shown in the video! There seems to have been three different generations of cover designs that were used in Denmark for the VHS releases.
@@MilesTFBaxxter Hi, yes, it has been imported and sale in the video store back then with original Danish dub, even rented them once more and more people knows about it, so they kept asking for more. If you have all of the tapes, you're the cool kid. Yes, there's more than me and my cousins that knows Silver Fang, all the school kids knows it, young and old parents knew its existance. Even my parents watched Silver Fang with me, cause they're also interested in anime of themselves. I have younger siblings who also watched it with me and mom. Even one of my friends told me her story about how she acting like Gin (Silver) with her sister, they barked and climbed on things but then fell and broke her ankle. She had a fond memory of it. Yeah, I noticed the different covers releases as well, which the last one looks so "kids friendly" which can be lead misleading.
From Denmark: Grew up with it - It was a generation thing - my brother got as a gift as a kid and then my sister and I also ended up watching it. We all loved it. There's 13 years between my brother and I and 7 between my sister and I. So yes, a generation thing. It still holds a near and dear place in my heart to this day.
Absolute crazy and legendary show.. I know for a fact it’s one of the few Anime that became popular in Denmark as well doing 80s 90s … was it big in Japan ?.. Just got to the Nordic countries part.. interesting
It does appear to have been big in Japan! Not quite at the level of the proper big anime/manga IPs, like Naruto, Bleach, etc. But well-known enough to have billboards, merch, win awards, and more. I think it feels like it was bigger here in the North compared to Japan simply because we didn't have many other anime shows, so its cultural footprint is easier to see - if that makes any sense.
Can you imagine my thrill when, as a 20 year old woman, could show my husband silverfang. He had never seen it and it was an absolute joy to go with him on his virgin trip through the silverfang saga! 😭😭🩷🩷
Första gången jag sett någon som är ett stort fan gjort en video om Silver Fang tror jag. Kul! Jag har tänkt göra en själv nån gång då SF var så extremt viktig för mig som barn.
Takk! Det finnes minst en annen 'fan video' på RU-vid, samt noen litt mer generelle videoer (fra hva jeg har sett). Når enn du lager og publiserer din egen Silver Fang video, så er det bare å droppe en lenke til den her i kommentarene. 👍
Your best video by far! Perfectly captures both some of the best an most unique aspects of the anime as well as the cultural impact it has had here in the north! Great job! ^w^
Wow! What a complete video!! Very well done. I had no idea about this series, very curious that it was very big on the nordic European countries but not in the rest of the world. I'm sure I would have known about it if it was aired at some time here in Mexico. I remember noticing those kind of nonsensical decisons on covers on other things that were very similar with other shows or even with story books.
Thank you so much, Paco! Really glad you enjoyed it. It's definitely a shame the series was never properly released in more countries, but at least it has a bit of a "cult following" in the North and online. And yes, at least those odd cover designs can be fun to analyze (even if you wonder how the decision making was like behind the scenes).
Very informative video, thank you very much for the upload! I started watching Gin way back in 2008 as a kid and have loved it ever since. I re-watch the series at least once a year! Such a shame this series is so underrated!
I do not think that Silver Fang was more popular in Finland than anywhere else in the Nordic countries, but rather they were lucky to have a publisher who wanted to publish the og manga in Finland. Of course, getting the manga released gave it a huge jump in popularity. We in sweden tried to get Silver fang published but all publishers think it was too old or difficult to publish themselves.
That's true! It's unclear whether the publisher saw that Silver Fang was "extra popular" in Finland and that's why they decided to translate and publish it, or whether the popularity came as a result of this. I actually asked this question over on the Gingaboard forum. gingaboard.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2885
@@MilesTFBaxxter It was definitely really popular long before we got the manga, the fandom just wasn't organized yet when the internet wasn't really a popular thing yet.
About the Norwegian dub, I can add that the Swedish version is also dubbed by a skeleton crew. I think is about 10 people who dubbed every single character in the series. Although, most of them are incredible good at distorting their voices and it at least feels like a lot more dubbers.
I'll have to do a voice count one day for the different dubs! For Norway, I believe volume one had three people doing all the voices. Then for volume two through four, there were three different people doing all the voices. So six different voice actors in all, but you only ever had three people dubbing one volume.
Been GNG fan for about 25 years at least. Firts saw it on daycare and now own the VHS dub, DVD orginal with subs, Manga and more. Greetings from Finland!!!
Ha, awesome! Would love to have seen kids' reaction to this at a daycare. Have a feeling it wouldn't go down too well these days. Guessing it was one of those after-school ones, with kids maybe around 6-10?
