SUBS or DUBS? [Discussion]

[peter3123]

As title says, Subs or dubs? I personally prefer subs over dubs. What's your preference?

[megido-rev.M]

Don't we already have a thread for this?

[AceHigh]

We had many threads about this. Basically it's about preference, someone likes one thing, someone else likes another thing. Welcome to the luxury of choice.

[sackii]

Please god not again This might be the 10th attempt at this. There is no discussion here, the quality of Japanese voice actors is a gazillion times better than English ones. It all comes down to whether you mind or not reading text when you don't understand any Japanese.

Any way or the other, it's subjective and if this thread isn't shutdown before the next post.... here comes the drama.

[Saras]

Generally depends on the language you know least.

If you were fluent in Japanese, the errors in the Japanese audio would stick out like a sore thumb.
If you are fluent in English, the errors in the English audio stick out like a sore thumb.

Then we have convenience. Do you mind reading or not. And thirdly, there is what you're used to.

The combination of the lot tend to dictate personal preferences.


Having said that, there's nothing wrong about bringing up an old topic from the dead after a bit of time. People change, hell half the people online now weren't here 2 years ago, the predominant tastes of the masses, too, change as well. And quite frankly they should.

You also have to take into account, that the quality of English dubs have been getting better and better by the passing year. Something like Hellsing Ultimate is quite on par with it's far East equivalent.

[Bob2004]

Generally depends on the language you know least.

If you were fluent in Japanese, the errors in the Japanese audio would stick out like a sore thumb.
If you are fluent in English, the errors in the English audio stick out like a sore thumb.

Then we have convenience. Do you mind reading or not. And thirdly, there is what you're used to.

The combination of the lot tend to dictate personal preferences.


Having said that, there's nothing wrong about bringing up an old topic from the dead after a bit of time. People change, hell half the people online now weren't here 2 years ago, the predominant tastes of the masses, too, change as well. And quite frankly they should.

You also have to take into account, that the quality of English dubs have been getting better and better by the passing year. Something like Hellsing Ultimate is quite on par with it's far East equivalent.

Are you fluent in Japanese? No? Then you wouldn't actually have any idea about that. As someone who is nearly fluent in Japanese, I can confirm that the quality of voice acting in general is vastly superior to the English dubs. Obviously, there are many examples of terrible acting in Japanese dubs too - which is probably easier to recognise if you speak the language, yes - and there's a certain acting style used in a lot of anime which many people are put off by (I don't mind it so much personally, if it isn't taken too far), so you can't say all Japanese dubs are automatically better than the English, and there are plenty of reasons not to like many of them.

But in general the quality is far superior to most English language dubs (I suppose it might be more accurate to say American dubs - of the few non-American English dubs I've heard, the quality has generally been much higher. Steamboy, for example). There's no denying it.

(It is also made up for by the fact that Japanese acting in live action films tends to be absolutely abysmal. It really does feel like they're just messing around and not even trying to act properly half the time).

[Krudda]

I'm not voting on this poll, it's missing an option: no preference

I mostly agree with Bob2004.
The Japanese dub (YES IT'S TECHNICALLY A DUB) is most of the time better than the English (and other languages) dubs. I don't say this because I'm fluent in Japanese, far from it. I say this because I'm fluent in English.
Don't get me wrong, English dubs can kick ass too, and sometimes, are better SOUNDING than the Japanese dub.

Personally, to me, enjoyment is the main factor in whether or not I like something, not how well it was done (That goes for Live Action too. Japan just sucks at acting, but it's so corny, it's awesome)
I'll watch everything I get in any language, and I usually watch everything in both English and Japanese and If I don't like how one dub is going, I'll drop it and watch it in another language, it all depends on the show. I don't usually do that though, mostly I watch it in the language I preferred best, first, and come back to the other in a few months time.

I will say this however, I've never been fond of American dubs. I do however, really, REALLY like dubs from the UK, especially "The Ocean Group"

Translation is a difficult topic. As long as it makes sense, doesn't stray _too_ far from the original content, and makes me enjoy the media, I'm happy with it. Screw this elitist, purist attitude of "we won't watch dubs because they are translated wrong and that's totally not what was said" - YES, I'm looking at you, fan-subbers who only do Japanese and nothing but Japanese and refuse to do dual-audio or even consider it.

edit: I just looked back though all the posts and found this:

Please god not again This might be the 10th attempt at this. There is no discussion here, the quality of Japanese voice actors is a gazillion times better than English ones. It all comes down to whether you mind or not reading text when you don't understand any Japanese.

Any way or the other, it's subjective and if this thread isn't shutdown before the next post.... here comes the drama.

