All of the anime that 4Kids dubs usually have a different theme song than the Japanese version due to licensing issues. They also usually play an instrumental version of the intro song instead of the ending theme. The most famous example being, well, you knowit
Any anime shown on Nick Jr. in the 1990s will have this.
Up until the end of the 2000s in Italy, pretty much every anime got at least one if not more (especially the ones airing on any Mediaset channel) and they are usually very catchy.
Many western dubs of anime series in the 80s and early 90s are translated from the French or Italian dubs, often translating also their alternative openings:
The French theme song of Saint Seiya has a translation in Spanish which was used in both the European and Latin American dubs, and in Portuguese. The French theme song of Dragon Ball Z was translated for the European Spanish dub (before it was replaced by a Spanish version of the Japanese opening) and the European Portuguese dub. There's also an English translation of the French theme song of the original Dragon Ball for the Canadian dub.
Many Italian theme songs were translated in other European countries, mainly France, Spain, and Germany. Examples are the Italian theme song of Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel (see here) which was translated in the French and Spanish dubs, or the second Italian opening of The Rose of Versailles which was translated in the German dub. However, it often happened that some of the songs' were later used for completely different series in other countries, with the most infamous example being the Italian theme tune of Lupin III becoming the theme tune of the French, European Spanish, and European Portuguese theme songs of Captain Tsubasa, obviously with completely different lyrics.
Various anime that aired on German TV station Viva were given different openings. Among the more notable are X1999, which uses "Mother Earth" by Within Temptation and this metal song for the Hellsing TV anime.
Disney's dub of Kiki's Delivery Service was originally going to feature English versions of Yumi Arai's songs "Ruuju no Dengon" and "Yasashisa ni Tsutsumareta Nara" but due to licensing issues these were scrapped, and Disney hired singer Sydney Forest to create two new songs: "Soaring" and "I'm Gonna Fly" in place. The 2010 recut re-replaces those songs with the original Japanese songs.
Ponyo and Arrietty do use dubbed versions of their songs (abit for Arrietty, the English version was produced within the production of the movie) but in the movies themselves, they slowely transition to especially-made songs. Ponyo uses a remix of the theme tune done in an autotuned way, while Arrietty uses Bridgit Mendler's "Summertime", which was made for the Disney dub. The UK StudioCanal dub, which was made prior to the Disney dub, uses the full dubbed version of "Arrietty's Song".
Persian dubs of both anime and western animation are more than likely to be unlicensed, with no access to a series's original soundtrack. Therefore, most dubs use alternative foreign theme songs or translated theme songs with different backing instruments.
During the 80s and 90s, it's very common for Taiwanese to do an original opening for anime, such as Candy Candy, Mazinger Z, Vicky the Viking, and so on.
Nowadays, this has for the most part fallen out of practice.
Specific examples:
US airings of Akamega Kill! on Adult Swim's Toonami take a song from the show's soundtrack, rather than Toonami's usual practice of simply abridging anime openings and endings.
Bakuten Shoot Beyblade has the surprisingly rocking "Let It Rip" theme from Nelvana. It is of such quality that is was picked to be used for all three seasons.
The Arabic opening is also an alternative opening, and it has a very local rhythm.
The Cantonese opening of Road to 2002 seems like a mix between rock and military march.
One of the most well-known Magical Girl anime in the world, Cardcaptor Sakura, has not just one foreign-language alternate opening theme, but FIVE of them:
The English version has one composed by Dave Dore and performed by an unknown singer.
The Canadian French version, which not only uses No Nagging Anymore by Froggy Mix, but it also tells the story of how the series began.
The Italian version had two performed by Cristina D'Avena: first and second
South Korean dub of Crayon Shin-chan is an great example with opening and ending. Though this practice were stopped in season 7, but it eventually received its recent Korean-exclusive theme song named "Buri-buri Dance Party" (Korean: 부리부리 댄스 파티 bulibuli daenseu pati) since season 16 of the Korean dub of the anime.
The 1979 Cyborg009 anime got a Finnish dub in the 90's, which included an entirely new opening. This is particularly interesting because Finnish dubbing companies usually never do that - in fact, at the time it was pretty common for dubbed anime to air with the original Japanese opening and ending themes.
The upbeat J-Pop song of the Deltora Quest anime was replaced with a dramatic orchestral tune for the English dub. Arguably it actually fits the medieval-ish swords-and-monsters setting of the series much better.
Every English dub has used entirely new theme songs. The dubs of Digimon Adventure through Digimon Tamers used an action-packed techno song with minor alterations between seasons, while Digimon Frontier received an epic chant, Digimon Data Squad received a rock song, and Digimon Fusion received a more EDM-esque theme. With the exception of the Data Squad one, all the dub themes feel very thematically different from the Japanese counterparts, which generally all fell into the category of upbeat rock songs. This generally extended to the licensed video games as well, which tended to use versions of the Japanese anime themes which were accordingly changed in translation.
