The dubs vs subs argument made more sense when dubs were generally low effort trash. Now dubbing is done very well. As someone who can read subtitles fine, a dub is always more a relaxing/ less cerebral experience where I can focus that much more on the content.
It’s done well (usually), but it’s still not the original. Something will inevitably be lost in the adaptation anyway, and if you know even a slight bit of Japanese (or whatever the original language is), subs are the better choice for a first view, imo.
Then, if the series/movie was good and I feel like watching it again, I’ll go with the dub when available. Rarely, if ever, I found a Dub that was better than an original version, but a lot have been at the same level so it’s definitely worth it.
Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass are two good examples where the dub is superior to the subtitled version. They mess up some of the meanings in the subtitled versions, like in Fate/Zero when Saber first appears. In the dub she says “are you worthy, to be my master?” Which is definitely the intended meaning especially once you get further into the show and know how she is, but the subtitles just say “are you my master?” which makes her seem not quite like a dumbass… but it does make you go “wtf kind of question is that?” Not to mention the actual performances. Gilgamesh’s dub voice actor is absolutely perfect for that role, and while the Japanese voice actor is good, he just doesn’t compare.
Similar things with Psycho-Pass. All the meaning gets across pretty well in both version if I remember correctly, but Makashima’s English actor is irreplaceable for that character. His performance alone is worth watching the dub for and it’s just so much better, which is pretty difficult because I watched it subtitled first and I already loved it.
I’m certainly not a subtitle hater though, as everyone knows there are plenty of examples where the dub is terrible in comparison. Then you have shows like My Hero Academia which are interesting, because on the Japanese side they have Tomura Shigaraki who is absolutely perfect for that role. Listening to him in dub is painful to me, as his Japanese voice actor is absolutely perfect in that role. Then on the other hand you have Twice, who isn’t as disappointing to listen to in Japanese as Tomura is in English, but Twice in the English dub is NOT a performance you want to miss out on. It was so annoying watching that show when the two were in scenes together, I’d often switch back and forth between dub and sub just to get the full awesomeness.
All this is to say that it’s really on a case by case basis, and I’d suggest checking out both dub and sub early on (if both are available) that way you don’t get attached to the version you’re used to. Start right and give yourself the best experience from as early on as possible.
like in Fate/Zero when Saber first appears. In the dub she says “are you worthy, to be my master?” Which is definitely the intended meaning especially once you get further into the show and know how she is, but the subtitles just say “are you my master?” which makes her seem not quite like a dumbass… but it does make you go “wtf kind of question is that?”
I mean, it’s been a long time since I watched it, but I really don’t think that was the intended meaning. Saber had always been a very detached and humble person, I doubt she wanted to “test” Kiritsugu or anything. Iirc she’s also the only servant to retain memories between summonings (as she’s not a “copy” but Artoria herself), and it was the fourth time being summoned, so I assume it was just a routine at that point for her, kind of a plumber asking “where’s the leak”.
Although the issue is when spelled out in English, it does sound like a dumb question, and it’s also shorter than the Japanese so it wouldn’t match the timing well. I don’t blame them for changing it, but it’s still not the same as the original.
The point is also that it’s impossible to determine if a dub is good or not unless you’ve seen in their entirety both it and the original version. You may watch one episode and say “hey, I like the voices and the performance”, but maybe they made a mistranslation of something important and you’ll never realize unless you watch the original too. Maybe the first episode is done well but a bad voice actor later ruins everything.
All in all, sub is the original experience and you really can’t ever go wrong by watching it, as opposed to the dub which has an added layer of translation where stuff can potentially be messed up. I’ve personally watched dub first when my close friends recommended it, and did the same for them when I found good ones, but if I have to watch a series none of them watched dubbed yet, I’m not risking to ruin my experience.
Not even that extreme. There’s stuff like Monogatari that they didn’t even try to dub because of the sheer amount of puns and japanese double-meanings they’d have to adapt. Unfortunately, a lot of good series can’t work in a different language without footnotes explaining stuff, and at that point I might as well watch the sub.
That argument never held much weight for me years ago, because a lot of subs were trash back then, too. You just picked whatever trash you wanted and let the weabs on the internet be damned.
I tend to agree. Although as a counterexample for not singing in dub, I present to you Angel Beats. I watched the English dub of that and one particular song that the main singer of a band sings made me cry from how beautiful it was. I’m sure it still would have had an impact, but there’s no way it would have been as strong if they hadn’t dubbed that song. Granted, a large reason for the crying was the episode in general and learning the story of the singer, but it’s so fantastic in English that it seems like that was the only possible way it could be.