Thanks for forcing your opinion on us. Now find me some proof, divide it by opinion, sprinkle some mayonnaise on it, and express-mail it to satan, because nobody here even fully comprehends the value of "a gazillion" - yeah, it is a number though.

This is exactly the un-open minded kind of person I was talking about... No offence, but these kinds of posts, just piss me off. Don't misunderstand either, I'd say the same thing about someone who said dubs were the best and that Japanese w/ subs was awful.

[Saras]

I certainly ain't. I'm not fluent in either of the languages I was speaking about.

I meant that as a general example, that's not anime specific. It was a just general observation about consuming media in different languages, say English/German/Russian/Lithuanian/Chinese in my case, as those are the only languages that I can effectively use and actually notice errors in presentation, or the actual dialogue.

What I've found out is that my own personal ability in said languages and the kick in the face that immersion suffers, whenever a mistake is made, is inversely proportional.

Conversely, for my own personal sense of immersion to take a hit while watching anime or other Japanese specific media. It generally takes a pretty fucking blatant and unbearable mistake for me to actually notice it, as my own understanding of the language is just barely above that of a beginner. It's usually the case where some of the broken English used in subs is far more annoying than a character fucking up the intonation.

[Tiffanys]

Oh jesus christ... Not THIS again...

Look, it's like this: Let people prefer whatever they prefer and stay out of their fucking business about it. There's no need to be a snobbish elitist over freakin' subtitles. We all enjoy anime and we should just leave it at that.

Every time one of these threads pops up it always divulges to something like this...
"Dubs suck."
"I prefer dubs."
"Then you're stupid."
"wtf is wrong with dubs?"
"blah blah blah"
"Yeah well, blah blah blah!"
"blah blah blah!"
Flame war engaged.

[Krudda]

^ confirmed, I used to be a staff member at an anime streaming website, and we offered both a sub specific website, and a dub specific website, but the community was combined. DEAR GOD THE POSTS, the fucking posts I had to endure. I was forever deleting offensive comments, handing out warnings, moving shit. FFS people, opinion is opinion, it's not yours so don't get so mad about it. People are entitled to what they want/like.

I certainly ain't. I'm not fluent in either of the languages I was speaking about.

I meant that as a general example, that's not anime specific. It was a just general observation about consuming media in different languages, say English/German/Russian/Lithuanian/Chinese in my case, as those are the only languages that I can effectively use and actually notice errors in presentation, or the actual dialogue.

What I've found out is that my own personal ability in said languages and the kick in the face that immersion suffers, whenever a mistake is made, is inversely proportional.

Conversely, for my own personal sense of immersion to take a hit while watching anime or other Japanese specific media. It generally takes a pretty fucking blatant and unbearable mistake for me to actually notice it, as my own understanding of the language is just barely above that of a beginner. It's usually the case where some of the broken English used in subs is far more annoying than a character fucking up the intonation.

^ This reminded me of one quirk I really can't stand about English Dubs, and from what I can see, the problem appears to be getting worse instead of better - Mispronounced names.
Do these actors even read? There are even times where in the same anime, two actors totally pronounce the name of one character nothing like how it's meant to be. Makes it even worse when the actor who mispronounces the name is the one they're portraying :|

[ConsiderPhlebas]

A few of the historic records of why this is a bad idea...

http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=31479.0
http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=37762.0
http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=19467.0
http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=33570.0
http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=13951.0
...

[Bob2004]

I certainly ain't. I'm not fluent in either of the languages I was speaking about.

I meant that as a general example, that's not anime specific. It was a just general observation about consuming media in different languages, say English/German/Russian/Lithuanian/Chinese in my case, as those are the only languages that I can effectively use and actually notice errors in presentation, or the actual dialogue.

What I've found out is that my own personal ability in said languages and the kick in the face that immersion suffers, whenever a mistake is made, is inversely proportional.

Conversely, for my own personal sense of immersion to take a hit while watching anime or other Japanese specific media. It generally takes a pretty fucking blatant and unbearable mistake for me to actually notice it, as my own understanding of the language is just barely above that of a beginner. It's usually the case where some of the broken English used in subs is far more annoying than a character fucking up the intonation.

Ah, that is true. I've progressed to the point where I watch many anime without subtitles at all now (if they're not too complicated), but there was definitely a stage, when I had got good enough at Japanese to understand a reasonable amount, but still needed the subtitles, where it was very easy to notice glaring errors in the subs. That definitely pissed me off when it happened, and as you say, completely destroyed the immersion. Personally I didn't mind it too much, since I just took it as a sign that I was getting better at the language and enjoyed feeling all smug for a while, but I can understand it definitely would be a big problem for some people.

