No Right Answer: Subbing Vs. Dubbing

[Candidus]

Subbed. Always.

Dubs are fucking hideous, without a single exception. There's not a single US anime circuit VA worth their cheque. Always play games in JP, always watch anime subbed, always avoid altogether if there's no alternative to an experience degrading dub.

 

[ExileNZ]

While in theory I'm a fan of not having to read every scene, because it does detract from the action, the problem with arguing about "good" dubs is that they're so few and far in-between, unless you only watch Miyazaki.

The main advantage with subs is that your brain knows that what you're reading is a translation - and that translation has to be pretty bad to be jarring. With anything less than a really good dub the experience is immediately jarring.

It's like you went there for some Miyazaki and what you got was more like '80s Transformers or, you know, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=L7ONwQEKVwQ#t=63

Less extreme example, there are tonnes of series I love which I just can't bring myself to watch in English without cringing. Higurashi did okay, as did Sword Art Online, but some of it's so hit-and-miss it can ruin a whole otherwise-epic scene.

Honorable mention to shows like Digimon, which know they're childish but still manage to sneak in some more adult jokes into the dub.

 

[ExileNZ]

At this point in time, I've seen a lot of both dubbed and subbed and I can say definitively that...

(snip)

There are a few voice actors that can get away with it, because they actually know the English language to a decent extent or are just coached on it rather well. (Though sometimes it being kind of terrible is what makes it work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9J5tYShNY8)

I haven't heard a lot of things that originated in English dubbed into another language, though. Maybe I should look into that.

Was honestly expecting your example to be this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYvhhMjW32k

 

[bdcjacko]

Speak American or get out.

 

[umbraticus]

subbing period.
i'm not from an english speaking country so i watched a lot of stuff with subtitles growing up. subbing is so much better because the original performance of the actors is intact, the rythm is better and the lips say the correct words! it draws you out of the experience so much when the faces and text don't do the same thing.
if subtitles are too fast for you or the scene is lost because you were reading too much, go back to first grade please

 

[Rabbitboy]

Anyone who dubs live action material deserves to be sent of to the gulags.

I don't care much for animation. And when I watch anime I usually switch between the Japanese and English voices and pick the option I like the best (or find the least irritating).

 

[Draconalis]

Dubbing tend sto loos cultural nuances simply because the dubbers feel that it might be something the watcher wont understand.

Examples:

Suffixes on names, the star on a Popsicle that could win you another one, calling someone "mister" vs "uncle"

And I just watched a couple of episodes from two different anime this week. On a technical level, the dubs were probably good... but man did it just sound bad to me.

Which reminds me, sometimes people just fucking sound terrible and I'm forced to listen to them, rather than read them.

Example:

Tina from Ai Yori Aoshi.

I could not watch that series in dub because of her.

 

[Dandres]

I will have to say dubbed because as my friend would say ?I am American, I do not want to read.?

But on the flip side I have heard some really bad dub?s from the older shows.

 

[Shjade]

Depends very much on the quality of the dub, which tends to mean I find subtitles better because it is MUCH easier to have quality subtitles than quality dubbed tracks.

Some dubs are good enough that they're my "default" imagining of a thing, though. Cowboy Bebop is the one people always hold up, and it's great, but the #1 example for me is...Batou, from Ghost in the Shell. The English dub for Batou is the "right" Batou voice in my head. His original Japanese VA is great, too, but doesn't resonate with me the same way.

 

[razer17]

I much prefer subs. Mostly that's because there are so many bad dubs out there. From what I hear they've been getting better recently, but I can't say if that's true or not.

If they did release some really good dubs, I might well switch. I used to watch a lot of anime before I started working and lost a lot of my free time. Now I watch 7-10 episodes a week, because you can't do anything else whilst reading the subs. If they were well dubbed I'd just watch like I do Netflix, which is to say I barely watch it as I browse the internet or play games.

 

[werewolfgold]

Dubs are fucking hideous, without a single exception. There's not a single US anime circuit VA worth their cheque.

Don't be that guy. lol

Was honestly expecting your example to be this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYvhhMjW32k

...I feel like Okabe was amusing at first, but it got old kind of quickly for me. Still a good show, though.

 

[Flames66]

I am a decently fast reader, and can keep up with the action and the dialogue; and a lot of content can be lost in the translation.

I can't read fast enough to keep up with the film, so I have to constantly break the flow by pausing it every time someone says anything. I can't even keep up with the dialogue in Forest Gump (just tested).

Ummm, isn't Chris's job localization for Nintendo? Dubbing is part of that, right? He's a little bit biased here.

Relevant experience, not bias.

In my experience people who say they can't pay attention to the screen and the subtitles are people who never actually watch things subtitles more than once or twice but never all the way through or just a few episodes of something.

I am confused about the meaning of this statement, could you enlarge please?

I must actually say I think that English-speakers who prefer dub is kind of lazy.

(ZEEE SNIPS!!)

I've never missed any part of the video because I was reading the sub. If it's hard in the beginning, learn how to see the text as a whole.