The Brazilian dub of Digimon Adventure used a music inspired in the English rap opening, but turning it in a pop-like music. Ironic, the first ending was translated but it was only aired in the Brazilian Fox Kids in the cable TV. The endings music of Digimon Adventure 02 were replaced with the opening music of the first one in the Fox Kids while Globo used a very short ending of 5 seconds with no music song, only a soundtrack from the anime. Digimon Tamers had no ending musics too, even in the Fox Kids, just a short ending using the opening background music. Digimon Frontier was the first one to have all openings and endings translated to Brazilian Portuguese.
The Italian dub used completely new theme songs for the first 2 series and Frontier too (here's the first ), while Tamers and Xros Wars used the bases from the Japanese theme songs with different lyrics.
The English dub distributed by Viz Media opens with Doraemon telling us about the show's plot.
Both the '80s anime has two different openings in Italy, one from the 1982 dub, and a second one from the 2003 dub (the 2005 anime, which began airing in 2014 in Italy, reuses the 2003 opening).
Funimation's in-house dub of the Android/Cell sagas had its own opening / closing that were instrumental tunes set to random clips from the show. The Majin Buu era did somethingsimilar, but based its footage around the Japanese opening/closings. When Funimation went back and redubbed the Saban episodes, they used this incredibly edgy intro. Recent DVDs keep the Japanese opening/ending footage, but replace the songs with Mark Menza's movie theme first used with the dub of Cooler's Revenge.
FUNimation's dub of Dragon Ball GT had a So Bad, It's Good rap song called "Step Into the Grand Tour" as its theme with an instrumental version as its closing. These were scrapped for the newer DVD releases, which use English versions of the Japanese opening and all four closings.
Deliberately invoked by Toei when they created Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters for an international audience with "Fight it Out!!" and "Never Give Up!!!" as the opening and ending theme, which they replaced with "Kuu-Zen-Zetsu-Go" and a series of ending themes for the Japanese broadcast version. Curiously, they didn't bother to replace "Fight it Out" from the background score, so the title card and eyecatch music in the Japanese version is an arrangement of a song it doesn't use.
The Westwood English dub of the second half of DBZ for Europe and Canada even did its own rendition using the video footage of Rock the Dragon.
Their dub of Dragon Ball GT with Blue Water got its own theme song using footage from the original opening.
Their dub of the original Dragon Ball (also with Blue Water) got a rather childish Canadian opening (that viewers have noted as sounding suspiciously similar to the theme song of He-Man) based on the French theme that the UK broadcaster found so embarrassing, they made their own opening theme that incorporated part of it.
The French dub of the Dragon Ball series used several original songs that were completely original to its dubs. Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z each used had different openings.
The European Portuguese dub used the French themes for DB and DBZ as a base for both the theme and the lyrics. The dub of Dragon Ball GT (of which there is no French version) uses the original rhythm, but the lyrics are based on the previous dubs, resulting in What Song Was This Again?.
The Italian dubs used very Europop-styled original songs for Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT. Averted with Dragon Ball Super which keeps the original Japanese opening. However Giorgio Vanni, the singer of all the other DB songs, also made his own version of Dragon Ball Super for the old fans of the Italian openings, but it's not official at all and never aired on television.
Similar to Italy, the first Dragon Ball used this Europop-style theme in its first broadcasts in Germany. However, for the movies and home releases, a dubbed version of the Japanese opening was used.
The first series used this opening theme in South Korea. Later for the Korean dub of Dragon Ball Z the first Japanese opening was dubbed, but in the Majin Buu saga they replaced the second opening with this alternative theme.
In Brazil, the first broadcast of Dragon Ballused a Suspiciously Similar Song to the original opening, whose later broadcasters dubbed the Japanese opening.
Inverted with Eden of the East — the Japanese broadcast used "Falling Down" by Brit Pop band Oasis as the theme, but FUNimation replaced it with a Japanese song in North America for all-but the first episode due to music-clearance issues (namely, that there was no way they'd be able to afford having the song appear more than once; frankly they were lucky to get to use it once).
The Italian opening of UFO Robo Grendizer (called UFO Robot Goldrake) is one of the most famous ear worms in the country. The show was so beloved in Italy, it received another theme song
Saban Entertainment did this to every anime they dubbed, in addition to giving them completely new scores. As an example, here's the theme to Hakushon Daimaō, and here's the theme to the Saban version, Bob in a Bottle.
The English version of Hamtaro uses two openingsongs different from the Japanese version. However, it does use the tune of the first Japanese ending theme.