@@MilesTFBaxxter Actually, I was only 5 year old at best, maybe only like 3 year old, when I saw GNG first. I can remember it being so cause my parents divorced whilst I was over 5 years old. When they were still together they had to take me usually early in to the day care because their jobs started so early like 5-7 clock in morning. Once I was brought as the first child to the day care. My caretaker asked me would i like to watch a film before everyone else came. I said sure and she put the GNG dubbed version VHS to play. I remember watching the whole first VHS with amaze and excitiment whilst being completely just quiet and clued to the floor where I was sitting. After the VHS ended I turned to watch my caretaker and she had fell asleep somewhere in middle. I dont know when because off the excitement like I told.
Definitely holds up! And great to have someone to share it with; I was the only one I knew who'd seen it when I was a kid. Not every family was into VHS rental, and the selection would vary a lot from place to place when it came to the cartoon selection.
7:58 There are couple of reasons why I think it's so popular here (I would know, because I am, in fact, born and raised in Finland). One would be its scenery and atmosphere with a lot of boreal forest and snow, which is really close to Finland's own climate and nature. Secondly, because Silver Fang is centered around dogs instead of humans, that would be quite appealing to Finns, because many families here do own dogs of various breeds, just like in the dog pack Silver Fang travels with. And many of the series' moralities and values are also shared and admired by Finns, such as righteousness, the beauty of nature, courage and friendship. I wouldn't find it impossible if the story of Silver Fang was actually based in Finland, because you really couldn't tell the difference!😉🌲🌨
A Finn here! GNG was a huge part of my childhood as well and I can still say that it's one of the best anime and manga series I know of. Also funnily, there was also a Ginga Densetsu Weed musical in Finland, that had two shows in two different conventions.
Saw the censored (norwegian) VHS-dub of Silver Fang a few months ago, and was surprised by how brutal some of the scenes were. The uncut version is much, much worse in terms of violence, but there's a decent amount of blood even in the censored version. The uncut dub is interesting though, as it was dubbed in Denmark by norwegian theater artists/dancers living there. That also explains why they didn't get the original cast back for the uncut dub, even though all three of them (yeah, you were right about that part, lol) were still active on CN. Some of the voice actors behind the uncut version also did a couple of infamous mockbuster dubs in the 90s, particularly movies from "Goodtimes Entertainment" and "Dingo Pictures". Absolutely stunning work on the art during your childhood flashback (5:26) by the way, love the style and shading!
Yes, the censored version is still pretty brutal, which likely made it that more impactful for all of us who watched it as children; seeing blood and characters being severely injured or even killed. Regarding the Norwegian uncut dub, that's interesting! Do you happen to have a source for that? I would love to find out more. (And I do love me some Dingo Pictures.) And thank you, I'll be sure to pass on the compliments to the artist!
I think I was 15-16 when I first found Ginga on RU-vid. I watched Densetsu Weed first and loved it, then went back and watched the first anime because I didn't know that Nagareboshi Gin had existed and it became my new favorite over Densetsu Weed 😂
@@MilesTFBaxxter well I just found it cool to see characters that die in Weed (like John and Smith) back in the day when they were at their prime _fighting homicidal bears_ of all things. I enjoy a lot of the Gin characters and the story a lot more than Weed, and I love the art style (especially how consistent it is throughout the show, unlike Weed where some episodes and scenes look like a professional artist made them, and then others look like they were drawn by a 12 year old)
Excellent work on the explanation on Ginga Nagareboshi Gin franchise my friend. This is the first time I've watched Ginga franchise but I have watched some music videos when I was 10-11 years old. Also I really love the characters of Silver Fang franchise both good and evil because they like warriors, tyrants, and ninjas as they fight to survive. Plus I love animals and other creatures since when I was very young.
Excellent video! I love that you called out that lousy Finnish fall scream, cause that was a fairly common in Finnish dubs for a long time. I have a love hate relationship for them cause I love how cheesy they can be but I also get the frustration for the lack of quality, ha ha!
Thanks a bunch, UrbanBanner! Wish I knew Finnish so I could properly appreciate bad Finnish dubs, but some performances do fortunately transcend the language barrier.
@@MilesTFBaxxter Gladly our Disney dubs became award winning, as Disney's Aladdin (animated) Finnish was deemed the best one in some localisation award... Thingie. I think late 80's, early 90's was a turning point even in home video front.
@@JohnMcClane86 Yes, I have heard about the Aladdin dub! That's pretty cool. I'm still thankful for terrible dubs though; they can be a lot of fun watching together with friends.
Swede here, yeah you could rent them at the rental stores, but you could buy the VHS at the petrol stations, and it was released twice, first the had a version that was just slightly cut and condensed, then cencored version. And the swedish dub was really good, all the people were proffessional actors that had dubbed cartons earlier, but yeah same here, they all had like 3 or 4 characters they dubbed.
