Forum - View topicDub-only Watchers; Why are Dubs so Important to You?
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I should expect trends to be manifest, up to a degree. From my modest acquaintance with the preferences of North American fans, there appears to be a slightly larger proportion of those who opt for one of the two viewing modes than in the case of my local fanbase. I dare say that any such observations are too vague to be sternly asserted however, in virtue of the looseness with which the observed trends represents the habits of a given area in toto. The act of attributing a cultural cause to any generalisations would be subject to the following caveat: any such cause would have to account for both the generalised trends and also the fact that these trends are only true to a limited extent. |
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Guardsman Bass
 Posts: 158 |
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I watch dubs simply because I like hearing the audio for movies in my native language.
It also helps in situations where the jokes don't translate well. |
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EricDent
 Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
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Well there are very very few movies that actually come out in the USA with a sub-only track. Those movies are usually only shown in arthouse theaters (or during a film festival).
For example I saw Godzilla Final Wars during the Seattle Film Festival (and earlier also saw Gojira) and both of them were sub-only. I actually liked both movies pretty well (which is pretty obvious since I LOVE Godzilla) in Japanese. Of course Dan Severn was in English the whole time during Godzilla Final Wars (and he was pretty darn funny). So I guess what I am saying is that I am not against sub-only releases. It's just that I will more likely purchase something if it also has a dub. I think the point of the dubs is to make it more accessible to the general public. Anime is a very niche market as it is, I don't really get why any company would want to make their titles even more niche by making them sub (or dub) only. There is something that people say about sub versions that I have never figured out. They say that the Japanese track has more "emotion" than the English track. I don't really get it, unless you can understand Japanese fluently, how in the heck do you figure out what emotions they are portraying? I know Japanese is a bit different than English in the emotion department. Of course there are some parts of anime that will make you emotional no matter what language it is in. Especially scenes like the ending of Azumanga Daioh (which gets me everytime), and the whole "play" put on by Tomoko in GTO. Anyhow, like I said before. I just like the dubs, and if for some odd reason they just stop making them, I might just have to give up on anime. Which would be pretty sad, since I have been into anime for at least 25 years now. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6883 Location: Kazune City |
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Speaking of Nozomi though, most if not all of their past dual-language releases defaulted to Japanese audio.
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EricDent
Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
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I kind of knew that allready.
I would guess that this is also true the other way round. For example the Japanese are releasing a Blu-Ray version of Nausicaa that is supposed to actually have the dub on it, yet Disney is not re-releasing it on Blu-Ray? |
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2036
 Posts: 53 |
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I don't understand the decisions made on shows like Kurokami. Making a dub-only release is already a bad choice to me, as is a sub only show (I belive everything brought to america should be dual audio or not at all), but why specifically on Blu-Ray?
I mean Blu-Ray is a vast format to create on so is there just something built into it that imposes an issue that Bandai or whoever the producers are don't want to tackle? Or are they just lazy? Is alzines even an option for this type of thing? |
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Kikyome
Posts: 7 |
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I have recently branched out my range of animes, so I no longer watch dubs exclusively. I prefer them for a number of reasons.
1. I like to understand what the characters are saying without words to tell me. I feel more connected with them when I can understand them. 2. I sometimes have trouble keeping up with talkative scenes. For example I can't remember the name of the show, but I was watching and all of a sudden, it was like a wall of text coming at me. There was a point where I actually had to rewind in order to read what they were saying. 3. I like to multi-task. I am a very busy woman and I don't always have time to sit and stare at the screen. I may have to look away for a moment, and I want to be able to look away without coming back and realizing that I just missed the most important sentence of the series. It's a pain. |
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jmfsilenthill
 Posts: 1863 Location: Chinese cartoons are srs biz |
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Bandai of America could not get the rights to the Japanese dialogue for the NA Kurokami Blu ray release. The reason for this is that Bandai in Japan feared that fans in Japan would import Kurokami (since we share region A) and not buy domestic JP releases. As you probably know, JP Blu rays have only 2-3 eps for about 60-70 US dollars, so obviously fans in Japan would buy a cheaper version if they could get JP audio. Thats Bandai's reasoning anyway, although other companies seem to do just fine securing rights for high def JP audio (Funi with FMA Brotherhood), even at the same time the JP discs are being released. |
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wanderlustking
 Posts: 449 Location: Bozeman, Montana |
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I'm a bit (okay, maybe a lot) older than a lot of the people on this site. I grew up watching anime on video's. Restricted to a single audio track, not many of these came with English. Subs were the only way to watch anime in those days, short of learning Japanese. When DVDs started becoming popular, things changed a lot. I started watching dubs out of curiosity, but was not really impressed. Since English is my first and only language, I don't notice the subtle intonations of voice actors. When I try watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in English, I notice all the little inconsistencies.
I think Cowboy Bebop was the first dub anime I was able to watch all the way through. It's the only anime that I prefer watching dubed. |
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Smooth Move
Posts: 7 |
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Why I prefer dubs shines clearly from my most recent experience with subs. Two shows recently shown on my On Demand channels were "Ghost Hound" and "Maria-Holic."
