Forum - View topicAccents In Anime Dubs
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Snomaster1
 SubscriberPosts: 2967 |
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Well,getchman. My view is different. I had no problems with the accents in "Infinite Stratos." I liked them a lot. Your opinion is different than mine. It's no big deal to me. If you don't like accents in anime dubs,than that's up to you. I don't really have a problem with them. I do agree with you on this. It should be up to an ADR director whether an accent should be used in a dub or not. My view is that if the anime is set in a place where those accents are to be used,than it's better to have them and have the place feel more authentic than not. But,that's just me. You feel differently and I respect that.
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Snomaster1
Subscriber Posts: 2967 |
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I don't know if anyone here has watched "Zom 100:Bucket List of the Dead,"a recent episode introduced one of it's most interesting characters. Her name is Beatrix Amerhauser. And,to be perfectly frank,she's cute. Thankfully,there's more to her than a pretty face. She's very good at annihilating zombies with abandon. Her martial arts expertise would make Bruce Lee proud.
Once again,while her German accent doesn't appear in the Japanese version,it does appear in the English version. Now,there are those who say it's stereotypical,but I don't see the harm in it. The way it's done by Laura Post just adds to her character as this sweet,adorable girl who's loved Japanese culture since she was little. She's a lot like many foreigners who enjoy stuff like anime and wants to go and visit Japan. Sadly for her,she had the misfortune to visit the country during a zombie apocalypse there. In a way,her fighting skills and knowledge of weapons comes in real handy in that situation. So,we've got a beautiful girl who's also an amazing fighter all wrapped up in a gorgeous package with her adorable accent as the bow on top. Let's be honest here. It's hard not not to like an amazing and lovely character like Ms. Amerhauser. It's also hard not to see her appeal. She's just so fun to watch and her German accent fits her real well. It's not for nothing,she's one of the most popular characters in "Zom 100." It's a shame that the Japanese version didn't give her a similar accent. I wonder what a German accent is like in Japanese? I guess it's one of those questions that we might not ever get an answer to. Last edited by Snomaster1 on Wed Jan 01, 2025 3:06 am; edited 2 times in total |
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mgree0032
Posts: 294 |
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I think why people hate these accents in anime dub is because they can become borderline stereotyping like with children’s anime dubs in the 90s and 2000s.
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Flash33
 Posts: 88 Location: Florida |
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While I do see your point I'd counter argue that focusing on it too much could end you up in a catch-22 situation: authentic accents but mediocre or bad overall performances, or no accents but good/great overall performances. This can be especially jarring if the cast started using an accent when they didn't previously, such as with the English dub of Violet Evergarden (no accents in the tv show, accents in the movie, same voice cast for both, which came off as jarring when I first heard them). There's also the issue of finding people who have an authentic accent, can give a good performance and lives in or around the area the voices are being recorded at. While one could always delay the airing to find authentic actors, at what point does the cost outweigh the benefits?
Personally while I wouldn't mind more dubs to use authentic accents if they can, at the end of the day I feel the quality of the performances overall should take priority if accent authentic VAs that can also give solid performances can't be found if that makes sense. |
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Snomaster1
Subscriber Posts: 2967 |
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Well,mgree0032,Flash33,I tend to agree with you to a certain extent. You have to walk a very fine line when you use an accent,especially in an English anime dub. If you don't,you end up having the anime's setting feel inauthentic. On the other hand,do it wrong and it can end up becoming stereotypical. For me,I tend to fall on the side of making the person or setting feel authentic,so I tend to go with having the accents there. Now,that's just my judgment. Usually,it's up to the director to see how this should be handled.
With Beatrix Amerhauser,they did a good job with her and I felt that the accent was handled well. But again,it's up to the directors and those behind the scenes to make up their own minds about this,not me. |
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Andy26
 Posts: 68 Location: Flippin Arkansas |
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I've often wondered about this aspect. When the original Anime are written and acted in Japan and they intend for the characters to have a distinct accent I am sure they try and portray that accent, Then does it get reassimilated into something else when the West dubs it into English, or other languages.