Thank you for your comment! I'd be really curious if you have any of the less censored tapes. As I mention in my Silver Fang Trivia video (give it a look!), there have been claims about alternative versions but so far there has been no hard evidence, despite dedicated fans doing research. So the general consensus in the community is that there are two versions: the original censored cut that was released on VHS in the 80s and 90s, and then the uncensored original version that was released (I think) in the 2000s on DVD. But would be very exciting to find some evidence that contradicts this, like one of those tapes with a different cut.
@@MilesTFBaxxter No sadly I dont have them, they went on repeat when I was a child, so they all were worn out, and my parents threw them away as they started to get stuck in the VHS player. And then when I got older and managed to find the censored version (In swedish) on dvd which I then donated to my godson as I showed him all the good cartons/anime from the 80-90 when he grew up. And then I got my hand on the uncensored japanese dvdbox with subtitles and I was happy! But Yeah It could be that it is false memories about things, but I am certain I saw Benizakura's death in swedish, but that scene was gone in the censored version. I actually had to explain what happened to him to my godson, since in one episode he is there, and then in the next one they talk about how he sacrificed himself, since he could not get free from the rope.
I am Japanese. I am surprised to know that GINGA is popular in Scandinavia. I remember this anime was broadcast around 5pm in Japan. It is a sad story, isn't it? I lived in the countryside, so the broadcasting time might be different in the city.
Fun to hear you watched and grew up with it in Japan! Now and then you end up with some seemingly "random media" becoming hugely popular and culturally important in some countries. It's fascinating, for sure. In this case, it just happened to be one of the few anime shows that was chosen for VHS rental distribution here in the North when the market was starved for content and kids were eager for more cartoons.
Great video! Back on The 80's I was allways looking for a Silver Fang VHS, when we vent to rental. In Finland it was the biggest thing beside TNMT. And I love those Finnish dubs, because they are The voices of My youth. Even though they are pretty crappy, they still brings some warmth in my heart.
One reason why it is so big in Finland might be our legacy with bears and bear dogs. We have many words for bear. Basic version is karhu but then there is kontio, otso and nalle. To say few. Reason why there is many names was believing that if you say real name of bear you might summon it to your yard. And with dogs we have our dog breed for hunting bears Karelia bear dog or karjalankarhukoira as we say it.
That's interesting, thank you for sharing! Plus, it's of course largely set in a harsh, snowy landscape, which is relatable for all the Nordic countries.
You brought me so many memories man! It warms my heart especially as I have been reading the Main Ginga Stories and Spin-Offs and am now only needing to read 2 more Mangas: The Last Wars & Densetsu Noah!
I wish those mangas were published in English or one of the Scandinavian languages so I could read them as well. Alas. And aw, you're welcome, glad you liked the video!
@@MilesTFBaxxter Well have I got a surprise for ya. The mangas have been published in Finnish (The Last Wars fully and I believe GDN has gotten 8 volumes translated in Finnish as its still ongoing). And I have explored Ginga Board and the Internet and theres this page called Silver Fang Reader which has several works of Yoshihiro Takahashi which have been translated by fans to English. Unfortunately not all Chapters and Volumes of each Series have been translated notably Ginga Densetsu Weed. But as far as I know that site houses most of the translated Mangas.
As a Finn, I'm planning to buy the Hopeanuoli manga series someday because I never watched the show but since I'm a late 2004's kid, I feel like I missed something that should've been in my childhood. And since it's a cultural thing amongst the 1980*-2000 kids, I want to enjoy something that is considered nostalgic by the people in their late teens to early to mid 20's
It's never too late to get into Hopeanuoli / Silver Fang! The uncensored anime is definitely worth watching (and hopefully the manga is good, which I haven't read yet myself).
I loved this series when my mom first bought it in around 2006 ish. It was my first anime besides stuff like Pokemon and Digimon! It really seems it has a cult following in the north compared to other countries, and its bizarre to think how many doesn't know of it! It was my childhood^^
It might have been my first anime too. It had a very different feel from all the other cartoons I was watching - and of course, it was way cooler. It's a shame it's not better known internationally, but at least those in the Nordic countries can share childhood memories involving the show!
