Poll: Dubbed or Subbed?

[KaosuHamoni]

Subbed, HOWEVER!!!!!!!!, for the odd anime (Like 'Baccano!'), I actually prefer the English Dub =L

 

[Anomynous 167]

It depends on the voice actors.

I heard Azumanga Daioh, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Shamploo, and several other animes Dubbed first, and couldn't stand the Japanese voices because they merely sounded better as English.

...then we get to something like Naruto, where the American voice actors are horrid, not to mention you have all of the swear words cut from it. Not a big deal, but it sort of takes away from the show itself.

First of all, the voices in the Japanese version were equally horrid of Naruto. So they stuck true to the source.

Secondly, contrary to your belief: none of the swear words were cut, as the Japs have no swears in the first place!

For anime, dubs are very rarely not complete shit, but reading subtitles while listening to dialog I can't understand is just as shit.

I think I'm gonna choose dubs exclusively because of MXC (on a related note, I recently discovered all five seasons are on Amazon and am tempted to buy them all because I absolutely loved that show).

Ah, MXC...

Day-vision-goggles... you can't make that up.

It's not about 'subbed vs dubbed'. It's about watching the film or anime in as close a state as it was conceived by its creators. Regardless of the perceived 'quality' of any voice track, the only factor to take into account is that simple factor. And the idea that the dubs remove 'annoying voices', is like saying that dubs can remove annoying languages, culture or creative strokes. Go for it, if that's how you feel, but in the end, the original voices is how the film or show was conceived by its creators, and they are cultural reflections. That's how it should be watched. I'm just waiting for customised versions of the Mona Lisa.

Show me someone who denies that Fullmetal Alchemist, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo or Baccano! were at least 50% inspired by Western sensibilities and I'll show you a big fat fuckin' weeb. I also wanna know how many Japanese characters and locales are in Black Lagoon compared to other nationalities.

But anyway, the point is that I really don't think anyone can speak for the author's intent and I think fans take too seriously the "cultural reflection" crap. I say watch what you enjoy because I'm sure anime studios appreciate ALL their fans, no matter what language they experience their work in. Not everyone wants to create "cultural statements" or "cultural reflections" about their homelands. Sometimes all they want is to tell a story about boys, girls, good and evil, or maybe about nothing at all.

I mean, ask the greatest Hispanic novelist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, how he felt about the English version of his Nobel-prize winning magnum opus "Cien años de soledad": http://www.amazon.com/dp/0811216659, under "Product Description."

I somehow get the feeling that most of the really awesome artists don't really give a shit at all about translations so long as the original intent isn't butchered outright.

I thought you were fabulous in this post

 

[GundamSentinel]

Being from a non-English speaking country I'm never bothered by subtitles. Horrid dubs on the other hand make me puke. Subbed whenever possible.

 

[eljawa]

In general on foreign films, subbed. With animations, it all comes down to the quality of the dub. If the dub sucks (as they generally do) then sub. But if they are good, as they generally are for studio ghibli, then dub

 

[crazyhyena645]

im for subbed, dubbed can be good but its not the case most of the time. and i could use the subtiles as an excuse to watch anime when school said you had to read 100 pages a week.

 

[Jonluw]

I always prefer to consume my media as close to the source material as I can get, so subs.
It's the same reason I try to read books in their original language.

That, and the Japanese voice actors are just better for the most part.
Urghghghablabaleh

Firstly, I don't care if it is close to the source material. All I care about is whether they do it well.

Then I guess we're just different.

Secondly, I have scene a lot of lazy sub titles that simply leave in the honouriffics of forein languages when we have an accurate or suitable translation available. Like seriously "Ni-san", why can't the stupid fan subbers just say "Bro"?.

Honorifics can be a very important part of a scene. Certain scenes won't even make sense without them. I've seen many people translate 'aniki' to 'bro', and that's good, but expressions like 'onii-chan' carry far more implications than 'brother'.

And then you have the typical love story scene where one character wants the other to call them by their first name without any honorifics attached, because this is a sign of intimacy. The jokes that play on this are plentiful, and completely lost if you leave the honorifics out in the translation. You might be able in some cases to substitute the concept for the sake of certain individual jokes (see Kagami sama vs. Kagami the great), but honorifics, in my opinion, should always be kept intact.

To understand many anime, particularly comedy anime, you need a certain familiarity with Japanese culture, and honorifics and the ways people talk to one another is a large part of this.

Finnally, saying that "Japanese voice actors are just better", and then showing us a clip of an English dub with no comparrison...

