Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - A Tale As Old As Time: Subs or Dubs?
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Jabootu
Posts: 241 |
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Kadmos1 did opine:
Maybe it's technically true, but it's not true in the larger sense. The performances we hear are the ones that the people who actually made the show; the director, the casting director, the actors themselves; used to represent the characters and the series itself. It's also technically true that quite a few Japanese films made before the modern era were dubbed, since they were generally ADR'd. True, but not really to the point. Also, American voice acting inevitably makes the product more American. I don't want my anime to be American. I want it to be Japanese (or Korean or Chinese or whatever). In the end the argument is kind of silly, because everyone should just watch what they want. That said, preferring dubs strikes me as being akin to preferring remakes of classic old films because the modern versions are more approachable to modern viewers. In other words, it strikes us elitist types as being just a little bit lazy. So yes, I do personally think subs are, in fact, superior to dubs. Having said that, I'm not sure why anyone should care about what I think on the issue. Fly free, little birds, even if I think you're flying the wrong direction. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24141 |
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I prefer subs even though I do not speak or understand Japanese. I really like the sound of Japanese as a language even though I don't speak it. As a collector of physical media, dubbing is a little bit of a drag for me because it increases the cost of production which is then passed on to me, the consumer. I'm paying for a feature I probably will never use. Flip side of that is that dubbing almost certainly contributed to the popularity of anime in North America. If for some bizarre reason dubbing was not a thing, anime may have continued to be super, super, super niche which means we may not have arrived at the present situation where virtually every single anime made gets a legit release here in North America.
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VirgilTB4
Subscriber Posts: 12 |
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For physical media releases there are fewer avenues for a show to get dubbed anymore, particularly niche shows that Crunchyroll or Sentai wouldn't pickup (Netflix/Disney/Hulu, etc, etc are going to prevent a physical release if they can). The loss of Right Stuf/Nozumi is tremendous as they were one of the few companies willing to release shows that the the others wouldn't even look at. They had started a successful campaign of Kickstaters to be able to ensure they could cover the costs to release certain shows but that's of course now dead. Discotek does an admirable job, but I think they're a smaller operation than Nozumi was so its probably more difficult for them as stated in the article.
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 377 |
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In case you're not being sarcastic, it's a reference to a rather infamous scene from the original 4Kids dub of Pokemon taking a scene where Brock is plainly eating a rice ball and having him say that it was a jelly donut.
That reminds me of some parody videos where it takes scenes from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure where all the characters are different nationalities and stitches together all the dubs so like, Polnareff is speaking French while Joseph speaks English, etc etc. |
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TsarPlatinum
Posts: 41 |
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It's as relevant to the point as any other reason someone may have for liking or disliking a dub. I don't think dubs should be use for some writer or company's political soapbox no matter whichever side of the line they fall on so if it's going to be a common thing that pops up in dubs then I'd just sooner avoid them all together. If a creator wanted to say something political then they will. They don't need a voice actor or script writer to insert it in for them. I disagree with their description of Ghost Stories though. That dub made fun of everyone. It may have turned Momoko into a fanatical Christian stereotype but it also turned Keiichirou into a mentally challenged kid with a speech impediment. Plus all the jokes about blacks, women, and other topics that I would most certainly not classify it as a progressive or left-wing dub. I guess the difference these days is the political stuff in dubs is pretty one sided than it was pre-2016. |
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Flash33
 Posts: 71 Location: Florida |
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While I don't mind watching the occasional English sub I prefer watching English dubs when I can. Not only is it what I grew up with but it also allows me to connect with the worlds & characters easier.
