Dub VS sub a real discussion!
- Thread starter ecoho
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Subs most of the time, though the dub for Redline fit the mood of the film way better than the Japanese voice track.
I watch a lot of Anime, I play a lot of JRPGs, I don't have a preference for either.
I've watched and played things with terrible English dubs, I've watched and played things with terrible original voice acting.
Look at Tales of Hearts R recently for example, the original Japanese voice overs are HORRIBLE, it's almost as if the voice actors went out their way to portray the complete opposite emotion of the moment.
I'll usually a give a dub a go before I switch to subs, if the dub is ok I'll watch the dub, not because it's superior, but most of the time I don't like having to concentrate on reading while I'm watching TV and possibly doing other things at the same time.
If the dub is just unbearable though I will watch/play it with subs, and I've also gone back and watched things with original voices, some I liked better with original voices (e.g Cardcaptor Sakura), some I preferred the dub (e.g Code Geass).
I hate the argument that you have to watch it with subs or you aren't a 'real' anime/JRPG fan, it's just stupid, unless you speak Japanese of course, and regardless, just because it's original Japanese voice overs doesn't mean they are automatically super fantastic 10 out of 10 like some would have you believe. There are shitty Japanese voice actors, there are shitty English voice actors; Concordantly there are shitty Japanese voice overs, and there are shitty English dubs.
I've watched and played things with terrible English dubs, I've watched and played things with terrible original voice acting.
Look at Tales of Hearts R recently for example, the original Japanese voice overs are HORRIBLE, it's almost as if the voice actors went out their way to portray the complete opposite emotion of the moment.
I'll usually a give a dub a go before I switch to subs, if the dub is ok I'll watch the dub, not because it's superior, but most of the time I don't like having to concentrate on reading while I'm watching TV and possibly doing other things at the same time.
If the dub is just unbearable though I will watch/play it with subs, and I've also gone back and watched things with original voices, some I liked better with original voices (e.g Cardcaptor Sakura), some I preferred the dub (e.g Code Geass).
I hate the argument that you have to watch it with subs or you aren't a 'real' anime/JRPG fan, it's just stupid, unless you speak Japanese of course, and regardless, just because it's original Japanese voice overs doesn't mean they are automatically super fantastic 10 out of 10 like some would have you believe. There are shitty Japanese voice actors, there are shitty English voice actors; Concordantly there are shitty Japanese voice overs, and there are shitty English dubs.
Forget about what you prefer to listen to or read, the subtitled version will give you the performance that the director themselves asked for. It will bring you closest to one of the principle creator's visions. All you get with a dub is an interpretation of a work. And that's fine. But that's all it will ever be.
But ask yourself this - would you want to watch Star Wars if George Lucas went back and had all the lines re-dubbed by new actors? In the case of the prequels, yes. In the case of the originals. Never. (He did enough damage with the 'special' editions).
And that is what you get with a dub. Sometimes a slight improvement over an average piece of work. But never an improvement over a something in the hands of a master director. For directors like Miyazaki for example - true artists whose works are full of subtlety and nuance - there is no way you can listen to a Disney dub and think you're getting the same experience. I don't care how good the English actors are, they do not have the same cultural experience nor understand the work as they would when directed by the actual author of the work in their native language.
They may be able to bring the work closer to your own understanding of cultural experience. But why watch anime if you're not interested in immersing yourself in another culture?
If you prefer to watch rather than read, then watch it once with the dub to give you a feel for the story. Then watch it again with the subtitles to truly experience it as close as possible to how it was meant to be.
If you want to know the difference a dub can make, watch Princess Mononoke with the English language track on AND the English subtitles on. You'll be surprised how many subtle changes they made in the spoken dialogue track and how much it will influence your understanding of the film.
But ask yourself this - would you want to watch Star Wars if George Lucas went back and had all the lines re-dubbed by new actors? In the case of the prequels, yes. In the case of the originals. Never. (He did enough damage with the 'special' editions).
And that is what you get with a dub. Sometimes a slight improvement over an average piece of work. But never an improvement over a something in the hands of a master director. For directors like Miyazaki for example - true artists whose works are full of subtlety and nuance - there is no way you can listen to a Disney dub and think you're getting the same experience. I don't care how good the English actors are, they do not have the same cultural experience nor understand the work as they would when directed by the actual author of the work in their native language.
They may be able to bring the work closer to your own understanding of cultural experience. But why watch anime if you're not interested in immersing yourself in another culture?
If you prefer to watch rather than read, then watch it once with the dub to give you a feel for the story. Then watch it again with the subtitles to truly experience it as close as possible to how it was meant to be.
