No Right Answer: Subbing Vs. Dubbing

[Tono Makt]

No right answer? No answer to this conundrum beyond "It depends on the media being translated AND who is doing the translating." I've watched some atrocious Dubs - who hasn't? I've loved watching as the mouth stops moving while the actor keeps speaking, or the character looks obviously perplexed while the actor sounds amused, or the like. But I've also watched some Subs that were so terrible that I couldn't finish watching - subs that were created by people who barely understood English. "I will have come to thwart the evil plans of you!" is one that I clearly remember from a fan-sub of a Sailor Moon episode. Then there was some of the fan subs of Nadesico that were being created so that fans around the world could see the latest show... argh they were terrible.

But I've also seen some fantastic subs, and there are dozens of amazing dubs - when the translation is done properly, when the acting is done properly and when time and care are taken. With all things being equal I do prefer Dubs - I prefer as little distraction as possible. I like to see what is on every part of the screen. I like to focus on the sound of the voices for tones and inflections. I like to be able to concentrate on things (like watching the facial expressions of the characters) that require a great deal of attention. I like to be able to notice the things that the animators and artists do. With subs, this is far more difficult because I am constantly having to keep my gaze on the bottom of the screen to read the text so I can understand the script. The subtitles themselves often obscure large parts of the screen that I would prefer to be able to see - sometimes it's important to see what is going on in the bottom of the screen.

For these reasons I prefer dubbing over subbing.

captcha: Is anyone else getting annoyed that answering "No" to "Are you going to take a vacation?" gets a continual Captcha Error?

 

[Bocaj2000]

I always watch the dub first. If it's good, I keep going. If it's not, I watch the sub. Why isn't it that simple?

 

[Rakor]

Admittedly pulling the "bad dubs make dubs bad" card is not entirely fair, even if it is commonly the case. What's important is why they can be bad. English and Japanese are rather different languages with differences in pacing, sentence structure, use of articles and filler words, monosyllabic responses, and many more. That makes it really tricky to synch up those lip flaps in a meaningful way. It also creates the need to make up dumb or awkward catchphrases to fill in space. (believe it!) It is just less awkward and sounds better when you watch with the original audio. And you know what? Maybe you don't know japanese going in....but watching subs will teach you some stuff. Maybe you can pick up some foreign culture.

Also, the being able to walk out of the room and still understand argument isn't very cromulent in this age where you can pause anything.

I mean dubs can be fine in other mediums that don't have lipflaps, like older jrpgs. Disgaea was really good. Without lipflaps the voice actor can take charge of his/her lines and speak naturally. That's really hard to pull off in other mediums.

So yeah, all aboard the subtitle train.

 

[D.Strormer]

Personally, if a dub is good then I'll oftentimes go with that, but there are very few dubs that I consider to be of such high quality. A great example, for me, was Sword Art Online. The dub was good enough that I managed to stop noticing it, which, for me, is the goal. I don't want to feel like I'm watching a dub, I just want to feel like I'm watching a show.

That said, if I'm watching a show that's not intentionally poking fun at poor dubs, like KFH was doing, then a bad or even mediocre dub is more destructive to the experience than reading. I will totally admit that I have found particularly wordy subs to be miserable because I do spend more time reading than watching, at which point I'd kinda rather just be reading a book or something.

So yes, if we're judging average sub v. average dub then sub wins, but with the quality of dubs increasing these days I've found that the dub experience can be more rewarding. Unless they do that stupid Osakan=Redneck thing, then they deserve to die slowly while being forced to watch a Justin Beiber and Miley Cyrus duet.

 

[Bat Vader]

I can watch both subs and dubs. I don't have a preference between either of them. I have never understood why people argue so much about them either.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I say dubs for anime because:
a) I don't speak Japanese and would rather not be watching the screen all the time and
b) I get to hear and enjoy some of my favorite voice actors (ie Johnny Yong Bosh, Steve Blum, Laura Bailey and Kari Whalgren, to name few off the top of my head.)

Yes, some dubs are bad (especially in the 90's when they were VERY hit and miss, but if done well, they can be quite enjoyable...

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I hate dubs, whether they're on live-action or animation. Subs all the way.

 

[thanatos388]

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.

