Dubbed anime. Why is it so hated?

[Sark]

People feel embarassed to be watching it in English, as their friends and family will understand what it is about and judge them for it.

Dubbing is usually superior, the voice actors and localisation teams are very talented these days, so bad dubs are very very rare. Seriously, name an anime from within the last three years with bad voice dubbing. Now, I know that someone is going to say Naruto, but seriously the localisation on that is pretty well done, and the voices are comparable to the Japanese cast.

 

[Kamehapa]

People feel embarassed to be watching it in English, as their friends and family will understand what it is about and judge them for it.

Dubbing is usually superior, the voice actors and localisation teams are very talented these days, so bad dubs are very very rare. Seriously, name an anime from within the last three years with bad voice dubbing. Now, I know that someone is going to say Naruto, but seriously the localisation on that is pretty well done, and the voices are comparable to the Japanese cast.

Naruto. IS. BAD.

Hell, if you want another one, The quality of the Funimation dub of One Piece is a running joke...

 

[Tibike77]

The questions in the title. Is it because of frequently poor vice acting and scripting. Or is their something about it that I'm not getting.
And while I'm at it anyone care to explain why there are so many fans subbed animes on the internet?

For starters, most of the dubs are of inferior quality to the original work (and the details as to exactly why come below in droves).
Even if they are only of ever so slightly inferior quality, why compromise at all ?
Exceptions do exist, and awesome dubs can be found... but they are few and far between.

Second, some things are just too hard to translate from Japanese to English in such a way as to have the timing go right and still retain the full meaning of everything that's said.
Dubs are therefore far more likely to suffer from extensive adaptation, even if they are of the highest possible quality, so you're not exactly getting what the original creators intended you to see. Reading speed is much faster than talking speed, so you usually have little trouble fitting a longer, wordier translation in a sub than in just about any dub.

Third, in order to create a halfway decent dub, you need quite a lot of time, so this means the dub arrives a long while after a sub could have been already available (and in most cases, HAS been available).
Sure, some people are patient... but most are not.

And there's a few other little things.
Like, say, maybe wanting to learn a smidge of Japanese (and watching people talk in a language you're trying to learn helps).
Or maybe you're not a native English speaker (a lot of anime watchers aren't) and nobody bothered to dub it in your language, so if you have to pick between original Japanese with subs and the English dub, you have even less of an incentive to go with the dub instead of the sub.

Finally, because, you know, WHY NOT watch it in the original version anyway ?
It's not like reading is hard or anything... is it ?


P.S. Worst offense : when it's not just a dub with minor literary adaptation to maintain pacing (as far as rough lip-movement time goes), but downright censorship... there's plenty of those going around too.
4kids is infamous for that kind of stunt, but they're not the only ones doing it (just the ones with the most egregious examples of it) : removing blood or other battle damage, changing skin colours, replacing cigarettes and guns with other kinds of props (lollipops and squirt bottles, REALLY?), enlarging clothes to cover more skin or downsizing anatomy and so on and so forth.
Bleh. You bet I want to see a sub of the original in that case, it's not even a contest.

 

[drisky]

Its a combination of stigma from the 90s and 4kids actions and people not being able to appreciate cheesy dialogue in a language they understand. Oh and there are also a lot of people with their heads up their asses, sure some dubs are bad, most aren't.

Sounds right to me, I usually prefer dubs only going to subs on rare occasions and really I don't hear this "horrible acting" that the sub people hear. It does happen, but certainly not as often as they let on. Besides, I like corny, the majority of the female acting in Code Geass was really dumb but in a way I kind of enjoyed that part.

 

[superbatranger]

Now, I know there are good dubs out there. Unfortunately, oftentimes it seems like the voices and characters just do not go with each other.

 

[Naheal]

Some dubs are shit. I'm looking at you, Sailor Moon. Not all are, however.

Aww...Sailor Moon's wasn't shit, really. At least, there's far worse out there, only one or two characters' voices made me want to claw at my ears, and the utter cheesiness of a lot of it was kinda charming.

...changing the attack names was a little more unforgivable, yes, but they eventually came around on that (and bless them for it; "Sparkling Wide Pressure" and "Shining Aqua Illusion" were far better than the alternatives).

...and his name is Endymion, goddammit.