Two examples that come to mind are Fire Force and Food Wars. In both shows there is a character whose family is from a rural area. I believe potato farmers in FF and Fishing Villiage in Food Wars. In the dubbed version they sound like West Virginian mountain folk (No offense, I'm from Missouri and have my own accent as well). Was it the intent of the original Japanese to have these characters sound so country and is there in Japan an actual "Country Grammar"? It's impossible to know really. |
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Snomaster1
Subscriber Posts: 2967 |
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Well,Andy26,I didn't really think of things that way. There are ways in which certain accents are used to give a sense of familiarity to a character in one language they might not have in another. To have one country accent in Japanese done differently with another country accent in English is kinda interesting. It seems that both "Fire Force" and "Food Wars" had rural folk sound different in Japanese,only later to have them sound like they're from rural Virginia in English.
That's interesting,sir. Although I must confess,I'm not much of an expert at this as others are. But,it's still an interesting insight,nonetheless. |
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FishLion
 Posts: 314 |
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I said some incorrect things, I wanted to preserve the original post but please read the rest of the posts and be suspicious of anything under a spoiler I believe that is the Kansai dialect, to make a long story short the capital used to be in Osaka and that dialect used to be the norm,spoiler[ but when the capital was moved to Tokyo another dialect took it's place and became seen as the standard. Thus, the Kansai dialect persists as the de facto way to portray your character as "rural" or "from the country" in many anime.] It is one of those things that has no set equivalent in American culture so making the character sound like they're country or using a well-known rural American dialect is often the closest they can do. It can sometimes fall flat as a comparison because the connotations that come with using the Kansai dialect and the connotations of American rural dialects are very different.spoiler[ If the dub is only trying to convey that they are "from the country" it works alright but] it's almost impossible to have a exact equivalent of a dialect from another language, so sometimes people have the opposite reaction and say that having a Southern US (not always well done) accent show up in a setting in Japan is really confusing. I find whatever path is taken an accent must be well done and if someone is not a native speaker than a subtle touch is almost always preferable. One I didn't enjoy specifically in a manga [ETA: a fan translation of the manga] was Toilet Bound Hanako-kun, which for example has a character talk in a rural accent but the tone doesn't suit it. In this case it is a centuries old being who lived in a place with the dialect, so they wrote a more modern rural US accent which was distracting. Don't get me wrong, I am sure the Japanese version didn't have realistically ancient speech either, but I feel like a centuries old being talking in a modern version of a local dialect is a lot less distracting than trying to translate that so an ancient being in Japan is speaking in a rural US dialect. Like if there was a story where someone in modern clothes in America start talking in an old, rural American accent to convey their origins it makes sense, but when someone in a kimono starts talking like they're from Gone With The Wind it takes me out of the story a lot. Since the original poster brought up Black Butler, I think the regular accents are pretty fine but the characters where American actors are speaking in extremely cockney accents tend to be very silly, especially season one. I can excuse that one because it comes off as campy, but I think in general it should sound realistic. At the end of the day though it is highly variable based on the performance. I think Jay Michael Tatum does a great job of making Sebastian feel like a British butler without sounding like he has a fake affectation partially thanks to the writer's word choices, Brina Palencia as Ciel does a great job of sounding a bit more British and matching the high society speech patterns without sounding as silly as the staff's over the top cockney affectation. I do like the actors attempting to create a sense of place when they can, but British actors do just fine at mimicking American accents in order to participate in our film and TV industry, if actors can't put in the respect and time to properly represent an accent without it feeling lazy or disrespectful than I would rather they not. I know actors do the best they can with the instructions they are given, but given the fact that they turn out distracting more often than not I would rather director's find casts that can accurately portray accents or add a really subtle touch as opposed to feeling like it is mandatory to attempt accents or affectations the actors clearly aren't suited for to add a sense of exoticism. Last edited by FishLion on Mon Jun 24, 2024 4:31 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Andy26
Posts: 68 Location: Flippin Arkansas |
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Thank you FishLion, that makes a lot of sense when you lay it out like that. It was the basis of my assumption that this was the case but it is nice to have a validating insight into this.