I can't watch a film and read at the same time. If I am reading subtitles, the film might as well not be happening above them because I won't see any of it. I never watch subtitled films because I have to spend so much time pausing and rewinding to both understand the dialogue and see the visuals that it is almost as if I have to edit the film myself just to watch it.

I have one exception. If the main experience is in English, but a character says Dialogue in another language that the viewer needs to understand, put that shit in irremovable subtitles bottom and center on the screen. I don't want to have to stop the film and fuck around in my subtitle setting just to understand one line.

 

[able_to_think]

Dubbed. Movies and anime use a combination of visuals and sound to tell a story. When you put subtitles at the bottom you distract from the visual aspect because your eyes keep having to flick back and forth between the picture and the text. It's not "purer" because you're still relying on the skill of the translators. The only way to get the "pure" experience is to be fluent in the original language.

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt is one of the best examples of an english translation done right. I watched the original japanese sub before an english dub was even announced and actually though it wouldn't work because of how the original dialog was paced and structured. Then I watched the dub and I will never go back. They rewrote so much of the script that it doesn't even feel like a translation but it actually is very faithful to the original.

I think of dubs as localization, not translation. Asian languages are structured differently than western ones so just having someone read the translated text it's going to be like those early dubs that had people speaking really fast. I think the best way to go about a dub is to rewrite the entire script in english while using the translation as a guide. It won't be 100% faithful to the source but if it's done well you'll have the same experience as a japanese person watching it in japanese because you'll be experiencing it with your linguistic and cultural quirks instead of theirs.

 

[Ragnoon]

My preference is to watch the dubbed version. If I have watched subbed and I find it to hard watch and multitask at the same time (I don't have a lot of free time), with a dub i can just listen to the audio and still get most of the story. Unlike the early days, companies like funimation normally take care about the show that they are dubbing. To my knowledge they haven't done a "bad" dub for a while, that being said it also depends on the source material and how well they can translate for a western culture. So for anime, I prefer dubs. Live action movies, most definitely subs.

 

[Nydestroyer]

I got drawn into Anime from the dubs when I was younger but my craving for more Anime made me watch things dubbed because I was sick of waiting for new episodes. At first I could not keep up and had a pause sometimes to read what was going on, I was like 11 at the time XD, but honestly after 8 years of watching purely subbed Anime it is extremely easy to read and pay attention to the action. Honestly at this point I don't feel like I am reading at all but it has one downside I have grown to hate most all dubbed Anime English just does not sound right coming from the characters. Not saying its bad it just feels off well except in special cases such as Animes I originally watched in english and then rewatched subbed.

Now that I really think about it I think it was a bad and really annoying voice actor from the english version of Gantz that made me really want to only watch subbed XD. Thanks (searches myanimelist) Ayres, Christopher who apparently has some good work but I could not stand his voice in the show XD

 

[Lightknight]

Kyle's entire argument is against bad dubbing. What about good dubbing? Couldn't we make the exact same arguments against bad subbing that Kyle made against bad dubbing? Translation gets laughably bad still.

Frankly, I think having to read the text causes me to miss out on a lot more than audio. I consider visual input to be far more relevant to movies depending on the genre you're watching.

What's interesting is that there are some genres where my answer would change and even story types. But a wordy slog of a movie? You might as well be reading a book rather than watching a movie. What's the golden rule of movies if not "Show don't tell"?

 

[McMarbles]

This is all just distracting us from the machinations of the Snake People, you fools!

 

[Petromir]

Right.

Dubs can work on animated content, especially if any efforts made to adapt the picture to fit the rhythms of the language being dubbed. Far to many dubs have blatant issues with connection to the screen, commonly having characters voices continue for up to and sometimes over a second after the mouth has stopped moving.

Knocking an english speaker out of synch vocals to picture by even a few frames is incredibly distracting, not having lip movements that even vaguely relate is just dreadful. This is why masked (or otherwise lip/mouthless) characters come across better in dubs

Intonation and emphasis change so much that dubs rarely get them right. I'll get that far better from an average sub and the original audio.

I recently took part in a film contest. The film is in english but as one of our actors had a noticeable French accent, we wrote her character so when she get angry she drops into French. We did neither dubbing or subbing, as the scenes work almost as well with just the French even if you don't understand the words the meaning is clear enough. Dubbing her, even by her (her english was great, the rest of the film was testament to that), would defiantly have ruined the scene, as the lack of the language switch would lessen the emotion.

Many people if not most have the ability to get a fair amount of understanding from just the tone, rhythm etc of someones voice (add in body language for greater understanding), only exceptional dubs nail that feel, and those are like unicorn farts.

 

[DiMono]

First off, shoutout to Red vs Blue on the shelf

I prefer subtitles. I have yet to watch any dubbed movie (other than Kung Pow) where the actors doing the redubbing were able to actually capture the tone and meaning of what's being said. It's always basically a flat reading of lines, and that strips the movie of all character it might have had.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think the kind of movie is also important. Anime is fine with me because so often the dialogue and action don't so much happen at the same time. Fifteen frames of action and then a speech. Not all movies and show do this, though.