If you want to know the difference a dub can make, watch Princess Mononoke with the English language track on AND the English subtitles on. You'll be surprised how many subtle changes they made in the spoken dialogue track and how much it will influence your understanding of the film.
To me, dubs essentially can't be better than the original voice acting, pretty much by definition. When I choose to watch something, anime or otherwise, I generally want the "real" thing, as in the thing that the original creators actually chose to create. Ideally I'd just learn whatever language the thing is actually spoken in, but since that isn't really feasible, subtitles are generally the better option for me. That way I get the voices and tones exactly the way they were originally intended to be, plus subtitles are generally a closer interpretation of the original meanings in my experience.ecoho said:
I understand that other people aren't necessarily after the same things I am of course, and for them dubs might be the better option, but for me even in the case of Dragon Ball Z where the voice acting might really be better in some way in the dub, it's still the inferior option.
Mostly agreed, with the exception of Ghost Stories, as I noted above(which was so awful that ADV was told to do whatever they wanted to the script as long as it sold).Lunncal said:
You're giving me nightmarish flashbacks to my attempt to watch the supposedly "good" Steins;Gate dub in which they completely erased the otaku references and humor and replaced with generic geek humor and tired memes. Okabe's character makes little to no sense without understanding what chunnibyou is...floppylobster said:
Pretty much this. Though, there is a dub of Attack on Titan.tippy2k2 said:
I really don't care, but prefer a dub. Often I prefer the English voices of characters (men sound like men for example). I'm not adverse to reading subtitles, but I often enjoy a series in English. Quality studios get quality Voice Actors and they often make great performances.
I always find this argument to be rather Elitist [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x86h2RvAw7A].
"You're not really watching the 'real' show unless you watch it in the original language. English Voice Actors suck in comparison to Japanese ones. Stop ruining our shows with your inferior dubs!"
Meanwhile, I just enjoy my shows. Usually in English, but occasionally in Japanese with subs.
This actually raises an interesting question. DBZ is an adaptation of another work, and so, by its very nature, it is at least one step removed from the artists intent. A dub would then be two steps removed.Lunncal said:
But I don't think toriyama intended for Goku to sound like a 65 year old woman. The animators just hired an old woman to voice child Goku, and then refused to recast the part when he got older. In that regard is it possible that the English dub was actually closer to the authors original intent? Just some food for thought.
Pretty sure I've posted in a thread like this before but oh well: depends on the quality of the subbing and dubbing.
Older animes in particular have pretty terrible dubbing. But nowadays they're sometimes much better. I found Madoka Magica's dubbing to be pretty good quality, as was the dubbing in Hellsing Ultimate. Conversely I found the subtitles in Madoka kinda mangled in some places; like they've been run through translation software and nobody has checked to see if its good wording.
It varies from anime to anime. In a non-anime example I've been playing Hyperdimenion Neptunia Rebirth and listening to the dubbing in that almost made my ears bleed.
All that being said more recently I've been watching a huge majority of my stuff on crunchyroll lately. Which means its been exclusively subtitled. Fortunately I find the subtitles on there tend to be pretty good quality.
Older animes in particular have pretty terrible dubbing. But nowadays they're sometimes much better. I found Madoka Magica's dubbing to be pretty good quality, as was the dubbing in Hellsing Ultimate. Conversely I found the subtitles in Madoka kinda mangled in some places; like they've been run through translation software and nobody has checked to see if its good wording.
It varies from anime to anime. In a non-anime example I've been playing Hyperdimenion Neptunia Rebirth and listening to the dubbing in that almost made my ears bleed.
All that being said more recently I've been watching a huge majority of my stuff on crunchyroll lately. Which means its been exclusively subtitled. Fortunately I find the subtitles on there tend to be pretty good quality.
I generally think that watching sub is better because of one small thing: Japan's VA industry is more well defined.
There are actual schools, agencies and an entire industry revolving around VAs in Japan while here, its more a side profession for acting.
This type of development for Japan's VA industry menas that I can expect somewhat better voices in the original language
There are actual schools, agencies and an entire industry revolving around VAs in Japan while here, its more a side profession for acting.
This type of development for Japan's VA industry menas that I can expect somewhat better voices in the original language
I tend to default to dubs (when available), because I can just tab out and listen to them if/when it hits a slow part. I am not opposed to subs however, and I will often switch over to a sub if the dub is particularly awful, but I just prefer to watch it dubbed because I can do other things whilst watching it, whereas a subbed anime requires my undivided attention. That is pretty much my only reason for my preference.
