The dubs vs subs argument made more sense when dubs were generally low effort trash. Now dubbing is done very well. As someone who can read subtitles fine, a dub is always more a relaxing/ less cerebral experience where I can focus that much more on the content.
Except singing of course. Don’t dub songs.
To each his own. Some prefer the original audio simply because it is foreign, making it easier to mentally dive into a fantasy world. Others get taken out of the immersion by having to read subs and not focusing on the screen all the time.
Isn’t it great that nowadays we have a real choice, so everyone can enjoy media how they want?
I really don’t want to make a thing of it, but it’s nice to hear the original voice acting. I kinda want to hear that Japanese voice actress who’s probably famous for all sorts of roles, it seems unfair to consume everyone else’s work but not hers, so I want to pick up the OG vibe from the dubbed anime if I can. I bet undubbed Cowboy Bebop is good stuff, I should find that and watch it.
It can get crazy though. US DBZ gives fairly masculine voices to all male characters who are not obviously children, even if most of them sound like young men and aren’t all that bassy, save, of course, Piccolo and Vegeta. Vegeta always sounds like he’s trying to put some bass in his voice, but he’s all nasal. Still. Man voices. Even Krillen gets a grown man voice, even if he’s reedy and is supposed to sound like a pipsqueak.
I watched 10 minutes of the show once that was in notEnglish and absolutely the fuck not. Everyone had extremely high-pitched little boy voices which was fucking weird, and I kept waiting for them to drop the gag, but no, that’s their voices for that version. Goku sounding like a chipmunk squeaker yelling in some other language. No thanks. To this day I have no idea what language that was.
So sometimes you just want subbed anime. Sometimes you want to watch Tenchi Muyo with a Ryoko who sounds right. My strong opinion is that I shouldn’t have one when it comes to subs v dubs, that’s internet clown stuff for people who think arguing is a fun sport.
Problem with dubs is japanese names pronunciation in english, no matter how good the VAs are.
Oof, so I just started learning Japanese this year and this bothers me ALOT. I don’t get why they do this. It really is dumb.
They should all go the 4Kids Yu Gi Oh route and give the characters American names like Joey and Tristan
It’s done well (usually), but it’s still not the original. Something will inevitably be lost in the adaptation anyway, and if you know even a slight bit of Japanese (or whatever the original language is), subs are the better choice for a first view, imo.
Then, if the series/movie was good and I feel like watching it again, I’ll go with the dub when available. Rarely, if ever, I found a Dub that was better than an original version, but a lot have been at the same level so it’s definitely worth it.
Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass are two good examples where the dub is superior to the subtitled version. They mess up some of the meanings in the subtitled versions, like in Fate/Zero when Saber first appears. In the dub she says “are you worthy, to be my master?” Which is definitely the intended meaning especially once you get further into the show and know how she is, but the subtitles just say “are you my master?” which makes her seem not quite like a dumbass… but it does make you go “wtf kind of question is that?” Not to mention the actual performances. Gilgamesh’s dub voice actor is absolutely perfect for that role, and while the Japanese voice actor is good, he just doesn’t compare.
Similar things with Psycho-Pass. All the meaning gets across pretty well in both version if I remember correctly, but Makashima’s English actor is irreplaceable for that character. His performance alone is worth watching the dub for and it’s just so much better, which is pretty difficult because I watched it subtitled first and I already loved it.
I’m certainly not a subtitle hater though, as everyone knows there are plenty of examples where the dub is terrible in comparison. Then you have shows like My Hero Academia which are interesting, because on the Japanese side they have Tomura Shigaraki who is absolutely perfect for that role. Listening to him in dub is painful to me, as his Japanese voice actor is absolutely perfect in that role. Then on the other hand you have Twice, who isn’t as disappointing to listen to in Japanese as Tomura is in English, but Twice in the English dub is NOT a performance you want to miss out on. It was so annoying watching that show when the two were in scenes together, I’d often switch back and forth between dub and sub just to get the full awesomeness.