You pretty much nailed the ”Hopeanuoli” pronounciation the first time, well done! It literally translates to Silver Arrow so not quite the same as Silver Fang or Silver as the character is called elsewhere and in Japan respectively. I have to admit that it is a bit long name and a bit of a mouthful even for a Finn to say if you had to keep using it. I’m surprised that they didn’t just call the character Hopea (Silver) but maybe that would have been seen as too generic. But in any case, cool to see someone talk about this manga/anime, as it was a big part of my childhood. I had the 4 edited VHS tapes released in Finland and later bought the DVD with the complete show unedited and even later the whole manga series once it was published. I also bought the sequel series on DVD and had a lot of the early manga volumes. Unfortunately the sequel series just didn’t live up to the original series. Now as for why did this series become so popular in Finland specifically, I think that a part of it is that there are surprisingly many similarities with Finland and Japan. In both cultures people tend to be very restrained and conscientious (Suicide rates are pretty high in both countries as well). So maybe this samurai-honor-code thing that is a major part of GNG just appeals to Finns the same way it appeals to Japanese. And I also remember that as a kid I never quite knew where this show was supposed to take place because the nature and the backgrounds (a lot of woods) were something you could easily find in Finland. And it didn’t help that back then manga and anime where not as well known in the West so there were a lot Japanese shows like this that me and a lot of others watched without realizing that it was anime and it was from Japan. GNG might well have been the first anime I ever saw while stuff like Digimon, Pokemon and DBZ were the first that I saw and was aware of them being anime and from Japan.
It's also awkward that the Hopeanuoli name is shared with an older cowboy comic (which I mention in my more recent "Silver Fang Trivia" video). They arguably could have just stuck with the English-language "Silver Fang" title, as they did in the other Nordic countries rather than translating or localizing it. And thanks a bunch for sharing! It's fun how there are plenty of cartoons people saw when they were kids, which they only later realize was anime (e.g. the Moomin cartoon show).
13:45 That's just like with the covers for Kirby games. In North America, he's depicted with an aggressive, confident expression, but in Japan and Europe, he's much happier and carefree.😏😃
6:27 Silver Fang is also (to my knowledge) the best selling manga in Finland. The original creator Yoshihiro Takahashi even dedicated one Silver Fang manga story to the Finnish fans! Just like the American Disney comic drawer Don Rosa, whose story "The Quest for Kalevala" starred Scrooge McDuck and his friends on a mission to obtain "Sampo", a legendary mill that could produce endless amount of gold, and they meet the heroes and foes of the classic Finnish epic Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot.😉
There must have been multiple covers for the danish VHS copies, cause those covers were NOT the ones I remember from my childhood. I remember them looking bad but not THAT bad! Good video!
Thanks a bunch, glad you enjoyed it! There have been at least three different sets of Danish VHS covers to Silver Fang. Hoping to get hold of more of them!
So I kinda procrastinated on watching this video for a good while and only just got around to it. And the first vhs cover you show in the video (the swedish one) just kinda broke me. Not for any bad reason mainly because I was going trough my grand parents house like a month back after my granddad passed away and while looking trough their vhs shelf I found my copies of the swedish Silver Fang VHS's with those covers. And these are tapes I thought I had lost well over 15-16 years ago. And little did I know they had been hiding in plain sight for all these years. They are now proudly displayed on my shelf in my new appartment. Now I just need to get around to getting myself a VHS player so I can re-watch them.
That's great, glad you found the tapes! The series for sure has a great sentimental value for many of us. It's so different from most of the usual kids shows we get exposed to, so it's hard to forget it if we ever got to watch it as kids. Also, my condolences.
"Förbannade Björn!!!" Great childhood memories. I was the only one in my class in Sweden who fell for Silver and anime, some of my friends got hooked also, but not to the level i was, and still am. My parents bought the VHS for me, i don´t know why and who recommended them to do so... they have no interest in anime. I got to ask them, if they remember, it was over 30 years ago now ^)^
Back in the VHS days, it was all just "cartoons". You rarely thought about where it came from, whether it was anime or something else, and you went with what was available and looked cool. Good times! I was also the only person I knew who loved Silver Fang, too; having VHS wasn't yet that common, and the series was only available to rent (as far as I remember) from one particular place in my area.
I remember getting the VHS casette from library and binge watching the show. I was watching the episode where Akame appeared and it got really intense. I vividly remember being really mad when my mom decided to start vacuuming in front of the TV. Like wtf that is the worst moment to start cleaning, can't you see I'm watching my bloody dog show here :"D I think she ended up confiscating the cassette.
as a kid, watching the censored fourth VHS felt like a fever dream so many "how, when and who" questions to ponder for years before seeing the uncensored series. XD
Oh yeah, for sure. The fourth VHS volume was my least favourite as a kid, and I don't think I fully realized why it just wasn't as good; it just wasn't "as good" as the others.
Ah, do you still have them? Which country were they from? There have been several different VHS runs and cover designs, and I don't show them all. (I also don't have pictures/scans of them all, but would love to.)
