It's not the best dub, but it could have been much worse, I'm just surprised it took this long for a dub to come. I did hear a rumor around 2009 or so that it was going to be dubbed and aired on Cartoon Network on a revived Toonami block, but I think it was just a rumor. I'm just glad we got a dub at all, even a bowlderized one will at least give people some exposure to this Japanese pop-culture icon that many consider the Japanese equivalent of Mickey Mouse.
Only a few of the name changes bug me, as well as the fact that the setting was changed to somewhere in the US despite it still looking like Japan (I'm guessing it's set in San Fransokyo), but otherwise it doesn't bother me, I don't watch too much anime but this is at least something I've been willing to watch. Lately I've been watching a number of the original Japanese Doraemon episodes subbed since the dub actually got me curious about the Doraemon franchise as a whole, and there are a few things I feel the Japanese version excels in, particularly that the original Japanese music and sound effects are better, but that's just my opinion.
My only real concern is not the edits, but that the series might not really break out among American audiences and that not many people will notice this series, primarily because of how many in the west tend to view anime as being heavily story-driven action series like Naruto and One Piece rather than being a multitude of different genres and styles. Thing is, Doraemon actually borrows a significant number of elements from western animation shows, which many fans of western animation like me would quickly be accustom to. I'm not saying anime like Naruto and One Piece are bad, but Doraemon justifies the large variety in anime, and it hasn't really been exposed too much in the west while having local dubs in several Asian and Latin American countries. I just hope to see more of this series being seen in the west in the future.
