Subs over Dubs: Which Anime turned you into a 'Purist'?

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Upon learning what the original language was I instantly went for it. Subs are a nonissue for me and most anime have no dub in my native tongue (Greek) so it's either pick one foreign language which happens to be the way the show was intended by it's creators or another foreign language that changed a lot of stuff to sell the show to a different culture. The choice is obvious.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

I'm not a purist, I'll always go for the English dub if its there. I'll only watch the sub if it's the only one available though. The first one I watched was Attack on Titan, because there wasn't a dub at the time and I couldn't be assed to wait.

Stuff like DBZ and Gurren Lagann sounds better in English imo.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

You don't fucking know me, I like both dubs and subs.

I usually watch the subbed version, but the dub occasionally surpasses the sub.

Ergh, back when I was a kid they couldn't release the Funi or Ocean dubs on DVD here, and we had to settle for the shitty Big Green dub. I remember having the Lord Slug movie with that dub and it was TERRIBLE

 

[thesilentman]

First anime subbed? Bleach. It was passable I suppose. Something to introduce me.

My first introduction to proper anime? Darker than Black. Wonderful anime, one that I've watched both subbed and dubbed. I highly recommend this to everyone, honestly. It's a great title to showcase how deep anime can get, especially with its use of "show don't tell".

 

[lucky_sharm]

Being a purist of anything is silly. There are good subs and dubs to listen to.

 

[trollnystan]

Ever since I saw--

The first anime I saw subbed was Akira.

Damn it, ninja'd! Kind of.

I'd watched a couple of dubbed animes as a young kid - G-Force, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, etc - without noticing whether the dub was good or not, or that it WAS a dub at all. I mean, I was a My Little Pony fan as a kid; have you HEARD the voice acting in the G1 show? *shudder* Obviously I didn't care much.

Then one day when I was about nine or ten years old, my older brother came home with a copy of Akira in the original Japanese. I LOVED IT. I wanted Kaneda's motorcycle so much... A week or so later he came home with Akira in English too.

Let's just say I was not impressed.

Then there is the fact that shows don't really get dubbed in Sweden unless they're for kids younger than 12. Dubbing is weird to me. I prefer to watch shows in their original languages - whether Japanese, German, French, or whatever - with subtitles.[footnote]Truth be told I like to have subtitles on when I'm watching a show in Swedish or English too. Helps me hear what they say.[/footnote] At least the first time watching it.

I will say this though: I once saw a Steven Seagal movie dubbed into Russian. Film was INFINITELY improved by it, even if I only understood three words of the whole thing. Not all dub is inherently bad

 

[Casual Shinji]

Then one day when I was about nine or ten years old, my older brother came home with a copy of Akira in the original Japanese. I LOVED IT. I wanted Kaneda's motorcycle so much... A week or so later he came home with Akira in English too.

Let's just say I was not impressed.

I know, right?

That great feeling you got when you realized Masaru sounded like a midget, and not like, you know... a child.

 

[Zeraki]

Somethings I like better dubbed, some things I like better subbed.

I absolutely love the dubs for shows like Cowboy Bebop, Baccano, Spice & Wolf, Gunsmith Cats, Dragon Ball Kai, Black Lagoon, Fullmetal Alchemist, Ghost Stories (that dub is amazing). I also consider pretty much everything Funimation does nowadays to be generally good.

It really comes down to what version I saw first. If a dub is generally well done and is my first exposure to the show, I'm more than likely going to prefer the dub. The same can be said vice versa.

Bleach is the perfect example of a show I can only watch subbed. I had been watching the show for almost four years by the time of its debut on Adult Swim (It feels just like yesterday), so I had just gotten so used to what the characters sounded like in Japanese... and the change was impossible to get used to.

There was also the issue of Viz constantly making major mistakes in the dub, like characters using the wrong names when referring to other characters (Rangiku referring to Kira instead of Gin during an inner monologue). The entire dub also felt generally poorly directed and miscast, despite the great voice talent they had working on the show.

 

[trollnystan]

I know, right?

That great feeling you got when you realized Masaru sounded like a midget, and not like, you know... a child.