Although I think that problem can happen with dubs as well, just not to the same extent, perhaps. And there can be plenty of errors that could annoy anyone, whether or not they speak the original language, in both subs and dubs, of course.

[AceHigh]

This community is maturing, so all those previous topics were not in vain.

I see both self proclaimed sub and dub fans here conveying the same message as my first post here: people like different stuff, deal with it.

[surdumil]

I suggest that there should be more options to vote for, such as:

- no preference
- depends on the particular release due to a variety of issues

For me, the SUBS versus DUBS issue is pretty infantile when limited to simplistic overgeneralizations .

[sackii]

edit: I just looked back though all the posts and found this:

Please god not again This might be the 10th attempt at this. There is no discussion here, the quality of Japanese voice actors is a gazillion times better than English ones. It all comes down to whether you mind or not reading text when you don't understand any Japanese.

Any way or the other, it's subjective and if this thread isn't shutdown before the next post.... here comes the drama.

Thanks for forcing your opinion on us. Now find me some proof, divide it by opinion, sprinkle some mayonnaise on it, and express-mail it to satan, because nobody here even fully comprehends the value of "a gazillion" - yeah, it is a number though.

This is exactly the un-open minded kind of person I was talking about... No offence, but these kinds of posts, just piss me off. Don't misunderstand either, I'd say the same thing about someone who said dubs were the best and that Japanese w/ subs was awful.

This is what I was talking about. This has always been a time bomb topic. People have their minds set on this sort of thing. I hate being drawn to those topics because in the end... it's always people explaining their personal preferences or cutting down the other person's taste or calling them out on whatever dumb reason.

I didn't think I was going to have to explain the irony here but the way my post was phrased was done on purpose, satirically... hence the second sentence you didn't quote.

Any way or the other, it's subjective and if this thread isn't shutdown before the next post.... here comes the drama.

It is nonetheless my own opinion, and the same way I really don't care about other people's preferences on this matter since they can't force me to watch dubs... these threads are a waste of space and just a bait for easily offended people with self righteous beliefs. Nobody's preference is going to magically be changed upon reading the thread so calling me close-minded just because you can handle both subs and dubs while I can't is pretty petty. No offense.

[mrdkreka]

Who cares, as long as I don't have to hear them preach about it :-/

[MrIntruder]

For me I have no preference, it depends entirely on the quality of the release.

I have seen some fansubs that were just completely incorrect and full of memes (so troll subs) and I've also heard some dubs which were excruciatingly painful to listen to, conversely I've seen excellent fansubs that detail the story very well and also be very easy to read and I've also listened to dubs that demonstrated excellent voice acting.

There really is no only subs or only dubs option, it depends on the situation and quality. Edit: Examples of situation could be, what if you're hard of hearing, in that case you'll need subs anyway, same with being partially sighted, you'd need dubs. Perhaps you want to watch anime on a small screen, (so on a phone while on the go), reading subs might be difficult in that instance so dubs may instead be preferred. Some people have difficulty following subs while the action is going on so would prefer dubs in those instances.

This community is maturing, so all those previous topics were not in vain.

I see both self proclaimed sub and dub fans here conveying the same message as my first post here: people like different stuff, deal with it.

Just as AceHigh says, the community is maturing and I guess, people are realising that it really is situational, there are people who are fluent in either language and have preferences for either languages etc. This just means that there are so many things to consider so it isn't as clearcut a decision as it would seem to be.

[JoonasTo]

IB4L

[Zalis116]

To me, the primary reason for this debate went away when VHS was replaced by DVD and you were able to get two languages for the price of one without being forced to listen to either.

^ This reminded me of one quirk I really can't stand about English Dubs, and from what I can see, the problem appears to be getting worse instead of better - Mispronounced names.
Do these actors even read? There are even times where in the same anime, two actors totally pronounce the name of one character nothing like how it's meant to be. Makes it even worse when the actor who mispronounces the name is the one they're portraying :|

Blame the directors, not necessarily the actors. Particularly Steven Foster, who directs a much bigger percentage of dubs in the Sentai Filmworks era than he did in the ADV era, and notoriously doesn't care about Japanese name pronunciations. That, and the overall low-budget/rushed nature of dubbing these days. Sentai's dubs in particular tend to be rushed subtitle script readthroughs without much rewriting or other attention.

I do however, really, REALLY like dubs from the UK, especially "The Ocean Group"

That'd be Canada, not the UK.

[AceD]

What I said here http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=37762.msg4866972#msg4866972

and also what I said here http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=31479.msg4663034#msg4663034

Cya at the next sub vs dub thread later in the year.