ADV Films acquired the license to the anime on June 2004 for its North American release, but was eventually dropped due to difficulty in finding backers and securing a TV airing deal. While the acquisition of the license and the production of the English anime predated that of the manga, it is unknown if a release will occur. That is because as of 2009, the anime has been completely dubbed but is being held by Kodansha. In addition, some foreign dubs such as Spanish and French dubbed versions was translated from the unreleased ADV Films' English-dubbed version as a reference when Elastic Rights acquired the licensing rights to Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch from Kodansha in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and French-speaking Europe and Africa. Likewise, there's an alternative English dub version which it was made in Malaysia by an unknown dubbing studio for Top-Insight International (which released the anime series in Asia outside Japan and Korea on behalf of Kodansha). It aired on TV3 in 2006 and later moved its sister channel TV9 in English with or without Malay subtitles. However, the Malaysian English dubbed version became very hard to find than the ADV's dubbed version since it never officially released to home video neither in Malaysia nor in English-speaking Asian territories.