I emerge from my eternal slumber today to finally bring all of you something that you’ve been waiting for, or at least wondering about, since my first ever post: an anime editorial. More of my opinions on anime, as that’s what I was brought on board to do, rather than anime reviews. So today (last night, actually) I decided to present to all of you my standpoint on one of the oldest anime arguments ever: Which is better, dubbed anime or subbed anime?
In our lovely community where your opinions stand on this argument can very well form a standing credibility for yourself depending on what section you find yourself in. Are you a dub purest who will only watch something is it’s been re-voiced by English voice actors? Are you a sub purest who believes that the Japanese voice actors always sound better and therefore wont waste your time on the clearly inferior dubs? Or, are you a terrible abomination forged from the combination of the two? For some reason or another your opinions on whether you like understanding the words coming out of the characters mouths or not is something big to a large portion of the community.
Granted, why this is such a big deal is because of the differing qualities in voice acting and how well they match their respective characters. However, what if I told you that I used to prefer dubs over subs and still think that there are some dubs continue to out-do the subs in every right? To me, as a reviewer and as an avid member of the anime community, dubs are a part of the show; a part that is unavoidable and a part that I will always like to experience if given the option to. I have seen every Key anime so far dubbed and if an anime has a dub to offer I will more than likely try to watch at last one episode of it and then decide whether I want to watch the show subbed or the dubbed based off of what I heard from both episodes.
So, yes, I’m one of the abominations. It should come as no surprise that the portion of the community that values their anime in Japanese with subtitles higher than anime in English dubbed by a licensing company is gigantic. So much so that it’s hard to find someone who would value the English voices higher in some regards, as I do. Many people I’ve talked to in the past even watched Space Dandy in Japanese by default and never gave the English version a chance; this was off putting to me because the English dub destroyed the Japanese version in quality and this is something I’ll gladly defend to my grave.
A question I’d like to ask is why have people become so trained to despise the English voice casts? I’ve found English dubs in shows like ToraDora and Baccano! to be much better even after watching both in Japanese, and when asking others for what they thought of the dub they either dismiss it with simply saying the dub is bad or by saying that they never watched the dub because they strait up don’t watch dubs. This, to me, is quite ridiculous. Every last person reading this post speaks English, yet a majority of you would never think twice about marathoning a show in Japanese when it has an English dub.
Why wouldn’t you watch a show in a language that you understand? Yes, sometimes the English voice cast is terrible, take Chrome Shelled Regios or Sword Art Online for example, but there are plenty of shows like Baka to Test, Soul Eater, Fate/Zero, Yumekui Merry, and much much much more that have amazing dubs, and a few of the aforementioned even have English dubs that out preform the Japanese dub.
It seems as if the community as a near whole has been hard-wired to despise English whenever watching something foreign. Sure, the Japanese casts of Fate/Zero and Yumekui Merry out-do the English voices in terms of sound and fitting the character they apply to (I mean just compare Mistletienn’s voices in Episode 12 of Yumekui Merry between Japanese and English, even I can’t deny she sounds better in Japanese) but in a show that takes place in America, with every character being American, and the show having a superior English voice cast, why would it make any sense to watch the show in Japanese? Who would watch a show written and recorded in English before translated and recorded in Japanese in the latter language? It would make no sense to the outside world so why would we do it? Just because the original is better or because dubs always suck? Before ending this editorial I’d like to say that I watched a fandub of the Black Rock Shooter OVA and liked it better than the Japanese voices for the OVA.
I hope I got you to think about your preferences and how you defend them a bit with this. Feel free to follow my Twitter if you’d like to keep up with what I’m wasting my time with when I’m not doing my part for this blog, and I’ll see you all when I return for another Anime Editorial!
-Tsuyuki Arumaya
Tsuyuki
devenluca
josefcd904
Nick
Ydna
Anime Corps 
February 17, 2015 at 10:30 pm
Great editorial. You explained your points pretty well. I’m personally in the middle of the road with the dub and sub debate though I mostly prefer dubs over subs if I was given the option to choose between the two. I think part of the reason why some hate dubs is mostly because of the difficulty of getting used to different voices, especially if a one watches a show sub first and then watches the dub. Cause I know a lot who watched the Key anime sub and can’t stand the dub because they were used to the moe voice acting provided in the sub. I will acknowledge that there are some series where the dubs aren’t really good (Higurashi and Cardcaptor Sakura for example) but aside from that I’m quite lenient when it comes to dubs. 😀
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February 18, 2015 at 1:48 am
Personally I just don’t like the sound of the (almost always) American voices. I also prefer subs because I think the voice generally matches the character better… closer to what they are “supposed” to sound like, if you will. I know there are some great dubs out there (e.g. FMAB, although I can’t get over the ridiculous booming voice of Mustang), and some movies I prefer to watch in English (e.g. Howl’s Moving Castle), but I tend to just watch the sub. I won’t go out of my way to find the dub if it’s easily accessible in sub form.
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February 19, 2015 at 8:14 am
I think the ‘hatred’ towards English dub that you speak of is also due to a lot of anime fans identifying themselves as generally Japanophiles. Most anime fans actually claim (and proudly, even) that anime is their main means in learning the language, though anime clearly isn’t the best method to learn standard/conversational Japanese. However, anime can teach one a few words and phrases that may come in handy.
Also, character interactions and dialogues are nuanced in Japanese than they’d be in English. Language differences must be taken into account. That said, meaning is still somewhat lost in translation, and the viewers of the dubbed version of any anime would get a different context than those who watched the subbed anime.
There is also this notion that Japanese sounds cuter than English. Contemporary styles in character designs may have also helped build this belief in Japanese dub, because I find it easier to associate the ‘cute’ styles and character designs with their cute voices. I’m sure you’re already aware that most of today’s anime are filled with moe–cute things, cute girls. These are what majority of anime fans crave for. And it wouldn’t be the typical moe without the cutesy voice acting.
I unfortunately haven’t watched a lot of English dubs (only Mushishi and Rurouni Kenshin, which were really good IMO) to do a more valid comparison between the two. But my point is that this huge bias towards subbed anime is hugely due to the Western/non-Japanese otaku culture, being fascinated by Japan and Japanese stuff.
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February 19, 2015 at 3:22 pm
While I see where you’re coming from with a lot of your points, when you said that meaning is lost when translating from English to Japanese for the dub, how does that meaning not get lost through the English subtitles?
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February 21, 2015 at 6:01 am
Any anime fan who’s been watching anime in Japanese dub for several years must have learned quite a number of phrases and words, that it sometimes becomes easier to listen to the voice acting without always have to read the subtitles. That said, others still tend to nitpick on fansub translations and complain about the too liberal and erroneous TLs or about the lack of TL notes when it comes to Japanese jargons. But coming from what I said, most of these [meaning-lost-in-translation] don’t usually bother a long-term anime fan, as one can still listen to the Japanese dub and understand parts, if not all, of the dialogues.
TL;DR yes, meaning is still somehow lost through fansubs, but having the original Japanese dub to listen to gives the listeners a better idea of the narration/dialogue’s context.
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