I won't deny that bad English dubs exist, but let's not pretend that bad subs (both official & not) and JP dubs don't exist too as they most certainly do. That said English dubs have indeed come a long way since the 80s, 90s and 00s, and aside from kid targeted shows like Pokemon, Yugioh and early Beyblade the practice of extensive censorship or Bowdlerisation is largely a thing of the past. All too often in this debate I hear people make excuses to flame the dub but praise the sub, such as these:
"If I can't understand what's being said then it's automatically better even if they mess up" - Double-standard. While it's true we're more likely to pick up on subtleties & off acting in familiar languages, that doesn't mean the unfamiliar language (even if it has a bad performance) is automatically better. "Dubs change the spirit of the script too much" - Subs can too, and like with dubs it depends on the script writer(s) and/or translator(s). The infamous "People die when they're killed" line from Fate/Stay Night? A fansubbers "Blind Idiot" Translation. "Dubs use the same actors constantly" - While it’s true that some companies like Funimation have been known to reuse the same people (directors, script writers, voice actors, etc.) show to show so often (for better or worse) this also ignores the fact that Japanese companies reuse the same people as well. The reason is because these people are more experienced in their roles & thus can be counted on to do their jobs right consistently as opposed to a new recruit. If we’re gonna criticize local/native dubbing companies for reusing the same people then it’s only fair to criticize Japanese companies for doing the same. "Local/Native VAs aren't cute/cool/whatever enough compared to JP VAs" - Ok, and that's relevant to the quality of the VAs overall performance how exactly? Overall if you prefer one over the other that's fine. That said, while bad dubs do exist bad subs do too, & it's only fair we criticize both if/when they do mess up. Conversely when good dubs do happen it's only fair we give them the same recognition & praise we would give to good subs rather than childishly pretending dubs/subs can do no right/wrong (my biggest pet peeve with some people whenever this debate happens). For extra reading I think the TV Tropes article called Subbing Versus Dubbing does a good job listing the advantages and disadvantages of both.
So basically you only want anime to have Asian voices and nothing else. If having American voice acting makes a product more American then by that logic wouldn't having Korean or Chinese voice acting make a product more Korean or Chinese? Maybe I'm missing something but I honestly fail to see the logic in this argument, especially when some shows (such as the K-On! Movie) have been known to use non-JP VAs in them even on the sub side of things when the situation calls for it (in the movie's case since the setting is London and not Japan they got English people to voice most of the English characters). Also, there are plenty of instances where the original show directors have a hand in how the dub is handled such as helping pick the foreign language VAs for their works. Examples include Hayao Miyazaki, Hideaki Anno and Naoko Takeguchi.
You're forgetting that for people with disabilities dubs are often the only way for them to experience anime, so calling people who prefer dubs lazy comes off as pretty tone-deaf honestly. Last edited by Flash33 on Fri Nov 08, 2024 1:50 pm; edited 11 times in total |
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MartinWisse
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There has actually been one anime that fits those criteria: Alfred J. Kwak, based on a Dutch stage play/musical for children and set in a fictionalised version of Holland. And yes, I do like the Dutch language version of that, if only because I watched that one first as a child. Likewise, I do have a fondness for shows I watched dubbed as a child, like the Dutch version of The Wizard of Oz anime, even when the dub took a lot of liberties by taking every moment of tension or silence and filling it with bad jokes or worse puns. More modern anime like the latest Pokemon sound godawful though, but then so do the dubbed Disney kid shows, with voice actors either over acting or not putting any effort in. However, even if these dubs were perfect I'd rather hear the original language, as that fits the environment in which a series has been created best, even when a series is set elsewhere. |
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AverageAnimeFan
 Posts: 65 |
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In 2024 dubs are almost always a more faithful translation than subs. Weird nobody has mentioned that yet. All of the "woke" translation incidents from the last few years are always in the subtitled version. Subs are usually a translation done by 1 person getting paid almost nothing. Dubs are an entire team with a legitimate budget.
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13616 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Not true. http://youtube.com/watch?v=8_nh4SPTm8k has the heroine say "Kiss me, incel" to the hero in the Eng. dub. In the Japanese, she said "virgin". I don't think "incel" was a good use of word replacement here. Heck, "cherry boy" would have been better than "incel". |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 377 |
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I mean they're saying the same thing right? She's intentionally trying to provoke him by mocking him and saying he doesn't get laid. I fail to see the difference. And that example aside, sure bad dubs still happen, the same way bad subs or bad anime or bad any form of media still happens, but the point is we are way past the dark ages of the 90s/early 00s. Bad dubs are the exception, not the rule. |
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 767 Location: North America |
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The common anime discussion usage is "sub" for Japanese spoken language with translated subtitles, and "dub" for new spoken vocal tracks with Japanese translated into another language. Calling what are commonly referred to as subs as (Japanese) dubs will lead to unnecessary confusion, whatever the merits of the argument behind it.
Agreed, especially for women singing with childlike voice and voicing child characters, which is typically annoying in English.
Only Pokemon I have watched is the YouTube clip of the infamous red and blue backgrounds alternating at 24 Hz. I thought a rice ball was elementary school Tohru Honda? 
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mgree0032
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I just got a hot take: 4kids opened the door for children’s anime dubs than other children’s anime dubbing company at its time.