I think replacing songs in the dub can go pretty hard, like, that’s how we got most of the iconic 90’s american anime theme songs. pokemon, digimon, yugioh, etc. I do like a lot of the naruto OPs too, for the record, and soul eater, and fullmetal alchemist, but it’s really hard to beat how iconic the opening to pokemon is, and how that’s laser engraved to like a fifth of all millennial’s brains.
Actually, I wanna hijack this top post a little bit. Other people have brought up japanese name pronunciation, and replacing the names with more western stuff, and I would like to bring up the decision specifically in yugioh to make joey have a boston accent to mimic the accentedness of the japanese he would otherwise speak with. I dunno, there’s something to the 4kids dubs that has a little bit more texture than your normal modern anime dubs. I like the lack of censorship more, the VAs tend to be better, there’s not like, big confusing rewrites or repacings of certain sections, all that is good, about your more modern stuff. At the same time, I feel like a lot of the sub vs dub argument is gonna come about more when people don’t let the dub be it’s own thing. You already have to translate turns of phrase, culturally dependent expressions, yadda yadda, at what point do you really decide to stop? Maybe a bad example, because it doesn’t really conform to the spirit of the original at all, but people still occasionally talk about the ghost stories dub. I dunno. I guess it doesn’t need to be official, there’s always abridged series to fill the void in my heart when it comes to anime that’s written for a western audience more, but I do kinda wish that more dubs were just like. Willing to take risks. That more dubs were very obviously stand out.
Honestly I think some of the older dubs are the best (your cowboy bebops, your Gurren laganns, and even silly shows like Ouran High School Host Club had great casts), back when the industry still had passionate and skilled actors. Now it’s well known that anime voice acting pays for shit and all the talent has left for greener pastures—and I don’t blame them.
Now it feels to me like most dubs get stuck with VAs just at the start of their careers and it really shows… Most dubs make me cringe nowadays with the acting.
Plus, I feel like you get a more accurate translation with subs because they’re not trying to fit tweaked dialog into previously-animated mouth movements.
I used to really advocate for dubs and preferred them, but my stance has flipped quite a bit in recent years. Kinda sad to see them decline so much :(
The dubs vs subs argument made more sense when dubs were generally low effort trash. Now dubbing is done very well. As someone who can read subtitles fine, a dub is always more a relaxing/ less cerebral experience where I can focus that much more on the content.
Except singing of course. Don’t dub songs.
Problem with dubs is japanese names pronunciation in english, no matter how good the VAs are.
Oof, so I just started learning Japanese this year and this bothers me ALOT. I don’t get why they do this. It really is dumb.
They should all go the 4Kids Yu Gi Oh route and give the characters American names like Joey and Tristan
It’s done well (usually), but it’s still not the original. Something will inevitably be lost in the adaptation anyway, and if you know even a slight bit of Japanese (or whatever the original language is), subs are the better choice for a first view, imo.
Then, if the series/movie was good and I feel like watching it again, I’ll go with the dub when available. Rarely, if ever, I found a Dub that was better than an original version, but a lot have been at the same level so it’s definitely worth it.
Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass are two good examples where the dub is superior to the subtitled version. They mess up some of the meanings in the subtitled versions, like in Fate/Zero when Saber first appears. In the dub she says “are you worthy, to be my master?” Which is definitely the intended meaning especially once you get further into the show and know how she is, but the subtitles just say “are you my master?” which makes her seem not quite like a dumbass… but it does make you go “wtf kind of question is that?” Not to mention the actual performances. Gilgamesh’s dub voice actor is absolutely perfect for that role, and while the Japanese voice actor is good, he just doesn’t compare.
Similar things with Psycho-Pass. All the meaning gets across pretty well in both version if I remember correctly, but Makashima’s English actor is irreplaceable for that character. His performance alone is worth watching the dub for and it’s just so much better, which is pretty difficult because I watched it subtitled first and I already loved it.
I’m certainly not a subtitle hater though, as everyone knows there are plenty of examples where the dub is terrible in comparison. Then you have shows like My Hero Academia which are interesting, because on the Japanese side they have Tomura Shigaraki who is absolutely perfect for that role. Listening to him in dub is painful to me, as his Japanese voice actor is absolutely perfect in that role. Then on the other hand you have Twice, who isn’t as disappointing to listen to in Japanese as Tomura is in English, but Twice in the English dub is NOT a performance you want to miss out on. It was so annoying watching that show when the two were in scenes together, I’d often switch back and forth between dub and sub just to get the full awesomeness.
All this is to say that it’s really on a case by case basis, and I’d suggest checking out both dub and sub early on (if both are available) that way you don’t get attached to the version you’re used to. Start right and give yourself the best experience from as early on as possible.
