wich is all the more reason to avoid english dubs since they often avoid using honorifics.
Question, though: have you tried watching an English dub that
does use honorifics? Like
Ai Yori Aoshi, for instance. See also
Lucky Star. The problems with honorifics in dubs are:
1) they're often mispronounced -- like "-san" as in "Santa" and "-chan" as in "channel." (IIRC the AYA dub pronounces them right, but others don't.) In a way, it's better not to hear them at all than to hear wrong versions of them.
2) they can worsen the overall performance. Much has been said in this thread and elsewhere about English voice acting sounding fake or unnatural. That's debatable, but giving the actors a bunch of name suffixes that they're not used to saying in everyday conversation is not going to help anything.
3) they can detract from the entertainment value. You may find it hard to believe, but people who watch or favor dubs aren't always concerned about getting an exact perfect translation of the Japanese version. They want something enjoyable and entertaining, and that usually means something that sounds natural and believable in English. Sure there are issues that will always be there, like the mouth flaps, but throwing a bunch of honorifics in there is bound to make dialogue sound less natural in English.
Especially if it's a show like Last Exile, Vandread, Solty Rei, Noir, Scrapped Princess, etc. that aren't set in Japan.
I've even heard dub fans complaining about honorifics in dubs, saying "get them out of there, I don't want them." If you were trying to sell a product, would you take simple measures to please people who generally like your products, or bend over backwards trying to please the haters who will find faults no matter what?
Another problem with dubbing is the loss of or misinterpretation of emotions. Once again, because of the cultural differences, certain emotions will be lost in the dubbing process. For example, in Great Teacher Onizuka, Onizuka is an ex-Bosozoku member. He has a very distinct tone of voice of a typical Japanese delinquent. In the dubbed version, they could not, or were too cheap to even consider that tone of voice, so after translating and making a script proper for an American audience, they took a voice actor and dubbed over the anime without the tone of voice. Without that tone of voice, the character's emotion is lost in the process.
People who pick the show up and watch it dubbed won't care about that. It's been awhile since I've seen any of GTO, but IIRC they used a tough-guy/wise-guy voice for Onizuka. Him being an ex-gang member was believable, given the tone of voice they used. Was it the exact same typical-delinquent voice as the Japanese version? No, but it still worked. Acting is interpreting a character, not imitating someone else's interpretation of it.