When they cut episodes, made the obvious lesbian couple into a pair of cousins that had some severe undertones, changed character names and even re-characterized some, such as Rei, and cut the part where, if someone had enough energy taken from them, they'd die I had a few alarms go off. When they cut an entire season, however...

[small]Seriously, go watch the sub. It's infinitely better than the dub was[/small]

 

[stormcrow5]

To me they sound off, the voice actors sound bored, most of the time the lip sync is off because thats not the way it it was anamated for (that ones minor but just kinda ticks me off when i keep seeing it). the way they talk dosent match how it would be in english, all the sounds that the make sound stupid when done in english this i dunno how but just the screams and stuff still sound better in Jap.

But i dont mind if its dubbed if it was actualy made for that and not done by some people reading a scrip of the Subs for the show

Subs are epic in every way, sounds good looks good and i read fast so i have no problem reading and watchin it at the same time

 

[mr_rubino]

People feel embarassed to be watching it in English, as their friends and family will understand what it is about and judge them for it.

Dubbing is usually superior, the voice actors and localisation teams are very talented these days, so bad dubs are very very rare. Seriously, name an anime from within the last three years with bad voice dubbing. Now, I know that someone is going to say Naruto, but seriously the localisation on that is pretty well done, and the voices are comparable to the Japanese cast.

Naruto. IS. BAD.

Hell, if you want another one, The quality of the Funimation dub of One Piece is a running joke...

That 'running joke' is probably the best example of the raging entitlement complex the watchers of kiddy anime have nowadays, to spit so consistently on Funimation's work after the Texans yanked it out of 4kids's hands.

And Naruto. IS. BAD. because the show already blew goat before it ever got to the US.

 

[Arella18]

With the mainstreaming of anime and the hiring of actually good voice actors you don't see as much of a problem with bad dubbing anymore. However with dubs you lose a lot of things that get cut out thanks to people wanting to protect the american population...i.e. Yu-Gi-Oh's terrible dub (the subbed version ain't half bad) or any 4kids dubbed anime. You tend to lose some of the emotion that is expressed in the orignal japanese dub and well that's pretty much it for me.

 

[phoenix352]

funny American voices replace serious sounding Japanese voice actors makes it

A: lessens the effect of the mood/feel
B: makes every character sound funny....
C: usually painfully untalented voice overs ...

 

[Blade3dge]

I think the major reason is that a lot of those people watch the Japanese dub first, then watch the English. with that, not only the voice, but even the language, adds to characterization. When that is changed, even if the acting is quality, the characterization is changed, and people complain.

The other reason I believe (other than stupid people who just automatically think it's better in Japanese, without even hearing it in English), is that people do not actually listen to the acting, or even really the voices in the Japanese. It's like when you read a book, most you tend to give the characters a voice, and even some extra characterization, in what is read. When they hear it in English, all of the characterizations they subconsciously imagined in the subs is now replaced by what was actually supposed to be conveyed by the spoken dialogue.

Though, there is still the fact that alot are really poor, but that is also true among many of the original Japanese voices, but people don't notice because they are reading subtitles, or because they don't speak Japanese, and thus don't know what poor acting sounds like in another language.

It's not really that, while it's true that there are some poor dubs which in fact censor the original script the reason people watch subs or better yet fansubs is.

Culture and linguistics.

Any study of linguistics or culture differences will immediately indicate strange speaking patterns, catch phrases which mean very little etc. When an Anime is dubbed and even to some extent subbed it is being changed for a new culture, the idea of calling somebody "bald" as an insult for example is lost because in English it makes less sense. Sentences are rearranged and some phrases which would make no sense in English are changed completely. Changes to the script such as this are a huge change to characterization and epic speeches for example when translated to English may sound cheesy, so instead of an Anime about epic speeches it seems like an ironic laugh at cartoon culture. By changing the cultural and linguistic context of the original material so much is changed and it can not be consumed as it was originally intended which believe it or not is important to some people. Often high quality writing really can be lost in translation, it is for this reason subs, particularly fansubs try to retain Japanese culture and the context of the original script to do justice to the original writers.