I mean, it’s been a long time since I watched it, but I really don’t think that was the intended meaning. Saber had always been a very detached and humble person, I doubt she wanted to “test” Kiritsugu or anything. Iirc she’s also the only servant to retain memories between summonings (as she’s not a “copy” but Artoria herself), and it was the fourth time being summoned, so I assume it was just a routine at that point for her, kind of a plumber asking “where’s the leak”.
Although the issue is when spelled out in English, it does sound like a dumb question, and it’s also shorter than the Japanese so it wouldn’t match the timing well. I don’t blame them for changing it, but it’s still not the same as the original.
The point is also that it’s impossible to determine if a dub is good or not unless you’ve seen in their entirety both it and the original version. You may watch one episode and say “hey, I like the voices and the performance”, but maybe they made a mistranslation of something important and you’ll never realize unless you watch the original too. Maybe the first episode is done well but a bad voice actor later ruins everything.
All in all, sub is the original experience and you really can’t ever go wrong by watching it, as opposed to the dub which has an added layer of translation where stuff can potentially be messed up. I’ve personally watched dub first when my close friends recommended it, and did the same for them when I found good ones, but if I have to watch a series none of them watched dubbed yet, I’m not risking to ruin my experience.
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Not even that extreme. There’s stuff like Monogatari that they didn’t even try to dub because of the sheer amount of puns and japanese double-meanings they’d have to adapt. Unfortunately, a lot of good series can’t work in a different language without footnotes explaining stuff, and at that point I might as well watch the sub.
That argument never held much weight for me years ago, because a lot of subs were trash back then, too. You just picked whatever trash you wanted and let the weabs on the internet be damned.
I tend to agree. Although as a counterexample for not singing in dub, I present to you Angel Beats. I watched the English dub of that and one particular song that the main singer of a band sings made me cry from how beautiful it was. I’m sure it still would have had an impact, but there’s no way it would have been as strong if they hadn’t dubbed that song. Granted, a large reason for the crying was the episode in general and learning the story of the singer, but it’s so fantastic in English that it seems like that was the only possible way it could be.
Are you saying the English dub of that also dubbed the songs? Where did you watch that? The only ones I’ve been able to find leave them in Japanese.
Nope, I fucked up. The songs are in Japanese still, I just remember the English lyrics with the beautiful singing and misremembered. My bad.
I think replacing songs in the dub can go pretty hard, like, that’s how we got most of the iconic 90’s american anime theme songs. pokemon, digimon, yugioh, etc. I do like a lot of the naruto OPs too, for the record, and soul eater, and fullmetal alchemist, but it’s really hard to beat how iconic the opening to pokemon is, and how that’s laser engraved to like a fifth of all millennial’s brains.
Actually, I wanna hijack this top post a little bit. Other people have brought up japanese name pronunciation, and replacing the names with more western stuff, and I would like to bring up the decision specifically in yugioh to make joey have a boston accent to mimic the accentedness of the japanese he would otherwise speak with. I dunno, there’s something to the 4kids dubs that has a little bit more texture than your normal modern anime dubs. I like the lack of censorship more, the VAs tend to be better, there’s not like, big confusing rewrites or repacings of certain sections, all that is good, about your more modern stuff. At the same time, I feel like a lot of the sub vs dub argument is gonna come about more when people don’t let the dub be it’s own thing. You already have to translate turns of phrase, culturally dependent expressions, yadda yadda, at what point do you really decide to stop? Maybe a bad example, because it doesn’t really conform to the spirit of the original at all, but people still occasionally talk about the ghost stories dub. I dunno. I guess it doesn’t need to be official, there’s always abridged series to fill the void in my heart when it comes to anime that’s written for a western audience more, but I do kinda wish that more dubs were just like. Willing to take risks. That more dubs were very obviously stand out.
I’ve listened to some of the so-called “good” dubs. They’re still trash.
Honestly I think some of the older dubs are the best (your cowboy bebops, your Gurren laganns, and even silly shows like Ouran High School Host Club had great casts), back when the industry still had passionate and skilled actors. Now it’s well known that anime voice acting pays for shit and all the talent has left for greener pastures—and I don’t blame them.
Now it feels to me like most dubs get stuck with VAs just at the start of their careers and it really shows… Most dubs make me cringe nowadays with the acting.
Plus, I feel like you get a more accurate translation with subs because they’re not trying to fit tweaked dialog into previously-animated mouth movements.
I used to really advocate for dubs and preferred them, but my stance has flipped quite a bit in recent years. Kinda sad to see them decline so much :(
Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass dubs are both very much superior to their subtitled counterparts. Fight me.
If you think this about Baccano or Cowboy Bebop, your opinion is factually incorrect
Ah, well. I’m just a poor old man. My legs are grey, my ears are gnarled. I need subtitles.
I’m pretty sure the only good song dubs I’ve heard were from Belle. Sucks that the movie is so impressively mid