The bit I remember most actually is this bit where that Kai dude is running after Kaneda, shouting his name. In Japanese his voice sounds urgent. In English he sounded like a whiny little kid. "Kaneeeeeeyda, wait for meeeeeee!" =/

(Btw, I'm talking about the 1991 English dub. Haven't seen Akira in the new one. I'm OLD.)

 

[Nubrain]

if given a choice I nearly always watch dub over sub but I will never not watch something because it's only subed and there are a few dubs, particularly older ones that are hard to listen to. you know I don't know what the first think I watched subed was as I've actually been watching anime long before I knew what it was having grown up on reruns of astro boy, pokemon, digimon, dragon ball etc but I have very vague memories of watching a subtitled anime movie that we had rented once and I think I was around 12 at the time. it stuck with me for a long time as being so strange and different and when I started to get properly into anime I realized that what I remember from it will do nothing to place it. (all I remember is that there was a good guy and he had a giant robot and he fought this other guy in a giant robot and not much else. if anyone can figure it out from that you get all the cookies)

as for how to get someone to try more subed anime I have a few suggestions: first pick a good anime....er or rather an easy one in terms of subs. stay away from a fast talking comedy or something that has a lot of action and dialog at the same time. I'd recommend something with a slower pace that has good art or character development such as Mushi-shi, kino's journey, Habane renme, or spice and wolf. reading and watching does take practice so starting with a slow ball can be a help. also make sure that it's something that she'd enjoy if something has a seasoned that is dubbed and one that is not show the dubbed one first, it's easier to make the effort for something you're already interested in/invested in.

second let her have the remote. I'm experienced with watching subs and every now and then I have to pause when this wall of text comes up. I think that's pretty normal but it can be hard to ask to go back because you missed something.

and lastly suggest trying it on something she's seen several times and knows pretty well. My fourth time watching Nausicca I put it on subs and from the word choice you get a slightly different feel to it but if it's something she has already seen she's going to be less worried about missing something.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The bit I remember most actually is this bit where that Kai dude is running after Kaneda, shouting his name. In Japanese his voice sounds urgent. In English he sounded like a whiny little kid. "Kaneeeeeeyda, wait for meeeeeee!" =/

(Btw, I'm talking about the 1991 English dub. Haven't seen Akira in the new one. I'm OLD.)

I didn't even watch it all the way through. The moment I heard Masaru talk like he belonged in The Muppet Show I just stopped watching. I heard the new dub was better, but honestly I really don't care. Especially in regards to Akira, which is like the most Japanese of anime out there, and being the only anime to feature consistent lip syncing, it feels even more detrimental to not watch it in the original language.

 

[drednoahl]

I watched this documentary, then watched Akira subbed by the BBC the following night - that turned me on to subs. What turned me elitist was Koko wa Greenwood (main protagonists from Akira have the same cast in Greenwood.) Maison Ikkoku and Flaming Campus Guardress made me want to fansub. (Arctic animation were a shockingly bad fansubbing group and Viz were/are little better imo.)


*Note the name of the documentary. Island Records was trying to copyright the word "Manga" to use to sell anime as irresponsible pictures, also added swearing where there was none in the original, changed music, forced delayed releases even in Japan, did lots of hacky stuff and pretty much thought anime fans were idiots. Fans like me and my friends rebelled.

I hate the idea of being elitist, but anime is a very personal experience for me and only one company has ever dealt with anime the way I like (and they've got it wrong on occasion too.) In my decades of being a fan I've never met two fans the same or who like exactly the same things, and the commercial way of diluting sub/dub to accommodate as many fans as possible I personally think is daft in this day and age. My own viewpoint is fansubs are best, then commercial subs, then dubs; crucially though is YOU should be able to watch it however you want. My generation were denied choice; I chose fansubs....

and twenty odd years later companies are still struggling to keep up.

 

[Courier_87]

For me it was Initial D. Started watching the dub, but accidentally clicked to watch a sub episode and never looked back. As a petrol head, the sub goes into extra detail and more detailed explanations of how things like turbo chargers work.

Conversely, certain anime I prefer dubs. Hellsing Ultimate is set in England, with English characters. The dub voice acting reflects this and the native accents of other characters, whereas I found the subbed version less compelling. Plus with that much crazy shit going on on-screen, it was too much to have to focus on reading subs as well.