Firstly, I assumed most posters here would be familiar with K-ON. Secondly, I only posted it as a joke - an example of some of the worst the medium has to offer - I wasn't really trying to make a point with it.

If you want a more proper example where I compare an English dub to a Japanese one:
Not to mention subs have the ability to leave notes explaining untranslatable jokes ("cat tounge"). You even get to learn a little bit about a foreign culture.

Edit: I think a lot of this reluctance towards watching subs in English speaking people comes from having grown up in a culture where everyone speaks your language.
Where I live, you are expected to learn at least 3 (sort of 4) languages, and almost all tv entertainment comes with subtitles. The only things that are dubbed here are children's movies, because dubs are considered a children's thing. When you're an adult you are expected to at least partly understand the original language (English) in movies and the likes, and at the very least be able to read the subtitles while watching the action on screen.

I.e. where I come from, dubs are for children, and people who prefer them therefore strike we as very childish.

English speaking people just seem to have this problem with other languages. It almost seem like they have this misconception that their language is the greatest, and if a piece of entertainment hasn't been molded to give them as little resistance as possible and cater to their reluctance to hear the sound of another language they will plainly refuse to watch it, no matter how good it is, because it hasn't been changed specifically for them to meet their arbitrary needs. It feels like they are small children crying to get the creators of the piece to notice them. They will always prefer a bad dub over a good sub because they have been breastfed with only one language and have never read subtitles before.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Subbed, cuz:
- you can learn a bit of foreign languages
- you drill fluid reading
- you can go one up and switch to subs in different languages to drill those too
- and well you haveto learn to read

 

[weker]

Quite honestly I don't understand any appeal to watching dubs.

-Not how it was made/meant to be

sadly true as i wish they could translate with better accuracy

-Dubs sound, 99% of the time, (DBZ and Advent Children proved me wrong) absolute shite in comparison to the original.

wouldent agree with that one as the % is too high in my books, so far most anime sept a few are fine for me but that could just be me looking at the best of the best

-American voices for characters of different countries makes no sense and sounds strange. Especially for us non-Americans. And this is accentuated even MORE by watching Japanese school girls squee in American. Just.
Sounds. Awful.

Im British and they seem fine to me, there are one or two actors that im not keen on like that large deep voiced guy who always plays some law guy, he plays the secret agent thing in samurai champloo.
I would say squeeing in american is just as bad in any lang full stop XD

-Dubbing companies realise that anyone able to bear dubs in the first place doesn't care if they sounds awful, so dubs have way lower budgets on voice acting.

this is just not true, there is a general trend that the same voice actors are overused sadly but their good ones. I dont know how you came to this assumption but they do care otherwise we wouldn't have good dubbing

-Dubbing companies try to appeal their shows to their country's audience more by adding extra regionalised flavour, shitting on those that actually understood the original references and jokes they decided to cut out.

true but who is to say it wouldn't make it better in some cases.

Only reason I can understand for watching dubs over subs is if you are a painfully slow reader and can't keep up with subtitles.
There are very few watchable dubs that I have ever seen, and only 1-2 that are arguably better than the sub.

I watch dubs because if I wanted to read I would read a book which offer much better literature, also I feel when I dont lose out on much the offer for my own lang voices seems a fair trade off, as i doubt there is any cases where my feeling for a entire anime series will be changed due to a differently worded sentence.

there is probably only a few watchable ones because your preference seems to lie with subs but the changes to an anime through dubs are two minuscule to be able to call them better on either end unless voices are done badly cough cough Naruto (but thats bad in both).

For me cowboy beebop and kinda samurai champloo i feel can only be watched full in dubbed but thats because of there slight western style

 

[Atheist.]

It seriously depends on the individual sub/dub. In some animes like Shuffle, the English dub sounds horrible. On the other hand, sometimes the subs sound horrible.

For example, in Code Geass, Lelouch sounds like he's a 30 year old man, rather than a high school kid in the original voice acting.

 

[thePyro_13]

Subbed, every dub i've heard has been aweful. They either end up as goku(all male characters) or pikachu(all female characters and children). I'm not saying a good proper dub doesn't exist, I just haven't ever found one in any of the anime I watch.

Not to mention that the voice actors these dubbing companies hire suck, they lose all the emotion in any sentence and either say it without emotion at all, or just always sound angry.

Then sometimes they alter a characters lines to make that show from being a reasonable 15+ to being a retarded PG dialogue with 15+ fighting in it.

Also it shits me when they remove references to Japanese culture and replace it with american crap. I don't get random american cultural references especially when they don't actually reflect what the characters are doing/referring too.

