Poll: Dubbed or Subbed?

[Scarim Coral]

I pretty prefer sub but when I bought an anime dvd I tend to watch the dub first to hear their english speaking.

 

[Elven Marksman]

Yeah depends on the voice actors.

Speaking of which, poor shakugan no shana series 2... the voice actors are sooooooo different from the first season, and definitely not in a good way.

 

[The Floating Nose]

Subbed ! Because most english dobbing are HORRIBLE ! Sometimes they are good but most of the time not.

 

[micky]

im a slow reader and i dont like looking at the bottom of the screen to understand someone, but i like both evenly.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

Generally subs for a variaty of reasons:

Dubbing can be done extremely poorly while the originals SHOULD be done by professionals

And as Jonluw pointed out, closest to the source gives you the best view oh how it was intended to be for better or for worse. Besides, I don't go to watch russian movies like Nochnoy Dozor so I could see them in English >.>

Finally I just prefer the cutesy-Japanese voices and feel they just can't be replicated by the English and for lach of a better reason because I understand the language so well that it just sounds silly.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

Films should NEVER be dubbed because it abates the power of the actors performance and when you see the actor but with a different, often monotone voice it kills the immmersion. As for animation you tend to have more dedicated voice actors, they have full involvement in the role rather than trying to match another actors visual performance, so I'm happy for animation to be dubbed as the end result is not nearly as atrocious and damaging to the immersion.

 

[luckycharms8282]

I prefer subtitles for both animes and foreign films. For characters like the shinigami from deathnote, I prefer their intended, Japanese voices.

 

[Restoshamankk]

the english subs are usually so bad :/

 

[Kevonovitch]

very rarely have i ever met a dub i liked, most of the time, they sound like shit, and they have horridly bad faking the character's reactions, but most importantly, they dumb down the translations for joe average.

subs aren't always the greatest, and yeah, sometimes, they cut bit's out aswell, but generally, they just shorten something (ie, holy crap this sucks, what are we gonna do? to-well shit, now what?) instead of dubbing where "/full length specifications for teleporter blueprints, full details and explinations." gets cut down to "thing powere's up, get in, go places." -_- wow, really? and they do that for MOST of the show (generally) >=/

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I always do dubs for a few reasons:

1. Reading English and listening to Japanese is confusing
2. When turning down the volume to get rid of problem 1, you won't hear the good music or important sounds
3. Your eyes are glued on the bottom of the screen, and everything interesting is in the middle
4. Sometimes the voice of Japanese can be more annoying than a bad dub, namely the high-pitched females which feels very similar to someone drilling a hole down your ears

 

[TheSkaAssassin]

Dubbed.
I like to do other things while watching things so when I can hear the actors speaking in a language I can understand, it helps.
Plus when I do watch I like to focus on the whole screen, not just the bottom.

 

[Buccura]

Dubbed, I wanna watch not read.

 

[game-lover]

I like both! Really! *smiles*

To answer your other question, here are some dubs that I preferred over the subs so much.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke doesn't sound as cool and Kurama is a woman! EFF That!

Blue Seed: Momiji Fujimiya's voice is too high and wrong. Kusunagi's voice is too deep and wrong.

Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin is a woman! No!!

Cowboy Bebop: Spike is no uncool with that old man voice! So... ugh...

Samurai Champloo: I didn't like Mugen's voice. He also had an uncool voice to me.

Dragonball Z: Has anyone ever actually seen Dragonball Z in Japanese? Has anyone truly? Because omigod, it's horrible. Just horrible. No, no, no, no, no...


That's pretty much all I can name right now. Maybe I'll compare more laters.

 

[l3o2828]

Subbed, and preferably raw.
Mostly because living in southish america makes most of everything i watch be on a Spanish or Mexican dub.
and while there are a couple dubs i think are even better than the original, about 90% are just utter shit.
i don't know what happens with Voice actors in South america and Spain, they just seem to lack the ability of emotion or something.
besides the accents make me want to go on a murder spree.

 

[linkvegeta]

Yeah it really depends, like DBZ is crap subbed but great dubbed, and shows like one piece dubbed makes me want to kill myself wile the subbed is amazing.

 

[Alphakirby]

I typically watch dubbed anime,but if the dub is bad,I'll go for subbed. Also in the case of some anime (exclusive to Japan;ex.Panty and Stocking) I have to watch subbed. So I can't really vote for either

 

[Shockolate]

If there's a dub, I try it.

If I think it's garbage, I go for subs.

 

[Mstrswrd]

Well, I used to be firmly against dubbed movies and anime, and insisted they were far better with original language + subtitles. But I recently re-watched Gantz and Elfen Lied with both the english language track and english subtitles on and my god, the english language versions kicks the shit out of the japanese + subs versions! The english acting and writing make the subtitled versions look like piles of poorly translated garbage.

So, which do you prefer, dubbed or subbed, and have you seen any other examples where the english language version is superior to the subtitled version?

Trigun is better in English
Ghost in the Shell can go either way, though, I remember correctly, in Japan the DVD's are normally set to English
Sgt. Frog is a totally different experience in English because they completely changed it (but it's still good) so you should watch both to get two sepreate anime
Hellsing Ultimate is good either way (Japanese is as good as always, but in English, we get the various accent we're supposed to get)
YuYu Hakusho, while great in English, is better in Japanese
s-CRY-ed is the same as YuYu Hakusho (though the English version is no slouch)
One Piece (the funimation version) is good, but the Japanese is better
Hokuto no Ken (the first 30 episodes, at least) go for the Japanese (as well as the movies, OVA's, etc)
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, the Japanese version is the way to go (the english is so bad it's not even funny)
Lucky Star, Better in Japanese, though the English version is mostly Passable



In General, the rule is that the newer it is, the higher the chances are that the English version will be good, while the older it is, the harder it get's to find stuff that is of equal quality to the Japanese version, with the notable exceptions of things like DBZ (though they changed that heavily enough that you should again watch both the English version with the altered music and the Japanese version with the original music), Rurouni Kenshin (though that had it's unusual moments, it was still very good), and Evangelion (though the Japanese version was superior, the English version was no slouch, and in newer incarnations, this difference has dissapeared).

I could name a few more older exceptions, but for the most part, the rule is as I said; Older quality dubs are harder to find, while newer anime can usually be watched in either language.

Also, Funimation; if Funimation gets there hands on it, you can just assume it will be done well, as they're usually quite good about this.

EDIT: Just saw the K-ON english... thing. I don't really like K-ON... at all, but ARGLEBLARGLE that hurt me it was bad; alright, here's another general rule; leave things about music in their native language, whether that be English, Japanese, German, French, what-have-you. Leave music alone; translated/dubbed songs are usually a bit awkward or fully bad, exceptions being the opening to KH and KH2, and possibly YuYu Hakusho (it was good, but some subtle changes in the English version still annoy me).

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

Urghghghablabaleh

Still sounds awesome!

I go for dubbed, but really it's whichever one I saw first.

I think Trigun is better in English.

 

[Andantil]

why is there no option for "normally subbed, but in rare cases, dubbed."?

Original Japanese dialogue is better for the vast majority of anime, quality of subs ranges greatly depending on the group responsible.
Some dubs are as good as or better than the original.

also, if you only watch dubs you'll miss out on current seasons and the vast majority of anime otherwise.