@@MilesTFBaxxter They're probably in our attic somewhere, they were hand me downs from my step-dad's little brother who must have had an anime phase during the late 80's to early 90's. I can't seem to find VHS boxes or dvd covers that look like the ones I have, which makes me think they were probably recorded from rental tapes. The box art on the tapes looked like shots taken from the intro with the title banner. Anyway, it was the Danish dub, with audio replaced properly. Some of the early voice acting is hard to listen to. But something that was interesting too was that, around the same time one of the other dubs experienced a change in voice actors, so some roles also got re-cast in the Danish dub around the time Gin joins the wild dog pack. Our dub was mostly uncut, though I think Akatora(?)/Red Tiger. or one of the ones in that dog trio has their death scene cut late on. I also think a part of the fight with the Harpooned bear was cut, and Benizakura's death is also cut for some reason. So maybe not entirely uncut.. But Gohei totally tries to feed Riki his leg >.>
Don't forget that in Denmark,most if not all animated series was shown during school hours. Denmark really sucks if you are a cartoon lover, not only were we in school when they showed it and had to stay home sick if we wanted to watch it, they also never released anything aside from Disney, Dreamworks and WB movies. And if that wasn't enough, if the series was "long" you could forget all about seeing it all because Danish studios didn't dub anything. Take pokemon for example, do you love it? Well that's to bad, because we only air the first season and one third of the second. You really like it and want to buy it? Well that's to bad, we only put out the first season on 32 red and yellow vhs tapes so we can make the most money out of you and your parents, but in return we'll take out 15 episodes right in the middle.
4:27 Quite the opposite thing happened with the Moomin franchise, which started as a series of storybooks by the Swedish-Finnish author Tove Jansson, and then boomed in popularity in Japan, even producing its own anime series "Tanoshii Mumin Ikka".🤔📚
Sucks how Warrior Cats kinda took the "super cool animal action series" attention, I feel like if this was released in the US it would have a huge fandom here too ;-; I love this series so much, and nobody knows what it is in the US. Such a shame.
It is quite funny to see, that they changed the voices in the Finish version after first volume. They did the same thing in the Danish version. I grew up with the movies and got the third VHS tape in 1991. Soon I nagged my mum to the the others too. I never thought much of it as a kid but later I thought the voice changes was due to them getting a bigger budget after the first one was a succes. It was aired in Danish TV at TV2, I belive in 1989 or 1990. Question: In the Danish remake that became the extended edition, with new voices, they put in all the blood and gore that were censured away, but the manuscripts were rewritten so the language wasn't as "tough". For instans they removed almost all swearing in the new version. When Silver on the VHS exclaim "I will kill you, you bastard" (translated loosly), it is changed to something like "I will get you". It looses a lot of the tough gang feel that the original had. Was it the same in the other translations? Btw: Lucky bastard Finish people, having the comics translated !!! :D :D
Actually, when I'm talking about the voices changing after the first volume, I'm referring to the Norwegian dub. Sorry if it wasn't clear enough! It moves pretty quick in the video from one to the other. Fun to hear that the same thing happened with the Danish dub! Would still love to get a hold of more of those Danish VHS tapes, or the original Danish dubbed DVD release. Are you sure the series aired on TV in Denmark, and that they weren't just available on VHS? I've never heard of the series being aired on TV in any of the Nordic countries, but I could be wrong. Maybe it happened in Denmark! Regarding your question: I'm afraid I don't know, I'd have to re-watch the two Norwegian dubs again. But Norway and Denmark were the only countries that got a dubs of the uncensored version. Finland and Denmark just got subtitles. Not sure if those subtitles contain any swearing either, or whether it was toned down. I wouldn't be surprised, as they were more lenient with more harsh or vulgar language in the 80s and early 90s. I do have an idea for a video doing a more thorough breakdown between the versions (especially everything that was cut and changed for the original dubs), but I'll see if I ever get to it. Would be a while into the future. Thanks for giving the video a watch, and for the lengthy and interesting comment!
@@MilesTFBaxxter Hi again. Thanks for your answer. I am sure you said the correct thing in the video, but as I was watching it at 3 am I probably have mixed the languages up. I just tried to look it up, but since there are so few sources from TV-programs in the 80s it is not 100% reliable. But I managed to finde two places (the normal Wiki and "DKWiki Silver Fang" that state that "Hundehvalpen Silver" was aired in Danish TV in 1989 on TV2. But this was in a even more censored version that the already cut version. I actually have two set og the Danish VHS tapes with two different coverarts, and the restored DVD box. Maybe that is why to me the differences are so clear. The VHS versions, with the exception of the second tape for some reason, seem to be available here on RU-vid. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lF4o0IOs5hs.html I really hope you make more content about Silver! I actually didn't know the old version was released on DVD too, never saw them in Danish. I will have to look into that! Recently there was a feature about Silver in a tv-program about comics, cartoons, games and "nerdy stuff" as they call it them self. They actually said that even back in the 80s, when they had to dub the series it was debated if it should be rewritten to a more "childfriendly" language. Some of the "nerds" (luckily) maintained that it should stay true to its original language. But that led to a group of outraged mothers :D Thanks for an awesome video, hope to see more :D
@@Siher86 Do you remember seeing it on TV yourself, or is the Wiki the only source for the information? And yes, researching old TV programming definitely isn't the easiest. That TV program sounds really interesting! Do you know the name of it? Is there anywhere to watch it? Would love to be able to give that a look. Now I'm second guessing whether those Danish DVDs exist of the original dubbed version. I recalled seeing some pictures online, but it could be I was misremembering. If so, sorry about that! Thank you for the research - and your compliments!
