Poll: Anime - Dub or sub?

[coates32]

While I can tolerate watching a series subbed (via streaming video), I generally prefer (and require for home video) a dub. For me, a dub (even a lousy one, such as My Hime) just makes for a more relaxing experience for me, since I'm not a fast reader. And in all honesty, I can't even try to watch more than one episode of Kill la Kill subbed, due to it's fast paste nature.

 

[Kotomine]

It looks like it's split pretty accurately. I see more people that enjoy watching Anime with subtitles than people that prefer to watch their Anime with English dubbing. However, even when showing them top tier dubs like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, or Dragon Ball Z, they cling to the fact that Japanese dubbing is better. That's their opinion, of course, but they downright criticize top tier dubs like those, claiming they're equally as bad as other dubs. Like, seriously. Compare this [http://www.animegale.com/dubbed-anime/fullmetal-alchemist-brotherhood/], with this [http://www.animegale.com/dubbed-anime/green-green/], and tell me that those two Anime have the same quality dub. You can't.

Granted, there are A LOT of badly dubbed Anime. I've also watched Anime in Japanese where the voices disturb me just as much. (DBZ as an example). I personally watch Anime in both. I don't keep up-to-date with current airing Anime, so by the time I watch them, they normally already have an English dub. If it sounds good, I'll check it out. If not, I'll watch it subtitled. If both are lacking, I'll just watch it in English, since at the very least, I can try and block out the sound of the voices while still understanding the show.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

I'll take the dubs.
I take my live-action movies subbed and my anime dubbed, just how I like it.

 

[Edl01]

Dubs are over-hated. People dismiss fantastic dubs like Baccanno and Bebop because of a few bad apples like Higurashi, where most of the time modern dubs are quite high quality.

Oh I've heard Bebop. It sucks compared to the original. Completely retools Spike's character.

In the words of Johnny Young Bosch; They're voice actors, not voice imitators. They give their interpretations of a character, for better or for worse.

The fact Steve Blum's performance is untrue to the original doesn't automatically make it worse, Alucard from Hellsing sounds nothing like his Japanese voice actor and very few people will debate that Crispin Freeman is the superior Alucard, because he gave his own interpretation to the character and it ended up conveying his personality better.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Dubs are over-hated. People dismiss fantastic dubs like Baccanno and Bebop because of a few bad apples like Higurashi, where most of the time modern dubs are quite high quality.

Oh I've heard Bebop. It sucks compared to the original. Completely retools Spike's character.

In the words of Johnny Young Bosch; They're voice actors, not voice imitators. They give their interpretations of a character, for better or for worse.

The fact Steve Blum's performance is untrue to the original doesn't automatically make it worse, Alucard from Hellsing sounds nothing like his Japanese voice actor and very few people will debate that Crispin Freeman is the superior Alucard, because he gave his own interpretation to the character and it ended up conveying his personality better.

That may be true in some peoples' opinion, but in mine Blum sounds forced and badass-wannabe, like I'm listening to Will Arnett's take on Batman. Even if it didn't, I don't want to hear an American's (or anybody's) spin on the character, I want to hear the original guy. I'm watching a Japanese cartoon, I want to hear it in Japanese. No middle-men trying to cushion the experience because I'm too lazy to dart my eyes to the bottom of the screen, which I grew up doing anyway (third world says hi). Watching a dub feels like the roundabout way to experience something. I feel most people agree on this. I've never seen a dub vs. sub thread in which subs don't get the majority of votes.

 

[Edl01]

Dubs are over-hated. People dismiss fantastic dubs like Baccanno and Bebop because of a few bad apples like Higurashi, where most of the time modern dubs are quite high quality.

Oh I've heard Bebop. It sucks compared to the original. Completely retools Spike's character.

In the words of Johnny Young Bosch; They're voice actors, not voice imitators. They give their interpretations of a character, for better or for worse.

The fact Steve Blum's performance is untrue to the original doesn't automatically make it worse, Alucard from Hellsing sounds nothing like his Japanese voice actor and very few people will debate that Crispin Freeman is the superior Alucard, because he gave his own interpretation to the character and it ended up conveying his personality better.

That may be true in some peoples' opinion, but in mine Blum sounds forced and badass-wannabe, like I'm listening to Will Arnett's take on Batman. Even if it didn't, I don't want to hear an American's (or anybody's) spin on the character, I want to hear the original guy. I'm watching a Japanese cartoon, I want to hear it in Japanese. No middle-men trying to cushion the experience because I'm too lazy to dart my eyes to the bottom of the screen, which I grew up doing anyway (third world says hi). Watching a dub feels like the roundabout way to experience something. I feel most people agree on this. I've never seen a dub vs. sub thread in which subs don't get the majority of votes.

And that is where our opinions split. You, and many people, want to hear the original voice track, where as I want to hear the superior voice track. I don't watch dubbed shows because I dislike reading subtitles, I even said that I prefer to watch many shows subtitled, I watch them because sometimes the English version is superior. And if you want authenticity that's fine, however that's just not something that I care about.

