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NEWS: Anime Industry Veteran Jan Scott-Frazier Dies at 59

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.

Jan Scott Frazier tells a funny story about how she learned one of her favorite anime (Dirty Pair) was horribly acted, once she became fluent in Japanese.

noting that she was ejected from the kidney donor list. Because of this, she is depending on her oxygen concentrator and needs the money to fix or replace it. She is also the caretaker for her elderly mother and needs help dealing with other miscellaneous expenses

I'm sorry to hear about the passing of Jan Scott-Frazier, I read about her a lot being important for working in the anime industry for 20 years and being one of the few prominent foreigners to worked in Japan's anime industry.

I believe Jan was one of the few people to break sub purists/dub haters heart about Japanese voice-acting which I kind of agree with, and I'll quote this ANN article from 2003:

ANN's Ryan Matthews in 2003 wrote:

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. Jan Scott Frazier tells a funny story about how she learned one of her favorite anime (Dirty Pair) was horribly acted, once she became fluent in Japanese.

So yeah, I credit Jan for debunking the Japanese voices are godly superior (they're not, given my experience listening to a lot of American stuff being dubbed into Japanese).

RIP Jan Scott Frazier.

Quote:

noting that she was ejected from the kidney donor list. Because of this, she is depending on her oxygen concentrator and needs the money to fix or replace it. She is also the caretaker for her elderly mother and needs help dealing with other miscellaneous expenses

Damn, this was such a preventable tragedy. My condolences and prayers to her family and loved ones who must be grieving right now. She was still relatively young to be taken so soon from them—can't even begin to imagine what they’re going through.