@@MilesTFBaxxter I must say I can't remember if I saw it on TV back then, since I was only about 4 years old. However, I do know that Silver was already a thing most of the boys knew, when I started in school back in 1992. How it became so popular, if it hadn't been aired in TV, I don't know. But it is not impossible that the wiki is wrong. I might send the TV station a mail to hear if they have any records of that time. Maybe they can see if they bought the rights to show it ? The TV show is called "Troldspejlet & co". The host interview a cartoon/animation creator about what she liked as a kid, and she mentions Silver Fang as something she liked very much. I think I have found the episode here. If you have a VPN and set it to Denmark you should be able to see it for free at: www.dr.dk/drtv/se/troldspejlet-and-co_-frankenstein-og-amalie-naesby-fick_236230 , about 18 minutes in. However, I don't think they have any subtitles other than Danish :( Looking into this I just saw that the same show actually review the rerelease of the uncut DVDboxset in 2006 :D If I can find it and any new information comes out of it I will let you know. No problem. Thank you so much for all the nice input and an awesome video! Btw: In your video you mention "that one episode" that were drawn ... let's just saw "in a bit lower quality" than the rest of the series. Are there any information as to why that happend?
I love stories like this. Cute animals or not. The mainstream animes mostly don't appeal to me with some taking a quantity over quality doctrine. It's less known shows like this that often end up having the best scenes, the greeatest scores or the most depth. As an Australian our market is fairly sized but is not large enough to support every item. So you only really see mainstream stuff sold in stores. So you have to buy items online. But how can you know what to buy online if you don't know what you're looking for? The dilemma. Usually people either see it on TV and go to buy a DVD or they see the cover in a shop and buy it as a result. A lot less likely you'll find an interesting thing in the maze of online items. Thank you for sharing
There's no real perfect way to deal with discoverability or exposure, unfortunately. I'm just lucky Silver Fang was chosen as one of the few anime shows to be dubbed and distributed on rental VHS here back in the 80s! If the distributors had passed on it, it would never have gotten the Nordic cult following that it has today.
I saw this show first time when I was 6-years old. And from that moment on, this series made an indelible impression on me. This series is probably the biggest reason I draw furry characters rather than human characters. And yes, I have that uncut DVD box on my shelf. By the way, I'm from Finland, and this series came to Finland by name through the other Nordic countries, mainly Sweden. And perhaps the biggest reason why the Finnish version doesn't sound very good is that the series was dubbed based on the Swedish version. Plus, dubbing was very expensive at the time in the late 1980s, so you couldn’t really pick with quality. Plus, when the Finnish economy was overshadowed by the worst recession of all time in the early 1990s, this also generally affected why the quality of dubbing was not particularly good for a long time. And the funny fact that Silver Fang's Finnish dubbing was done by a few actors who were also involved in dubbing DuckTales.
Thank you for your comment! It's definitely a series that has stuck with a lot of us who grew up with it. I'd love to know more about the dubbing history and context of all the Nordic dubs of the show, as it's all super fascinating - and an important part of pop culture history. When you say, "the series was dubbed based on the Swedish version". Do you mean the Finnish version was dubbed over the Swedish, and you can hear the Swedish dub faintly in the background? Or do you just mean that they used the Swedish cut, rather than doing their own cut? Fun to hear that the Finnish dub also has the Duck Tales connection, same as with the Norwegian dub and I believe the Swedish dub!
@@MilesTFBaxxter In Finland, the dubbing company Golden Voice Oy, founded in the 1980s, was responsible for dubbing the series. For the most part, the company dubbed mostly very kid-friendly / western material such as My Little Pony, Care Bears, Denver The Last Dinosaur, Super Mario Brothers Super Show, He-Man, Dino Riders, and my own personal favorite, RoboCop The Animated Series. But the company was also one of the few that also did dubbing for anime aimed primarily at the adult audience, such as Kimarunge Orange Road. So Silver Fang was by no means the only one of its kind. The dubbing was done by the voice actors Pertti Nieminen (R.I.P) voice of Gin & Daisuke (In Ducktales he was Gyro Gearloose) Ulla Ollikainen all female voice roles in 2nd cassette. (In Ducktales she was the voice of Mrs.Beakly) Päivi Sorsa who played all the female roles and a few male roles on cassettes 1,3 and 4. (In Ducktales she was the voice of Webby.) and Erkki Murto voice of Gohei, Ben, Sniper and Riki. One of the reasons for the poor quality of dubbing was that the dubbing had to be done in a hurry because all the actors had work on the theater side as well. The translation also had to be done in a hurry for the same reasons. And the Finnish translation was made on the basis of the Swedish translation, because there was no English translation of the series, and in Finland Swedish is another native language that I have also been taught in school, so it was easier for translators to translate on the basis of the Swedish translation. And in Finland, studying Swedish is often referred to as "forced Swedish" A.K.A forced to learn Swedish. So the only translation was from Sweden, but in the Finnish version, the dubbing was fortunately carried out in such a way that the original speech does not hear under the dubbing. And technically, the dubbed versions in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland have been cut in much the same way.
