Since when were dubs acceptable?

[donald1]

i just prefer subs with original japanese audio. not that i hate dubs, some are done well in fact, but i like the way the japanese language sounds especially when im watching anime. it matches the characters better in most cases. i have met a few people who wanna watch anime, but insist on only watching dubbed shows just to not have to read.

[arsa666]

Japanese is REALLY not suitable for dubbing, and when they dub a anime they actually kills a big part of it.
All the sounds that fall away, the puns and just jokes in general which isnt translatable.
And I just think the american voice acting sound terrible...

But I must say, I have heard a couple dubs on anime movies that arent that terrible. Ofc they have a totally different budget. And movies are often more suitable for dubs, the usually dont have all the regular puns and jokes like in series.

Still, I never watch dubs... Makes me cringe

[sams88]

As someone said before even with dubs you still have Subs available, unless you watch your anime in the living room with people who like dubs.

personally the music of Japanese voice actors is always nice to hear and sometimes I do pick some words, who knows maybe I might be able to sustain a 2 minute conversation in Japanese. Although I did meet once a Japanese girl and it was kind of fun to use some Japanese words, even if she probably think of me as an idiot who watches Anime. Sometimes you just can't win. 

[Ashall]

What makes dubs acceptable is the fact I could turn on my TV (well before I cut my cable) and watch anime. Redubbing opened the doors to a lot of foreign media. You can shout and moan all you want about the quality of the voice acting but it doesn't change the fact you have access to it due to the fact it is licensed in the West and redubbed in your tongue. E.g. if Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball Z had never been dubbed would half of us even care about anime. Probably not.

[sams88]

What makes dubs acceptable is the fact I could turn on my TV (well before I cut my cable) and watch anime. Redubbing opened the doors to a lot of foreign media. You can shout and moan all you want about the quality of the voice acting but it doesn't change the fact you have access to it due to the fact it is licensed in the West and redubbed in your tongue. E.g. if Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball Z had never been dubbed would half of us even care about anime. Probably not.

There so much truth in that, I remember the first animes I had ever seen was Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon, anything else I saw a few years afterwards at a friend who had a French dubbed Anime Satellite Dish channel, I might still be able to sing the "Ranma 1/2" French OP because I loved it so much.

Armchair elitism misses the point that Dub brought Anime to so many audiences, it is only now that I am in my twenties and speak English that I watch sub anime. Both have their strength.

[ConsiderPhlebas]

I do realize that it's different for everyone, and that there are large cultural differences playing a role here as well (some countries use dubs for most foreign TV/films, others almost only subs).

In my case dubs kept me away from anime for many years; the only things I happened to see were half-assed animations with poor dubbing passing by when zapping on TV. Then a friend introduced me to some fansub or rip of a decent anime, and I realized... WTF, why have they hidden this from me? Bastards! 

As for the original question, since when are they acceptable?

Personally, selfishly, I can't but detest dubs (have still to find one reasonably close to the level of the real stuff, having checked out at least 50 or so), but it's simply a matter of taste, so watch what you like and be happy...

[Finalizer]

I feel like the larger acceptance of dubs over subs, and thinking that they're mostly equivalent is kind of like... a cardinal sin.

"They like things I don't like, and that's just terrible!"

Seems some things never change.

[sams88]

I feel like the larger acceptance of dubs over subs, and thinking that they're mostly equivalent is kind of like... a cardinal sin.

"They like things I don't like, and that's just terrible!"

Seems some things never change.

lol

So true, I mean I could understand you complaining about this stuff 20 years ago, but now we have the internet and you can not only get both dub and Sub but even different kinds : Fansub with commentaries and no commentaries.

There is nothing more hilarious than a a subber or two putting their witty comments in a sub if they do it right, or you can have it straight if you want to.

Acting like the Spanish Inquisition of Anime is outdated by now 

I do realize that it's different for everyone, and that there are large cultural differences playing a role here as well (some countries use dubs for most foreign TV/films, others almost only subs).

In my case dubs kept me away from anime for many years; the only things I happened to see were half-assed animations with poor dubbing passing by when zapping on TV. Then a friend introduced me to some fansub or rip of a decent anime, and I realized... WTF, why have they hidden this from me? Bastards! 

As for the original question, since when are they acceptable?

Personally, selfishly, I can't but detest dubs (have still to find one reasonably close to the level of the real stuff, having checked out at least 50 or so), but it's simply a matter of taste, so watch what you like and be happy...

Sub is always more difficult if you are not too much into anime or if you don't really like the anime you are watching or the dialogue is just painful, I dropped a few anime because besides the animation being boring the dialogue would also be a lackluster. But if there is a great way to enjoy anime if subbed, there is nothing better than the melody of the voice actors in GuP or Samurai Girls.

