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Poll: Would You Buy Undubbed Anime, A Discussion


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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 7:13 am Reply with quote
I hope there is no way of multi-voting because this poll seems to be in conflict with what the market is showing. Dubs allegedly sell faster than sub only disks. If a title I'm interested in isn't available with a English dub I won't buy it. I'll rent it, but not buy it. That catagory wasn't available. Wink
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remember love



Joined: 24 Sep 2005
Posts: 764
Location: Germany
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 7:57 am Reply with quote
I found it strange myself seeing it's pretty much the subb side concider the market as well. I guess most anime fans that come to this website are more to the sub side.
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Pyoko



Joined: 13 Apr 2005
Posts: 56
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:20 am Reply with quote
I must say this was a bit of a pleasant surprise. Now I don't know how many copies a regular release usually sells but I think 80% of 5000+ people is still a sizeable amount.

Still, it's difficult to know if this is even close to representative of the entire market (probably not) since companies never want to risk anything and the few times they do a sub-only release it's of an unpopular, obscure show that was bound to fail at retail anyway.
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Joe Mello



Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 2254
Location: Online Terminal
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:31 am Reply with quote
80% of 5,000 is 4,000 Very Happy (I'm an Applied Mathematics Major. So sue me.)

I'd take the results with a grain of salt. I would go out on a limb and say that a majority of the "Hell, Yeah" group either

a) Hates dubs
b) Hates 4Kids
c) Never actually buys anime and only watches fansubs
d) some combination of a, b, and c

I'm personally in the "prefer dubs, but so be it" group as opposed to the "totally indifferent" group simply because English is my first language and I prefer knowing what the people are saying aurally. If a show is good enough that it's worth buying, then I'll buy it whether it's English or not.

If there were no English dubs at all, where would you think anime in America would be right now?
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Starwind Amada



Joined: 26 Sep 2004
Posts: 981
Location: Easton, PA, USA
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:20 pm Reply with quote
No dub, no sale, unless I REALLY want it.

Hell, even my club's been watching dubs lately.
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GoodLuckSaturday



Joined: 30 Oct 2003
Posts: 567
Location: Indiana
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:28 pm Reply with quote
Starwind Amada wrote:
No dub, no sale, unless I REALLY want it.

Hell, even my club's been watching dubs lately.


I'm the opposite. No sub, no sale. The only anime I've bought without a sub track was Totoro, and that was because it was $5.

I voted indifferent because I honestly don't care what language I watch it in, but I want my DVDs to have a Japanese language track. It may be a long time before I watch it, but I want it on there.
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mufurc



Joined: 09 Jun 2003
Posts: 612
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:33 pm Reply with quote
Joe Mello wrote:
a) Hates dubs
b) Hates 4Kids
c) Never actually buys anime and only watches fansubs
d) some combination of a, b, and c

Or how about "d) doesn't hate dubs but prefers subs, so doesn't mind if there's no dub on a DVD"? Rolling Eyes No, really, people like this exist.
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
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Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:41 pm Reply with quote
BTW I just voted twice so this pole is naff. Wink
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Pyoko



Joined: 13 Apr 2005
Posts: 56
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:46 pm Reply with quote
Joe Mello wrote:

If there were no English dubs at all, where would you think anime in America would be right now?

The same thing can be said about fansubs, yet now the companies can do nothing but complain that they're losing out on potential sales. Maybe it's just time to let go. Wink
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Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:05 pm Reply with quote
Pyoko wrote:
Joe Mello wrote:

If there were no English dubs at all, where would you think anime in America would be right now?

