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Since when were dubs acceptable?
Belove:
My first exposures to Anime were dubbed TV and maybe a dubbed Ghibli or two.
IAlthoguh I recognized films like Spirited Away and Castle in the Clouds as great years ago, the stuff on TV was mostly a turn off for me, and dubbing played a roll in that.
In more recent years when I went out of my way to watch more anime and get a taste for "The real thing" I watched a superb Anime, Gilgamesh, in dub. I found most of the voice acting to be very good and i enjoyed it very much.. even got a real crush on actress Brittney Karbowsky (playing Fuko) in one of her early voice acting roles (she had stage experience as well).
However, I've been a fan of foreign movies for years, and whenever possible I watch them in their native tongue. The original production team almost always has the largest budget and has the advantage of direction from a single artistic creative team. Furthermore, it's not possible to directly translate the product of one culture into the language of another, and foreign actors have challenges beyond their budget and directorial woes to immerse themselves in another culture sufficiently. Subtitles are no panacea either, though! They are unavoidably more useful when they are in a language you can read, e.g., English, rather than the original language. Then there is the biggest problem with subtitles, is that they take at least half your attention in most productions, and change the look, feel, and flow of a production. It's an art to reading them effectively and getting the most out of the intended more immersive experience, more visual experience. We're talking film here. These are not books. Even picture books...
Ultimately my goal is to learn all the languages and cultures of the world perfectly, and experience the world's works as they were truly intended. Always has been. But in the meantime, I find subtitles that try to present the foreign experience as closely as possible the next best thing. They ask a bit of someone new to a culture to learn some new words and concepts, but that's OK.
I haven't watched a dub in a long time.
Zalis116:
--- Quote ---But, I have never heard so many people talk about dubs like they're perfectly acceptable, and not at all shameful or seppuku-inducing.
Maybe it's because I was way into anime in the 90s, and back then dubs were atrocious (I still largely think they are).
--- End quote ---
Maybe... most people felt that dubs have improved considerably since the 90s?
If you want an actual answer to the possibly-rhetorical question in the topic, I'd say around 2003 or 2004. That's about when dubbed anime on TV shifted away from exclusively mass-market long-running shows like Sailor Moon, YYH, Cardcaptors, and DBZ. Instead, better dubs like Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain, Trigun, Texhnolyze, Read or Die, Witch Hunter Robin, FLCL, and Scryed (yes it's cheesy, but no more so than the show) were reaching TV audiences. And the consensus on more dub-centric sites is that other companies like ADV, Geneon, and Funimation had gotten their acts together and improved dub quality by that point as well.
--- Quote --- But, especially after watching anime for the last twenty years, I have come to understand that the cadence, the verbiage and the aesthetics of the Japanese language factor very heavily into anime, even if you can't understand exactly what they're saying.
--- End quote ---
You mean the way that Japanese voice actors record their lines over storyboards and rough-cut animation, and the lip flaps are sometimes wildly off-sync?
--- Quote from: SpeedKills ---But, I mean, if you look at the culture surrounding high-quality Japanese VOs, and the best English dub ever done, they're still miles apart.
--- End quote ---
If you go to major conventions in the US, you'll find plenty of fan following and attention surrounding popular dub VAs. The fandom has changed, and many of the teens/early-20somethings just don't associate English dubs with the stigma they acquired in the 1990s and before.
--- Quote from: arsa666 ---All the sounds that fall away, the puns and just jokes in general which aren't translatable.
--- End quote ---
It's not like every single Japanese pun and joke is the epitome of great comedy, and every dubbed/translated joke is automatically terrible just because it didn't come first. If you learn Japanese and see a lot of anime, the lameness and repetitiveness of Japanese comedy (and Japanese scriptwriting in general, hampered by the comparatively low lexical diversity of their language) really become apparent. I'd much rather have creatively rewritten English jokes than suffer through another round of "futon ga futonda" or "do bananas count as snacks?" again.
--- Quote ---I feel like the larger acceptance of dubs over subs, and thinking that they're mostly equivalent is kind of like... a cardinal sin.
--- End quote ---
Then forgive me Father, for I have sinned. While I definitely acknowledge and refuse to watch certain bad dubs, most of the time, I just view the dubbed versions as the same show in another language. I still like subs better in general, but being worse than something else doesn't automatically make something bad.
SpeedKills:
This thread has enlightened me to the fact that there are poser anime nerds here! But, still, a few cool people who recognize that dubs are from Satan's own heart.
at least Zalis answered my rhetorical question, though. There was a point when dubs became acceptable, even for 'hardcore' fans. But, in my mind, real anime fans understand why the original Japanese isn't just superior or better or whatever, but integral to understanding the anime.
I wasn't one of the kids that saw DBZ or Sailor Moon on TV, and got into anime, though. I was one of those kids that started with Rurouni Kenshin and Berserk subbed off the internet, and that is a whole other breed of anime fan.
Anyone who can relate to those last statements will also understand that to be cool is to hate dubs!
I sound like I'm being elitist, but this is the internet, after all. Take it as a good-natured ribbing, instead of spontaneously combusting. :p
hybridial:
"true" anime fans seem to be the kind who'll accept any old shit as long as it conforms to their ideas of what anime should be. I myself don't much care if an anime is dubbed or not, I care far more about whether the writing is actually any good, whether the aesthetic is any good, and whether I'm entertained or not. Like lets take Full Metal Panic (dubbed) and Elfen Lied (subbed). Elfen Lied is just a terrible anime, doesn't matter what language it's in. Full Metal Panic is a good anime to start with, the dub is very competent and doesn't take away from anything, some jokes are funnier to me as they were rewritten to better reflect english humour. But the main thing is it's actually good.
This matters much more to me than being counted as part of a group of people who actually think moe is acceptable in any way or form :P
sams88:
--- Quote from: hybridial on March 13, 2013, 04:13:24 PM ---"true" anime fans seem to be the kind who'll accept any old shit as long as it conforms to their ideas of what anime should be. I myself don't much care if an anime is dubbed or not, I care far more about whether the writing is actually any good, whether the aesthetic is any good, and whether I'm entertained or not. Like lets take Full Metal Panic (dubbed) and Elfen Lied (subbed). Elfen Lied is just a terrible anime, doesn't matter what language it's in. Full Metal Panic is a good anime to start with, the dub is very competent and doesn't take away from anything, some jokes are funnier to me as they were rewritten to better reflect english humour. But the main thing is it's actually good.
This matters much more to me than being counted as part of a group of people who actually think moe is acceptable in any way or form :P
--- End quote ---
Funny that you talk about Elitists Anime fan who watch old crap ... with your Dirty Pair Avatar ::)
Just kidding, Dirty Pair is AWESOME ;D
A good dub is good, it makes the anime fun, but there is a point that a sub version portrays the closest the intent of the Anime creator. Sometimes the intent is so crappy that dub or sub it is downright weird, like the End of Evangelion.
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