Now some dubbed stuff is also great, nobody can deny that Afro Samurai was fun watch and hear. ( I know it wasn't Japanese original, but it is great voice acting)

[HeartVivian]

Woah! There are anime that are dubbed? My mind has been blown. Although my elitism will always compel to watch subs over dubs. I mean Japan is the holy land after all. (Sarcasm)


I have seen some pretty good dubs, however I have only seen one series where the dubs is on a comparable level as the subs in which watching either would not compromise the anime or distort the way the anime comes off (if that makes sense).

I just find it difficult to watch some dubs simply because some voice actors are a terrible match for the character (assuming I have watched the subs originally) and in my mind, I am making this comparison. It's basically a matter of preference as with most things in this world.

If we made a simile, watching dubs is like listening to a cover of a song. It could be better than the original (sometimes it is) or it can be worse.

[buchno]

I generally prefer to watch movies and series in the language of the country they're set in. Like Bob said, the British dub of Steamboy is better, and the Finland Swedish dub of Moomin far surpasses the Japanese audio. However, most animes are set in Japan (or fictional countries), and so I watch most of them in Japanese.

[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]

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).

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.

 

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.

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?

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. 

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.

All the sounds that fall away, the puns and just jokes in general which aren't translatable.

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.

I feel like the larger acceptance of dubs over subs, and thinking that they're mostly equivalent is kind of like... a cardinal sin.

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

[sams88]

"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

Funny that you talk about Elitists Anime fan who watch old crap ... with your Dirty Pair Avatar 

Just kidding, Dirty Pair is AWESOME 

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.

[megido-rev.M]

Domon's English voice dubbing was also kinda funny.

[dakarv]

You realize most of you guys are technically off-topic, right? 
Nobody asked if you prefer subs or dubs. Actually, nobody asked anything.

What was the purpose of the topic?

Um I'm pretty sure he asked since when were dubs acceptable
You must see how the quality of dubbed vs subbed is completely relevant to if they are acceptable


In theory I actually prefer dubbed but there is very few stuff that gets it right
Cowboy bebop is one I prefer in dub
DBZ is another but the original audio quality is very bad, the voices are terrible too though, goku sounds like a girl

All the sounds that fall away, the puns and just jokes in general which isnt translatable.

it's not like the puns work so well with subbed, they don't translate over, then they try to explain it with a lot of txt, I often have to pause and rewind to read it which then isn't very funny as its just a throwaway pun which didn't translate

[mech]

I've watched anime long enough to recall the times when any anime fan saying they liked dubs would be thought of as mentally defective. You'd have to be as English dubbing wasn't something the Anime companies put much backing behind back then. Try watching the English dub of Macross DYRL aka Clash of the Bionoids, yikes that was bad.

However times have changed as dubs have improved dramatically overall compared to the past.  For me, the turnaround occurred with Cowboy Bebop. It was the first anime where I actually preferred the English dub over the Japanese (I watched once through in one dub, then the other, so I am qualified to compare). It sounds sacrilegious I know, but those English voice actors in Cowboy Bebop nailed it, it's like their voices were tailor made for their characters.

Since English is my primary language and I don't speak Japanese, when there's good English voice acting, I can appreciate it more and interprety it better when they change their cadence for a specific word here or add emphasis on another word there. For the same reason, it's why we can all recognize bad English dubbing. With Japanese, I'm feeling the emotion in their voices but things that only a Japanese speaker would recognize fly past me (ex. if a character purposefully mispronounces a word).  I still mainly listen to animes in Japanese, but I will give the English dub a chance especially if I'm rewatching something, as an added bonus I get to focus on the visuals more instead of having to read the subtitles.

BTW the other anime where I can say where I preferred the English dub over the Japanese is Samurai Champoloo. Again, the voice actors matched their characters perfectly.

[JoonasTo]

This is kind of offtopic but a lot of the "kill all dubs"-guys mention that english dubs kill off japanese dubs' jokes and puns. How exactly do the english subs do any better at this?

[kojito00]

This is kind of offtopic but a lot of the "kill all dubs"-guys mention that english dubs kill off japanese dubs' jokes and puns. How exactly do the english subs do any better at this?

I don't think the subs, in itself, do any better. However, the translator's notes do help the subs and put the jokes/puns/any cultural references into context. See, translators notes are omitted with dubs; as a viewer, I'd like to understand what is being delivered to us, but given that we lack the knowledge of Japanese culture (or at least I do), then I'm pretty much f***ed when references aren't explained. For example, I grew up watching a dubbed version of Rurouni Kenshin (called Samurai X), and I liked it. But after the convenience of the internet became available, I saw the subbed version and apparently Kenshin supposedly have this distinct speech pattern that is otherwise absent in the dubbed version. Did the omission of the said speech patten in the English dub necessarily take away anything from the series? Not really. But then again, the characters have certain reactions to him and his type of speech that is easy to misunderstand or be confused with if we were unaware.