Bangladesh bans manga cartoon Doraemon

Already trnaslated and dubbed in Bangla.. comin soon

What a silly fuss. Anime and Manga are wonderful cultural resources and among the finest modern visual culture of Japan today. But it is just silly to ask the producers to translate into every sub group language it is beyond possible for expense. Rarely now are many modern series even translated into English any more. It is very hard and takes a lot of skill and good Voice acting to do it right. And even subbing takes time and skills. Sorry but this was a silly issue.

Bangladeshi parents are so MORO.ns that they fear their child may learn hindi and forget bangla tradition that is why BD gov stop broadcasting channels like disnep and hungama.But why?Alot hindi channels are still broadcasting like star plus,star minus etc and even music channels which also teaches hindi.So lame man now we are going to hear Shila ki jawani and halkat jawani from kids mouth.this is the problem of poor countries.if parents really wanted to avoid hindi why didn't they cut the channels from india and take normal only bangladeshi channels.If they only asked the tv channel manager.So monkey head parents.From my personal experience i would like to share that i'm 16 and i watch doraemon.All of my friends always talk about adult content,dont know the reason but i always ignored it but now i think i'm not going to avoid it anymore because doraemon kept me away from such evil deed but its gone now.18+ things are growing on me now but i kinda like it lol.

So dub it in Bengali.......

I learned Japanese watching cartoons - in Japan as a 4 year old. Language acquisition pre-5/6 years old is almost entirely about exposure; no one in developmental psychology questions this. It helped, of course, that my family lived in Japanese neighborhoods, and I had Japanese friends, so I had to exercise that passive learning, but I did watch a lot of cartoons.

When I read the headline I started thinking immediately that they were banning it because of the content, because while Doraemon is superficially just a kids show, and often focuses on kid show like values and lessons - mostly pretty good, at its heart is the story of a mental pathology... then I thought: wait a minute, are these government folks really going to parse this cartoon for profound messages? Er, no.

Doraemon Co. should hurry up and respect the language and culture of the Republic of Bangladesh and make the Doraemon cartoons in their language!! Just like folk in Portugal like Doraemon in Portuguese not Español, right??

wow JT troll for hits much? Reading the title you might get the idea that Bangladesh had a problem with Doraemon when in fact it has a problem with any program dubbed in Hindi and Doraemon just happens to be one such program...

Cos, guess who learned ENGLISH, watching nothing but cartoons, etc..since my parents only knew Español, yes! ME!! How do I help my kids here in Japan like English and Español?? YOUTUBE, yes lots and lots of YouTube, so my kids love Doraemon etc..in English and Or Español,but nothing in Japanese, since they can always see tv, etc..in Japanese here in Japan, right?? DORAEMON should hurry up and make the BENGALI version of their cartoon, I am sure here in Japan, plenty of under employed Bangladeshis just jumping for joy to translate Doraemon into their native language, and get a nice CASH reward for their services.

fears that youngsters who are hooked on the Hindi-dubbed version are struggling to learn their native Bengali.

That's a ridiculous fear. Kids don't learn a language by watching foreign TV programs. Some editors that claimed it had to pay back as the method has zero effect. Living near a boarder, I grew up watching foreign TV shows, everybody did, and most have never learned the TV languages. Real life interaction would have been necessary. Adults around us were never talking the foreign languages (even if they were fluent), so we learned what was used in real life, and later what we were taught at school. BUT I can believe that everybody in Bangladesh wants to speak Hindi because that was already the case ages ago. Most people don't want to be limited to the offer (culture, job, business...) of a small country, even if they like their nation. It's like the Dutch, the Danes... people of small nations all learn a second language. And Hindi is a convenient choice, easy to learn as in the same linguistic family, and with opportunities to use nearby. So if children increasingly speak Hindi, it's because they see their parents doing it, and because adults talk to them in the language, teach them, encourage them to talk like Doraemon. That's a bunch of old guys at government that are against kids learning Hindi, and they may be the only ones in the whole country having that opinion.

genuine fear for the mother tongue,

False fear too. Look at Filipinos. They still speak their language even if they all learn English. And Bengali is a major language. Actually the majority of Bengali speakers in the world are Indian. So they should work together with Indian government to promote culture, education and even TV programs in Bengali. But well, they'd have to get along politically...