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shosakukan
Posts: 333 |
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As to the 'energy' thing, you might have seen scenes in anime where a character/voice actor was saying something like /enɛrgiː/ whilst the English sub was saying, 'Energy.' (For example, I think that in some wave motion gun scenes in Space Battleship Yamato anime one of the crew says, 'エネルギー充塡 120％.') If so, actually, in Japan, the most usually used loanword which Japanese people use when they mention what native users of English refer to by the English word 'energy' is 'エネルギー', which is derived from the German word 'Energie' (/enɛrgiː/). The 4th edition of the Daijirin dictionary says:
In the early Meiji period, Japanese scientists organised a society about scientific terms in order to discuss things such as how to translate Occidental scientific terms into Japanese and how to adopt science-related loanwords from Occidental languages, and the society also compiled and published a dictionary of scientific terms in the early Meiji period. Already in this early-Meiji-period dictionary, what native users of English referred to by the English word 'energy' was written as 'エネルギー', and it was derived from German. Probably this dictionary indirectly encouraged also laymen's coming to use the derived-from-German loanword 'エネルギー' in Japan. I have checked the brief personal histories of the members of the scientific society in question, and in the society there were many scientists who studied in Germany. Moreover, in Japan, in the early Meiji period, German scientists taught at schools which would later become Tokyo Imperial University, and one of the science textbooks which the Ministry of Education chose for students of early-Meiji-period schools roughly equivalent to latter-day high schools was Lehrbuch der Physik und Meteorologie by Johann Heinrich Jacob Müller. You may have watched the Doomed Megalopolis anime. One of the principal characters in the Doomed Megalopolis anime (and in the novel series on which the anime was based) is real-life physicist Terada Torahiko, who was also a disciple of Natsume Sōseki, and Terada, too, studied in Germany. Speaking of pronouncing foreign words, according to an essay by Terada about his days at Friedrich Wilhelm University (the University of Berlin), interestingly, German geophysicist Adolf Friedrich Karl Schmidt pronounced the surname of British mathematician Augustus Edward Hough Love as /loːfɛ/. I have read To Plan Editorial Collections of Literary Works, a talk between three Japanese men of letters, in the original, and, in the book, in the part about poet-scholar Nishiwaki Junzaburō, novelist-critic Maruya Saiichi, who was one of the translators of James Joyce's Ulysses, has said:
Even in the case of an intellectual who read English literature at the University of Tokyo and its postgraduate school, taught English and English literature at universities, and translated Joyce's Ulysses into Japanese, when he talked in Japanese and mentioned what native users of English refer to by the English word 'energy', he used the derived-from-German loanword 'エネルギー'. Since a company that belongs to the Tokyo Electric Power group writes its name in kanji and katakana as 東京電力エナジーパートナー and a company that belongs to the Panasonic Group writes its name in katakana and kanji as パナソニック エナジー株式会社, the derived-from-English loanword 'エナジー', too, has come to be somewhat used in Japan, maybe in recent years. But, in their Japanese manuscripts, when Japanese scriptwriters, manga-ka, writers of light novels, or the like write a from-an-Occidental-language loanword which means what native users of English refer to by the English word 'energy', the first choice would be still the derived-from-German loanword 'エネルギー'. On a side note, when a person is energetic, Japanese people often describe him/her as エネルギッシュ. This loanword 'エネルギッシュ' is derived from the German word 'energisch' (/enɛrgɪʃ/). And when someone looks greasy or something is greasy, as a slang expression, Japanese people sometimes describe the person/thing as 脂ギッシュ aburagisch. '脂ギッシュ' is a portmanteau word which consists of 'aburagiru' (to look greasy/to be greasy) + 'energisch'. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18442 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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So the gist is that we're hearing what sounds like a mispronunciation of "energy" because it's actually being borrowed from a language which pronounces that word differently, and not English? Interesting. (And BTW, I do actually get the Doomed Megalopolis reference. I even own its DVD.) Now let's try an explanation for why Simon in Gurren Lagann is not pronounced the way that name normally is in English (and how that was allowed to carry over into the English dub). . . |
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light turner
Posts: 179 |
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Almost every time localization complaints pop up it's from the dub of a show and not the sub. Yes, bad sub localizations exist as well but 9 times out of 10 whenever a new controversy happens it's from the English dub script rather than the subtitle track. Which is why my response every time that happens is to tell people to just watch the sub. And if a sub is bad it can be easily fixed either by the company or fans. Fixing a dub is a lot more rare given the effort required. I can't think of any instance where a dub was more accurate than the Japanese version than the subtitles were unless the subtitles were some kind of machine translated mess or the wrong subs for a show got put in another show by mistake which has happened a couple times on Crunchyroll. But that usually gets fixed within a day or so. |
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