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Is There Bad Acting in Japanese?

Of course there is. It may be a little more difficult for people who are newer to anime to hear due to the language barrier, but a lot of Japanese dubs are horrendous. In fact, quite a few shows where people say the dub is the only way to watch it tend to have mediocre Japanese versions anyway. I'm personally not too fond of Elfen Lied or Yu Yu Hakusho's Japanese tracks.

Of course. FYI, the Japanese are humans too. As noted in almost every post, we just cannot tell due to the language barrier.

However, this makes me wonder. As a follow-up question, do some people out there view Japanese voicing as perfection due to the inability to hear the flaws? After 20+ too long years of the whole retarded "Sub vs Dub" thing, did this view play a factor into it?

The Japanese voice acting is always better than the English voice acting.

Ha. No, seriously. Ha.

Once upon a time, you could say this and know it to be true, not because you knew anything about the Japanese acting, but because the English dub acting was so absolutely amateurishly awful. These days, it's rare for a dub to not be at least passable, and several studios consistently produce very good dubs. So to continue to make this argument, you have to be able to describe just how good the Japanese acting is.

That's where the argument breaks down. If you don't speak Japanese, you cannot determine with any degree of accuracy whether the acting is any good. And please, spare me the hooie about how you can just tell by how well the actors emote. Any actor can emote. Emoting is one part of acting. There's timing, enunciation, and all kinds of nuances that go into delivering a good line, all of which is lost on you if you don't speak the language. Scott Frazier tells a funny story about how he learned one of his favorite anime (Dirty Pair) was horribly acted, once he became fluent in Japanese.

The sad truth of the matter is that most Japanese anime voice acting is of average quality. This is not to impugn the Japanese; it's merely Sturgeon's Law at work. For every Akira Kamiya and Megumi Hayashibara, there are scores of actors giving uninspired, cookie-cutter performances.

However, this makes me wonder. As a follow-up question, do some people out there view Japanese voicing as perfection due to the inability to hear the flaws? After 20+ too long years of the whole retarded "Sub vs Dub" thing, did this view play a factor into it?