Dub or Sub

[NinjaMonkey]

Dubs because I can't speak Japanese and subtitles ruin the picture.

[Anouleth]

Depends. I dislike dubs only because generally they use American voice actors, which is a little annoying for a Brit to hear everyone blaring in American accents. Generally, subs are also easier to get hold of. However, I find that subs are generally very lazy with translating and just try to translate 'faithfully', which often ends up with characters speaking in broken english that doesn't flow well.

I'm not strongly in favour of one or the other. It all depends on the individual sub or dub.

[shadowofchaos]

I'm not strongly in favour of one or the other. It all depends on the individual sub or dub.

^THIS

RIGHT THERE...

We have people in the middle, we're not just all "let the sparks fly" with one-sided opinions of "Dubs suck/subs rock" or vice-versa...

For me, the emphasis is really on quality on either one.

[Florete]

I agree on that point. I just prefer subs becuase I like the VAs better. But not all dubs are as faithful. It depends on the what you watch.

I think the only dub you can find from the past 10 years that isn't faithful, barring 4Kids dubs (and even those are generally faithful but watered down), is Ghost Stories (and many people prefer ADV's version anyway). The companies know what people want, so we don't get Warriors of the Wind anymore.

We have people in the middle, we're not just all "let the sparks fly" with one-sided opinions of "Dubs suck/subs rock" or vice-versa...

And thank God for that. If we were at some generic anime fansite, this topic would be 7 pages minimum by now.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Dubs if I can tolerate it. Subs otherwise.

Examples of English dubs I've found good would be Death Note and Full Metal Alchemist.

Examples of English dubs I've found terrible would be the first One Piece dub and this. Golden Boy's too but Kintaro's voice seemed so stupid often that it somehow made it amusing >_>.

I've seen sub advocates that are so adamant it's as if they believe there's some super special awesome reward they'll get for hating even the good dubs. It's hilarious.

[Nightmare]

I prefer to watch subs because I like to hear what the original developers had in mind for the characters, but I don't care which is better. It's the same for me with video games, but I've found dubs that I can enjoy (or prefer to the Japanese voice) more often there than in shows.

[Flying Shogi]

I think the only dub you can find from the past 10 years that isn't faithful, barring 4Kids dubs (and even those are generally faithful but watered down), is Ghost Stories (and many people prefer ADV's version anyway). The companies know what people want, so we don't get Warriors of the Wind anymore.

And thank God for that. If we were at some generic anime fansite, this topic would be 7 pages minimum by now.

I'm sorry, but Ghost Story was just horrible. Their puns weren't even funny. But I can say that the people who dubbed Best Student Council(I was bored, sue me.They had a nice catchy opening too) was pretty good. They kept most of the original script and they actually made stuff funny and made sense.

I feel ike listening to their opening again.

[Santino]

Like I said, it will help, but it will only really matter if you also take classes in the language. The thing is that some people think they can become fluent in a language by watching shows subbed in their own language, which might be possible but it would take much, much longer than anyone would actually want to try it for.

One more thing, and since I'm arguing this for anime primarily, even if you learn something like Japanese from anime, you won't exactly be at an advanced level because anime dialogue for the most part is not at all complicated. You learned Japanese from watching Naruto? Congratulations, you now know middle schooler Japanese.

I can only speak for English dubs. I am unaware of the quality of dubs of other languages.

I want to clarify that I don't mean anything close to fluency. I just mean you learn more from subs than dubs, and it can be quite a lot.

I argue mostly for non-animated dubs.. and I don't know many English ones. Sorry for that. I still think though that they undermine both the original language and the original product, and thus display arrogance. Learning middle-school Japanese from watching Naruto, I doubt it'll happen to anyone but it wouldn't be bad.

(Aw, this post sounds so uncontroversial)

Edited August 30, 2010 by Santino

[Defeatist Elitist]

I'm a naturally arrogant bastard who loves to choose specific things and lord it out over those unfortunate enough to enjoy other things. I do this with shows, movies, music, and so of course naturally I love subtitles.

I just kind of do. I like the sound of Japanese for things like speeches and whatnot. I find it lends itself well to drama and "epicness", similarly to how I find French and Spanish have a more lush and emotional feel, or how I find Latin and Russian appealing in songs. For the anime I tend to watch, this gives Japanese an advantage. In addition, Japanese names or honorifics spoken in the middle of English speak sounds horribly jarring and unnatural to me. Plus, for me it just kind of cuts out some of the middle men.

