To those who prefer Japanese voices...

boag

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Sep 13, 2010
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Tanis said:
I think it has more to do with English DUB being SO-SO-SO bad sometimes that folks would rather PRETEND the Japanese DUB is better.

And I say PRETEND because I've had Asian friends/girlfriends that LAUGH at how bad the Japanese DUB sounds to them.
Sometimes its Cheap VAs, that dont know how to act.

Othertimes its Localization where most of the cultural references get modded.

And lastly, sometimes its the Cheesy as hell dialogue that like I stated before, sounds less silly when read than when spoken.
 

SageRuffin

M-f-ing Jedi Master
Dec 19, 2009
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Neverhoodian said:
To be honest, it all depends on the quality of the voice work. Sometimes the English dub is so atrocious that it's nice to have the original Japanese voices to fall back to.
This is pretty much what I was gonna say. Sometimes the English voices either don't fit the characters in question (King of Fighters 2006) or they're just bad (Bible Black). Incidentally, bad Japanese voice tracks do indeed exist (PaRappa the Rapper), but unless the listener in question has a decent grasp on the dynamics of the language, he/she most likely won't notice.
 

him over there

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Dec 17, 2011
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boag said:
him over there said:
Many people I know who watch anime tell me subbed trumps dubbed because it hasn't been ruined by localization or adaptation. I never really followed this because I watch both and find literally no differences besides the actual voices. People tell me the japanese voice acting is of a higher quality but if you don't speak japanese I don't think you're really in the position to make that call, If you don't understand what they're saying how do you know it sounds genuine?
You havent encountered the dreaded Onigiri Cookies?

or the Chocolate Syrup bottles of sake?
That was 4kids and we never speak of those again!
 

Argtee

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Oct 31, 2009
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English dubs usually don't sound very good in anime or games.

AN exception of this would be dark souls and demon's souls. The English voices were not bad.
 

deidara

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Nov 23, 2011
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Games huh. Well when I first turned on Naruto UNS 2 the opening cinematic was cringe inducing(it was preset to eng), so I changed that right away. Excluding extreme/obvious cases, I can't tell if japansese voice acting is bad. So it doesn't bother me as much. But if the Dub is bad, it's instantly recognizable and ruins the show for me.

Then again I just want to watch things in their original language. Not just anime, foreign movies from other countries as well. Subtitles don't bother me. I have them on for english language movies/tv shows too. Even if the DBZ dub is better than the original, I still prefer the sub. Goku's voice doesn't bother me despite growing up watching the dub. And except for really good dubs such as DBZ and Death Note, I tend to actually get distracted by the characters voices. And to think the only reason I started watching subs was because I caught up to the Naruto dubs, and wanted to keep watching. Now sub is my default choice.
 

Uriain

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Apr 8, 2010
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For me, I have found that the english voice acting is fairly poor, and detracts from the experience for me. Example being, Dynasty warriors, or Soul Calibur (when is used to include the option to change language).. I found Japanese to be much more immersive, and fit better with the game. Plus, the voices didnt seem as "cheesy" as the english voice's did
 

shintakie10

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Sep 3, 2008
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It depends on the quality really. To use a couple of other Atlus games, Disgaea had an amazin set of voice actors to it. The dialogue came off as real (and friggin hilarious) and there wasn't even a hint of the usual halfhearted dialogue you hear in a lot of dubs. However whenever I pick up Disgaea 2, I cringe whenever I have to listen to most of the characters. The frog was amusin and a lot of the supportin characters were at the very least decent, but the main character was so awful I was actually surprised that it was an Atlus game I was playin.

In most games if I have the choice I'll default to the dub for as long as it takes for me to get annoyed. If it sounds believable, I'll stick with it, but it doesn't generally take me long to get annoyed at the awful VA work. In most anime I generally default to the sub if I can find, simply because its what I've always done due to livin with someone who was learnin the language and used it as a way to test herself (and she hated english dubs with a passion that was actually scary)

Though this always does make me confused at the end of the day. When studios do the VA work for these games/shows do they not listen to them before they release it? I can see when its like a preference thing (Naruto for me. I love the original japanese voices because they just sound right which isn't exactly a very easy thing to explain to others), but there are so many that are almost physically painful to listen to. The actors sound bored and have absolutely nothin invested in it and to add to that the actual translation they're usin is so bad that it had to have been written by someone still in High School with a year of foreign language studies as their experience.
 