In Japanese, one specific series of Hello Kitty shorts where Kitty and Mimi fly to imaginary places in a hot air balloon opened with the song "Balloon Ni Notte". When these were dubbed for Hello Kitty's Paradise, a different song called "Let's Fly Away" was used.
The Latin American Spanish dub of Heroman (dubbed in Colombia) created a completely new theme song sung by Jona Camacho (and also used as the ending theme).
While there are also probably similarly-dubbed E Ds, the only ones that can be found online are the Greek and Arabic ones.
Hikari no Densetsu: The anime was dubbed into French, Spanish, Italian and German, and received alternative theme songs in each language. Here is the French one and here is the Italian one.
The Japanese version of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! is a cute little marching theme. The American version is an over-the-top jazz song.
There's also the Italian opening sung by Cristina D'Avena.
The Italian dub of Kodocha, entitled Rossana, is a duet theme song between Cristina D'Avena and Giorgio Vanni.
Lupin III has several different openings in Italy where it is quite popular. The first (which is actually a completely unrelated disco song from UK with contemptible lyrics), the second with an accordion theme, the third and most famous (when the series aired on Mediaset), the fourth and most recently the fifth (which actually aired before the series premiered in Japan).
Mama Is a Fourth Grader has a surprisingly sad theme song in the Arabic dub, which changed the plot to Farah (the Protagonist) taking care of her "sister", who comes from another planet.
In Spain, episodes 29 and so on still use "Promised Land" instead of switching to "Rainbow Notes".
Due to legal reasonsnote in short, the original theme song had been composed by Neil Sedaka (with the tune taken from his '70s song "Better Days are Coming" and yes, this is the "Calendar Girl" guy, by the way), and for not very clear reasons — whether the expense of royalties, a licensing agreement that only allowed its use in Japan, or Sedaka forbidding the release in America due to fears of being accused of Japandering or the thing being an Old Shame, the song is omitted. The Gundam Wiki uses generic "copyright restrictions" as the reasonthe American release of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam has the titular mobile suit's theme song (pulled straight from the soundtrack) as the opening theme.
The Japanese theme song of Mon Colle Knights is much different than the English. Compare the majestic Japanese theme to the orchestral, action-sounding English theme song.
The Mysterious Cities of Gold: The theme songs in the French and English versions of the '80s series use the same Haim Saban/Shuki Levy-composed melody line and are even sung by the same vocalist, Noam Kaniel. By contrast, the Japanese version had completely different opening and ending themes.
The first opening theme for the English dub was this, but afterwards, all the theme songs were the original Japanese ones. While most dub song switches are met with hatred, this one seems to be a bit of genius as the original probably wasn't catchy enough to market the show to a new audience. This bit of genius is seen again when instead of airing the third opening, they just reused the second one while switching out some animation frames.
An instrumental theme of Naruto has been made into an Arabic opening, with added lyrics.
Some countries had a theme with lyrics. It's also more action-packed than the original Japanese song. It however features 4kids-like lyrics in Gratuitous English such as "Sasuke, is really cool. Sakura, the beautiful" and incorrect pronounciations that make it a joke amongst fans.
Every season receives a different theme song in their English dubs, all of them different from the Japanese versions. And when they change the opening midseason, it's only been done twice, with the same song to new visuals, in more complete overhauls than accommodating new evolutions or additions.
The Brazilian dub uses translated versions of the English dub openings and endings.
The Portuguese dub plays with this in the second opening. While the first opening, and all openings after the second, were based on the English equivalentnote Except for Diamond & Pearl, which just straight up used the English theme., the second theme was based on the first opening, with new lyrics. The second would eventually be released, dubbed and everything, in the soundtrack.
The Korean dub also changes the intros. Here is a list of the various opening songs for said dub.
The Ocean dub had a rather short opening, with the lyrics consisting of the PPGZ's names and "Powerpuff Girls Z". This was also used for most of the other dubs of the show, including, strangely enough, the Thai dub.
There's also the Mandarin dub, which uses a cover of the girls' transformation theme, "Touch Me"
The English dub of Smile Pretty Cure!, renamed "Glitter Force", uses a new theme song by the band Blush, also at TV Asahi's request. They also use eight different ending songs by the same group. One of these, "Every Woman", was a pre-existing song by the group.
The Glitter Force theme is given an update for the English dub of Doki Doki! PreCure, called "Glitter Force Doki Doki", which adds extra instrumentation and vocals.
In Korea, the second season of PriPara uses "Hello Hello Friends" as the ending, replacing four songs: "Idol Strength Lesson Go!", "Mune Kyun Love Song", "Rainbow Melody" and "Love Trooper", respectively.