[shadowofchaos]

In addition, Japanese names or honorifics spoken in the middle of English speak sounds horribly jarring and unnatural to me.

LOL I figured that much with your Sanae avy

Yes, that part... Oh you don't know how funny and embarrassing it is in Tagalog... It was... horrible... seriously... XD

And then I see the comments on Youtube, with people worshiping it... XD

Oh those fools, they know not what they say.

Edited August 30, 2010 by shadowofchaos

[Florete]

I argue mostly for non-animated dubs.. and I don't know many English ones. Sorry for that. I still think though that they undermine both the original language and the original product, and thus display arrogance. Learning middle-school Japanese from watching Naruto, I doubt it'll happen to anyone but it wouldn't be bad.

I can understand being against live action dubs. I'm fine with them, but wanting to hear the original language makes a lot more sense because the voice actually belongs to the person on-screen, as opposed to animation where the character doesn't have a voice until someone gives it to them (which is why I have a problem with the whole "original voice" argument; why should I care which voice was recorded first?). I don't see how they "undermine" the original language at all; care to expound on that thought?

In addition, Japanese names or honorifics spoken in the middle of English speak sounds horribly jarring and unnatural to me.

That's really rare in English dubs. I could probably count the number of series I've seen that do that on one hand.

Edited August 30, 2010 by Red Fox of Fire

[Defeatist Elitist]

That's really rare in English dubs. I could probably count the number of series I've seen that do that on one hand.

Names or honorifics. Names really sound awkward to me for some reason. Maybe it's just the way they say them.

[Aleph]

Definitely subs.

I switched to subs because I couldn't stand waiting for episodes that I might just miss anyway and suddenly everything was wonderful.

And suddenly I realized how painful dubs are.

[Parrhesia]

Subs unless there is a lot of awesome shit going on I could be seeing instead of reading "My balls hurt from the third arrow". So, like, for a Miyazaki I'll be listening to the dubs.

[Chuy]

Subbed.

[bunny: spider bitten]

I want to clarify that I don't mean anything close to fluency. I just mean you learn more from subs than dubs, and it can be quite a lot.

I argue mostly for non-animated dubs.. and I don't know many English ones. Sorry for that. I still think though that they undermine both the original language and the original product, and thus display arrogance. Learning middle-school Japanese from watching Naruto, I doubt it'll happen to anyone but it wouldn't be bad.

(Aw, this post sounds so uncontroversial)

To be fair, you probably should have opened with the concept that you aren't American.

You're coming from an entirely different perspective. The jump from English to Japanese that is being taken into account for about 90% of the posters so far isn't quite the same as Dutch/French/Spanish to English. Part of that is more similarities in the languages. A second part is that. . . It's not entirely unheard of that those countries may not want to work in English into culture like the Japanese and English and Americans and Spanish.

[Trueblade]

Sub. Natural language makes it more original and unaltered. Dubs make it more altered/censored.

[FaceDancer]

Sub. Natural language makes it more original and unaltered. Dubs make it more altered/censored.

I agree to the last statement. Some dubbing companies in the US feel the need to alter the dialogue ever so slightly and interject a joke better suited to the American public when in reality they could be drastically changing the meaning of the conversation. I can understand the need, but really, Japanese culture (along with any other culture belonging to a rich country) is becoming more widespread, so the need to take out the old, Japanese jokes and replace them with stupid, American or other cultural jokes is no longer necessary.

And besides, what's the harm in leaving them in? Kids may just look up the joke online and learn something. :)

[Florete]

I agree to the last statement. Some dubbing companies in the US feel the need to alter the dialogue ever so slightly and interject a joke better suited to the American public when in reality they could be drastically changing the meaning of the conversation. I can understand the need, but really, Japanese culture (along with any other culture belonging to a rich country) is becoming more widespread, so the need to take out the old, Japanese jokes and replace them with stupid, American or other cultural jokes is no longer necessary.