Dubs usually suck, especially if it's live action. Even with anime dubs are usually very poorly done and poorly cast since most American dub actors are hired because they happen to be a friend of a friend to the dub director and were thus cheap workers. Whether you like the sounds of the Japanese voices or not they at least are required to go to school and learn and it's a much more competitive market over there. They can still be shitty sometimes of course, but the language barrier does a lot to phase that out. A bad english dub will just ruin it for me, even if it's good I still believe the characters more in Japanese most of the time. The only exception are Baccano!, Death Note, and Black Lagoon really.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Dubs because no matter how bad the voice acting is, it can't possibly be worse than having to read stuff. Subs mean I have to wear my glasses and and make 2nd screen watching impossible.

Also I have watched a bunch of anime episode that were dubbed but for some reason also had subs you can't turn off. They don't just drop a few unnecessary extra words like Kyle said, they say a completely different thing most of the time, usually a completely dumbed down version of what was actually said.

 

[immortalfrieza]

One more supporter of Dubs here. As a fan of video games especially JRPGS, anime, and cartoons in general I have heard the entire range of English voice acting from the absolute masterpieces (such as most of the Tales series) to absolutely freaking abysmal (like most everything in the 90s except for Dragonball and Dragonball Z which belong on the other side of the spectrum) and I would still prefer even the totally horrible to having nothing and ESPECIALLY to having to deal with Japanese voice acting with or without subs. I have also heard plenty of Japanese voice acting and I have never encountered even one where I'd prefer it even over the worst of English voice acting or even voice acting in other languages. Hell, I'd prefer silence over Japanese voice acting. Japanese voice acting has about as much emotional range as a rock and about as much variation. With Japanese dubs everybody either sounds like little hyperactive 5 year old girls or old men that sound like they don't give a damn at any given time (and not a bunch of different 5 year old girls or old guys either, they all sound like the same 2 or 3 of each doing EVERYTHING even though they aren't) that all do an absolutely terrible job of conveying the emotions the character is supposed to have any given time, and that's if the Japanese voice acting doesn't run completely contrary to the mood the character is supposed to convey. This is why it's so common in most every Japanese dubbed work for the characters to say some variation of "I'm really pissed off!" or otherwise have the characters state what they're supposed to be feeling at any given time when the voice alone should be enough. Probably the only Japanese voice acting I've ever liked has been in music, and even then that's due to rhythm.

By contrast, English voice acting has a wide range of variations and accents that all sound like different people even from the same voice actor playing multiple different roles imitating different voices, they also much more effectively convey emotions through the voice alone. It's actually kind of odd how much of a positive difference even terrible English voice acting makes in any given medium. Even lip syncing in everything but live action looks better in English or otherwise half the time than it does in Japanese, and I've never cared much about lip syncing in the first place. English voice acting also doesn't require distracting subtitles to understand what anybody is saying either which is another plus.

It's not just because I don't understand the language or that it requires subtitles to understand either, (in fact, Japanese is one of the least commonly understood or spoken languages in the world) I've heard Spanish and Russian dubs I still consider better at conveying emotion and voice variation than anything Japanese dubs do and I don't understand them any better. Hell, I find those dubs to be pretty hilarious half the time, something Japanese dubbing has never done. I'd say Japanese dubs hit just the right sour spot where it's bad bad instead of hilariously bad like other dubs frequently are when they're terrible.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Subs, sadly. I absolutely agree that it's better to *watch* what's going on in the movie, and it's a lot better for immersion. I don't even care so much about the purist "I must see the show as the director/writer intended" that much. But I've only seen 1/10 dubs that can barely be considered watchable. Quickest examples that come to mind are the Ghost in the Shell stuff, and some of Cowboy Bebop. But anything else, just becomes much too painful. I grew up loving Initial D to bits, but when I first watched it dubbed, I just thought wtf is this, in fact I felt almost...embarrassed to be such a fan. And same with most others.

So that's another thing. Movies, always prefer subbed, because dubbing is just weird. Anime though, it really depends on how well it's done, but like I said 9/10 prefer subbed.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I find this question is a skewed one to ask of native English speakers as most dubs are English dubs thus native English speakers have an obvious bias here as it is their native language or a foreign language that they have to pick from. I think the only way to be objective about this is when you have a third person, one who is not a native speaker of either language but who speaks both the English-Dub's language (English) and the original language of the material giving you their view about it.


On the matter of Japanese-made stuff, I can do that, as my native language is Greek but I do speak Japanese as well as English, therefore I can honestly compare one foreign language to another and give you a more unbiased view.