Oh and hey, reading subtitles will make you a better reader too, so that's a bonus.

 

[ScumbagEddie]

Dubbed. I'm a slow reader. I had to watch Hero in the theater 3 times to get the whole story.

 

[tzimize]

99% of the time, subbed.

One reason is that I cant STAND looking at the lips of characters and it doesnt match the voices (in real movies, not drawn). Another is that I feel it adds a fat layer of realism. I think I'd faint if I had to watch Crouching tiger, hidden dragon in english. Or norwegian for that matter EEEEEEWWWWWWW!

Regarding anime I feel japanese VA are usually better, the industry is bigger and more serious over there so they sound better. Also it has to be VERY well translated. Japanese and english is very different, not only in the sound but also culturally. So a lot of plots can sound just ludicrous when translated to english (and spoken aloud ). It simply sounds better in the original language.

 

[Scabadus]

Prefer dubbed, though I'll normally stick on subs too because I watch movies while playing games and adjust the volume so that gunshots don't blow my speakers off meaning speach is a little quiet.

That and, bluntly, the Japanese accent annoys me. Sorry Japanese people but it's true.

 

[Jonluw]

99% of the time, subbed.

One reason is that I cant STAND looking at the lips of characters and it doesnt match the voices (in real movies, not drawn). Another is that I feel it adds a fat layer of realism. I think I'd faint if I had to watch Crouching tiger, hidden dragon in english. Or norwegian for that matter EEEEEEWWWWWWW!

To be fair, live action movies being dubbed is pretty rare. Though I did hear the Germans apparently dubbed star wars back in the day.

I'm not quite sure if the English/American would dub live action movies...
I imagine they might though, since it seems English-speaking people just have this inherent fear of subtitles.

I don't really think anyone who doesn't have English as their native language actually prefer dubs.

 

[legopelle]

99% of the time, subbed.

One reason is that I cant STAND looking at the lips of characters and it doesnt match the voices (in real movies, not drawn). Another is that I feel it adds a fat layer of realism. I think I'd faint if I had to watch Crouching tiger, hidden dragon in english. Or norwegian for that matter EEEEEEWWWWWWW!

To be fair, live action movies being dubbed is pretty rare. Though I did hear the Germans apparently dubbed star wars back in the day.

I'm not quite sure if the English/American would dub live action movies...
I imagine they might though, since it seems English-speaking people just have this inherent fear of subtitles.

I don't really think anyone who doesn't have English as their native language actually prefer dubs.

Germans, as well as French and Italians, often dub everything. On the upside, they're really good at it. I remember seeing The Last Samurai in German, and couldn't tell it was a different voice actor.

 

[Antari]

It really depends on the movie. IF they get good translators the dubbed can sometimes be quite well done. In other situations the subs are the only way to go because someone screaming in japanese just makes it sound more vital and important.

 

[Jonluw]

99% of the time, subbed.

One reason is that I cant STAND looking at the lips of characters and it doesnt match the voices (in real movies, not drawn). Another is that I feel it adds a fat layer of realism. I think I'd faint if I had to watch Crouching tiger, hidden dragon in english. Or norwegian for that matter EEEEEEWWWWWWW!

To be fair, live action movies being dubbed is pretty rare. Though I did hear the Germans apparently dubbed star wars back in the day.

I'm not quite sure if the English/American would dub live action movies...
I imagine they might though, since it seems English-speaking people just have this inherent fear of subtitles.

I don't really think anyone who doesn't have English as their native language actually prefer dubs.

Germans, as well as French and Italians, often dub everything. On the upside, they're really good at it. I remember seeing The Last Samurai in German, and couldn't tell it was a different voice actor.

I think it's just disturbing to watch. It's like seeing a ventriloquist who deliberately moves the doll's mouth in uncorresponding patterns to what he is saying.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I think it's just disturbing to watch. It's like seeing a ventriloquist who deliberately moves the doll's mouth in uncorresponding patterns to what he is saying.

*hrk* I remember watching the English dub of Stalingrad... man it was god-awful (they put on German accents as well).

 

[Yosato]

Like many people here it really depends on the anime for me :S Most Funimation dubs (FMA, DBZ etc.) are outstanding and shows like Death Note and Bebop have even better ones. Some just don't do it for me though - the dub in Bleach for example feels really forced and awkward, despite how much I like Johnny Yong Bosch

 

[not_you]

I much prefer Dubbed.... mainly since if I wanted to spend half an hour to an hour reading, I'd buy a book....

And even then, if I bought a book the world would end...