Others probably mentioned this but I think i've heard the reason for the japanease voices in the background of the rerelease was due to the master film being lost to time. The good thing though with tech maybe one day we could have a new release with good voice actors and no background voices.
Not sure if it has been confirmed or not (I would love to know), but it's definitely not unlikely. Happens all the time with older media, where the raw footage has been lost, recorded over, or thrown away.
I was in a silver fang organisation in sweden for a while as we for a few years visited local cons holding activities like lotteries, acess to the manga, a sewing workshop for making costume animal ears and ofc playing episodes of the anime. I remember one time we lost the remote so we couldnt switch languages so we were stuck on the finnish one...many many laughs were had xD its a bit..special x)
Oh, that's awesome! I'm guessing that's Gingahörnan? I've actually been trying to compile information about the event for a future trivia video, but have been unsuccessful in reaching anyone who was directly involved. Would you mind talking a bit? Maybe over Discord, Twitter, Telegram, or e-mail? You can find my e-mail and Twitter under "About" on this channel.
@@Skimmer951 Hi again Skimmer! Just giving a little reminder about this. Would love it if either you, or someone else who worked on Gingahörnan, could get in touch. Thank you!
16:50 wtf is that😂😂 im laughing so hard rn, the danish, its like that wierd uncle in the family. Who saw that and said "good job, print" hahahahahahaha. To answe ur question: i grew up with it , lucky to have parents who bought all vhs tapes for me. I knew all lines by heart and mustve watched it 100+ times.😅
it sucks that it didnt get an eng dub because it was too violent. also many of the mangas have only been converted into Finnish (im Finnish) these are Riki (1 manga), Silver Fang also known as Ginga Nagareboshi Gin so GNG (18 mangas, main story ends at manga 12 or 13 cant remember), Weed also known as Ginga Densetsu Weed or GDW (60 mangas, has an anime which ends at manga 30, my favorite Ginga manga series and gets better imo after the 30th manga), Orion (30 mangas), The Last Wars (22 mangas, dont have them all so havent read mine), Noah (under construction rn), some other random dog mangas like The First Wars, Akame (5 mangas, only have the first one and its about one of the dogs in GNG = Silver Fang named Akame) etc. I have all their physical copies and i fucking hate that theyre not known, because i have watched great anime like Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist: brotherhood, JoJo, Death note etc. And even STILL my ranking goes 3. Evangelion 2. JoJo 1. SILVER FANG.
It is too bad that there never was a proper English dub or release. Makes you wonder what cultural impact it could have had. I'm not sure it was due to being "too violent" though. There are several non-violent anime series that were dubbed over here that weren't dubbed for an English audience, as far as I know. Sandybell and Candy Candy come to mind. But could certainly be that the violence would make it hard to market a kids' show to an American audience, even when partially censored like the original Nordic dubbed release was. Also, I'm not Finnish! I'm Norwegian.
@@MilesTFBaxxter ive heard that it was not dubbed cause it was too violent but of course i cant know for 100%. its just too annoying that it doesnt have eng. dub because it is my favorite anime, even though ive watched some of the highest rated anime series. I have a question, do you have ginga mangas translated into norwegian text? if so, which ones?
I feel blessed to have been born in a country that got this show dubbed even if it was a terrible dub lol Scandinavians probably had this before stuff like Fist of The North Star. Can't complain though, the drama is very similar loool
I'll gladly take Silver Fang over Fist of the North Star any day. Scandinavians were indeed lucky in the anime distribution lottery for this one, even if we missed out on some other stuff.