Necron_warrior

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Mar 30, 2011
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As bad as this sounds, I cant tell the difference between all male Japanese voices (besides age-wise) and the same goes for women, So I watch dubs all the time. (unless its not been dubbed yet :p)
 

Necron_warrior

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Mar 30, 2011
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I Can Help You said:
One one hand, my friendly little squeak, I love it sometimes when my FLS becomes like a drill in my brain, but I know that sometimes FLS is just too bootily bitchin for me, and I have to resort to drolling long and hard. Japanese engineers creating things I can't possible comprehend gives me hope that one day my FLS and DRL can be stored on the same disk. Hail!
May I ask, are you Malkavian by any chance?
 

llew

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Sep 9, 2009
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Wolfram01 said:
I haven't played too many Japanese games to be honest, but I do watch a lot of movies and have seen my fair share of Japanese and Chinese movies. I vastly prefer sub titles to dubbed because, frankly, they usually have really bad english voice actors and scripts. I'm thinking it's much the same with games.
im gonna risk a low content warning (wait never mind) and say this ^
 

AyreonMaiden

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Sep 24, 2010
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I like to watch things in the language they sound best in, to my ears.

No amount of respect for the original seiyuu or weeabooism will ever make me believe that "Edoaado Erorikku" sounds more natural than "Edward Elric."

Or that "Kureeru Sutanfiirudo" beats "Claire Stanfield."

Or that "Kyasarin" isn't actually meant to be "Catherine."

If the show takes place in Japan and stars Japanese character, chances are I'll watch it subbed. If it doesn't, chances are I won't. Being in the dark about the voice acting wouldn't remove that culture clash of hearing katakana english in 1920's America, and that would take me out of the experience just as much as a shit dub would.

There are exceptions too. I love the dubs in the Persona games, and they're very much Japanese games.
 

RedEyesBlackGamer

The Killjoy Detective returns!
Jan 23, 2011
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shintakie10 said:
It depends on the quality really. To use a couple of other Atlus games, Disgaea had an amazin set of voice actors to it. The dialogue came off as real (and friggin hilarious) and there wasn't even a hint of the usual halfhearted dialogue you hear in a lot of dubs. However whenever I pick up Disgaea 2, I cringe whenever I have to listen to most of the characters. The frog was amusin and a lot of the supportin characters were at the very least decent, but the main character was so awful I was actually surprised that it was an Atlus game I was playin.

In most games if I have the choice I'll default to the dub for as long as it takes for me to get annoyed. If it sounds believable, I'll stick with it, but it doesn't generally take me long to get annoyed at the awful VA work. In most anime I generally default to the sub if I can find, simply because its what I've always done due to livin with someone who was learnin the language and used it as a way to test herself (and she hated english dubs with a passion that was actually scary)

Though this always does make me confused at the end of the day. When studios do the VA work for these games/shows do they not listen to them before they release it? I can see when its like a preference thing (Naruto for me. I love the original japanese voices because they just sound right which isn't exactly a very easy thing to explain to others), but there are so many that are almost physically painful to listen to. The actors sound bored and have absolutely nothin invested in it and to add to that the actual translation they're usin is so bad that it had to have been written by someone still in High School with a year of foreign language studies as their experience.
The Disgaea series is made by Nippon Ichi, Atlus just published their first game.
 

lordbyron227

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Sep 26, 2011
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I'd say I'm pretty equal opportunity. I've preferred dubbed where settings more or less made it feel more natural, i.e. Black Lagoon, Black Butler, Spice and Wolf,Cowboy Bebop and Baccano. I've also liked a few dubs that may not have fit the setting, but still liked it, for ex. Welcome to the NHK, Haruhi, BECK, and the Persona series.

I also like the sound of the seiyuu in the subbed versions of anime and JRPGs also, although I would admit that I can only gauge emotion w/o a true understanding of its relation to the words spoken, meaning I can't tell whether or not they're just overacting. So I would say, my ability to judge Eng. VA is significantly higher than what scale I can use for the JPN/foreign voices. I mean, I'm Chinese, and I do notice that non-Chinese fluent speakers can't tell the overacting or the awkwardness of the Chinese acting like we do.

To me , based off of what I've watched/played (w. no factual basis in research whatsoever) I would say 55% of Anime/JRPGs sound better with he orig, 35% have just as good Eng. Dubs, and 10% are better in English, at least for me anyways.
 

Frozengale

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Sep 9, 2009
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This is just my personal opinion, but I think one reason many English speakers prefer Japanese voices is because it is foreign to them and therefore harder to tell if the voice acting is good or bad. Even if it is horrid Japanese voice acting an English speaker would have a harder time picking up on it. I have watched my fair share of Animes and Movies both in Japanese and English, and in some Japanese Animes the English voice acting is better than the Japanese, but most people that watch Anime would never agree with you. They seem to think that the Japanese language is God's Gift to everyone.