 

[loa]

There are good subs and dubs and bad subs and dubs.
I don't see why you would lock yourself into only 1 option.
I would always prefer the dubbed english version of fullmetal alchemist over reading and missing half the action and I would always prefer the japanese, non-butchered original of digimon tamers over that american monstrosity.

It's no longer the 90s, the source material gets treated with respect nowadays. Sometimes.

 

[pejhmon]

Depends on the anime. DBZ is god-awful in Japanese, especially since Bruce Falconer's music is a lot better and Japanese Vegeta sounds like a whiny little *****. However, GTO is terrible in English. Onizuka completely looses his character in the English dub but keeps the insanity in the Japanese one.

 

[floppylobster]

My advice would be to show her something like 'My Neighbor Totoro' or 'Princess Mononoke'. Both films have dubbing which alter the original vision of the filmmaker - which is a terrible thing and a serious crime for a dub to do. Once she sees it subtitled she should be able to recognize that the film maker's intentions always come across more clearly when subtitled (by professional subtitlers).

The annoying thing is that I still haven't been able to get the version of Princess Mononoke that isn't 'dubtitled', meaning the subtitles are just the dub's dialoge in text. And in that film it's particularly shitty, because a lot of the times there'll be subtitles when no one's talking.

Luckily for me I can speak pretty good Japanese now so subtitles aren't a huge problem anymore, but when I first watched that film I couldn't and didn't really like it (I had switched to the dub midway because I was getting tired). During one of my Japanese classes we watched the film again with subtitles. I couldn't believe what a different film it was. I discovered some of the characters had been completely reinterpreted in the dub (especially the 'hero', who I learned was not really a hero type character at all). Then I watched it again after I finished learning Japanese. The scene where the apes are throwing stones is an excellent example of where the dub COMPLETELY misses the point, context and subtlety of a scene. The only dub I think is reasonable of a Miyazaki film is Laputa. But even then I would always stick to subtitles.

 

[Mareon]

Not that it made me a purist or anything, but the first time I realized the power of dubbing was when I watched the subbed Cowboy Bebop for the first time and realized that Spike was an entirely different character: Dubbed Spike is an Cowboy, Subbed Spike is an Samurai.

 

[Ascend]

Honestly I feel that dubs are best when they add to the immersion like in Black Lagoon where the Nazis sound German and Dutch sounds black and Belalaika sounds Russian and that Chinglish person adds to the character of the series. In Hellsing where the Nazis,again, sound German and the people from the Vatican sound Italian and the British sound British. In Jormungand?Even though I personally didn't like the dub for that one,they are an international team and I was biased probably because of watching the subs first .I feel that Cowboy bebop without it's dub just wouldn't be the same and champloo too.Theres also the Spice and Wolf dub where Holo actually seems old ,wise and learned rather than the voice of Ryuuko from kill la kill.I guess GITS is better with subs even though I feel Batou was pretty cool there.

 

[Ishal]

Far from a purist. I prefer the dub 80% of the time,and find the hilariously over-the-top hate for dubs that subtitle purists exhibit to be hyperbolic and silly. I'm also not sure how I feel about the implication that "growing" into preferring the Japanese language version is an inevitability.

I agree. Personally, I find it difficult to watch anime subbed. I find the dialogue repetitive and tepid when combined with the nature inherent in the Japanese language itself. People just don't talk like that, not even the Japanese. It's like nails on a chalk board.

Some of the dub studios are REALLY good. Ocean studios in Vancouver who dubbed Black Lagoon are fantastic. They made some changes to the dialogue because they felt it would be fit to the western audiences, and they were right. It also helps that if there is a black dude, he's actually voiced by a black dude. I know the anime industry is from Japan, and that it's part of their culture, or a subset of their otaku culture. Thus, there is a certain sense of appreciation for the language and it's "natural" and "pure" state. I just don't agree. It may be Japanese, but most of the characters look pretty caucasian to me. So, hardcore anime fans will have to forgive me when I don't find white dudes who dub anime too out of place.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Ranma 1/2 and Cowboy bebop are decent dubs, Overhauled dub wise try pizza cats or roinin warriors. Frankly the only way to make a great dub 10 out of 10 times is to reanimate the lips.