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Anime dubs watched differently than U.S. cartoons?

A thing I've noticed recently is that a lot of guys watch anime dubs differently than they watch American cartoons. For example, I hear guys mention bad acting in dubs, but not counting cartoons for preschoolers, or made prior to 1990 as some haven't aged as well, I've never heard anyone say a US cartoon had bad acting. Why is that, or have people not noticed before?

A thing I've noticed recently is that a lot of guys watch anime dubs differently than they watch American cartoons. For example, I hear guys mention bad acting in dubs, but not counting cartoons for preschoolers, or made prior to 1990 as some haven't aged as well, I've never heard anyone say a US cartoon had bad acting. Why is that, or have people not noticed before?

A thing I've noticed recently is that a lot of guys watch anime dubs differently than they watch American cartoons. For example, I hear guys mention bad acting in dubs, but not counting cartoons for preschoolers, or made prior to 1990 as some haven't aged as well, I've never heard anyone say a US cartoon had bad acting. Why is that, or have people not noticed before?

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.

For example when Japan dubbed Modern Warfare 2

mdo7 wrote:

For example when Japan dubbed Modern Warfare 2

The article you linked to doesn't cite any sources. Granted, that's common practice for Kotaku, but I just figured I should point that out.

Another thing I noticed that people badmouth anime dubs for, but not American cartoons is being able to spot actors when they do something similar. For example, I heard some girls say they didn't like the dub of the 2nd Cardcaptor Sakura movie because Syaoron sounded like Izzy from Digimon. I asked them if they watched the Powerpuff Girls, and if it bothered them that Buttercup sounded like Tommy from Rugrats. They said they never thought on it much.

Cree Summer always seems to be typecast as 'the black girl' in a lot of shows, you'd think she's the only black VA out there.

It's funny how when a company doesn't cast people of certain ethnic groups for roles they fit, it is called racist or whitewashing. So when a black woman gets "black girl" roles it's typecasting.

There's just no pleasing some people.