The best example for a show that has a superior dub for me is Bacanno, a show set in New York, the Japanese version was passable, yes, however the dubs use of American and European accents and the stellar performances by Funimation's cast add to the show immensely and help you get immersed in the world. Now if you want to watch it subbed and hear the original performances then you have every right to, however at the same time dismissing the English version immediately and calling it inferior simply because they weren't the original voice actors is a logical fallacy.

 

[conmag9]

I've never had any trouble reading text while paying attention to the actual show. Combined with the (usually) better match of the voice actors, and I prefer subs to dubs.

Not to say there aren't exceptions, though usually only on an individual characters. My favorite example being Fate/Zero's Iskandar, who is spectacularly done in English and only pretty good in the original Japanese. The Caster and Ryunosuke duo also sound better in English to me.

 

[Dwarfman]

My preference is to watch subbed over dubbed although not always. Anime like GITS and Cowboy Bebop have excellent dubbed versions.

 

[The Lunatic]

I tend to go for dubs.

I can't understand Japanese to any degree, thus inflections of language which aren't conveyed accurately through text are rather lost on me.

 

[L. Declis]

You see, sometimes the Japanese voices sound ridiculous for characters. I shall now present Japanese Goku over American Goku; listening to a 14 year old girl scream for 14 episodes sounds more ridiculous than listening to a grunty American for 14 episodes. It's just too hard to take the higher pitched voices seriously.
(Honourable mention goes for One Piece, who manages to find the only deep voiced voice actors in Japan for it's badasses and sounds so much better for it)

However, if I go subs, I tend to not have to deal with the terrible localisation and censoring. For example, there is actual blood in the Japanese One Piece, and they change the cook from smoking into lollipops. Or the infamous pointing security guards in YuGiOh. Or the terrible translations.

I don't know, do Japanese animes just assume their children aren't immediately going to become murderers like the Americans seem to?

 

[Dandres]

Good poll, I used to only watch it Sub?d when I had more time on my hands but know I watch it Dub?d because I can do other things when I am watching it. I will still wait and watch it Sub?d if I feel the Dub?d bad.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Something to do with the combination of the slightly exaggeratedly high pitch a lot of female characters in anime seem to have, as well as irritating voices for comedy characters and such, combined with the rapid fire nature of the japanese language, all has me wanting to tear my ears off after about 4 minutes. For this reason I tend to prefer it dubbed.

However if they don't give the characters obnoxious voices subs are fine.

 

[Captain Marvelous_v1legacy]

Anything I watched dubbed as a child before switching to subbed, I continue to watch dubbed. So, Detective Conan, Naruto, Negima, Dragon Ball Z, and a few others as well as Abridged series'. Otherwise, everything else is subbed. My reason for preferring subs is because it can get pretty damn bad sometimes. And I don't like the censoring of weapons and what not. Like in One Piece.

 

[BleedingPride]

Most of the time dubbed, but I do judge the quality of the voice acting, for example death note and dragon ball z are simply more enjoyable to me in English dub. And goku doesn't sound like a sixty year old goat man. Deadman wonderland is another prefered dub as well. However there are some dubs that are so much worse than the original, like Durarara!!! for example. It really depends on the quality of the voice actors, and also which one you see first has a long lasting psychological impression. After you're used to it, anything different sounds weird. Attack on Titan could go either way for me.

 

[mrdude2010]

Almost always sub, but there are a few where the dubbing is worth it. The English dub of Desert Punk is hilarious.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

As has been mentioned a few times in here. >.>

It depends entirely on the quality of the dub/sub.

If it's a good and/or fitting dub, like with Black Lagoon or Spice and Wolf then I'm definitely on board. Less time spent rapidly trying to read text out of the corner of my eye (regardless of how much better at it I've gotten over the years) is a lot more immersive for the viewing experience.

With that said, there are woefully few good dubs out there so I generally default to subs, which works out, 'cause dubs are rarely available for the shows I watch.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

It depends on a case-by-case basis; it's definitely possible for me to enjoy either Dub of Sub.

For instance, I love watching Dragonball Z in both English and Spanish Dub, and I absolutely loathe the Sub (seriously, they make Goku sound like a prepubescent child).

On the other hand, I can only enjoy Bleach in Sub because to me, the English Dub is f***ing terrible.

With Eureka seveN, however, I enjoy both the English Dub and Sub.

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

It depends on the anime. Gurren Lagann? Sub. Cowboy Bebop? Dub.

 

[FriedRicer]

For me it's which ever one I think is best. Enough people have mentioned YuYu, DBZ , Hellsing Ultimate having superior dubs and I agree. A few people mentioned subs having voice actors match the characters speaking but iirc, most anime does the mouth-flap thing and practically any syllable can be uttered. Even the subs don't always match!

TLDR : Justin Cook is the best Yusuke Urameshi there ever will be and the dub had superior writing. The sub was so shonen generic I couldn't stand it.

Off Topic -Just watched Gurren dubbed and I'm gonna rewatch it subbed - is it that different tobe urgent or can I hold of on it?