All this is to say that it’s really on a case by case basis, and I’d suggest checking out both dub and sub early on (if both are available) that way you don’t get attached to the version you’re used to. Start right and give yourself the best experience from as early on as possible.
like in Fate/Zero when Saber first appears. In the dub she says “are you worthy, to be my master?” Which is definitely the intended meaning especially once you get further into the show and know how she is, but the subtitles just say “are you my master?” which makes her seem not quite like a dumbass… but it does make you go “wtf kind of question is that?”
I mean, it’s been a long time since I watched it, but I really don’t think that was the intended meaning. Saber had always been a very detached and humble person, I doubt she wanted to “test” Kiritsugu or anything. Iirc she’s also the only servant to retain memories between summonings (as she’s not a “copy” but Artoria herself), and it was the fourth time being summoned, so I assume it was just a routine at that point for her, kind of a plumber asking “where’s the leak”.
Although the issue is when spelled out in English, it does sound like a dumb question, and it’s also shorter than the Japanese so it wouldn’t match the timing well. I don’t blame them for changing it, but it’s still not the same as the original.
The point is also that it’s impossible to determine if a dub is good or not unless you’ve seen in their entirety both it and the original version. You may watch one episode and say “hey, I like the voices and the performance”, but maybe they made a mistranslation of something important and you’ll never realize unless you watch the original too. Maybe the first episode is done well but a bad voice actor later ruins everything.
All in all, sub is the original experience and you really can’t ever go wrong by watching it, as opposed to the dub which has an added layer of translation where stuff can potentially be messed up. I’ve personally watched dub first when my close friends recommended it, and did the same for them when I found good ones, but if I have to watch a series none of them watched dubbed yet, I’m not risking to ruin my experience.
There may also be cases where there are many untranslatable jokes that may fall flat when viewing the sub. I know it’s a bit extreme, but take Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo. Multitudes of untranslatable text and jokes so they just decided to redo the whole thing.
Not even that extreme. There’s stuff like Monogatari that they didn’t even try to dub because of the sheer amount of puns and japanese double-meanings they’d have to adapt. Unfortunately, a lot of good series can’t work in a different language without footnotes explaining stuff, and at that point I might as well watch the sub.
That argument never held much weight for me years ago, because a lot of subs were trash back then, too. You just picked whatever trash you wanted and let the weabs on the internet be damned.
I tend to agree. Although as a counterexample for not singing in dub, I present to you Angel Beats. I watched the English dub of that and one particular song that the main singer of a band sings made me cry from how beautiful it was. I’m sure it still would have had an impact, but there’s no way it would have been as strong if they hadn’t dubbed that song. Granted, a large reason for the crying was the episode in general and learning the story of the singer, but it’s so fantastic in English that it seems like that was the only possible way it could be.
Are you saying the English dub of that also dubbed the songs? Where did you watch that? The only ones I’ve been able to find leave them in Japanese.
I think replacing songs in the dub can go pretty hard, like, that’s how we got most of the iconic 90’s american anime theme songs. pokemon, digimon, yugioh, etc. I do like a lot of the naruto OPs too, for the record, and soul eater, and fullmetal alchemist, but it’s really hard to beat how iconic the opening to pokemon is, and how that’s laser engraved to like a fifth of all millennial’s brains.
Actually, I wanna hijack this top post a little bit. Other people have brought up japanese name pronunciation, and replacing the names with more western stuff, and I would like to bring up the decision specifically in yugioh to make joey have a boston accent to mimic the accentedness of the japanese he would otherwise speak with. I dunno, there’s something to the 4kids dubs that has a little bit more texture than your normal modern anime dubs. I like the lack of censorship more, the VAs tend to be better, there’s not like, big confusing rewrites or repacings of certain sections, all that is good, about your more modern stuff. At the same time, I feel like a lot of the sub vs dub argument is gonna come about more when people don’t let the dub be it’s own thing. You already have to translate turns of phrase, culturally dependent expressions, yadda yadda, at what point do you really decide to stop? Maybe a bad example, because it doesn’t really conform to the spirit of the original at all, but people still occasionally talk about the ghost stories dub. I dunno. I guess it doesn’t need to be official, there’s always abridged series to fill the void in my heart when it comes to anime that’s written for a western audience more, but I do kinda wish that more dubs were just like. Willing to take risks. That more dubs were very obviously stand out.
I’ve listened to some of the so-called “good” dubs. They’re still trash.
