The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., despite its name, is a fairly popular manga series that became an equally popular anime. Said anime had an uncommon production style for its episodes, with stories split across bite-size chapters. The original anime eventually adapted all of the manga, but that didn't stop Netflix from continuing the story in The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.: Reawakened. Before this Netflix exclusive season came, however, there were two seasons on the platform that never got dubbed.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.'s original incarnation was only dubbed for one season, and it possibly stems from the series not being funded by Netflix. Here's how the show's licensing affected the ability to watch the entire series with English voice acting.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.'s Origin & Plot
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. began as a manga created by Shuici Aso, running in Weekly Shonen Jump and later Jump GIGA from 2012 to 2018. The eponymous Saiki Kusuo is a teenager with incredible psychic powers but despite these gifts, he tries to keep them a secret as much as possible, going out of his way to hide them. The lengths Saiki is willing to go and the ridiculous characters that necessitate such drastic measures are the heart of the series' comedy.
Saiki K.'s popularity resulted in light novels, a live-action movie, a video game and two anime adaptations, the main one of which began in Summer 2016. It was followed by two more seasons and a Netflix continuation. Though the Saiki K. franchise had proven popular, it apparently wasn't popular enough to have all of the anime dubbed.
Why Saiki K. Seasons 2 and 3 Aren't Dubbed
Season 1 The Disastrous of Saiki K. was licensed and funded by Funimation, which also simulcasted the first season. Netflix picked up the English release for the next season, but it wasn't dubbed. For anime, Netflix will typically not feature a dub unless it's been completely dubbed in English by another company or it's entirely Netflix's production. Since the second season and the conclusive movie that was released as the "third season" were not funded by Netflix, both were simply subbed instead of having English voice acting.
The fourth season reboot, Disastrous Life of Saiki K.: Reawakened, is Netflix exclusive and therefore was dubbed. Said dub had completely different voice actors from the first season, however, which was somewhat of a disappointment to fans. Then again, the subtitles for the second and third seasons were also controversial, as they often failed to match what was actually being said. Combine that with the mile-a-minute, multi-layered jokes of Saiki K., the subtitled version amounted to a less-than-great experience. Also keep in mind that Reawakened was a sort of artificial extension of the property, using unadapted elements from the manga even though the third season had already concluded the story. Sadly, that story can't be watched in its entirety in English, making it a truly disastrous situation indeed.