I grew up with this series! I still love it to this day! 😁❤️❤️ I'm Norwegian and I love the first dubbed Norwegian versions, but hate the others that was made 😳😡👎👎 Talk about ruining the entire thing 🤣🤣 I still have Ginga Nagareboshi Gin and Ginga Densetsu Weed which is a sequel, and i love that as well! What I really want is to have everything to be a anime series! And I mean the entire story! I have so much love for the series that I have recently written a fan fiction story 😳🙈 Which I am proud of what I've written myself 🙈😅 But what i would really love is for some company to make an anime out of the entire story! Hopefully some company will have enough money to do it, but I will at least start asking around to see if it is possible 😁❤️❤️ I have wanted that to happen for a few years now, but nothing has happened, maybe it have to start with me, and maybe a few of you guys too? Who else wants this to happen? 🤔😁❤️❤️
Regarding why only 4 volumes of anime were published, I have the theory that all the Nordic editions are based on the Swedish dub. And the Swedish dub was quickly ended because many (what I think at least) of the voice actors would soon quit. The last edition has mixed with voices that would then continue on other series but many of the old disappeared around this time. It's like they wanted to finish what they started.
So you're speculating that they didn't have time to dub more than four volumes as some of the Swedish voice actors were retiring soon? As for whether it was based on the Swedish dub, I agree that's likely the case! As I mentioned in my Twitch Behind-the-Scenes Q&A, it seems clear that the cover for the first Swedish VHS volume was reused by the other Nordic countries, but with elements added or obscured. E.g. on the Finnish VHS volume 1 release, you can see the outline of the "we talk Swedish" graphic under the "we talk Finnish" graphic. So they were presumably given the assets by Sweden.
Swede here. 👋 So I've owned/watched a few others of the same company's (Cartoon/WENDROS) releases of dubbed anime, like Silver Fang, Sandybell, Galaxy Express 999, Rai, grottpojken, etc. In almost every series, they cut episodes in between the middle and close to the finale, so that the series wouldn't end up on too many VHS-es if the anime was too long (Galaxy Express originally was 113 episodes long) and they also wanted to have 4 episodes per VHS unless it proved too tricky to edit. Rai, grottpojken, was originally 22 episodes, and all of them were dubbed and released on VHS, although the last, sixth, volume only had 3 episodes on it, and they just ran with it. It's true that the other dubs were based on the Swedish dub/cut, and considering the voice actors, pretty much all of them continued doing voice work for many, many years in the future, so it's not like they were quitting. And heck, one of them was even the translator. x,D Tl;dr: It wasn't because the voice actors were moving on, but most likely a decision made to make the series fit 4 episodes per VHS/volume.
I discovered Silver Fang Weed before Silver Fang Gin when I was in 7th grade. I'm born in 95 but I still really like both Silver Fang anime :D wish there was more to be honest Q_Q
Thanks a bunch for your interest! While not at the top of my list at the moment, I do hope to eventually make a video about the sequel. Still have several more I'd like to do on the original, too.
All the Nordic VHS releases are of the Nordic/Swedish cut. The uncut version was released only on DVD many years later. I'd love to know which VHS tapes you had though, if you have access to them still!
man i wish i knew finnish, i LOVE the series but since its not translated in swedish i cant read em, soo i have to watch the anime over and over again xD
You can read it over at Manga Planet translated to English! But you'll have to subscribe, and you can't download it (only "stream" it), and it's generally nicer being able to hold it in your hands. I do wish it had been translated and published physically to English or any of the Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Norwegian, or Danish).
@@MilesTFBaxxter oh cool! but i dont get the same feeling when holdin a physical and holdin a digital book. but thanks for the info, but the best thing would be if they animated orion lol but since it took 20 yrs for weed then maybe we will hv to wait longer xD
iam danish, Hundehvalpen Silver, it was called here, 1st release set of VHS tapes, the art is not great, 2nd release set vhs tapes has the better art, i own both sets and if i remember correctly we got 4 different set releases here, before the the uncut release on dvd and the name changed to Silver Fang here also. you only showed out 4th set release in this video
Thank you for sharing! I am trying to get my hands on all the Nordic releases, to make a future video showing and talking about them all. I find the different designs and design choices very interesting, and it's a bit of pop culture history. Will see if I ever succeed, as some are hard to find (or expensive).
well iam on lookout on 4th set release, dvd variant, but they are very rare, due to the fact, only one toy store chain sold them, 2nd the family who owned the chain, sold the chain and more or less all movies were removed from the stores, 3rd the chain went bankrupt also. typical Silver VHS, goes for 8-20$ each here@@MilesTFBaxxter
It's an odd choice for sure, ruining the front cover like that. Perhaps they hypothesized "more aggressive" equals "more cool" which equals "more sales".
Wow, a dub-over release in the DVD age? That kinda dubs felt questionable in the late 80s. At least it wasn't like just one person doing it all like in Tao Tao or Nils Holgersson. lol
It was a weird choice, for sure! Those who'll be watching the uncensored version probably don't want to watch it dubbed anyway, especially not poorly dubbed.
Ginga was most likely popular in finland because finns really love dogs. Also the finnish dub is mostly pretty bad because it was mostly in 2 or 3 takes per scene.