No Right Answer: Subbing Vs. Dubbing

Firefilm

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Subbing Vs. Dubbing

The world is a pretty great place, with tons of creative people pumping out fantastic work. Problem is, it's not always in the language you speak. What's the best solution?

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hermes

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Mar 2, 2009
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Subtitles all the way. Maybe its because I grew in a place that forced me to make that choice for 90% of everything I consumed (which make me suffer through a LOT of bad dubs over the years), but I have no problem with subtitles. 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.
 

Strife2GFAQs

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Apr 13, 2009
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This won't get contentious at all...NOPE!

Dubbed. I don't really get the "anime/JRPG dubs suck 100%" argument. Actors and directors might be sketchy, but on a whole, there's a reason LA/Texas actors tend to dub nearly hundreds of shows or games. They are good at it. I dare anyone to listen to Steve Blum and go, "BAD! NOT GONNA WATCH" Crispin Freeman, "BAD! NOT GONNA WATCH!" They are extreme examples, but you have people who are just as good out there. You miss a ton of good acting performances closing yourself off to the 80s/90s mindset of "**** DUB RAAHH!." Pioneer and Funimation have had a good 10-15 year stretch of solid dubbing. 9 out of 10, the concept of the show is preserved, and the ambience (as Kyle mentioned) wasn't skewed by the process.

Besides, without dubbing, you won't have the rare Shin Chan/Ghost Stories scenario where the English version turns into a gold mine of comedy. They were given license to write the show FOR American audiences.
 

loa

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Subtitles obviously require less resources to make.
That's why there are more fansubs than fandubs.
You can also watch a subbed episode of something muted on your phone on a loud ass busdrive and don't have to blast your eardrums out of your skull with earplugs to counteract the loud ambience.

Dubs are also only good if they're good y'know.
A bad dub can ruin the entire experience. See: most early anime.

Of course a good dub that stays faithful to the original watched under normal movie watching conditions always beats the sub.
 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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The Star Wars Crawl? You get Backstroke of the West:


Anyway, I acknowledge that dubbing has a place(a friend of mine is dyslexic), but I can't stand them personally. I've yet to watch one that was both performed well and true to the original tone and meaning.

Also, good subs take work. See any number of bad translations for proof.
 

Fappy

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I prefer subs assuming the dub is nothing to write home about. However, if the dub was really well done (usually because those in charge were passionate about the localization) I'll always give it a shot. Most anime I watch will be subbed, but there are a few gems out there I would NEVER watch in anything but English (Cowboy Bebop and FLCL to name two).
 

CrazyBlaze

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Okay first off we need to get something clear here. There can and have been subs that were absolutely horribly done, just like there have been horrible dubs. Just because something is subtitled does not not automatically make it better translated. In fact it they can be just as all over the place if the people doing the subs only have some understanding of the language. We saw this a lot in the early sub days because internet subbing was just starting and so people were trying to figure out how to do it. The only saving grace for subs is that they are generally done by fans so someone can go back and redo them down the line where as dubs are usually licensed and done once and very rarely will they be redone.
 

CaptainMidlands

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Jul 6, 2010
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Dubbed if I can get it and it's not bad, I can keep up with subtitles no problem but depending on the language I find listening to the original to be painful a lot of the time (mainly Japanese, I can't do squeaky voice and I dislike a lot of there VA's in terms of how they sound compared to the character on the screen doubly so when they do "foreign" characters (looking at you Black Lagoon))

The only exception I can think of is Ayako Kawasumi as Saber, I much prefer her in Fate/Zero over Kari Wahlgren

All so inb4 "watch it native" purists join the conversation
 

Makabriel

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Subbed gives me headaches sometimes if I'm watching a lot of episodes in a row. But you'd think that since I've been watching Naruto subbed from the beginning I"d have learned the language by now..

I do collect the dubbed versions, and I find I enjoy the episodes more because .. I'm actually watching the episode.
 

Strife2GFAQs

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CaptainMidlands said:
Dubbed if I can get it and it's not bad, I can keep up with subtitles no problem but depending on the language I find listening to the original to be painful a lot of the time (mainly Japanese, I can't do squeaky voice and I dislike a lot of there VA's in terms of how they sound compared to the character on the screen doubly so when they do "foreign" characters (looking at you Black Lagoon))

The only exception I can think of is Ayako Kawasumi as Saber, I much prefer her in Fate/Zero over Kari Wahlgren

All so inb4 "watch it native" purists join the conversation
That being said, I will take an attempt at a foreign accent in some shows. It struck me dumb trying to watch Emma (Victorian Era England) in full Japanese. I guess Emma wasn't near as popular as Hellsing, RoD, or Black Butler. It was still weird having to go through subtitled only.
 