But I can imagine the hassle this would cause:

The dubbing is part is nothing to do, nearly costless, there even teens that dubbed full series on their own with a mere computer, and the result looks like pro. The rights can be arranged. But Bangladesh's TV probably don't have the broadcasting equipment of India, so I bet their population don't receive their own channels with good quality and prefer the neighbor's...

Nandakandamanda-san,

sad that poor innocent kids will be deprived of Doraemon

I expect they'll muddle along somehow.

It always amazes me to see people from the Indian sub-continent switching languages so easily and coversing fluently with each other, English being one option. With kids allowed to do pretty much whatever they want, and amid genuine fear for the mother tongue, this policy must be a question for the authorities of how to achieve balanced language acquisition.

Still, a strange way to go about it and sad that poor innocent kids will be deprived of Doraemon.

OssanAmerica,

I think they know that Doraemon can be dubbed in Bengali. I'm sure that thought had occurred to them. But I can imagine the hassle this would cause:

1) Negotiations with Doraemon K.K. (or whatever it is) for the rights to a) translate b) dub it in Bengali.

2) Translating the cartoons.

3) Adapting the translation to fit the mouth movement/ scenes of the cartoons.

4) Hiring/ training/ recording the voice actors speaking the translation.

5) Getting it OKed for transmission by the Information Ministry.

This would all cost money. Bangladesh is not a rich country. The per capita income of Bangladesh in 2006 was 2,300 US dollars, when the world average was around 10,000 dollars.

Hindi is spoken natively by 41% of their big neighbour, India. A comparatively rich country that has the resources to translate/ overdub cartoons and movies.

I can imagine that it's quite a struggle for a country like Bangladesh to hold on to their own language and culture as the world shrinks.

It's a little sad, really.

@budgie How is manga lame? It's just another medium for story telling.

On topic.. If Doraemon is banned because “The government doesn’t want children’s educational atmosphere to be hampered by Doraemon,” than that is sad if they really think that Doraemon dubbed in Hindi is really going to influence them. It goes to show what kind of education system you have if you're really THAT paranoid about the kiddies being influenced by some cartoons. That is of course, if that reason is valid, and isn't hiding some prideful nationalism.

I was just wondering... are there any cool cartoons and/or cartoon characters originating from islamic countries?

Nobita ! ! ! ! !

I think all anime and manga should be banned worldwide, just because it's lame.

Seriously though, it seems to be a cat fight between Bangladesh and India. What's wrong with learning another language? I smell nationalism.

Also, while I watched far too many cartoons as a kid, reading comics introduced me to books and now I'm hooked on history, politics and social issues. If they can turn kids into prolific readers like me, I suppose it's okay, even if they are lame.

But please...no tentacles.

have an impression that bangladesh are sensitive when it comes to their language. How many millions sacrifice themselves when pakistan decided to implement pakistani language as the national language when both countries were still united. and yet they allow it's people to speak english, isnt it also a foreign language that could influence the children? unnecessary deaths and energy, better spent at increasing the life standard of the people instead.

Stupid is as stupid does.

If you cannot even Doraemon dubbed in Bengali then maybe you should just let it go? I cannot see how denying kids access to other languages and cultures is going to help them. Oh, but nationalists have their little isolationist dreams.

Don't bark the wrong tree

It is so easy to solve the problem. Dub with the Bengahi and broadcast.

millions of households preferring to watch Hindi-language television beamed in via satellite.

There's the root of the problem, not Doraemon.

Crazy.

Someone should explain it to them that Doraemon is a cartoon so you can dub it in Hindi or Benagli or whatever you like.

You're kidding right?