And besides, what's the harm in leaving them in? Kids may just look up the joke online and learn something. :)

I don't know what dubs you've watched, but I've not seen a single dub that changed a joke for any reason other than the joke not making sense in English (like some of the jokes in Azumanga Daioh, which is an older show anyway), and I don't see how that could change the "meaning" of the conversation anyway. If you're talking about censorship (and this goes for Trueblade as well) stop watching 4kids dubs; big anime companies like FUNimation and Bang Zoom don't censor the anime they release at all.

[Santino]

I can understand being against live action dubs. I'm fine with them, but wanting to hear the original language makes a lot more sense because the voice actually belongs to the person on-screen, as opposed to animation where the character doesn't have a voice until someone gives it to them (which is why I have a problem with the whole "original voice" argument; why should I care which voice was recorded first?). I don't see how they "undermine" the original language at all; care to expound on that thought?

I don't think of it as what was recorded first, more what was intended by the productive team. Dubs very often alter from the productive team's plans for the product and change the balance of it. Undermine the original language.. I find it hard to expound as it feels naturally to me, basically that I consider replacing (and removing) a foreign language with your own to be disrespectful to that language. I don't like the word "disrespectful" but I couldn't find a better one.

To be fair, you probably should have opened with the concept that you aren't American.

You're coming from an entirely different perspective. The jump from English to Japanese that is being taken into account for about 90% of the posters so far isn't quite the same as Dutch/French/Spanish to English. Part of that is more similarities in the languages. A second part is that. . . It's not entirely unheard of that those countries may not want to work in English into culture like the Japanese and English and Americans and Spanish.

I probably should have. Too tempted to complain. Though I have pretty much only responded to the posts responding to mine, and my first post was a pretty direct answer to the opening post.

[Florete]

I don't think of it as what was recorded first, more what was intended by the productive team. Dubs very often alter from the productive team's plans for the product and change the balance of it. Undermine the original language.. I find it hard to expound as it feels naturally to me, basically that I consider replacing (and removing) a foreign language with your own to be disrespectful to that language. I don't like the word "disrespectful" but I couldn't find a better one.

Once again, I don't know what dubs you've seen, but at least when regarding anime they are faithful to the true product 99% of the time. They don't "alter" anything. The whole "what the producer's intended" argument is flawed as well, because they never intended for anyone to read their shows.

[Santino]

Once again, I don't know what dubs you've seen, but at least when regarding anime they are faithful to the true product 99% of the time. They don't "alter" anything. The whole "what the producer's intended" argument is flawed as well, because they never intended for anyone to read their shows.

I can't really argue about the quality in those cases, but I still stick to the producers intention stuff of principle. I might have been of a different opinion if I watched more of it, I dunno. Reading the shows is much less of an alteration than replacing large parts of the audio.

[Thor Odinson]

The only dubs, as a whole, that I have serious issues with are Korean dramas dubbed in Chinese.

They sound so unnatural. I've never, in my life, heard a good Chinese dub for a Korean drama, ever. And all of their voices sound the same. I suspect there's some type of machine involved to make the dub, because normal people don't talk like that. *cringe*

As for this whole debate thing right now, IMO, dubs are better if they're done well enough and you want to look at the pictures, and got decent enough hearing to back it up.

Subs are better if 1)the dub for that particular series suck 2)you read fast and want to listen to its natural language, and maybe pick up a few words and phrases along the way, and 3) you got crap for hearing.

[Nightmare]

I like the sound of Japanese for things like speeches and whatnot. I find it lends itself well to drama and "epicness", similarly to how I find French and Spanish have a more lush and emotional feel, or how I find Latin and Russian appealing in songs.

Names or honorifics. Names really sound awkward to me for some reason. Maybe it's just the way they say them.

These I forgot. Yeah, Japanese is really great for drama and all such.

As for Japanese names and/or honorifics, they sound uh...out of place and awkward. I tried watching Gurren Lagann's dub and when Yoko said "Yomako" and it sounded dumb, so I changed to Japanese.

Nothing against dubs themselves, but these are things I'd prefer to have/not have.

[eclipse]

For most of what I watch, subs. Nothing irritates me more than hearing a Japanese name butchered by a bad American accent (a la Naruto).

I also don't like having the foods changed from one thing to another (IT'S NOT A DONUT, IT'S A RICE BALL. Why do you insist on this, Pokemon? Onigiri rock! I think I'll have one for lunch).

If a dub's done really well, then I won't complain. One of my favorites is a video game (with a language option, so I could compare the two).