It finally happened: the inclusive language came to anime and it did so in the Latin Spanish dubbing of Sk8 The Infinity, one of the best anime of 2021 and one of the most important productions for spoken and shonen in the coming years.
Saying that it arrived is only a way of putting it, because it is not that the dubbing of Sk8 The Infinity has adopted an inclusive form and that it rejects the generic masculine of our language, in reality, everything has to do with Adam, the final boss of this history, he said “welcome.”
But let’s put ourselves in context first, because by this point you are probably wondering: what happened? And it is only a phrase, but with that simple action we can put on the table that everyone loses their head because of an “e”.
First, it should be noted that the dubbing into Latin Spanish took the adaptation already made by the American dubbing. In the original version, Adam introduces himself saying hello to “all the assholes who like to skate.” However, in the United States, “and nonbinary hoes” (and dogs not binarixs) were included in the character’s phrase.
Once it arrived in Mexico for its dubbing, instead of taking the original material, the study in charge made the decision to continue in line with the gringo dubbing, so to make sense of that “non-binary hoes”, it was replaced with a “and welcome too.”
So far everything is normal, right? It seems that the matter is settled, it is a simple word that does not take up even a second and that does not affect the dubbing in the least and it remains as a funny anecdote of how complicated it is to translate the same work for so many places around the world. Well no…
Anime and inclusion
The main complaint about this small event of dubbing, translation, and adaptations was that it is a forced inclusion and, again, everything is done from a place that is not very aware of the communication or language phenomenon. It is normal, it seems, that these shocks occur on a daily basis in society. With social networks and massive platforms to express themselves, this type of disagreement is even more common and more noticeable.
However, I especially jump at the fact that the anime industry and especially Sk8 The Infinity are branded as being “forced” into their “inclusion”. Even the use of the word seems wrong, especially when manga and anime have magazines, niches, and even a genre dedicated to what is ignorantly called “inclusion . “
Examples we have many: trans characters in One Piece, singers of non-binary gender in Evangelion, homosexual stories in both anime and manga every year … there is no reason to believe that it is even intended to be included. This is normal in that industry.