Subs are usually better. Not always, and there are plenty of consistently good Dubs, but, Subs just usually work better. Some Dubs try way too hard to match the Japanese version, which makes it worse than if they just tried their own thing. Dubs sometimes come off as forced. Of course, Baccano should only be watched in English Dub. The Japanese version fails to capture the right sound or feel of 1930's US gangsters. Baccano has the most perfect English Dub ever produced, IMO. Still, though, besides a handful of Dubs I love over Subs, it is almost always Subs for me.
I don't know that the whole "author's real intent" or the "real thing" argument holds any weight for me because apart from anything unless you know the language (in which case why do you have subs?) you're missing the subtleties in the dialogue anyway no matter how good the sub notes are.
Plus just because the original team picked the actors doesn't mean those actors are any good so it's down to quality of dubbing compared to the quality of the original acting.
That said, I like me some anime on occasion and a lot of the dialogue when translated sounds really clunky, dumb and cliche (I'm looking at you One Piece) so in that case I prefer the sub because reading the words is less painful than hearing them.
Plus just because the original team picked the actors doesn't mean those actors are any good so it's down to quality of dubbing compared to the quality of the original acting.
That said, I like me some anime on occasion and a lot of the dialogue when translated sounds really clunky, dumb and cliche (I'm looking at you One Piece) so in that case I prefer the sub because reading the words is less painful than hearing them.
Subs.
Though lately I've been switching to dubs if I don't really like the series because then it's something I can put on in the background while I do something else like cook, clean or other things I don't really like to do and need something on in the background to break the monotony.
If this is just about anime, which 100% of these types of threads are, then what 100% of these threads fail to realize is that even with a sub, you're often not getting an accurate translation.
I don't even mean that the meaning of the translation is grammatically incorrect either. A LOT of Japanese media relies heavily on puns, which is something that you can't get in translation.
To move away from anime for a second to Street Fighter, in context, shoryuken we're taught is "rising dragon punch". Ryu is the main character for the series, "Dragon". Ken is his palette swap, or in context (because ken is a lot of things) he is named "fist". It's kind of a joke that shoryuken is their shared move as it shares their names.
Once again, M. Bison (Boxer) was clearly a pun on M. Tyson. They swapped things around to avoid legal complications in America.
Point is, there's a ton you're missing either way you take in your content. I'd argue that subs/dubs don't matter for most modern media that requires VO and this is a discussion that was legitimate 15 years ago when English voice over was just beginning to be taken seriously.
So unless it's live action, such as old Akira Kurasawa films, I say viewer's preference.
Live action though, I have to go with subs.
Though lately I've been switching to dubs if I don't really like the series because then it's something I can put on in the background while I do something else like cook, clean or other things I don't really like to do and need something on in the background to break the monotony.
If this is just about anime, which 100% of these types of threads are, then what 100% of these threads fail to realize is that even with a sub, you're often not getting an accurate translation.
I don't even mean that the meaning of the translation is grammatically incorrect either. A LOT of Japanese media relies heavily on puns, which is something that you can't get in translation.
To move away from anime for a second to Street Fighter, in context, shoryuken we're taught is "rising dragon punch". Ryu is the main character for the series, "Dragon". Ken is his palette swap, or in context (because ken is a lot of things) he is named "fist". It's kind of a joke that shoryuken is their shared move as it shares their names.
Once again, M. Bison (Boxer) was clearly a pun on M. Tyson. They swapped things around to avoid legal complications in America.
Point is, there's a ton you're missing either way you take in your content. I'd argue that subs/dubs don't matter for most modern media that requires VO and this is a discussion that was legitimate 15 years ago when English voice over was just beginning to be taken seriously.
So unless it's live action, such as old Akira Kurasawa films, I say viewer's preference.
Live action though, I have to go with subs.
I used to be a sub elitist, but over time I realized something: Generally speaking, the shows and games for which I developed an emotional connection and general affection were primarily in English. Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, Baccano, Metal Gear, Redline, FMA--I think I connected with them primarily because I could understand the language and get sucked in, whereas that would be more difficult if I had to read subs while the drama unfolds. Granted, this isn't universal--I fell in love with the subbed version of Durarara, and I think the dub of Ghost in the Shell is fucking garbage. And, in general, if the setting is obviously intended to be Japan played completely straight (for instance, Samurai Champloo is not played straight, Toradora is, NGE could go either way, but go sub anyway), then I'll pick subs for the sake of cinéma vérité. I take it case by case, and often I don't make a conscious choice to choose one or the other. But on the whole, I feel like dubs add to my enjoyment of a work.
And now, I think I'll watch FLCL again.
And now, I think I'll watch FLCL again.