Digital Investigation Reveals Korean WC Academy Broadcast (July 2, 2023)

[ChrisReid]

Speaking of Wing Commander Academy, AD found some exciting evidence that the show was also dubbed and broadcast in South Korea. We've previously reported that the television program was translated into Arabic, but that was the only localization we were aware of. It appears to have been broadcast on the KBS station on Wednesdays and Thursdays, at 6:40, from June 17 to July 29, 1998. The name was translated to be 'Space Battleship Tiger'. And while we can't seem to find any clips of the actual show, AD dug very deep and found a Capri Sun advertisement that ran during the episodes and had a little logo in the top right corner with the revised title. He's also located a list of voice actors for the different roles.

cast list 성우진 Sung Woo-jin

김민석 - 매버릭 役
Kim Min-seok - Maverick

유동현 - 매니악 役
Yoo Dong-hyeon - Maniac

김 준 - 트라카 役
Jun Kim - Thrakhath

온영삼 - 튤린함장 役
Yeongsam On - Captain Tulin (Tolwyn?)

김익태 Ik-tae Kim
김혜미 Hyemi Kim
박상훈 Park Sang-hoon
남기원 Nam Ki-won
김순영 Soonyoung Kim

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Original update published on July 2, 2023

 

[Bob McDob]

Space Battleship Yamato also has a similar name in Korean, so it makes sense that the series would be renamed to capitalize on that.

Or does it? I'm not sure how popular Yamato was in Korea. Apparently it was aired but heavily localized and under different names, due to a government policy banning Japanese media that was still in place until 1998.

 

[AD]

Space Battleship Yamato also has a similar name in Korean, so it makes sense that the series would be renamed to capitalize on that.

Or does it? I'm not sure how popular Yamato was in Korea. Apparently it was aired but heavily localized and under different names, due to a government policy banning Japanese media that was still in place until 1998.

Yamato seems popular enough in Korea that searching for Wing Commander Academy is difficult since google wants to return a lot of Yamato results instead because of the similiarity of the titles. You'll get a lot of model kit results for the Yamato ships.

Another thing making the show some what "forgotten" in Korea is its twice-weekly airing. The 13 episodes were run 2 a week so it's entire air time was basically 6 or 7 weeks in 1998, which wasn't particulary long enough to get it established in the collective mind.

 

[Bob McDob]

Yamato seems popular enough in Korea that searching for Wing Commander Academy is difficult since google wants to return a lot of Yamato results instead because of the similiarity of the titles. You'll get a lot of model kit results for the Yamato ships.

That makes sense now especially given the popularity of the remake, but I wonder what the case was in 1998.

 

[Bob McDob]

On a related note: do you know if Exo-Squad was ever translated?

 

[AD]

On a related note: do you know if Exo-Squad was ever translated?

A search of the one site in the update there suggest that exo-squad maybe also has an Arabic and an Italian dub. I haven't actively researched it though.