"Maria-Holic" (MH) is a fast-paced comedy with sight gags, word play, and all-around pop cultural in-jokes... subtitled. Trying to keep up with what was happening and reading along often left my friends and me puzzled and rewinding at what popped on screen between dialogue bits or how certain polite conversations were actually funny. So much of MH's outrageous humor broke through the subtitle barrier that I wonder how much funnier the show actually is. Fat sow = Mesopotamia. Yeah, that could be why the designated translator for a group of joke-telling Russians kept telling his English-speaking guests "no translation." Some jokes just don't translate. "Ghost Hound" (GH) gave a group of us a rather abrupt awakening because of translation. This show was creepy and moody but the characters were withdrawn, especially the protagonists. Then GH was On Demand again but dubbed and this time the characters exploded into life. I don't think it was the difference between the skill of the VAs & Seiyuu but the difference in meaning conveyed. Annoyance, amongst other subtle emotions, was pronounced in choices of sarcastic wording that was not apparent at all in the sub. There were several points where my friends and I exploded with Eureka moments (oh, that's what they meant!) where before we thought that those same things were just somehow adding to the atmosphere in the sub. There was so much more meaning we got out of GH dubbed rather than subtitled. The, often exact, translations seem so incomplete in carrying across the intent of the story and have it make sense to someone steeped in an English environment and taught to be vocally direct with others. But the fatal flaw of subtitles is in tonality because there are certain lilts and inflections of voiced words that impart varied meanings to static words. Dubbing has come a long way in bridging that cultural divide from writers actually doing research on the source material to voice actors using their experience and talent to truly perform like it is a job they want to do instead of a side-gig until their next big break starring in cinema. The release of "Gatchaman" dubbed shows just how sophisticated the directors, VAs, and writers are compared to those of earlier dubbed releases of "G-Force"/"Battle of the Planets" because we have a more experienced industry. It is because of the cultivated skills of the people making dubs that I feel I am closer to understanding the presented characters and stories as their creators intended for an audience. In a media whats audio component is so tightly wedded to the video that without the video loses almost all impact, I assert that subtitling is a disservice to the stories being told. For the Paniponis, Gokudos, and Tachikomas I choose dubbed otherwise I might never have known what any of those were. |
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2036
Posts: 53 |
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I guess that makes sense from that perspective, but I don't think you should bother unless you get the rights of the entire show period. |
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wcsinn
 Posts: 186 |
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Like most others replying here, I do NOT watch dubbed ONLY, but it is certainly my option of choice. I personally find this to be one of the silliest debates concerning anime in general. Why would anyone care how I choose to watch my anime? Prefer subs, fine - watch subs - but why all the debate over how others watch their anime? No one expects me to defend my preference for milk chocolate over dark.
The bigger question to me is why do the die hard fans care? Personally I think for some it becomes a badge of sort, in order to be considered "a fan" there are certain things one must profess and follow - a dogma of anime if you like. You should watch subbed only, hate all popular series, etc. It's Just plain silly. Why do I prefer dubbed: I am much older than most and trying to read subs while watching, especially a fast paced or dialogue heavy piece, is difficult at best and ruins the experience for me at worst. Like many have said, I prefer my entertainment in my native language, and make no mistake - watching anime is entertainment - why would I want to make it more difficult to understand or enjoy? |
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EricDent
Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
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wanderlustking I also got into anime in the days of VHS.
If you did not catch the reference to Robotech (or SDF Macross)... I don't know where you shopped, but when I looked there were TONS of VHS with dubs. Like I said before the SUB-ONLY versions were actually like about $24.99, while the dubs were about $19.99. I am sure that seems like a pretty small difference. Just remember that VHS tapes usually only had maybe 2-3 episodes each. Some of the shows had at least 10-20 tapes. So add it up, and it gets expensive quick. Anyhow, I guess some people can quickly read stuff on the screen and not miss any action. Some shows you can do that on, while others (like the several mentions of Pani Poni Dash) (try doing it with the ADVidnotes on as well!) you need to be able to figure out what is going on quick (or you will miss it). So a dub helps out quite a bit. I think because of dubs, the anime boom was helped quite a bit. Personally I think if it was not for dubs, then we probably would not be talking on this message board. Some of us might know each other through the "Dark Recesses of Fan-Sub land" (IE the back rooms of Comic Book conventions). There would not be stuff like Anime Expo, This website, FUNImation, or pretty much anything. Of course dubs also helped quite a bit to make Godzilla popular in the English speaking countries as well (and other places as well). Of course some of the dubs for them are kind of goofy, but that is part of the charm. So yet again I just like dubs. |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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Yes, because it was dubs that was picked up on the cable channel blocks in the mid-90's, and that was an essential part of the anime boom. The convention going crowd itself would not have sustained anywhere near the same market. Although I rarely watch the dub unless it gets special mention as being good, like Cowboy Bebop (I was used to watching subs anyway on SBS in Australia, before they broadcast Evangelion in '99 on free-to-air in Australia and blew my mind), I'm happy when its there. I figure sub watchers who get angry at the presence of a dub are just people looking for an excuse to get angry at something. |
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Viorexx
Posts: 65 |
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first of all i am dyslexic and cant read really fast so dubbed help me understand better then reading it.
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