The point is translators are not award winning writers like the original script writers of the anime so when they rewrite it to make sense to western culture too much is lost so subs and fansubs are seen as a way of retaining the original material... Evin if it requires some study of Japanese culture =P

 

[LadyRhian]

Not all of them are bad. However, in the early days of Anime, the idea that animated stuff is supposed to be for kids made a lot of Western Translations truly atrocious. Take a look at the differences between "Battle of the Planets" and "Phoenix Force" and you can see how one Japanese series can be butchered in two entirely different ways. (Honestly, they took so much out because it wasn't kid-friendly that they had to patch it with poorly contrived crap like 7-Zark-7 and his dog, 1-Rover-1. No, I am not kidding.)

They take out tons of characters dying, because in America, you aren't supposed to expose little kids to the thought of death. Same with panty shots and bloody nose gags- which in Japan are explicitly linked to ejaculation. Yes, a character getting a bloody nose is not just because he has high blood pressure...

Thankfully, they are getting better. But better doesn't always mean "good" or "excellent".

And yeah, there are lots of gags and puns that just don't work here. There was a manga called "Call Me Princess" and it had a girl and her best friend, Yo. One fine day, she drops in on him before he wakes up and says, in the English translation "Good Yorning!" In the Japanese, they were making a pun on his name, because in Japan, saying "Good morning!" Is "Ohayo!" Or "Oh, hi, Yo!"

 

[Gilhelmi]

Every sin that a bad Anime dub has been said but to sum up the highlights.

Taking Anime that was clearly intended for teens/mature (ie. Sailor Moon, Naruto, One Peace) and making them into a bad children cartoon. I mean seriously, if I created a good Anime I would sue the dubbing company that did some of the things that the bad companies done. I blame Fox, "we will buy anything, but you have to make it into a children cartoon because adults do not watch cartoons".

 

[Engarde]

Most of the time it seems to be because that it is easy to notice bad voice acting from a language you know. When people are speaking another language, it can end up with a 'they all sound the same' sort of effect, and thus you would not notice small differences in voice.

 

[Gigaguy64]

The questions in the title. Is it because of frequently poor vice acting and scripting. Or is their something about it that I'm not getting.
And while I'm at it anyone care to explain why there are so many fans subbed animes on the internet?

watch vandread episode 1 dubbed too see your answer.The girls will scratch your ears out using claws made of high pitched bitching and fail.

Best not be talking bout my Buzam.

Dita's vice and the voices of random crew members are really agitating, and so is Paiway's.
But i loved Jura's voice a lot more than the cheesy and generic high pitched wail they gave her in the Japanese version.
And Steven Blum was an EXCELLENT Duelo.

OT:Like everyone else has said, a lot of the time its just bad.
But there are the good gems, you just haft to find them.

 

[Dango]

Because most of the voice acting in dubbed versions is just plain bad. I was pissed when I decided to take a quick look at the dubbed version of Clannad (my favorite anime) just for fun. I can't understand how anyone could like the dubbed version.

 

[outcesticide69]

Probably because Anime Fan boys get angry after they finally learn the Japanese language, only to find out they're favorite anime is english dubbed, and just cant ever look at they're Japanese love pillows the same again. XD

 

[Ninonybox_v1legacy]

well i never watched an amine i thought was bad....and i also never watched an anime that i thought had bad voices, so i cant really say why. personally i loved the dubbed versions of Elfen Lied and Lucky star...the voices just fit the bill for me.

 

[KingPiccolOwned]

... unfortunately, the ratio of good to bad dubs has remained fairly constant (1 : X, where X > 9000)

Seriously though, I've seen a deal of anime in my time (not a hell of a lot mind, but a decent amount) and I know of at least one or two shows where the Japanese voices are just as shit as the English ones, the one that comes to my mind specifically is Rena's from Higurashi.
Admittedly I don't know if that makes the English dub good by exstention (probably doesn't) but it does mean that both can be bad.

 

[redhd]

Because most of the voice acting in dubbed versions is just plain bad.

YES.

It also seems like they just get the same voice actors over and over. I mean really; Johnny Yong Bosch, Vic Mignogna, and Steve Blum. Out of the 3, the only good one is Steve Blum, and maybe Vic Mignogna with some stuff. I just want to rip out Bosch's vocal cords sometimes.
But the only decent dub anime would probably be Cowboy Bebop. Naruto dub sucked. I can't watch Bleach dub, damn Bosch. But it always seems like the American voice actors just can't emote to anything. With Japanese voice actors, they are just more experienced.

I did like the Clannad dub though, despite the clearly superior sub.