Dubs vs. Subs

[Kraco]

Dubbing as a phenomenon is quite strange to me, as in Finland absolutely nothing but movies and TV series for little children are dubbed. Nothing. They once tried, I assume as a joke, dub a week of the "The Bold and the Beautiful" with the voices of very popular Finnish actors. It received quite a lot of attention (enough that I watched one episode, the only one for me of that series, just to see how hilarious it was). Generally speaking people took it as a temporal joke or were horrified that it would continue.

Well, having lived all my life in an environment where dubbing is almost as strange as crocodile in the local sewers or a lion in the nearby woods, I just naturally pick subs and stay away from dubs. It's fundamentally different for me.

One anime that's pretty good dubbed (and I haven't even yet seen it subbed yet), in addition to some mentioned here already, is "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds". Of course it's a movie, and thus automatically in a different situation than series. But with people like Patrick Stewart in the cast, it's quite nice indeed...

[XanBcoo]

I'm not even going to vote I'm so torn.

Generally, if I had the opportunity, I'd chose to watch the show in English. English dubbing has gotten good enough to where 3 out of 5 series today either match the original track, or do an even better job. I also prefer to watch in English most of the time for the reasons Deadfire listed. It's just more natural for me to watch a show in my native language. That said, if I've watched a series subbed, I'll usually stick to the subs. I think with a lot of people, whichever way they watch it first is the way they prefer. Watching anime in Japanese is also just cool. There's a certain charm that comes along with listening to a series in its native language. You guys know what I'm talking about.

I'm also a VA fanatic through and through, so that holds a lot of weight in deciding whether I watch a show dubbed in English or subbed in Japanese. If a Japanese voice actor that I love (like Masaya Onosaka, Romi Paku, or Shinichiro Miki) is cast in a series, I'll HAVE to listen to it subbed. The same goes with English voice actors. Any series that casts Blum, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, or Liam O'Brian to name a few, earns an automatic English viewing. I'm also intensly interested whenever a show I've seen subbed is dubbed. I love seeing who-will-play-who and comparing line deliveries and styles of voices (hence the Naruto and Bleach dub threads I've created). Because of this, I'll often do what Yukimura said and watch it subbed first, then in English with the subtitles on.

The earlier dub casts in the late 90's and early 2000's were a lot better than what we have now. Pick up anything from then and you get diverse casts who really put a lot of effort into their acting. You get natural sounding emotions, and even attempts to mimic the original cast, thus getting the same effect the voice director on the Japanese track was going for. Then, for whatever reason, someone hit a wall. You'd hear the exact same cast in everything.

I know exactly what you're talking about (Goddamn, does EVERY ADV dub have to pair up Monica Rial and Chris Patton???), but I don't think that aspect of dubbing makes it any worse. In fact a lot of the time, I have fun trying to recognize voice actors from different series. Hearing the same actor in different roles is really cool, except when as you said, they sound...exactly the same. And are cast in every other series. The exception to this is the God that is Steve Blum - who is probably the most prolific anime voice actor out there, but has such talent and vocal range that it doesn't even matter when you hear him 5 times a night on Adult Swim. Has anyone else heard him do video game stuff like in Psychonauts? He's amazing.

But the voicework is improving at a slow rate

Of course I couldn't agree more. Some notable dubs I've seen just recently: Elfen Leid, Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, Final Fantasy: Advent Children, Fruits Basket, Eureka Seven, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and Paranoia Agent. I could go on, but all of these did an awesome job and had a unique cast from one another. They also used both accomplished voice actors with good range as well as some new talents, showing that the cast reusing isn't as extreme as you say it is.

Another interesting point is that a lot of people claim to prefer subs because they say it's "original". In the end though, aren't most anime series based on manga? Aren't the lines just coming from written text? Any dub in any language is just that actor's portrayal of those written lines. Any American actor resembling the Japanese actors just seems like a nod to a good performance to me...and not a necessity for a good dub. People complained that Ed Elric sounded too different from Romi Paku and hated the FMA dub, even though the actor (Vic Mignogna) fit the role perfectly and in my opinion gave the best performance of his career. Again, I think preference is usually based on which language the show was watched in first.

[zibo]

I have to agree, some animes have really well dont dubbing, some don't. I really hate naruto dubs, especialy Narutos his voice is well annoying.

Personaly I prefer subs, but dubbing is cool when they have good voice actors.

[complich8]

To add to the list of decent-to-good dubs, the original Dragonball series English dubs felt remarkably fitting, to me. DBZ was pretty bad though.

But yeah, dubs are definitely hit-or-miss. There's little consistency across series, and it seems like a lot of English voice actors just don't seem to be able to express the range of emotions and expressions and moods that Japanese VA's usually do.

I think that a lot of voice acting work in the US is unappreciated. Like, in Japan, a voice actor is generally well known just for being a voice actor, and the VA talent pool is fairly broad. In the US, it seems to be more like the VA talent pool is extremely small, and a lot of voice work is done by famous actors/actresses who already have well-known non-voice personas, and then they get recruited to lend their persona's characteristics to a similar character.

Not to say there isn't a very good, very dedicated US voice acting talent pool. Just that that's often extremely underappreciated, and it's very small in comparison.

[kenren]

SuB of course !! i prefer watching anime with subs .. i guess i'm used to it

[masamuneehs]

totally forgot to mention that dubs are one of the best ways to introduce people to anime. that alone gives it bookoo points. perhaps its best attribute.

[Yukimura]

lol who was the other person that picked dubs with me? I picked dubs since you actually get both with a dub od you can choose. If you want to bring people into anime (I don't think too many people who post here want to keep anime locked up and away from the general public) then often it's easier if you give them dual audios, as they might not want to plunge into reading subs while watching a show, a skill many lay people seem to lack.

[mage]

They should just make Robin Williams dub all characters in every anime from now on. He's fucking elite.

[Munsu]

Indeed, they should just get people that can pretty much imitate anyones voice like Frank Caliendo.

[Assertn]

trigun dub

[Apraxhren]

lol who was the other person that picked dubs with me?

That would have been me, until a third person also chose dub. I chose dubs solely for the fact that I only will watch the subs the first time then usually after that will never watch the subs again if I have the choice. I am not very picky when it comes to dubs and I probably tolerate worse quality than most. One reason is the second time I watch an anime is usually later at night and it is harder to read laying down while also having to look at the screen the entire time to know what is happening. I rarely sit down and re-watch anything unless I greatly enjoyed it and enough time has passed, though for some reason I can't explain my compulsion to keep every series I've watched, when I'll never watch it again.

One thing I like to remind myself when watching a dub is to ask whether the voice is appropriate to the character rather than to the previous voice actor. It is sometimes hard when I am used to hearing something one way to judge.

[Yukimura]

You're quite similar to me then, I keep everything I watch to completion with the exception of Black Cat. And I tend to replace subs with dual audio as well. Since I prefer english, but can switch if I'm feeling nostalgic.