Honestly I think some of the older dubs are the best (your cowboy bebops, your Gurren laganns, and even silly shows like Ouran High School Host Club had great casts), back when the industry still had passionate and skilled actors. Now it’s well known that anime voice acting pays for shit and all the talent has left for greener pastures—and I don’t blame them.
Now it feels to me like most dubs get stuck with VAs just at the start of their careers and it really shows… Most dubs make me cringe nowadays with the acting.
Plus, I feel like you get a more accurate translation with subs because they’re not trying to fit tweaked dialog into previously-animated mouth movements.
I used to really advocate for dubs and preferred them, but my stance has flipped quite a bit in recent years. Kinda sad to see them decline so much :(
If you think this about Baccano or Cowboy Bebop, your opinion is factually incorrect
Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass dubs are both very much superior to their subtitled counterparts. Fight me.
Ah, well. I’m just a poor old man. My legs are grey, my ears are gnarled. I need subtitles.
I’m pretty sure the only good song dubs I’ve heard were from Belle. Sucks that the movie is so impressively mid
At this point I’ve adapted to somehow reading and seeing the picture at the same time
I think that’s pretty natural? If you weren’t getting any of the movie there’d be no points and we’d just read the subs on a kindle or something.
For people who grew up with subs it might be more spectacular. For us, it’s just Tuesday.
Idk if anyone else has this but i get a weird flow state where i read the subtitles and its like the characters are talking in english but i if think about it, it stops.
Not sure if I’ve experienced that, but I have watched something in English with no subtitles after watching something in another language with subtitles and been unable to understand what they’re saying until my brain adjusts.
As long as you can read fast enough, you don’t miss anything. I hate it when video games have subtitles but you can’t skip to the next line because I’ve finished reading what they said way before they’re done saying it.
Sometimes I drop sub groups just over their timing. If it’s too short, I will drop them since I will no longer enjoy it at that point.
Badly time subs are one of the things I hate most. It is so frustrating when they’re not synced up well enough to match what the people are saying.
My issue with video game subtitles is actually the opposite problem. The subtitles have finished appearing, but the voiced line is still going. It’s especially bad when you’re playing in an audio language you can’t understand. (Some Japanese video games still don’t have English voice acting. Yakuza, for example, only recently started doing English voice acting.)
Honestly yeah. I disable subtitles even if I’d like them because I read it faster than they speak. The only anime subtitles that were going too fast for me for a while were Teekyuu but that clearly was meant to be for native audience so the pacing was as such.
I’m actualy losing my hearing so I’m starting to “hear” my shows better than I can my wife
Yeah, we’re used to it, it’s the only way I’ve watched movies since I was a kid.
I don’t use subs now, maybe English ones cuz sometimes the actors speak way too fast and you have a hard time understanding what they’re saying.
To each his own. My AuDHD means if there are subs I can’t pay attention to the images. Dubs all the way for me.
My ADHD means that when there’s subs I actually look at the screen instead of being distracted by my phone. Funny how that works out.
Well… you can’t spell subtitles without tit…s.
Or “ub…les”
Unfortunately when I’m watching TV Im usually working out so I mostly just listen and occasionally glance over at it.
Dubs for the win on that one.
So you don’t watch TV, you just like the audio distraction.
If I can hear conversations and look up often enough to know what the setting is, I’m getting the same information.
Working out doesn’t really require your brain beyond counting reps, it’s not a “distraction” if I’m still absorbing the story.
It it works for you, cool. Personally I prefer listening to radio or podcast.
I like video essays but podcast content has never appealed to me.
I prefer absolute silence and all you noise junkies make me sick!
Allright. To each their own.
I always enjoyed subs, but wished I could understand the original Japanese, so I took Japanese classes in HS and college to learn the language. Now I can’t help but listen to the Japanese AND try to read the subtitles at the same time. (ー_ー*)
Try using japanese subtitles in animes you have already seen, it helps a lot honestly.
This is like when I put on dubs and subs, because I’m lazy and hard of hearing! It’s fun because they never use the same translation for both so you get to watch the two fight it out over what’s being said!
Yeah I can’t watch subs. I don’t want to have to read for a movie. I want to see the faces and expressions of people or characters as scenes play out. If I’m reading subtitles, I’m not immersed and the story doesn’t slap as much for me.