Asuterisuku

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Jul 10, 2011
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This may seem slightly off topic, but Warner released the first few episodes of the latest JoJo anime in English a few months ago. And while the voices were decent, it irks me for an entirely different reason; they picked the wrong season to start with.

Phantom Blood took place mostly in England and Eastern Europe. English would make sense there.

In Battle Tendency, we see the USA, Mexico, Italy and Switzerland. Again, English makes sense.

Stardust Crusaders, on the other hand, starts in Japan and moves across most of southern Asia before ending up in Africa.

This is the one season for which a dub makes no sense to me. >.>
 

flying_whimsy

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I generally prefer subs, although there are a couple of good dubs floating around out there. One thing that bugs me about dubs is the limited number of people that get cast repeatedly from show to show; it really breaks it for me to hear iconic characters sound identical. There's also the issue of lip-syncing in relation to translation accuracy, but that's just another edge of the issues inherent in going from one language to another.

The thing that actually pushed me over the edge from dub to sub (used to be a big dub fan) was how they changed the background music for the dub of Castle in the Sky: no other content should be changed unless absolutely necessary. I've noticed the odd anime or japanese film coming to the states without subtitled versions and it always makes me suspicious of what was changed and why.
 

crazyweasel

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Got a funny anecdode about this topic.

Years ago i was on a visit at a dubbing studio in france, the guys where dubbing star wars episode two at the time, and guess what ? To avoid any chance of leaking the movie, the only thing you could saw on screen was the mouths of the actors on a black background ...

Just imagine how awful the dubbing can be with those methods, and i doubt it was the only movie to be treated like this.


Personally, i watch everything subbed, unless the actors themselves are dubbing it.
 

Hastln

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Apr 8, 2013
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I think it just depends on the quality of the dub or the subs even, if the dub is horrible, it can be funny, or just plain bad, at the same time, subs can be horribly translated. It just depends on the quality, and even that we can argue.
 

Ishal

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For me, can't beat dubbed.

It's my language, and it's a passive experience. Watching something is passive, and I want it to stay that way. I don't want to read text while trying to watch something, and chance missing anything. But let's be real here... does anything ever even happen in most anime??? No? Yea. (I kid... kinda)

Purists, or people who just appreciate the original are able to enjoy keeping it in the original. In regards to anime, I just can't. There is no "bad dub" for me, because the subbed version will always be second tier. I don't like the way the Seiyu record. I especially don't like it combined with the writing style of a large portion of anime. It's WAY too OTT for half of whats going on at any given time. It's not natural, it's different than spoken Japanese. I also find anime dialogue repetitive far too often. How many times do characters state what happened in an action scene, only to have it regurgitated back by another character for the sake of confirmation? It's cringeworthy, even when dubbed. The too-the-point nature of the Japanese language doesn't help either. It sounds robotic when all these things are put together.

Black Lagoon will always be my favorite dub of any anime. Ocean Studios knew what they were doing when casting the characters, and even let the VA's change a few lines of dialogue to make it sound better. Something I approve of, but a purist would likely hate.

Different strokes for different folks and all that.
 

ecoho

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its very simple for me. If the dub is good ill watch it in dub(cowboy bebop, bleach, gundam, ect.) if its bad ill watch the sub.(familiar of zero, Infinite stratoes, naruto, one piece, any humor related anime not made by the folks who did cowboy bebop)

now as someone mentioned there are bad subs but the difference is there usually are like eight different subs out at any one time and as such you can easily go find one that good were as dubs tend to have maybe 3 and they tend to have all the same problems if they're bad.

Live action movies need to be subed if their in another language due to the fact that no matter how good you edit youll never be able to get a seamless transition into English.
 

Maphysto

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Dec 11, 2010
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In general I prefer dubbed, but my preference has a lot more to do with the quality of the VA's and translation than anything else. Some series are just better in Japanese, either because they cast actors for roles their voices don't fit, outright bad voice actors, or because a lot was lost in translation.