Now that I have read and participated in this topic though, I will likely always have my ear tuned for these things! This has proven to be another nuance to this whole genre that makes me appreciate how much work and effort people put into producing content to entertain me. |
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FishLion
Posts: 314 |
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No prob! If you enjoy that sort of thing I recommend Legends of Localization
It is a blog by a translator that has a lot of articles on the nuances of translating Japanese, such as how Japan has a ton variations of the person pronouns "I/me" such as watashi, boku, and ore. Each one has a literal meaning of I or me but is used to convey things about the character in a way that is extremely difficult to translate directly without notes, such as girls who say boku to imply they are a tomboy. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10071 Location: Virginia |
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@Andy26
Something to keep in mind is that when a Japanese language dialect is used it is almost always significant. At a minimum it is used to describe a character and in many cases it is a plot point or an ongoing point of humor. Something like having a otherwise polished idol slip into dialect when they are tired or confused is a way of showing that the individual is not as sophisticated as they try to appear. Also there are a lot of dialects dating from when much of Japan was more isolated that now. In some cases a specific dialect may be attributed to a single offshore island. Also the Osaka dialect is regional rather than rural. It covers the second largest metropolitan area in Japan. The main reason that dubs in the US use a southern dialect in English to represent an Osaka or rural Japanese dialect is that both Crunchyroll and Highdive do most of their dubbing in house in Texas. It is just the easiest one to find. |
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Andy26
Posts: 68 Location: Flippin Arkansas |
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@Alan45
Thank you as well friend, I've been in class all day and after coming home get to continue learning things Anime is full of in-jokes and references that the general Japanese audience would get without need for explanation and I'm sure many of these don't get an explanation when subbing or dubbing for a western audience. There are exceptions of course and I'm sure there are agencies that go out of their way to explain these things when they pop up. My favorite example I was recently exposed to was a couple of episodes of Sailor Moon where the girls are giving Usagi a hard time for writing a letter entirely in Hiragana. It wasn't explained in the sub but luckily I knew just enough to know why this was funny. |
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Snomaster1
Subscriber Posts: 2967 |
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I've got to congratulate FishLion,Andy26,and Alan45 for their insights,especially FishLion. He or she's very good at what he or she said. While I haven't watched "Toilet Bound Hanako-san" myself,I'd be interested in hearing as FishLion said "someone in a kimono sound like they're from 'Gone with the Wind.'" Well,I don't think anyone has an idea of how to replicate a Kansai accent in English. So,we go with what we know and that means going with either rural American or Southern accents.
Also,both of what Andy26 and Alan45 said were pretty good. You three did well,and I'm very happy for your contributions here.  I'm proud of you and you should be proud of yourselves as well.
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FishLion
Posts: 314 |
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Thanks for the clarification, I may have incorrectly made that connection because I do see a lot of farm characters that speak Kansai-ben, so I thought it was at least a trope that people from farms usually speak some flavor of Kansai-ben even though there are major metropolitan areas that also speak it as well. It can be hard for me to narrow down because Kansai-ben covers many regions that also have their own variations such as Osaka, and Kyoto, and there are five more prefectures on top of that, so it can mean so many different things when used in anime. I think it should be mentioned too that the way things like accents and regional dialects work in media does not always reflect reality, a lot of time dialects are used not just as regional signifiers but also to imply character archetypes that are popular in media. |
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Andy26
Posts: 68 Location: Flippin Arkansas |
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This topic reminds me of watching Squid Game. I don't know if it has been dubbed since but when I seen it it was subbed from Korean. I thought it was hilarious when they got to the actors portraying Americans, especially the 'Texan'. The accent and acting was so terrible to a native American English speaker it threw me for a loop. I'm sure the Koreans thought they did a passable job and possibly never intended it to be a world-wide phenomena that it was. Likely the average Korean living at home wouldn't know any different, just like me listening to subbed Anime, I can barely pick out all the words yet, let alone a specific dialect.
Thanks @Snomaster1 for the props. I am passionate about Anime, Japanese Culture and language, and talking. So this is definitely a space I feel comfortable sharing. |
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