I used to be hardcore anti-subs but then I started to realize that a large amount of English movies are mixed in a way where you can’t understand anything that’s going on anyway (thanks Christopher Nolan) so I have subs on for everything now because I can more consistently experience the entirety of the movie/show instead of my understanding of lines being up to if the director was upset that day.
Same. I watch everything with subtitles. Helps with the mild audio processing disorders that tend to go hand in hand with ADHD, Autism, or somewhere along the spectrum.
I do try and make them small and unobtrusive though. Especially when I can put them on the bottom where there are black bars due to aspect ratio differences.
Speaking of Nolan, I was able to watch Oppenheimer on 30mm at an independent theater and subtitles were actually turned on. It was much appreciated.
I watch everything in English with subs for this reason. But I can’t usually do that for anime because the subs don’t always match the dub and that’s distracting
I listen to podcasts all the time, ones by American, British, and Australia speakers, and I think my aural comprehension has actually improved from that. I have a friend just like you though. Has to turn on subtitles for everything.
I can do audiobooks and such just fine, for some reason movies and shows recently have made a lot of the audio really hard to hear/understand sometimes. I watched Oppenheimer in the theater and I feel like I miss.half the dialogue in some of the louder scenes.
Ironically, when you read subs you do inevitably miss some nuances of what’s going on.
On the plus side, the translations can be much better since they don’t have to match it to the lips of the characters.
In the end, I like both, but I tend to watch more dubs. Japanese is a really neat language, though. Sometimes it’s fun to watch subs just to hear it.
I learned English by reading english subs of pirated movies.
I did that for years. Now I get wierded out by movies dubbed in my language.
What is your language? A 1 to 1 translation can be varying degrees of awkward depending on the two languages involved.
No, that’s not it. German is very close to English.
It’s more that the known english-speaking actors suddenly have different voices.
I can’t stand dubs, I think that japanese VA are a lot better. Anyway, I have been reading subs since I was 8 years old so I read them so fast that it doesn’t bother me.
And I cant stand subs because I dont like the japanese language. We are the opposite
That’s irrelevant, 'murican dubs lack soul. All of the good voice actors are working on videogames, so they’re left with people they can get off the streets to voice anime in 'murica (sometimes literally).
I ain’t gonna take this blasphemy sitting down. Jad Saxton, Chris Rager, Yuri Lowenthal, Brina Palencia, Crispin Freeman, Johnny Yong Bosch, I’ll fight a mf that says Cherami Leigh lacks soul
English dub VAs don’t get enough credit, it’s damn hard matching mouth movements that were made for a different language
by that logic you’re irrelevant
Wow, what an awe inspiring contribution to the conversation. Truly a mind to rival the great philosophers.
I generally watch dubs… but if I can have the subs on at the same time as the dub I’ll do that.
I only watch subs by itself if there is no dub, or if the dub is rediculously bad.
I actually think dubs get a lot of hate they shouldn’t be getting so many of them are actually pretty good especially for a lot of modern shows.
Interestingly fairy tail is actually one of the better ones imo.
During my early teenage weeb days, I used to be a sub purist, disavowing anyone who preferred dub. I’d refuse to watch an anime with someone if they chose dub. However, I’ve changed a lot since then and now go with whatever sounds better to me. While some dubs are admittedly bad, others put a lot of time and effort into replicating the original Japanese feel, and they do a great job.
I’ve also noticed that certain anime set in specific countries feel odd in Japanese. For instance, when I watched Steamboy, it was bizarre hearing Japanese voices in the cities of Manchester and London. The Japanese voice actors struggling to pronounce English names and words fluently added to the peculiarity.
I don’t buy into sub purists claiming all English dubs sound the same. Truth be told, a lot of Japanese voices also sound similar. There are cliché voices that almost allow you to predict how a character will sound in Japanese just by looking at their design.
These days I’m firmly of the opinion; whatever sounds right to you. I don’t see the point of giving someone shit for choosing to watch a series in whatever language they prefer, as long as they’re enjoying it.
I keep forgetting to try to find the Italian dub for Gunslinger Girls. That show made me cry twice already, and I’m ready for the third one. I think
I generally prefer watching in whatever the original language was (usually subs for me). But if I happen to see a show dubbed first, that becomes my new personal canon haha.
