SlumlordThanatos said:
a real reason why Japanese voices are better other than "they're just better"
Putting Aside Taste and Preference.
One thing that really makes a difference is
Voice Acting Schools
In Japan, the Voice acting industry is a very competitive and highly paid.
One way to survive that, an amateur goes to Voice Acting Schools. But they don't hand over the diplomas, to graduate at one of these schools is actually hard, and this is why Japanese Dubbers has a higher level quality in their acting
Examples of famous seiyuu who started with these schools:
Megumi Hayashibara, Rie Tanaka, Kenichi Suzuhara etc
Sure there are other ways through Theater and Broadcasting, but there's no other sign of quality then graduating those schools.
Heck, Scouted Talents and Voice Acting Competition winners still have to go through Voice acting school first.
Then there's the Pay. Compared to other jobs in the anime industry a Popular Voice Actor will even get paid more than the Director. While in the states the Strike was caused by this issue along with working conditions.
and this is just from the viewpoint of the industry ecosystem alone, basically forcing them to reach a certain level of quality.
Of course Troy Baker is good, Nolan North is good, but compared to the Japanese, Good English voice actors are a handful. There are also no strict competitiveness on getting a job and there's no cycle of good rookies being made.