I find that most dubs aren't merely a way to make the content more accessible by means of not requiring you to read words. They also make it more accessible by altering things such that the random American person will find points of association which they wouldn't if they kept the original content as-is. I find that too often dubbing comes with a distasteful packet of "Americanization" which is a big point of contention for me since if I want to watch American content, I would NOT watch Anime but rather I'd watch an American made movie or a cartoon.


The, for lack of a better term, "Japaneesy" element of anime is an integral point of enjoying the experience. When you take that out it feels as though the soul is removed and replaced with a fake thing that is only there cause American audiences don't like Japanese things as much and the dubbers want to make money so they have to cater to them. Due to this I prefer to go for the Japanese version in all of the things I watch.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Subbing period, preferably with translation/cultural notes and details.

 

[kouriichi]

I think a good thing to bring up here is Space Dandy, which was dubbed and subbed at the same time. Both are the "Originals" in this case, and i think it brings up a lot of interesting things between subbing and dubbing.

I feel like the English voice actors just dont fit the characters as well. The character of Space Dandy is meant to be a sort of, "Japanese Troublemaker/Social Reject". Pompadour, leather jacket, extremely strong chin. Visually hes designed to be a "low level Yakuza Lackey" in his looks. A japanese greeser from his hairstyle and movements. When you listen to the japanese voice actor, he sells this role. The american voice actor is good, but his voice is... "Imperfect" for the character. Its not like Steven Blum and Spike, hand in hand, or Barbara Goodson and Noata (FLCL). Its great, but its not perfect.

But at the same time, i feel that the English script is just superior. The humor is more sharp, and more spot on. A lot of it flows better. Theres quite a bit of humor that wasnt Americanized, but was still just funnier because of the way it was written into the scene. Some of the writing for the Japanese script is a bit "Dull", and even basic back and forth between characters feels slightly less dynamic. Its the kind of difference between reading word from word off of a script (Japanese script), and feeling more natural in conversation (English script).

They were both created at the exact same time, but they are both great in their own ways. Not one after the other, but equal. I think both Dub and Sub have their own merits, but I feel that in terms of "Actor Quality", the Japanese Voice actors almost always win. for every One Great Dub, there are a dozen better Sub, and it very rarely feels like the dub is "Better" than its counterpart.

For me, its Subs that take the win. Even if there are certain voice english voice actors that can carry the show on their own, the cast as a whole rarely fits their roles as well as their Japanese counter parts.

 

[RenegadeDuck]

I don't usually watch anime or foreign films, but most of the time I prefer subbed, if only by a small margin.

The one thing that probably wins me over to the sub camp is the fact that, because you can't understand the language, it makes bad performances or annoying characters maybe seem a bit less bad or annoying. Watching something subbed is usually the only way for me to watch it, because when it's dubbed, all I can think of is how unbearably annoying some of the voices are. And I think that's because I understand the language and I'm capable of more easily judging a performance since I know how it's supposed to sound.

So subbed. But only because it makes it easier for me to neglect problems with delivery or acting. I mean, how are you supposed to raise a stink over someone's acting when you don't even know what all you're supposed to be looking for in their delivery?

 

[Risingblade]

Subbed? Dubbed? Both are wrong. The right answer is "Read the manga."

Or the visual novel! Or the porn game it was adapted from!

 

[Gatlank]

Subs. I can barely watch anything dubbed.

 

[Strazdas]

subtitles all the way. because:

it leave the original audio
it takes less resources to make and thus easier to translate to many differen languages
it helps hearing impaired people
dubing is 99% awfully done. especially when you go to smaller languages where most of dubbing is just some guy in basement reading subtitles.



your asking for best solution though. an thats neither of those. best solution is to finally get over silly egos and institute an international language everyone learns as second language so everyone can understand everyone.

 

[MoltenSilver]

Dubbing, easily. A good dub always beats a good sub in my opinion. To me Hellsing Ultimate is definitive proof you can make a dub that is amazing and loyal to the source material.

Of course, that's where the catch-22 comes in, that most companies just don't put in the resources to do a good dub, and when it's bad vs bad, subs usually wins. Still though, saying dubbing as a practice is inferior just because its done lazily often strikes me as disingenuous.

 

[NiPah]

Subs, personal choice.
I get that a lot of people like dubs, personally can't stand them.
I'm not going to go into bullshit reasoning on why one is better then the other, it all comes down to personal taste.
It's kind of pointless to say one is better then the other, it's just needlessly antagonizing the guy who enjoys the other type, if you enjoy watching anime dubbed then more power to ya, I have no reason to diss your chosen method of watching anime.