To each their own. I understand that dubs obviously miss things in translation and it is a valid argument. Sometimes the voice acting is trash. But at the same time I’m not gonna be a dick to someone for enjoying the same thing I do but different. A friend of mine that has never watched anime before we met has recently gotten into it and he watches dubs. We still have a lot of fun talking about the shows and he asks for recommendations all the time. The barrier for anime is pretty high for people that have never seen it before and the biggest way to turn people off of it is to tell them what they enjoy is wrong.
— “Stop enjoy things the wrong way!!!”
— “Don’t be ass, man” puts pineapple in pasta
I watch anime for the beautiful animation (not necessary the “plot”)
Having text plastered all over it kinda takes away from it.
So I will watch Dub every time.
It is also a great way to check if an anime is good, since they don’t put so much effort in to dub something mediocre (usually)
if you don’t watch it for the plot then why don’t you watch it in Japanese without subtitles?
“plot” = sensual or sexual content
what? we’re talking about the storyline
I will turn on subtitles for dubbed media too
If it lets you
I speak English, and like using my ears and my eyes, which is why I watch dubs. If you don’t speak Japanese, what are you doing listening to Japanese speaking voices?
Because not everything worth watching was created in my country? Why would I need to disrespect the intention/effort of everyone involved, when I can just read?
That doesn’t make any sense. By that logic, wouldn’t it be disrespectful to the English localization team to not listen to the dub? I mean, if you’re going for perfect authenticity, the subtitles weren’t there blocking the view in the original broadcast either, but you still have those on
I find dubs more distracting than subs. 🤷🏽♀️
I can’t fathom how having your eyes free to watch the show and using your ears to listen is more distracting than having to read subtitles while listening to what amounts to incomprehensible noise
I have subtitles on for all the shows I watch in English too…
That’s even more confusing to me
I have friends that do the same thing. It’s terrible. We were watching a movie I had already seen last night, and someone wanted the subs on. I couldn’t focus on the movie and I ended up playing on my phone. The subs kill me.
If you are used to reading subtitles you can read them almost subconsciously. And you don’t need to understand the language to get things like emotion out of it. I would even go as far as saying that getting used to reading the emotions of someone that doesn’t speak the same language as you is essential to fully develop a sense of empathy.
what are you doing listening to Japanese speaking voices?
I think some anime legitimately sounds better with the Japanese voice acting, but some people take it too far and extrapolate that to mean all anime is better with Japanese voices and any dub is immediately shit. It becomes these weird gate-keeping elitism among losers where you literally can’t enjoy ‘anime’ a certain way or else these people won’t think you’re ‘cool.’
One Punch Man sounds better with the Japanese voices imo. Saitama sounds downright iconic in Japanese, but like a generic wimpy boy in English.
The vast majority of other shows I prefer watching in English. Either the dub is identical in quality to the sub, or the difference is small enough that I don’t care since I prefer watching things in my language.
My dude is not a man of culture… yet. No worries, at some point you’ll understand, I’m sure.
Same shit I heard on reddit. As long as redditors and lemmings are disappointed in me, I’m happy with where I’m at in life.
Well, I’m one of the people who went through a period watching the anime raw, so I see your argument there. But if you read fast enough, it’s just, I don’t know, you stop consciously reading, and just watch the thing. Also, especially with modern American movies, the sound mixing is ass for the home speaker specifically because they’ve designed it that way. It’s easier to have the subtitles on, because they designed the soundscape for the theater (Christopher Nolan does it on purpose, for example) and stereo be damned, especially with dialogue.
That said, I’ve gotten out of pooh-poohing whatever way you want to enjoy your show; there’s not enough time on earth to worry about whether Tara Strong or Megumi Hayashibara is the better VA (my vote’s on Hayashibara, but Strong is my childhood, and besides, it doesn’t matter).
I dunno, man; let people enjoy things, right?
I dunno, man; let people enjoy things, right?
That’s my feelings, it just gets annoying when people feel a need to spout out that you’re an illiterate moron and say you have trash taste unprovoked all the time. That’s the kind of thing that can drive an otherwise live-and-let-live guy to start an argument