Rave Master English opening, dubbed "Raveolution" was done by Reel Big Fish, a popular Ska band.
It's easier to count the countries that didn't use a new theme song for The Rose of Versailles. This is most likely due to the show receiving a new title overseas, Lady Oscar. What gets funny is that the Japanese theme is suitably dramatic and somber, while many of its dubs chose cheerful and happy theme songs... despite the content of the show still concerning the tragic lives and deaths of people living through the French Revolution. Even more amazing? The actual French dub probably has the perkiest song of them all. Italy has twodifferent versions of opening themes.
The French opening sung by Bernard Minet is a cult classic for its So Bad, It's Good quality, especially when you have Bernard self-inserted in the opening doing weird poses and dancing. Also because the French dub was the first international dub of Saint Seiya, many other countries based on this dub and translated the French opening.
The Spanish version was used in both the European and Latin American dubs, and is quite loved by many people who grew up in the 90s. It was later replaced by dubbed versions of Pegasus Fantasy.
The Brazilian version at first used a translated version of the Spanish song, and then replaced it with a pop song about the show. It couldn't sound more 1990s if it tried. Averted with the second dub from 2000s which translated all the original openings and endings.
Italy has initially twoopening. Subsequently, when Mediaset has aired the anime, was made a new opening (after replaced by a Italian version of "Pegasus Fantasy").
The DiC English dub, Knights of the Zodiac, received a new theme song, a cover of Flock of Seagulls' 1980s hit "I Ran" by Bowling for Soup. The uncut English DVD releases retained "Pegasus Fantasy".
Several foreign dubs of Sailor Moon replaced the theme song.
The German dub of Sailor Moon used four different and original theme songs over the course of its run. The best known is "Sag das Zauberwort" (Say the Magic Word). The other three were "Kampfe Sailor Moon" (Fight Sailor Moon), "Macht das Mondes" (Power of the Moon) and "Flieg durch die Wolken" (Fly Through the Skies).
The Dutch version, which only aired the first 52 episodesnote Wim Pel Productions, the studio in charge of Dutch Sailor Moon, said that they dubbed the first three seasons of said show., was based on the German dub and thus simply redubbed "Sag das Zauberwort" into Dutch.
The Croatian dub was also based on the German dub, and translated "Sag das Zauberwort" into Croatian.
The AB Groupe French dub used one (very catchy) song, which was named after the show. This was also used in the Hungarian dub.
The Cantonese dub released in Hong Kong used a unique song for the first series. Later series used remixed Cantonese versions of their Japanese counterparts.
The entire Portuguese dub used a unique song, "Luna Luna," that was based instrumentally on the Japanese "Heart Moving" (used for the first ED of the anime) but had completely different lyrics.
While many dubs remixed or redubbed the original "Moonlight Densetsu" theme song (though the lyrical content tended to vary wildly), of special note is The '90s North American dub, "Sailor Moon Theme", which uses the basic melody but is completely different in content, length, and instrumentation.
Speaking of that, when the 1st season first aired in the Philippines for the first time on what is now TV5, it also did the "Sailor Moon Theme" approach in the Tagalog dub, where Moonlight Densetsu was done with new Tagalog lyrics and was called "Sana'y Makapiling" (Wishing to be with you), but from R onward, they just used the default Japanese openings.
The American version used a theme boasting about Sonic that is completely different from the Japanese theme called "Gotta Go Fast" as opposed to "Sonic Drive". The Persian dub uses a translated version of this song.
Time Bokan: The Italians got a cover of "Video Killed the Radio Star" sung by British kids' cover group MiniPops for their dub's theme song. We're notkidding.
Urusei Yatsura in Italy has a single opening for all the series during the '80s. The song is also a mystery because the title and writer(s) of the lyrics are still unknown today, while the singer was unknown for decades until it was confirmed in 2020 to be two singers performing on the track: Noam Kaniel (best known as composer for newer Power Rangers series in the West) and Ciro Dammicco, the former of which also confirmed that Shuki Levy was the composer of the song. In 1999 it was replaced by another song titled "Mi hai rapito il cuore Lamù".
The English dub of Yo Kai Watch alternates between using a dubbed version of Gera-Gera-Po and a new song written by Phineas and Ferb co-creator Jeff "Swampy" Marsh as its opening theme song (the latter of which also became the theme for the English releases of the games). The end credits only use a dubbed version of the original ending theme, however.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: A staple of the franchise thanks to 4Kids Entertainment getting hold of the franchise rights, with legal successor Konami Cross Media continuing the practice. The first anime had an Egyptian-esque instrumental theme song, GX through to ARC V had newly written lyrics, while VRAINS swings back to the instrumental style of the original, probably to fit the Cyberpunk theme of the show better.
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