Dubs vs. Subs

[Lefty]

Ruroni Kenshin i find to be more enjoyable dub'ed. I can't get passed the super female voice of Kenshin. Thats about it.

[Ryllharu]

Generally, I prefer subs, but there are some good dubs.

Cowboy Bebop was the only one I thought surpassed the original cast. I love that dub.

Many others equaled the originals though. Neon Genesis Evangelion has a great cast and was well done because the voice director, Amanda Winn, who also voiced Rei, did a superb job on it. Also Allison Keith and Tiffany Grant are great as Misato and Asuka.

FLCL was another good one, since the japanese voice director was brought over to do the casting and directing, so the dub is a perfect analog of the Japanese track.

I've always been fond of the cast in the Slayers series and movies too. You'll recognize them all from the Pokemon dub, but they do an excellent job.

Other good ones are Macross Plus, any of Makoto Shinkai's works, and Perfect Blue.

Dubs have fallen on harder times recently, since a lot of the good VA's left and they keep recycling the same 15 or so. Monical Rial, horrible as always, Wendee Lee, overcast in far too many roles.

[JaySee]

I agree with Ryllharu.
Adding to the list, Samurai Champloo. Of course it's from the same people as Cowboy Bebop.

[Deadfire]

There are many things that can be said about subtitles or dubbing. Some anime fans will tell you dubbed is the way to go, while others will pull for the authantic feel of subs. In the end all it really is is personal preferance.

With dubbing you don't have to constantly read words on the bottom of your screen. This can be a big thing if you have difficulty watching the show while reading the dialogue. The whole show will be in your language. Also, dubbing makes certain things in anime easier to understand. In subtitling some companies or fansubs are really exact, which makes the translated sentences seem choppy. Dubbing is more consise, it's clear, with no extra words added. Voice actors is also another big deal. Many people protest dubbs because of 'bad voice acting'--in reality, voice acting has much improved in English released animes, though you'll still get some bad ones that make you want to cringe. Most of the time the words even come out in sinc with the lips moving. The downsides are you may miss important plot points when they cut certain dialogue to make the show easier to understand, or to make the lip movement in sinc. You still will get some really horrible dubbing, it's out there. Also, many shows that are dubbed are also edited, so it really messes with them. This may not be as true as it once was, but it still is at least in part. (especialy for those shown on tv). In Naruto they have done a much better job then some, It's not prefect but very good in light of some of the ones I've seen. Another important thing that some people miss is that some things don't really translate These things don't exist in english and it works the other way too. This does make those that watched the sub either confused or mis-understand.

Dubbing is more difficult because good dubbing not only gives the viewer an accurate translation of the original, but also matches up the performed translation with the lip movements of the onscreen characters. To further complicate matters, the character's gender, ethnicity, social status and age needs to be matched in their voice portrayal. Some things like gender and age are easily matched. However, social status and ethnicity are completely different animals altogether. In some cases, the culture that the show is translated into just doesn't have the kind of social class that is portrayed, for instance, nobles versus warriors versus commoners in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (I'll use a non-anime, but it still proves this point as who hasn't seen this movie). The biggest constraint that dubbing runs up against is lip synchronization between the translation and the on-screen characters.

It's up to you

[FrogKing]

I agree with DF that in the end it is the viewers opinion as to which is better. However, that said I think that if you are a true fan of anime the decesion is a no-brainer...SUBS all the way. I think that there is a huge difference in the quality of the viewing experience when you hear emotion played out by japanese voice actors hired to bring their respective characters to life. Dubs try but fall short by a long way in this sense. Although they try, dub VAs just don't match up in anyway. I do agree that the quality of the subs can make or break a show (re: if all of One Piece was subbed by HK, it wouldn't be as popular as it is). If you can read, then go subbed.

[Yukimura]

Dual Audio all the way. I personally prefer the option to watch a show in English so I can understand what is going on. Last year I hit the point where anime i'd started watching from Japan were being released in the US, and I tend to replace my subs with Dual Audio's as long as the dubbing isn't too annoying and the meaning sn't to hard to follow without lots of little notes appearing at the top of the screen explaining this or that custom. Since most of the US releases i've encounters don't seem to care about explaining these things I usually stay away from titles where Japanese culture or history plays a significant role in the story.

However even with the dubbed audio playing I usually keep the English subtitles on, as the translations tend to be more exact and I can see what they removed to make the dilogue flow better. Ideally I'll watch a series fansubbed (as they usually give you more contextual information than the subs on the US DVD's) and then archive it in Dual Audio, so I can rewatch it in English, but not get confused when stuff comes up that doesn't make as much sense.

Like DF said it's all a matter of preferance, but I think any series should be seen in the original language at least once if it pertains to Japanese culture, but if there are no cultural reasons I see no harm in relying on a dub to get your kicks. Oh wait...EDITING!!!!!!

One wildcard that dubs bring into play that can ruin an anime experiance is editing. I've recently started watching Tsukikage Ran DVD Rips and I find it hard to believe that Ran kills so many people with absolutely no blood loss suffered by any of them. I haven't found any subs yet so I'm not sure if the series was originally like that or edited for release in the US. It is oldish and thus sentiments could have been more anti-violence back then. Also I know that Naruto has had blood and homosexual kisses edited out on CN, though i'm not sure of those changes will translate to the DVD's or not.

EDIT @ BELOW: DDBEen reminded me of a good point, for me at least, it's easier to remember english VA's so when I hear a voice for the first time the voice tends to become locked into that charachter for me. Often this isn't a big deal but if a VA doesn't alter his or her voice enough for a role it can get distracting.

Some notable examples are Stephen Blum, who generally hides his Shishio well, but in Tsukikage Ran keeps making me think Shishio whenver his charachter speaks. Alison Keith who still sounded like Misato from Eva while playing Mao from FMP.

The worst by far has to have been Samurai Deeper Kyo, with VA Dan Green, who I first heard as Yami Yugi (a little punk bitch if you don't know) playing Kyo (a raging badass), every time Kyo speaks I think it' time to D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Duel...

[DDBen]

Generally I prefer subs by a mile but there are a couple examples where the dubbing has imo surpased the sub.

The series I feel that this is most evident in is Those Who Hunt Elves where I found the changes to the script for the dubbing made the series much funnier then the subbed version.

Also while I wouldn't exactly say the dub was better I feel the Berserk dub was very well done and I would recommend that people atleast give it a try.

On the other side of this I feel certain shows have been destroyed by the dub to the point I can no longer enjoy the series. For me this includes Kenshin/Love Hina where all the same voice actors are used for both and expecially the random southern voices really effected the series for myself while I love both of those series in the subbed form. A example of a absolute abomination of a series being dubbed is One Piece but thats also a example for everything wrong with changing a anime in general. Finally as opposed to Love Hina and Kenshin where I hated the voice actors in both subs I found the Inu Yasha dub aweful because it reused all the same voice actors in the same roles as Ranma 1/2 and this mad it unwatchable for me. Note this had nothing to do with disliking the voice actors just the abuse of reusing everyone in a series that ends up seeming identical to another with the way they did this.