The same thing can be said about fansubs, yet now the companies can do nothing but complain that they're losing out on potential sales. Maybe it's just time to let go. Wink
They would if it didn't hurt so much, but I dgress and I don't want this to turn into a fansub slangging match, there's too many of them here already. Wink
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Ataru



Joined: 04 Jan 2002
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Location: Missouri (Strikeman)
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:09 pm Reply with quote
Mohawk52 wrote:
Dubs allegedly sell faster than sub only disks. If a title I'm interested in isn't available with a English dub I won't buy it. I'll rent it, but not buy it. That catagory wasn't available. Wink
Saddly, that's why City Hunter and Urusei Yatsura isn't as big of a hit as they should be. Both outstanding series, but for the most part (Movies of the both, and the specials of City Hunter are dubbed), but they really aren't selling all that great. It might be the fact it's sub only series. It might be the fact that both are really long series. Need the less, if it doesn't come with a dub, I'm picking up anyway. It didn't stop me from still buying up Masion Ikkoku when it hit sub only in VHS days. But hey, most DVDs these days come with both, so if you don't like the dub, the sub is there to fall back on. After all, this isn't the VHS days of one or the other.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10420
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:09 pm Reply with quote
Mohawk52 wrote:
I hope there is no way of multi-voting because this poll seems to be in conflict with what the market is showing. Dubs allegedly sell faster than sub only disks. If a title I'm interested in isn't available with a English dub I won't buy it. I'll rent it, but not buy it. That catagory wasn't available.


With any poll we run, there is invariably going to be some options that we don't include. Either because we don't think of them when making the poll, or it just isn't possible for us to include every remote possibility.

Until we have a polling system with an "add your own answer" option, this isn't going to change.

Also, as for market versus polls, there's an important distinction to make between the market, and registered ANN readers.

You guys aren't average. The average anime fan doens't come to a daily updated website to find out what happenned in the anime world today. They just go to the store and buy/rent whatever it is that interests them. Or they find out from their one friend who comes to ANN.

So its not surprising that the ANN polls don't reflect the market. What they do reflect, are the more hardcore fans. The "core" market.

-t
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Tempest
I Run this place.
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Joined: 29 Dec 2001
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:12 pm Reply with quote
GoodLuckSaturday wrote:
I'm the opposite. No sub, no sale. The only anime I've bought without a sub track was Totoro, and that was because it was $5.


That's the next poll.

-t
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ACDragonMaster



Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 405
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:34 pm Reply with quote
See, the problem with the whole sales issue is that Americans EXPECT dubs. They expect to be catered to. Maybe that's one good thing fansubs do, is provide a series only in subtitles so that if you want to watch it, too bad, you need to use the subtitles.

If I recall though in the other thread where the discussion came up, someone suggested the idea of companies doing a fast release of cheaper sub-only discs, to get the anime out there immediately after it's been lisenced, and then it'd be possible to later follow up with a dub release, especially if the series is going to air on tv. Releasing that sort of thing quickly might also help stem the fansubs, because when the release of a series takes forever because of how long it takes to record the dub, people often get impatient and resort to fansubs again.

I think if enough companies tried it as an experiment, the idea might catch on. The anime fandom now is different from the fandom when the idea of animation from Japan was just beginning to become a big thing, now there might be a chance at sub-only discs becoming a new trend.

Except, of course, for those whiners who have to have EVERYTHING dubbed in their own language, because heaven forbid they actually watch something in a language from one of those other countries in the world and that takes a little bit more effort to understand. Rolling Eyes
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Pyoko



Joined: 13 Apr 2005
Posts: 56
PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 4:00 pm Reply with quote
Ataru wrote:
Saddly, that's why City Hunter and Urusei Yatsura isn't as big of a hit as they should be. [...] It might be the fact it's sub only series. It might be the fact that both are really long series.

Or that they're OLD, or most likely a combination of all. This was what I was trying to say, that every time they do a sub-only release it's of a show no one would buy anyway. Because I really doubt City Hunter or Urusei Yatsura would have been huge hits even if they had been dubbed.

And I've thought about the release ACDragonMaster mentioned myself, and I would really like to see something like that happen. Even if it wasn't a show I was going to buy it would be interesting as an experiment nonetheless. Release a cheap, sub-only boxset first but make sure to announce that a regular sub/dub edition will be coming shortly. Then (or starting at the same time) do a regular singles release schedule and see what sells.

While unlikely that it would happen, theoretically it shouldn't be too difficult. You need to have it translated in order to dub it anyway, so they could just release discs with those translations in the meatime. The biggest problem would probably be that you'd have to author two different sets of discs, which means that the most likely candidate would be ADV since they do all of it in-house. (And nowadays it doesn't look like they have much else to do than re-author discs anyway. Razz)
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