When I was a kid, I used to watch Japanese anime that were dubbed in English or Mandarin because the original versions were not broadcast on the local TV channels. Most of the time, the theme songs of these anime remained in Japanese, and I had fun singing along to the catchy tunes even though I had absolutely no idea what the lyrics meant. However, it isn’t entirely uncommon for international versions of anime series to have theme songs localized to the audience’s native language and tastes for music.
Recently, a clip of the Arabic version of the popular anime series, Arupusu no Shojo Haiji (Heidi, Girl of the Alps) has been making waves among Japanese netizens due to its localized opening song, which was starkly different from the Japanese original. Videos after the jump!